Prostitution and Escorts on Wall Street

[bigbadwolf]

you sound quite experienced haha

It's an industry. It's also the oldest profession. With regard to setting up distinctions, it's like comparing a big mac to an expensive steak. At the bottom you've got crack whores. One level higher you've got truck stop girls and "exotic dancers" performing their miracles on some pole in a "gentleman's club." But the higher you go, and the deeper your pocket, the more sophisticated the game becomes. The naifs here might be dismayed at the number of middle-class girls and women who work as "soft hookers" or escorts. These are women who want the money but still have to be charmed, seduced. Money is necessary but it's not enough, and at the highest level it may be in terms of gifts and favors rather than outright cash.

By the way, wasn't there a thread here a couple of years back about a quant girl who had gone into this line of work? Or who was financing her quant studies this way? There have been exposes in the British papers of English university girls doing something similar to meet pressing financial needs.

 

[darth]

have you spent much time on a trading floor or researching the history of trading over the last thirty years? take liar's poker, for instance. if i remember correctly, some of the cast were old school, white collar types, while the bond traders that started killing it were tres uncouth. since they were killing it, they more or less took over, and that's sort of been the name of the game since. that's not to say trading floors are a frathouse, but they're closer to that than they are to monasteries.

the finance world attracts alpha males. throw a lot of money in the mix and yeah, stuff happens. what's happened lately with arnold and strauss kahn and john edwards and spitzer not so long ago? same thing; men with a lot of power thinking they can do whatever they want, social mores be darned.

not putting any value judgments on this type of behavior, but it is what it is.

With great power comes great responsibility...... Spiderman
With great power comes great responsibility and great urges..... DSK

 

[Aditya Chitral]

Free speech is important, once you start removing "unworthy" posts the forum becomes useless.
There are no flaming or immature posts here, I don't see your point.

Because the forum is called "Quantnet" where I would expect people talking about stochastic calculus, HFT, Inflation, new pricing models etc?

 

[Ohad]

Because the forum is called "Quantnet" where I would expect people talking about stochastic calculus, HFT, Inflation, new pricing models etc?

Off Topic means just that, sorry that some of us don't hold to your high standards and we allow ourself free thinking and conversing on various subjects.....we're all very sorry...

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The off-topic discussions on Quantnet are pretty lame compared to those of Wilmott.
See this for example. Mind you, Wilmott is "the leading resource for the Quantitative Finance community on the web with active users comprised of both practitioners in investment banks and academics involved in research and teaching".

Not that we are going down that road ever but once we allow people to hide behind anonymous name, things like this are just fact of forum life.

The best approach would be to become an "active discussion initiator", someone who shape the kind of discussion you like to see, instead of being "passive information consumer".

 

[joel_b]

I knew that stuff like that goes on. I was simply asking whether it was a collective or corporate activity. For instance, would Lloyd Blankfein ask a bunch of his colleagues to go escort hunting with them? And more realistically, would company money actually be spent on these services? (i.e. miscellaneous client entertainment expense).

This is what you're getting at then. Well wouldn't that be a huge scandal then?

It's still a naive proposition, in my opinion. Obviously it's not a corporate sanctioned activity, I dont think it's in their mission statement.

Again, what indiviuals may chose to do with their time, and potentially misuse expense policies, has existed in every industry since the expense account was created.

You're trying to connect behavior of individuals to a company-wide culture, behavior that would never be documented anywhere, and is difficult to prevent by the firm itself. Even if it did exist, it would be condemned by the firm, the individuals would be blamed/fired whatever and that's that. This is why I see the proposition as irrelevant, it's the individuals that make these morality decisions, not the firm.

 

[Jim]

Deleted. I'm done.

 

[joel_b]

They firm doesn't care if it can't get back to them and cause liability! Welcome to corporate America! Don't ask, don't tell.

For a great dissection ofthe psychopathic nature of the modern firm, see the documentary, The Corporation

edit: this was a response to a since-deleted post.

 

[financeguy]

I knew that stuff like that goes on. I was simply asking whether it was a collective or corporate activity. For instance, would Lloyd Blankfein ask a bunch of his colleagues to go escort hunting with them? And more realistically, would company money actually be spent on these services? (i.e. miscellaneous client entertainment expense).

At least where I work, it is certainly not a collective or corporate activity. As animalistic and inappropriate as traders can be, on my desk we don't sit around and talk about nailing hookers. Then again, I don't work on a bond trading desk. But I've never overheard things like that when I walk by. If it were to happen, the bank definitely wouldn't be paying for it. If anyone other than the trader himself were paying for it, it would be a broker that gets business from the trader.

 

[GoalSeeker]

haha.. my boss keeps telling me stories about how they used to bring strippers to the trading florr all the time.. but of course this was before the midget throwing incident.. things are not the same any longer

 

[rishab dhar]

I don't see anything wrong with prostitution. As long as the person gets what he paid for and the person who provides the service receives the promised amount, there is no crime involved in my book. Prostitution is in fact a legal profession in many countries in Europe (Germany/Switzerland/ etc etc). You actually pay taxes on your income, and get social security/pension/unemployment benefits etc for this job.

 

[Tsotne]

I don't see anything wrong with prostitution. As long as the person gets what he paid for and the person who provides the service receives the promised amount, there is no crime involved in my book. Prostitution is in fact a legal profession in many countries in Europe (Germany/Switzerland/ etc etc). You actually pay taxes on your income, and get social security/pension/unemployment benefits etc for this job.

Are you serious? And you like that? (in bold)

 

[AWilliams]

Are you serious? And you like that? (in bold)

What's wrong with that? It's a mutual agreement.

 

[rishab dhar]

I consider it just another trade. It's like a service industry. I service your PC; you pay me. It is only that this profession (prostitution) has been tabooed, particularly in the Eastern culture. I would go further to say that even US is tabooed. Go to Germany, and you'll find. In fact, one of my friends (German) told that his friend and his wife. The wife waited, while the husband had you know what and came. This is considered just physical satisfaction, not love; hence, she had no problem with it.

Now, if someone beats up a woman and forces her to go into this profession, I certainly have a problem with that. In many cases, the men get the services, beat them up, and do not pay any money. Where can these women go? of course they cannot go to the police.

In fact, I would say that in countries where brothels are banned, prostitution still continues, but the women, especially in the lower strata, are ill treated. What would you what? this? or a government acknowledging this as a profession and giving all kinds of protection around brothels so that such things don't happen. Moreover, they are considered a part of society just as you and me are. Banning prostitution hurts these women more than the men.

 

[Tsotne]

OK we should have realized from scratch that this is a mental clash we can argue infinitely about. One with NO nailed in mind will always be saying no regardless of what disadvantages it brings in terms of treatment, underground economy, black market, etc.

 

[AWilliams]

OK we should have realized from scratch that this is a mental clash we can argue infinitely about. One with NO nailed in mind will always be saying no regardless of what disadvantages it brings in terms of treatment, underground economy, black market, etc.

Anything that's illegal, which people still engage in, is called an "underground economy". Prostitution by itself in isolation do not lead towards it. The only reason we get this nonsense with pimps and abuse amongst women is because it's illegal. Similarly, when alcohol was illegal, we had prohibition era gangsters, crime, and well, an "underground economy".

All he's saying is it is just a service which two people mutually agree on. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Tsotne]

Anything that's illegal, which people still engage in, is called an "underground economy". Prostitution by itself in isolation do not lead towards it. The only reason we get this nonsense with pimps and abuse amongst women is because it's illegal. Similarly, when alcohol was illegal, we had prohibition era gangsters, crime, and well, an "underground economy".

All he's saying is it is just a service which two people mutually agree on. There's nothing wrong with that.

I completely understand your point. And I agree that preventing people from pursuing specific activities on which both parties agree on sometimes lead towards bad results as you said. Completely correct. But the last statement in bold is only your opinion. There are thousands of cultures around you which doesn't allow people to think so due to the traditional background, religious affiliations, etc.etc. and exactly such mental prevention encourages people to enforce such kind of prevention into law. So from the economic point of view, it is justifiable since: both parties are doing what they agree on in condition that they don't harm others, do not hurt others' properties, do not give damage to others' health, etc. but from cultural constraints - sometimes it is not depending on cultures themselves. So the statement:

There's nothing wrong with that.

is indeed only your opinion and of those who agree with you and definitely not the TRUTH.

 

[AWilliams]

I completely understand your point. And I agree that preventing people from pursuing specific activities on which both parties agree on sometimes lead towards bad results as you said. Completely correct. But the last statement in bold is only your opinion. There are thousands of cultures around you which doesn't allow people to think so due to the traditional background, religious affiliations, etc.etc. and exactly such mental prevention encourages people to enforce such kind of prevention into law. So from the economic point of view, it is justifiable since: both parties are doing what they agree on in condition that they don't harm others, do not hurt others' properties, do not give damage to others' health, etc. but from cultural constraints - sometimes it is not depending on cultures themselves. So the statement:

is indeed only your opinion and of those who agree with you and definitely not the TRUTH.

That bold statement follows the mutual agreement statement. It's not directly pointing to prostitution. You're slightly taking it out of context. So if you disagree with it, you disagree with the statement "it is just a service which two people mutually agree on".

 

[Tsotne]

That bold statement follows the mutual agreement statement. It's not directly pointing to prostitution. You're slightly taking it out of context. So if you disagree with it, you disagree with the statement "it is just a service which two people mutually agree on".

That's exactly why I differentiated it from economic and mental point of view. For economists, it is true. For different cultures, western economic freedom is (in one way or another) constrained.

 

[rishab dhar]

Yes the mindset of the society, almost always plays a huge role in laws designed for such activities. For this reason, I mentioned that such thinking " prostitution, drinking, smoking" is considered a social taboo in many cultures, more specifically east.

However, in a democracy, I would rather want laws to be designed with economic focus rather than social focus, for the simple reason everyone is not the same. For instance, You can't have the government deciding, as long as you are an adult, what you can watch on TV ( Don't know about US, but I know there are porn paid channels broadcast all over Germany, but it is illegal to do the same in India). Everybody has different opinion, and wants freedom to engage in an activity. The law should be such that it does not inhibit that activity/ or attempt at doing so, unless it harms someone. Now no-one can argue for making it legal to shoot someone, because it affects others negatively. Similarly, smoking in public places is another thing that cannot be legalized both economically and morally, because it harms others' health. Drinking so long as you don't beat up others is perfectly fine, in most societies. Same goes for prostitution.

My opinion : Legalize everything that does NOT harm others, directly or indirectly.

For this reason, according to me, there is nothing wrong with drinking, smoking, going to brothels, watching porn, mercy death ( In some countries, one is not allowed to allow oneself to be murdered/ killed no matter how stiff the pain/agony might be, even if patient wants to be killed. There is more cruelty in letting this person live than letting him die. Just my opinion of course) etc etc as long as you and only you are affected by it (positively or negatively).