Before the Internet, clients didn t know where to find the prostitutes and prostitutes did not know where to find the clients.
— Scott Cunningham, associate professor at Baylor University who studies the economics of prostitution. (Didn t he get the memo about selling sex being the world s oldest profession?) The arrest of prostitute Alix Tichelman this week in connection with the heroin-overdose death of Google executive Forrest Hayes in November has once again brought attention to sex workers, tech and the tech industry. Anytime you have a lot of young men coming West to seek their fortunes, the sex worker industry responds, Siouxsie Q, a 28-year-old sex worker and activist, told USA Today.
As we mentioned last year, sex workers (such as Kitty Stryker) say they charge hundreds of dollars an hour in cash-flush Silicon Valley — with the help of social media, or tools that could ve been created by their customers. There are, of course, dedicated websites. Police reportedly say Hayes met Tichelman through SeekingArrangement.com, which hooks up sugar daddies with their beneficiaries. (As Mercury News columnist Scott Herhold writes: To think of this case as an aberration shows a huge ignorance about human beings, particularly young people who have been gifted with several million dollars in the space of a few years. )
All this has attracted the attention of law enforcement, of course. Now Stryker tells USA Today that she has turned to porn after authorities started cracking down on Internet-based sex sites such as MyRedbook.com.
Screenshot above from SeekingArrangement.com
