Things of Value: On the Economics of Sex

I am slightly late to the game on this one, but I'm going for it anyway.  Assume it's because I have been thinking deep thoughts, and not because something in my genes makes me perpetually late.

This video on the “Economics of Sex” has been making its rounds through the various circles of the internet lately.  I like it and I don’t like it.  I like it because it is good -- as craft and as a communicator of truth.  I don’t like it because the solution isn’t quite that easy.




The video makes some propositions and uses economic theory to reach some conclusions.

1. Sex is an economic exchange.  Not in terms of money, but in terms of the exchange of things of value.  This definition of economics is important for understanding the whole video.
2.  As a general trend, men are more interested in sex than women are.  As a general trend, women are more interested in marriage (committed relationship) than men are.  This means that sex is a thing of value that women hold in relation to men.
3.  When women control the supply of a valued good in relation to men, they have the power to determine the price of said good.  Historically, the price of this good was marriage.
4. This worked because sexual relations are part of an economy -- a social system of exchange.  When most women “charged” marriage for sex, this could be the going price.
5.  This has changed in the modern world due to the technological shock of the Pill.  The risk of sex dropped because it was no longer as connected to babies.
6. The change caused a split dating market -- those interested in sex (more men) vs. those interested in marriage (more women).
7. Thus, in the short term, women can be pickier -- there are fewer of them in the “just for fun” category.  In the long term, however, men are the choosers, because women outnumber men in the “marriage market.”
8. Thus, in the marriage market, women are competing with men.  They do so by offering what men want: sex.
9. This enables men to go longer without committing to marriage and does not motivate them to make the life changes necessary to make them “marriageable.”
10. The solution is “collusion” -- women working together to raise the value of sex.

Overall, the video is well-done, though I would like to read a well-sourced paper on the same topic.  I also want to see them consider a few other angles in the economic analysis -- because I think the idea that women simply must “collude” together is a tad simplistic.

1. Women have mixed motives for women, and I suspect that they might change over time. Does women’s desire for marriage over “fun” change with age?  Collusion works fine as long as the vast majority of women are on board. The fact is, that if you get enough women who don’t want marriage (or don’t want it now), that is a game-changer.
2. Many marriage and family trends are becoming increasingly socio-economically and racially stratified.  Some demographics show a dissociation of marriage and parenthood -- women are having babies but not getting married.
3. Pornography for cheap is changing the way men access sex.  This has to have a drastic impact on the economic equation, when men no longer need any investment in a real woman for sex.  Apparently, this argument of relative power and value has been used as a secular feminist case against pornography.