I once heard someone—it may have been my father—claim the price for a prostitute has remained relatively stable throughout the ages.
Has it, relative to the price of, say, bread, games, household utensils, etc? I realize this is a complex question, but still, can anything sensible be said about it? Interesting notion, and perfectly plausible. Sex is perhaps the most basic commodity after food and shelter. Few sell themselves for the joy of doing so; they do it to cover the cost of living, usually for lack of other options.
Ergo, prices for sex ought to be historically stable. However, proving this conjecture is a bitch. Another problem is that, at any given time, prostitution prices vary enormously from country to country and city to city. Even within the same city, you can find extremes. Supply and demand come into play, of course. A study of Chicago prostitutes found prices increased an average of 30 percent over a July 4 weekend, despite a 60 percent boost in supply due to an influx of out-of-towners.
Variation in services also factors in. These days unprotected sex fetches a premium price: A study found that Mexican sex workers typically charged anywhere from 20 to 50 percent more for sex without a condom.
In London the average upcharge is 14 percent. Another complication is that our knowledge of historical sex pricing is spotty. A better benchmark is that in 15th-century France, a prostitute could earn in half an hour what an agricultural worker would make in half a day. Using U. A decent way to gauge prostitution pricing over time is to focus on a single city.
