If the owners invest a large sum of money, for example in building a multi million Euro Brothel in Germany, it is because you expect a return on your investment and a personal income remunerating the risk of the investment. It would be normal for the owner to get an annual income bigger than each of the 100 or 200 girls prividing services in that brothel.
Of course I agree with this, but I still disagree with the amount taken from a macro perspective. The macro perspective does not support the idea of 10%, 20% or even 30% share in sales (here, I'd like any agency escort or indy with agency experience to chime in and confirm that unlike any of my friends, they've actually ever made
more than a 60% cut - if that).
I would place the average in Montreal at 40-45% - sometimes diving into the 50% range (but then again, I really don't know the state of profit distribution in Montreal agencies that don't advertise here so this profit distribution model could still be prevalent in the less observable areas of the industry). The normal business model, excluding the "VIP" type agencies, which don't constitute a majority, has always been 50/50 until relatively recently. Compare that to any large private organization - a grocery chain, a fast food chain, a car manufacturer, Amazon - never does the profit cut of sales ever even nearly approach the 50% mark. The difference is also that in all of those industries, there is a middle man, so the cut get smaller and smaller as the final product gets closer to the end of the line: the consumer. Yet, if I try to think of industries without middlemen, it would be a business owner's dream to make a 30% margin. The only types of businesses I can actually think of that make a
40% to 50% profit on sales belong to the black market. Which is why, again, I am so strongly against the current model. If we want this industry to have any form of legitimacy,
let it behave like any form of legal industry.
If you're providing a service (being an agent), provide a service and take a proportion of sales that makes sense to the
business world. If you are selling a product, and you have no middleman, so you can sell your product for the highest profit gain that is supported by demand, sorry, but
women are not products. If I were a legislator, this is actually where I would lay the law first. We have laws against usury practices. I don't see why we can't view this type of practice through the same lens, again, specifically taking into account the special, incomparable nature of the service provided by the "products", and taking into account that this cut
does not constitute normal business practice unless you're really, really lucky. Yet, in the agency side of the sex industry, it consitutes the
norm.
So let me be clearer than I have been: I'm not saying an agency managed by a woman who takes a 50% cut would be any better than an agency managed by a man taking that cut for the simple fact that a woman would be profiting. My point is that
the woman delivering the service should be taking the greater cut considering the nature of the service delivered. And a greater cut like the max-observable (macro) 60%, considering what
she puts into the equation (if you can entertain for a moment my argument
that resource and time investment made by an agency owner is no more special than the same investments made by any other business owner), is still not acceptable. I would find a maximum of 25% acceptable, edging closer to the broader 'agent' industry margin (after all, is this not what agents claim they do?). Show me a Loblaws or a McDonald's that makes even in the neighbourhood of that cut for the
millions invested, and show me how such a high cut
has any relation to investment - my original point - and maybe I'll come around to the alternate position, which is the status quo position of this industry. Until someone shows me how the resource and time investments in making an agency function somehow is different than any other industry, in particular the industry of artist representation to which agencies (and many of their clients) claim to belong, I will remain convinced that
current agency business practice takes advantage of women who do not have or don't know they have the skills and resources required to become their
own agents.
Your comment, however, points out an ethical problem that the typical abolitionnist (the real on) policy provides an answer: illegal to live of the avails. It is not a good answer. The true good answer, IMHO, is that the owners/managers should NEVER be compensated on a fraction of the transaction, but by fixed rates. I do not not know it for real, but I think this is already the case in most settings: massage parlours here, brothels in Germany and Spain, traveling escorts agencies in Europe, many agencies here. Its's a fixed amount per transaction, no touching "extras", a fixed rate for the occupation of space in places like FKK and the terrible all included brothels in Germany, a fixed rate to occupy a room for a certain amount of time in most brothels and massage parlours. It's a fair system that does not preclude owners to make more money that all or some of the sex workers.
I can't see how a fixed rate would be better than a proportion considering the huge variance in service rates. A fixed rate, to me, means a transactional profit model. You get a fee per transaction. How do you ensure that fees from the, let's call it mom-and-pop tiny agency, is coherent with the fee applied to the VIP style place? Under your model, I'm assuming the agency that charges 300 for their VIP girls makes the same dollars per transaction than the 160$ agency? Come to think of it, that sure would be nice, but wouldn't the 160$ agencies become obsolete within a week (we girls do talk to each other and the internet has taken information sharing to another level
)? I wonder how clients would feel about this model once they saw what it would actually cost them.
Most sex work businesses are pretty small. For the ones I know (all women), the owners make annual revenues comparable to sex work workers with whom they contract.
I've made it a point to specify pretty much everywhere I could that I'm referring to the
large type organizations. I'm actually pleased that there are smaller female-owned businesses that make annual revenues comparable to the sex workers they employ (what's up with this idea that they are contracted?). I won't make a joke about how these happen to be female-owned, since we don't have any idea of the size of your sample compared to the non-anecdotal broader picture. I do recognize that some of these businesses offer a needed services: they basically provide a form of infrastructure (a form of office) and structure (a form of schedule) that allow sex workers to experience some sort of stability with minimal time investment on their side. An indy's life is at minimum, divided 50/50 in making the business run and offering her service. So it's true that there is something interesting in the idea that you could give away half of your work load. Is that worth a 50% cut in earnings? Let's be generous and say 40%. Again, show me a
service business where someone came up with this calculation for the value of what they were providing. And again, this relates back to my "feminism" point that the
overarching business model may look like this precisely because females are
not owners.
I guess it's useless to point out the very interesting works of Chris Brucker on the third parties. You have probably read them.
Don't assume I've read the literature on any of the points I'm providing :smile: I am simply providing my perspective as a female who knows this industry well through my own experience and that of my friends. I was not able to locate any works by Chris Brucker in Google Scholar so if you want me to read him you'll have to provide a reference.