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How Economists Figure Sex
From a Wash Times review of economist (and occasional Reason contributor) Steven Landsburg's new book, More Sex is Safer Sex:
The "More Sex" thesis: If prudes occasionally slept with strangers, it would slow the spread of STDs.
Here's how it works. One such prude walks into a bar, and he's uninfected. If he takes home an uninfected woman, great -- he distracted her from a potential disease carrier. If he gets herpes, that's also great, because he's sexually conservative and won't pass the infection along very often. Better him than someone with less self control.
Either way, society benefits when the chaste open up slightly.
The reviewer concludes, the "book reads fast and provides plenty of intellectual red meat." Whole thing here.
|4.24.07 @ 10:32AM|#
Seriously? Society benefits more than, say, if the loose were to tighten up? I know he doesn't spell out the dichotomy, but the implication seems clear.
robc|4.24.07 @ 10:32AM|#
Im going to ask the counter question: If "prudes" can increase
their partners up to 2.25 per year and decrease the spread of
disease, how much less spread of disease would there be if the
"less prude" decrease their # of partners to 2.25 per year?
Hmmm...as an aside, assuming a start at age 16 (age of consent in
my state) @ 2.25 partners per year, almost 22 years for me = 49.5
partners. Even realizing that I need to count partners who cross
year boundaries multiple times, I guess I must fall into the
uber-prude category.
|4.24.07 @ 10:37AM|#
While I've no doubt that more sex leads to a healthier society.
I'm not quite buying the whole 'combating the spread of STDs by
giving them to the "right" people'.
My theory is that the occasional collapse of prude willpower
contributes to spreading STDs. My thinking is, a prude giving in to
passion isn't practicing safe sex. The same unwillingness to deal
with reality also keeps them from getting timely treatment. Just a
theory.
But anyway, More Sex! whoo hoo!
robc|4.24.07 @ 10:37AM|#
Cab,
Im going to stick with self interest on this on. But then again, Im
a greedy libertarian.
|4.24.07 @ 10:38AM|#
"If he gets herpes, that's also great, because he's sexually conservative and won't pass the infection along very often. Better him than someone with less self control."
MikeT|4.24.07 @ 10:39AM|#
Replace herpes with AIDS and see how it sounds...
What you are encouraging people to do is engage in risky behavior
by hooking up with strangers. Society benefits when people at worst
hook up with people they know and trust, who are probably likely to
be open with them. Society benefits even more when people don't
engage in behavior that causes unwanted pregnancies and risks
disease in the first place.
If you want to hook up with someone, just do it. Only losers need
socio-economic-political justifications for behaving that way.
|4.24.07 @ 10:39AM|#
I think you have to be something of an intellectual to fall for an argument like that.
robc|4.24.07 @ 10:41AM|#
mllh,
KY, but most US states are 16. Check out ageofconsent.com, I cant
believe I knew the url for that. What kind of prude am I?
|4.24.07 @ 10:41AM|#
Uh, if "prudes" started sleeping around more, then they wouldn't
be "prudes" anymore, now would they?
I sure hope Landsburg's thesis is better than reviewer's take,
because it is self-evident that you can't take advantage of
"sexually conservative" behavior when you're insisting that people
be less sexually conservative. In fact, logically, Landsburg's
thesis can only result in the exact opposite conclusion, that
prudes acting less prudish will only increase the spread of STDs
since a formerly sexually-conservative group that has a low
incidence of STDs will be greatly increasing their risk.
ktc2|4.24.07 @ 10:42AM|#
And again, the solution is MORE SEX!
We need to all start behaving like bonobos with broadband.
|4.24.07 @ 10:46AM|#
"Suppose you walk into a bar and find four potential sex
partners. Two are highly promiscuous; the others venture out only
once a year. The promiscuous ones are, of course, more likely to be
HIV-positive. That gives you a 50-50 chance of finding a relatively
safe match.
But suppose all once-a-year revelers could be transformed into
twice-a-year revelers. Then, on any given night, you'd run into
twice as many of them. Those two promiscuous bar patrons would be
outnumbered by four of their more cautious rivals. Your odds of a
relatively safe match just went up from 50-50 to four out of
six."
What he says makes perfect sense. It is a good example of how
economic analysis can lead to counter intiutive truths. Landsburg
is a really brilliant guy and his book is great. Much better than
the more hyped Freakonimics. Landsburg is what the guy who wrote
Freakonomics thinks he is.
thoreau|4.24.07 @ 10:48AM|#
I think you have to be something of an intellectual to fall
for an argument like that.
Ken-
That's kind of insulting.
As far as the point being made, I suspect that it's mathematically
sound, but there's more to life than math. I know that a lot of
work has been done on modeling the rate at which diseases spread
through populations, and it wouldn't surprise me if in certain
circumstances a disease spreads more slowly when the carriers give
it to people who are less likely to spread it.
But as soon as you go from the population view to the individual
view, it's advantageous for the individual to not get the
disease.
To go back to the mathematical side of this, I don't see how
"prudes" catching a disease that they won't spread is really a Nash
equilibrium.
|4.24.07 @ 10:50AM|#
Thoreau they have done that research and it indicates that AIDS
would spread more slowly if a larger number of people would take
multiple partners.
That's why increased activity by sexual conservatives can slow down
the rate of infection and reduce the prevalence of AIDS. In fact,
according to Professor Michael Kremer of MIT's economics
department, the spread of AIDS in England could plausibly be
retarded if everyone with fewer than about 2.25 partners per year
were to take additional partners more frequently. That covers
three-quarters of British heterosexuals between the ages of 18 and
45. (Much of this column is inspired by Professor Kremer's
research."
http://www.slate.com/id/2033/
mllh|4.24.07 @ 10:51AM|#
Kentucky. I've never really thought much of Kentucky, until now.
Horses, bluegrass, coal, smoking, whiskey, teenagers who can
legally have sex: now that I think about it, LONG LIVE KY!
ooooh, even the state abbreviation is great!
robc|4.24.07 @ 10:53AM|#
John,
The problem with that math is, as a "prude", my once a year night
had a 1/2 chance of hooking up with an unsafe match. Now, with the
adjustment, only 1/3 are unsafe. But, with 2 outings a year, my
unsafe sex chance is now 5/9.
Lets assume the promiscuous ones are picking up partners in the bar
once a month (vs once a year). By cutting down to 6 times a year,
they have changed the results in the exact same way. There will now
be twice as many "clean" as "unclean" partner options. This helps
both the promiscuous and the prudes. The prudes get reduced to 1/3
chance from 1/2 for their once yearly excursion and the clean rate
is better for the promiscuous too.
The first way may help OVERALL at the expense of the prudes, but
the 2nd helps both groups.
thoreau|4.24.07 @ 10:55AM|#
Oh, I'm sure that from a population standpoint this model is
correct under certain conditions. I just don't see how it's a Nash
equilibrium. Partnering with a carrier might stop him from
spreading it to multiple people, so the total infection rate for
society will slow. But I don't see how partnering with a
carrier is a Nash equilibrium, i.e. it's always better for the
individual to not partner with a carrier.
Maybe it becomes a Nash equilibrium under conditions of imperfect
information, and where you include pleasure as part of the payoff
calculation.
Disclaimer: I have no formal training in game theory, just tidbits
that I've picked up here and there.
robc|4.24.07 @ 10:57AM|#
mllh,
The smoking thing in KY isnt as strong as it use to be. Both
Louisville and Lexington have smoking bans. As of July, the
Louisville one expands to bars (previously exempted). The only
business not covered will now be ... wait for it ... Churchill
Downs.
Horseracing still has a lot of pull.
|4.24.07 @ 10:57AM|#
Robc,
That may mean that there is an "ideal" amount of sex that most
restricts the spread of disease. That is an interesting point.
Whatever the curve is though, its ideal is not "0", so I think
Lansburg's indictment of abstenence is still valid.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 10:58AM|#
"But as soon as you go from the population view to the
individual view, it's advantageous for the individual to not get
the disease."
That dichotomy between individual and population is the problem
with politics/economics/lib philosophy/what-have-you, I think. It
is best for the individual to avoid multiple sex partners, while it
is simultaneously best for the whole country to encourage sleeping
around. Abstinence is best for you; sluttiness is best for all of
us.
Can economists/philosophers ever reconcile the two?
But, anyway, speaking of the tremendously glorious and sublime
state of Kentucky...
|4.24.07 @ 11:00AM|#
Of course abstinance is only best if you can really follow it. If you break down once in a while you could be in worse shape than if you were a slut.
|4.24.07 @ 11:02AM|#
"If all we cared about was disease, the ideal point would be
0."
But you have to work under the assumption that people are going to
have sex. Further, the ideal point can't be zero because we would
all die off if there was no sex. Clearly, people are going to be
having sex. Given that fact and the fact that there are STDs, what
is better from the standpoint of STD control, monogomy or multiple
partners?
|4.24.07 @ 11:02AM|#
John: The flaw in the logic, of course, is that it doesn't take into account the fact that if prudes are going out more, they'll be taking more chances, and thus increasing their chances at being infected. In other words, yes, increasing the number of prudes in the bars will reduce your one-time shot of getting an STD. However, this is not a one-time analysis. If I am a prude, going out once a year, and face a 50-50 shot at infection, then I might think I'm getting a deal when us prudes now go out twice a year and my chance of catching an STD on a given night is now only 1 in 3. However, I'm forgetting that in order for this to be true, I now have to be in the bars twice a year instead of only once, which means I am now taking a 1:3 chance TWICE a year instead of a 1:2 chance once a year. Do the math and tell me which is better.
robc|4.24.07 @ 11:03AM|#
John,
sure, but if everyone was a prude with the occassionally lapse, it
would be better than a mix of prudes w/TOL and sluts.
|4.24.07 @ 11:03AM|#
I think the element missing here is that there are plenty of people who would like to have more partners but are unsuccessful at finding them.
|4.24.07 @ 11:03AM|#
The problem with democracy is not that politicians kowtow to
financiers and lobbyists; it's that politicians kowtow to their own
consituents, spending other people's money along the way. In other
words, their incentives are all wrong. Effective reform should
supply better incentives.
So if I could make just one change in the American political
system, it would be to give each voter two votes in every
congressional election. You'd get one vote to cast in your own
district and another to cast in the district of your choice. When a
congressman from West Virginia funnels taxpayers' money from fifty
states to his home district, I want him to face the prospect that
taxpayers from fifty states will share their feelings with him on
election day.
I'd also redraw the boundaries of Congressional districts according
to the alphabet instead of geography. Instead of congressmen from
central Delaware and northern Colorado, we'd have a congressman for
everyone whose name begins with AA through AE, another for everyone
whose name begins with AF through AL, and so on. The point being
that it's easy to devise a pork barrel project that benefits
everyone in northern Colorado, but a lot harder to devise a pork
barrel project that benefits everyone whose name happens to begin
with Q.
Finally, I want federal income tax rates determined separately in
each congressional district, as a function of how much spending
your congressman has voted for. The more he votes to spend, the
more you pay in taxes. That should solve the problem of voters who
pay little attention to what their representatives are up to.
If you're worried about this deterring congressmen from voting for
bills that are truly in the national interest, I'm willing to make
an exemption for any spending bill that passes by a supermajority
of, say, 70%.
Am I serious? Of course I'm serious. Of course I'm also aware that
our legal system would probably render any of these reforms quite
impossible, and that this of all blogs is the one where readers
will jump in to tell me why. But the disconnect between
congressional incentives and the welfare of the general public is
real, and needs highlighting. So when I say "Let's redraw the
congressional districts according to the alphabet", what I'm really
saying is "Let's think hard---and creatively---about ways to sever
the link between parochial interests and congressional incentives."
That's an entirely serious point.
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_04_22-2007_04_28.shtml#1177387121
I kind of like this idea to.
|4.24.07 @ 11:03AM|#
A prude walks into a bar.
The bartender says "what'll ya have"
The prude says "I'd like a Virgin Bloody Mary".
Then the gal on the stool next to him pipes up "There was just the
one time, I should start menstruating next week, and the name's
Teresa. But I'm pleased to meet you. What do folks call you?" Then
the prude says, get this, "They call me the Virgin Rob Roy"
Get it? The Virgin Rob Roy Har Dee Harr Harr
I've got a million of em
|4.24.07 @ 11:04AM|#
"That's kind of insulting."
It wasn't meant to be. ...but there are certain pitfalls that a
prudish, bible thumping farm worker is unlikely to fall for.
Even we assume that society does get better when certain
individuals contract STDs...
Why should he go out and get herpes for the betterment of society?
What's in it for him? Why is unprotected sex with strangers in his
best interest? Why would he, in his culture, in his community, want
to do that?
Is the realization that society is better off now that he's
infected supposed to be something he consoles his wife with after
he's passed it on? Again, assuming his wife isn't an intellectual,
I'm not sure she's going to appreciate the value of that pearl of
wisdom.
|4.24.07 @ 11:05AM|#
"sure, but if everyone was a prude with the occassionally lapse,
it would be better than a mix of prudes w/TOL and sluts."
But sluts happen. You can't eliminate all sluts anymore than you
could eliminate all prudes. The issue is which side of the scale
should we err towards.
|4.24.07 @ 11:06AM|#
Of course, robc already beat me to the punch. Good job.
The stunning thing about Landsburg's thesis is that it happens to
be flat wrong on a very basic level: it forgets to apply the change
in rules to everyone. Sorta reminds me of the basic premise of
Hazlitt's "Economics In One Lesson." How could an economist like
Landsburg make such an elementary mistake?
|4.24.07 @ 11:06AM|#
"Even we assume that society does get better when certain
individuals contract STDs..."
You miss the point. The point is that fewer people would be
infected. See the post above regard the spread of AIDS in
England.
thoreau|4.24.07 @ 11:07AM|#
Is the realization that society is better off now that he's
infected supposed to be something he consoles his wife with after
he's passed it on?
I think the point isn't that society's better that he's infected,
but rather that society's better because he may have saved multiple
others from being infected.
But you're right, how does that console him? Answer: It doesn't.
Which is why I don't see how this is an equilibrium strategy.
Unless it's changed by imperfect information on disease carriers,
and non-zero utility from sex.
robc|4.24.07 @ 11:08AM|#
John,
Im going to fall on the side of letting the individual decide. I
will stay in the prude camp. If that mean more sluts get diseases
because Im not out there protecting them, then so be it.
BTW, this is kinda fun using prude and slut as technical economic
terms.
Call Any Vegetable|4.24.07 @ 11:11AM|#
looks like a commie style public health plan
one that's geared for a 5 decade run
none for me, thanks
if you lack the self control to keep from banging a (newly met)
diseased person, and end up catching something, that's your
problem, not mine
I practice real safe sex:
I don't fuck anything nasty
suggesting things would be better for all involved if only I were
to imitate the promiscuous sounds like a call for cannon
fodder
you know, in order to spare the "real" soldiers
LarryA|4.24.07 @ 11:11AM|#
Unintended consequence department:
"One such prude walks into a bar..."
finds a partner, takes her home, they have sex.
The next day he looks in the mirror and says, "Gee whiz, that was
okay. I think I'll go ahead and get my other sacrifice over with
for the year." That night he walks into a bar, picks up a different
woman, takes her home, and has sex.
The next day he looks in the mirror and says, "By god, that was fun
too. It's really 2.25 partners per year, so I'll
go the extra mile and use up the fraction. Save some other guy from
having to do it." That night he walks into a bar, picks up a
different woman, takes her home, and has sex.
The next day he looks in the mirror and says, "Hot damn, this sex
stuff is alright. It's only six months to the end of the year, so
I'll just work ahead a bit." That night he walks into a bar, picks
up a different woman, takes her home, and has sex.
The next day he looks in the mirror and says, "Screw the study, I'm
tired of being a prude. Go for it."
|4.24.07 @ 11:12AM|#
Robc,
It also means that your foreys into the slut camp are going to be
risky. I guess the lesson is that if you are going to be a prude,
really be one.
Lansburg makes the point that the problem is that people who are
disease free are not properly rewarded because of inperfect
information. If we knew who had diseases or was less likely to have
them, those people would be more in demand for sex. Bascially, the
disease free people would have a lot sex with each other instead of
risking it with the diseased. He admits, that it would be hard to
have such a system in reality, but for now, free condoms and an end
to abstinence campaigns would help.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 11:16AM|#
I'm way out of my intelligence comfort zone, but it occurs to me that evolution could also be at work here. Suppose it's best for our species as it currently stands for everyone to be a slut (as the thesis suggests). Yet there are among us prudes. Will STDs select prudes for survival, making future generations more and more prudish? In other words, is prudishness in the presence of widespread STDs an evolutionary-adaptive strategy?
robc|4.24.07 @ 11:18AM|#
John,
Yep, best if prudes only have sex with other prudes. The incredibly
prudish idea of not sleeping with strangers handles some of the
imperfect information problem. With a proper vetting period, most
(but not all) of the risk can be reduced.
|4.24.07 @ 11:23AM|#
Of course forays into the Slut camp will be risky. The problem
is that instead of increasing information so that it is easier to
find non-infected partners, Landsberg proposes more forays into
danger. His proposed solution is exactly what would make the
problem worse -- or at least the solution as currently described by
the reviewer. Maybe he will have some nuances when he posts on it
on Volokh that might help.
One thing that is curious to me is how pornstars, who are on the
high-end of promiscuity, tend to be the most vigilant in protecting
against STDs. Why? Because they know that they bear an increased
risk by the nature of their job, so they take control of the
situation by demanding information. If one pornstar winds up being
diagnosed with AIDS, suddenly everyone who ever worked with that
star is suddenly in question and a danger. So, knowing this, why
don't non-professional members of the Slut camp do the same? If you
know that your promiscuity increases your risk, you should be much
more insistent on information to protect yourself. However, this
does not tend to happen. Why? My guess is, no one wants to think of
themselves as members of the Slut camp. And that may be the bigger
problem.
|4.24.07 @ 11:25AM|#
The article at Slate that John reference is one of an ongoing
series of economics and how it effects everyday life.
The common thread in the series is that a rational, statistical
analysis of every day activities leads to dramatically different,
and frequently counter-intuitive, results than might be expected by
the average joe or jane on the street.
In this specific case, the population as a whole would benefit if
the effects of promiscuous people in the population were diluted by
more non-promiscuous people engaging in "loose sex". Note that the
outcomes for specific individuals may be far from desireable, but
the population as a whole benefits.
This topic should resonate with libertarians who normally take the
position that it is the rights of individuals that takes precedence
over the well-being of the population.
dhex|4.24.07 @ 11:27AM|#
prudishness for the prudes.
sodom for the sodomites.
everyone's happy!
(if only this were true)
that said, the book seems kind of insane. or it assume certain
patterns of sexual behavior are really, really predictable?
mllh|4.24.07 @ 11:32AM|#
Can private enterprise get involved in this?
I have an idea for a "Slut Club". Members could pay a quarterly fee
for certification. Certification would involve a regular physical
exam and test for all common STDs. Those who pass the exam would
receive a "license" which would certify them clean and available
for sex. This license could be presented to all potential partners
over drinks; the last convincing argument for why "you should come
back to my place." Naturally, sluts with such certificates would
prefer other sluts with similar certification.
If this enterprise were to succeed, then I could make millions when
my purely voluntary certification became the gold standard for
choosing a fellow slut for the night.
|4.24.07 @ 11:34AM|#
The other point of this article is that the "market" for "loose
sex" is broken, because individuals do not have access to the
necessary information to determine the "value" of any individual
partner.
If I could advertise that I am known to be disease-free, I can
command a better price for myself if I choose to put myself on the
market.
If I could see the advertisements for available partners I could
also evaluate what I am willing to spend to get a specific
individual.
Since these advertisements don't exist, we could flood the market
with disease-free individuals and reduce the likelyhood that any
given transaction would have a negative outcome.
robc|4.24.07 @ 11:35AM|#
mllh,
Go for it. It worked for Underwriters Labs (except for the making
millions part, I dont know if they make a profit or not).
Im not great at marketing, but you might want to call it something
other than "Slut Club".
robc|4.24.07 @ 11:36AM|#
carrick,
The market isnt broken, its merely providing arbitrage
opportunities.
The Wine Commonsewer|4.24.07 @ 11:36AM|#
Landsberg reminds me of the guy locked up in a cell in the
looney bin who was balancing a cashew on the end of his stiffie.
When asked why he was locked up the patient replied.....
Isn't it obvious? I'm fucking nuts.
|4.24.07 @ 11:40AM|#
carrick: In this specific case, the population as a whole would
benefit if the effects of promiscuous people in the population were
diluted by more non-promiscuous people engaging in "loose
sex".
No, that's exactly wrong, for the reasons stated above. The
dilution would be temporary at best (depending on the ratio of
prudes to sluts), and would inevitably lead to higher incidences of
STD infection. The reason why prudes have low incidences of STDs is
BECAUSE they are prudes. Landsburg cannot spread this benefit by
subverting the very behavior that caused the benefit in the first
place.
|4.24.07 @ 11:41AM|#
Also, carrick, people advertise being STD-free in personals ads all the time. However, personals ads are not beacons of truth. A third-party verification procedure, like what mllh suggests, is the best approach. That's what pornstars do.
mllh|4.24.07 @ 11:42AM|#
Slut Club was MY idea! Mine! No one may copy it! I'm going to
incorporate and patent and everything else right now!
(Suggestions for alternate names are welcome. Best suggestion gets
to be my business partner.)
|4.24.07 @ 11:48AM|#
If you don't assume random mating, the results are a bit differret. Say prudes only mate with other prudes. They benefit from a much lower disease rate. The non-prudes would have a higher infection rate, which could cause epidemics to burn out more quickly.
|4.24.07 @ 11:49AM|#
No, that's exactly wrong, for the reasons stated above. The
dilution would be temporary at best (depending on the ratio of
prudes to sluts), and would inevitably lead to higher incidences of
STD infection.
The study in England comes to a different conclusion.
Unfortunately, I am not deeply trained in statistics or the
transmission of communicable diseases. So I can't confirm or
contradict the reported study. But the results of the study don't
surprise me that much.
And NaG, your analysiss smacks to much of "moral outrage" to carry
much weight in contradicting the reported results.
|4.24.07 @ 12:01PM|#
mllh, try Sluts "r" Us
You need more than a certificate to be successful. Since it takes
some period of time after infection for a test to show that
infection, you will need to track every encounter so that 1)
individual can see every transaction that occurred since the last
test and 2) potentially infected patrons can be tracked down
quickly if someone "breaks the rules" and has a transaction outside
the system.
|4.24.07 @ 12:06PM|#
Nope, carrick, no "moral outrage" here. Nothing I've said could
be implied as such -- se my comments on pornstars, for example.
Landsburg simply wants what he cannot have: prudes who don't act
like prudes. The logical contradiction is quite simple.
The study in England does NOT come to a different conclusion. The
best it can say is that there is a "plausible" benefit, which is
far, far, FAR from a real measured benefit. Landsburg's poor logic
has apparently suckered some people with its "plausibility," until
the above contradiction is pointed out.
Me, I think everyone, prudes and sluts, should all demand rigorous
information from every sex partner. Third-party verification
sources should proliferate. After all, STDs don't care if you're a
prude or a slut when infecting you, so be careful no matter
what.
|4.24.07 @ 12:12PM|#
A prude that gets an STD the first time out will have his prudity reinforced, resulting in a bitterly regretful person who's not getting any. Ergo, a net deficit for society.
|4.24.07 @ 12:23PM|#
This is from memory, so there may be some errors . . .
STDs are generally difficult to transmit, hence the requirement for
intimate contact. The probability of infection is well below 50/50
for any given encounter. Infections are typically the result of
repeated encounters with infected partners.
The nature of the encounter also influences the probability of
transmission -- women are far more likely to get HIV from an
infected man than the other way around.
So assuming a low percentage of the pouplation is infected and a
low probablity of getting infected from a single encounter, then
random sex in a large population flooded with disease-free partners
could well reduce overall transmission rates.
That's not a proof, only a hypothesis.
|4.24.07 @ 1:31PM|#
The biological math doesnt't add up. All you've done is to
infect 2.25% of prudes with STDs. And because you are encouraging
them to have promiscuous sex, just at a lower rate, they will
continue infect others. Societal STD levels would be lower if the
monogamous stayed monogamous.
Human beings are not fruit flies. This isn't the same as releasing
some sterilized male flies into the environment. Human beings are
always "in heat" and can mate as often as they wish. Would 2.25% of
those disatisfied with a prude's sexual peformance (they're not
experienced, you know) go back to that bar to try for another round
the same night? Sounds plausible.
|4.24.07 @ 1:53PM|#
carrick: "So assuming a low percentage of the pouplation is
infected and a low probablity of getting infected from a single
encounter, then random sex in a large population flooded with
disease-free partners could well reduce overall transmission
rates."
How? Again, more exposures at lower percentages can easily result
in higher chances of transmission, as demonstrated in the
calculations offered earlier today. Doesn't matter whether the
lower percentages are due to the ability to transmit infection or
ability to find a clean partner -- the more often you take chances,
the more likely you will get burned in the long run.
Let's take this a step further. Going with the 50-50 chance that
Landsberg likes, let's say the typical bar today has 50 prudes and
50 sluts on a given night (not considering gender). You walk in,
and you have a 50-50 chance of going home with an infected partner,
as do all the other prudes. However, each slut has a 51-49 chance
of going home with a clean partner (you count as one of the 50
prudes). Thus, while you have a 50-50 chance of not catching a
disease, each slut has slightly better than 50-50 chance of
spreading it.
Now, let's let all the prudes in. Now the given bar has 500 prudes
and the same 50 sluts. You walk in. Now all the uninfected bargoers
have 10:1 odds of going home with a clean partner, which is much
lower than before. Great, huh? Except now every slut has 501:49
chance of getting a clean partner too, meaning now they have better
than 10:1 odds of spreading their STD. Assuming that it's not a
sure thing that every slut finds a partner every night, adding in
all the prudes has greatly increased the chance of each slut
hooking up for the night. So not only are more sluts hooking up,
but they are far more likely to hook up with uninfected partners,
too.
What we've done is lower any one prude's one-time chance at getting
an STD, but greatly increased the chance that an STD carrier will
spread the disease. That means we have spread out the risk but yet
increased the overall risk. There is no way to look at this without
concluding that overall transmission rates would go up as a result.
It's a classic case of mistaking the forest for the trees.
stephen the goldberger|4.24.07 @ 2:09PM|#
i studied under landsberg at the university of rochester. His classes were exactly like his books. Fascinating and provactive arguments within the framework of microeconomic reasoning. I recomend them wholly.
|4.24.07 @ 3:02PM|#
What we've done is lower any one prude's one-time chance at
getting an STD, but greatly increased the chance that an STD
carrier will spread the disease. That means we have spread out the
risk but yet increased the overall risk. There is no way to look at
this without concluding that overall transmission rates would go up
as a result. It's a classic case of mistaking the forest for the
trees.
You should really check out one of Michael Kremer's papers (alluded
to above) on this topic, e.g. this one. This phenomenon
is interesting precisely because it's so paradoxical.
Basically what happens is that under the right conditions, the
average number of partners for an infected person goes down (as
more prudes are infected), which in turn reduces the transmission
rate despite the increasing number of sexual encounters.
This is a dynamic problem, so you have to look at more than one
time period, and the effect is not always observed, as it depends
on the initial conditions and parameters of the model. But it is
nevertheless true in some cases.
|4.24.07 @ 3:21PM|#
NaG: First of all, not all sluts are infected. That's the main
flaw in your argument: the major benefit of increased sex by prudes
is the very fact that it makes prudes more likely to be
infected-when a disease carrier infects someone who has sex twice a
year, much less damage happens than when he infects someone who has
sex fifty times a year. The goal is to have a higher proportion of
the infected be prudes and a smaller proportion be sluts, because
infected sluts can do so much damage.
To respond to other objections: the idea isn't to turn prudes into
sluts: if in the status quo, sluts have 50 partners a year and
prudes 1, Landsburg wants to change the numbers to 50 and 2. The
idea is that if x is the number of partners each prude has each
year (holding the number of partners for each slut constant),
infection rates are minimized for some value of x, and this
value is non-zero. Obviously it's possible to overshoot the
optimal value, and x=50 is probably worse than x=0. But x=2.25 is
apparently even better (under plausible modeling conditions; I
haven't read the paper myself, so I don't know what the conditions
are. But they're probably no sillier than the assumptions of most
powerful and useful microeconomic models).
Finally, no one is advocating forcing the prudes to have sex. The
point is that we devote some resources to encouraging people not to
have sex; the main impact of these campaigns is to deter prudes
from having sex. But more sex from prudes actually benefits society
overall, even if it is a net harm to the prudes. So we should stop
trying to discourage prudes from having sex. In fact, his argument
is precisely that it benefits society but hurts the prudes for the
prudes to have more sex; this is why he wishes to compensate prudes
for having sex to encourage them to have more of it. So, Thoreau,
his point is that more prude sex isn't (necessarily) a Nash, but
that we can institute side payments to make it both Nash and Pareto
superior.
|4.24.07 @ 3:31PM|#
a, the problem is that Kremer's paper is full of potentials and
hopes but no real concrete results. It's all "preliminary
calculations" and so forth. Here's the best face I can put on
Kremer's thesis, going with the prude/slut terms we've been using
so far: Prudes, by taking themselves out of the dating pool, make
it more likely for sluts to have sex with infected partners. If
sluts can have sex with prudes instead of fellow sluts, then they
will be less likely to contract STDs and, by their promiscuity,
then transmit that STD to others. Am I being fair, here?
The problem, yet again, is that this invariably increases the
potential of each infected slut to transmit their STD to an
uninfected partner. There's no other way to cut it that I can
see.
Also, once you start hedging on "right conditions" when talking
about the hormonal dating scene, I think the premise gets thrown
out the window.
I agree with Kremer that information and condoms are better than
abstinence programs. But I think his thesis is more provocative
than illuminative.
|4.24.07 @ 3:46PM|#
jadagul: I know that not every slut is infected. I'm just going
with Landsburg's own 50-50 model.
First, the argument that prudes having more sex doesn't make them
non-prudes is specious. It defeats the point of there being prudes
in the first place. But anyway, it is correct to say that an
infected slut who has, say, 15 partners in a year can do far more
damage than an infected prude who has only one partner in a year.
However, with the prudes in the dating pool, the average infected
slut is likely to infect more people out of his 15 than before,
when he was more likely to be having sex with fellow infected
sluts. Last I checked, measuring transmission rates does not depend
on how many sexual partners that victim will have. Each additional
infected person counts equally. Thus, when prudes jump in the pool,
infected sluts are far more likely to have sex with uninfected
partners than before, and thus will spread the disease faster. That
their victims might not spread the disease as fast themselves is of
small consolation now that we realize that we've vastly increased
the potential pool of victims from what it was before. The ceiling
has been blown open. If you're lucky, you have fewer infected sluts
to spread the disease, but they are far more successful at doing
so. This is a gain?
|4.24.07 @ 4:43PM|#
NaG:
Well, first, it's also unlikely to be anywhere near a 50-50 split
of infected/uninfected sluts. The socially optimal number of
partners per prude is a parameter that depends on the other
parameters you plug into the model; it's entirely possible that if
we assume 50-50 the socially optimal outcome is for the prudes to
abstain entirely until the sluts all kill themselves off (it's also
possible those rates would make more prudes even more desirable-I
haven't done the math, so I don't know the direction of the
effect). Kremer's paper, from what I can tell, says basically that
if you plug in the actual numbers from British AIDS infections, the
ideal number is about two an a quarter, which is larger than the
actual number. So under the conditions that actually occur, it
would be socially desirable for prudes to have more sex, by a
reasonably small amount.
And the argument that prudes having more sex doesn't make them
non-prudes is specious only for unreasonably large effects. If we
move from 50 partners a year and 1 partner a year to 50 and 3,
there's still a pretty clear split.
|4.24.07 @ 6:04PM|#
Except for the fact that one does not immediately go from
"prude" to "slut." It's more that one goes from "prude" to
"not-prude." Perhaps "average." The whole point of prudes is that
Landsberg is seeking to harness their sexual conservatism as a
mechanism for restraining the spread of STDs, but he is doing so by
asking that they be less sexually conservative! He is inherently
weakening the very behavior he seeks to gain from.
I don't know what the incidence of STDs are among sluts, or prudes
for that matter. Landsberg used the 50-50 model to prove his point,
so I figured it was fair game for me to use the same model to prove
mine.
|4.24.07 @ 8:14PM|#
Like I said above, this paradox is sensitive to the parameters
of the model you choose and the initial conditions, but here's an
example I concocted that works.
Suppose that there are 10000 prudes and 1000 sluts, and that no
prudes are infected to start, while 10% of sluts are.
Next, suppose that sluts seek a mate at every time period, while
prudes seek a mate with probability p. Furthermore, assume mating
is random among those seeking mates, and that probability of
disease transmission is 100% if an uninfected person mates with an
uninfected partner.
(Needless to say, the virtue of this model is not realism. Feel
free to make your own more realistic example.)
So at time T0, we have .91% of the population infected.
Let p=.1 (i.e. 10% of prudes mate per period).
Then at subsequent periods we have the following expected infection
rates:
T1 = 1.77%
T2 = 3.04%
T3 = 4.83%
T5 = 7.27%
If we change p to .2, however (making prudes twice as likely to
mate), we get
T1 = 1.79%
T2 = 3.03%
T3 = 4.76%
T4 = 7.12%
This effect doesn't last forever, as there's a later time when the
infection rate in the p=.2 world again surpasses that of the p=.1
world. But still, this is pretty counterintuitive.
MJ|4.25.07 @ 1:40AM|#
Is Landsburg's essay serious, or is it a variation on "A Modest
Proposal"?
"If he takes home an uninfected woman, great -- he distracted her
from a potential disease carrier. If he gets herpes, that's also
great, because he's sexually conservative and won't pass the
infection along very often. Better him than someone with less self
control.
Either way, society benefits when the chaste open up
slightly."
What individual is going to make a decision about having casual sex
based on that criteria?
If the reason he is not interested in one-night stands is fear of
STDs, then that does nothing to persuade him, as it increases his
personal risk of STDs. If he's a "prude" because he's avoidng
making a woman pregnant or simply saving sex for a committed
relationship, then what is good for "society" matters not to his
decision making. Nor should it, as only if a large number of
"prudes" inexplicably change their behavior at one time can this
strategy have any effect.
I sincerely hope Landsburg was making a point about misapplying
economic theory and the silly conclusions that doing so can
create.
|4.25.07 @ 2:25AM|#
MJ: once again, the argument isn't "Having more sex benefits
society, so people individually will benefit if they go out and
have sex," or even "more people having sex benefits society, so
people are obligated to do it." It's "prudes having more sex is a
benefit to society, and benefits society more than it benefits the
prudes. So we ought to stop taking active steps to discourage them
from having sex, and perhaps engage in subsidies (perhaps in the
form of free condoms) to encourage them to have more sex."
Or, in other words, the standard argument against free-condom
distribution is that it encourages people to have sex more often.
Landsburg turns that around and suggests that actually might just
be another benefit.
|4.25.07 @ 2:43AM|#
I'm sorry, I still see this as further evidence that the
opposite ends in our society strive to become the caricatures their
opponents paint them to be.
Not so long ago, I'd have scoffed at anyone who said that the
religious right were idealistically like the Taliban, ready to put
Jennifer in a burka...
...and now, when I talk to my religious friends about libertarians,
I'll have to pretend that none of us really believe that the world
would be a better place if only more Christians had herpes.
MJ|4.25.07 @ 7:59AM|#
"...the standard argument against free-condom distribution is
that it encourages people to have sex more often."
Which presumes the reason "prudes" are not having more casual sex
is a fear of STDs which can be solved by increased access to
condoms, not that they find little value in casual sex.
|4.25.07 @ 8:44AM|#
There should be some sort of online profile database of willing, available, and clean potential partners for the sexually underserved... kinda like adultfriendfinder, but with real people.
|4.26.07 @ 6:50PM|#
Has anyone invoked Coase's Theorem yet. If prudes having more sex transfers risk from sluts to prudes but improves the overall welfare, then the logical conclusion is for sluts to pay prudes for sex.
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