You have full access to this open access article. As men have universally expressed attraction to younger women, awareness of this proclivity in men by women should be maximally reflected in terms of mate value in younger compared to older women. Prostitution has been recorded across all cultures and historical epochs, and one way in which mate value in women can be explored is by obtaining data from online escort advertising sites.
The current study accessed an online escort site called adultwork. With the exception of Irish escorts advertising for an outcall service, differences were found in all countries sampled with younger escorts charging significantly higher fees than older escorts. The current findings are another example of how by accessing real-world online data we can successfully test hypotheses relating to sexual behaviour from an evolutionary psychological perspective. Even though the difference between the sexes with regards to sexual behaviour, mate preferences and desires has been purported to be exaggerated Stewart-Williams and Thomas , one category of behaviour where extreme differences in behaviour appear to exist is in the charging of, and the willingness to pay for, sexual services.
The former is almost invariably the domain of women with the latter restricted almost entirely to men Bonnerup et al. Such a disparity could be explained due to the fact that men possess a desire for greater numbers of sexual partners and to uncommitted, casual sex Buss and Schmitt ; Clarke and Hatfield ; Schmitt Although arguably more costly to women than men, benefits can logically accrue to women who have over evolutionary time pursued short-term mating strategies Greiling and Buss That said, Symons , when focussing on the evolution of the desire for sexual variety, noted that one of the very few reasons why a woman during our evolutionary past would have sexual intercourse with a man other than her spouse was because she may benefit by trading sexual intercourse for meat, supplies or services.
Symons argued that the concept of paying for sexual services from prostitutes is connected primarily to men as sex is widely known to be something that women have and something that men want. Clearly, prostitutes and escorts engage in casual uncommitted sex but they are rewarded by men who are willing to pay for such services.
The reason why women offer sexual services far more frequently than men may also be because women due to higher obligatory parental investment Trivers focus more attention on wealth in men. This has been shown to be important for women cross-culturally and across historical time Buss ; Buss ; Symons Dixson et al. It is argued that these features are clear indications of age and fertility Dixson et al.
