ECN 340 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Tim Harford, Oral Sex, Fellatio
13 Dec 2016
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Tim Harford
Chapter 1 – Introducing the logic of life
- A group of 12 – 13-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they
can. And these group of millennials are known all over the city and they are in the
best schools.
- New York Times has often referred this issue as ‘epidemic’ but this is considered to
be exaggerated.
- One recent study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical
Center, found that between 1994 and 2004, young people between age 12 and 12
became more than twice as likely to report that they’d recently had oral sex.
- Males from 16% - 32%, Females 14% - 38%
- In 1990, half of the women and quarter of the men who came to Johns’ clinic (both
teenagers and adults) sometimes performed oral sex on their partners and he believes
that now oral sex is much more common. Roughly 75 – 80%.
- Perhaps ‘Epidemic’ is still too strong to describe this, but oral sex is definitely a
vogue right now.
- The question for this is always ‘why’? Are there no such thing as rational blow job.
- Rational people respond to trade-offs and to incentives. When the cost or benefits of
something change, people change their behavior.
- Rational people think not always consciously about the future as well as the percent
as they try to anticipate likely consequences of their actions in an uncertain world
- Referring back to the topic of oral sex, what are the costs, benefits and consequences
of a blow job?
- Perhaps the benefits are easy to recognized from the recipient. But it should more
obvious that the cost of a close substitute for oral sex has risen.
- Regular sex is likely to be costlier than it used to be because of the spread of
HIV/AIDS and they are more likely to be spread out than oral sex.
- In the U.S, teenagers are more taught about HIV/AIDS rather than preventing
pregnancy.
- Teenagers also know that STD’s that might make a girl infertile if transmitted through
penetrative sex, but when transmitted by oral sex may have much milder symptoms,
like sore throat.
- Therefore, the costs of oral se are, quite simply. Lower than the costs of regular sex.
- If teenage girls really do weight those costs and benefits before going down on their
boyfriends, this is straightforward explanation for the growing popularity of oral sex.
- Since regular sex is riskier than is used to be, and since teenagers are unlikely to have
given up on the idea of having sex, the rest is basic economics
- E.g. If the prices of Coca-Cola rises, rational people will drink more Pepsi. When the
price of penetrative sex rises, rational teenagers have more oral sex instead.
- Since the beginning of 1990’s, the number of teenage virgins has risen by 15%. There
are still a few million teenagers who haven’t given on sex of courses, but since the
early 1990’s they’ve switched to birth control methods that will also protect them
from STD’s. Us of the contraceptive pill is down by nearly a fifth, but use of condoms
us up by more than a third.
- Oral sex isn’t a symptom of more promiscuous teenagers. In fact, it’s a sign that
teenagers are behaving more responsibility, in enthusiastically and rationally
choosing an alternative to risker sex.
- Thomas Stratmann, who with the law professor Jonathan Klick have pinned down the
rationality of the teenage sex drive rather precisely. Rational teenagers would have
less risky sex if the cost of risky sex went up.
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Tim Harford
- The question for now is: How to work out whether that is how teenagers behave.
- With that, it requires some precisely measurable source of increased costs, something
more quantifiable than a general increase in the amount of education about AIDS.
- Abortion is now the focusing area for the U.S Constitution.
- They stated that some teenagers have permits to have abortions without notification to
parents and some don’t.
- Since abortion notification law make it more difficult for teenagers, but not for adults,
to get an abortion, they should discourage risky sex among teens, relative to adults. If
that is, teenagers are in fact rational.
- Since abortion notification has raised the cost of getting pregnant. If teens look ahead
and work all this out, they should also take extra steps to prevent that accidental
pregnancy, steps which besides that of choosing oral se or regular sex, are liley to
include more used of condoms, or perhaps no sexual activity at all.
- Klick and Stratmann both agree that abortion notification are very persuasive to
discourage teens form having risky sex.
- Sex than has a cost – The risk of AIDS – along intensive education about the risk –
has probably encouraged teens to switch to lower cost option, oral sex.
- Andrew Francis said if oral sex is a sub-option for regular sex, isn’t it at least
possible that heterosexual sex is a substitute for homosexual sex?
- The rise of AIDS has made it riskier that it used to be have sex with men, making
homosexuality more dangerous for men and heterosexuality more dangerous for
women.
- Francis discovered that both men and women with a relative who had AIDS were less
likely to have sex with me, and less likely to say they were attracted to men.
- Men who had a relative with AIDS were less likely to say that they found the idea of
sex with men appealing.
- Women who had a relative with AIDS also seemed to be turned off by the idea of sex
with men: They were more likely to say they were homosexual or bisexual.
- Both men and women with an acute awareness of the risks of AIDS were shifting
away from an obvious way of catching it
- Francis also discovered that while people who had a relative with AIDS did shy away
from sex with men, their earlier sexual history didn’t reflect that.
- Meaning that, they were just as likely to have had sex with men at some stage, but
then becoming aware of the risks, they stooped.
- Furthermore, people with a relative with AIDS were more likely to be having oral sex
and were less likely to have syphilis, which suggests their close experience of AIDS
had inspired safer sex practices.
New Breed of economist:
- These economist is discovering something new about sex, crime, gambling, war,
marriage, ghettos, racism, politics and the last millions of years of human history.
- These economists are using the assumption for rational behavior as a way of focusing
on something important about all these subtle, complicated topics.
- First, the assumption that people are rational leads us to some clear and testable
theories about the way the world works.
- In crime rates are high in some areas, the rational choice of theory says that crime
must pay in those areas.
- If inner city teens don’t have qualifications, then rational choice theory says that they
must believe that benefits of getting the qualifications are outweighed by the costs.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Chapter 1 introducing the logic of life. A group of 12 13-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they can. And these group of millennials are known all over the city and they are in the best schools. New york times has often referred this issue as epidemic" but this is considered to be exaggerated. One recent study conducted by researchers at johns hopkins bayview medical. Center, found that between 1994 and 2004, young people between age 12 and 12 became more than twice as likely to report that they"d recently had oral sex. Males from 16% - 32%, females 14% - 38% In 1990, half of the women and quarter of the men who came to johns" clinic (both teenagers and adults) sometimes performed oral sex on their partners and he believes that now oral sex is much more common.
