But this summer, Jerry Wells ’12 and Mara Amster, an English professor, turned to technology to compare the narratives of 17th-century prostitution with news reports of the 2008 Eliot Spitzer scandal, in which the former New York governor was exposed as a client of a high-priced prostitution ring. Their project was part of the Summer Research Program, an intense eight-week program that provides students with the opportunity to work closely with faculty on various research topics.
The database was Wells’ solution for organizing thoughts on the large number of articles he and Amster collected. “I knew there was no way I'd remember the first article when I got to the fifth one, much less the 50th,” he said.
Wells and Amster used the spreadsheet to record how many times each article used various words to describe Spitzer’s involvement with an escort service. They also made judgments about how each article weighed moral, sexual, and financial themes.
Their research revealed that the narrative about this issue has changed in the past 300 years. Earlier literature focused on the moral failures of the women involved in prostitution. Modern texts focus instead on why a man would hire an escort. “We still want to blame someone, but that blame has shifted,” Amster said.
Other aspects about the narratives have not changed, including society’s general anxiety about gender and markets, Amster said.
Wells has participated in the Summer Research Program for two years. He likes participating because it gives him the opportunity to earn income—student participants are paid a stipend—while being able to focus on in-depth research with professors.
The research from this project will be used as the final chapter in The Purchase of Pleasure: Representing Prostitution and the Early Modern Market, a book Amster is currently writing.
