Farley’s methodology

(To start out with, I just wanted to thank Stacey Swimme for the inviting me to have the privilege of guest blogging here.)

The scientific reliability of Farley’s findings are open to question. Its something she’s been called on before in this critique by sociologist Ronald Weitzer (2005):

What about Farley’s own research procedures? Much is left opaque. In one study, Farley and Barkan (1998) interviewed street prostitutes in San Francisco. No indication is given of the breadth or diversity of their sample, or the method of approaching people on the street. In another study, Farley, Baral, Kiremire, and Sizgin (1998) interviewed workers in several countries: In Turkey, they interviewed 50 women who were brought to a hospital by the police for the purpose of venereal disease control; in Zambia, they interviewed 117 women at an organization that offers support services to prostitutes; in Thailand, respondents were interviewed on the street, in a beauty parlor, and in an organization offering support services; in South Africa, people were interviewed on the street, in brothels, and at a drop-in center. No information is provided as to how these locations were selected, or whether alternative locations were rejected for some reason. We know that people accessed at agencies providing services are likely to be particularly distressed. Finally, though Farley lists the topics covered in the interviews, none of the actual questions is presented. It is especially important to know the exact wording of questions, especially on this topic, because question wording may skew the answers.

Farley reports (in the “Methods” sections of her various papers, for example, here) that she uses a combination of “structured interviews” and questionnaires to elicit information from her subjects. However, the raw findings are not reported, but rather, Farley distillation of those findings. Thus, when we are confronted with statements like “92 percent stated that they wanted to leave prostitution” (an answer that’s open to some interpretation, in any event), we have no idea exactly what question or questions were asked and whether there this was subject to interpretation by Farley. Nor do we have any idea as to how Farley chooses her interview subjects. The findings may or may not be valid, but there’s a lack of transparency in her methods that casts doubt upon them. And in the case of Farley’s Nevada report, the fact that the thing is self-published would seem to indicate that there’s been no independent peer-review of this study, a fact that does not speak well for it. (Barbara Brents review makes clear that this work contains many of the same flaws that her earlier work did.)

(I also recommend having a look at this comment (scroll down to the reply dated “Saturday at 8:17 PM”) by Jill Brenneman regarding her experiences with Farley back when she was still in the same “camp” as Farley. The comments on how Farley would elicit information and coach ex-prostitutes on their statements are very illuminating.)

One method of evaluating Farley’s findings is simply to compare them to the findings of other researchers who have done similar work. As it happens, other researchers have had entry into Nevada’s legal brothels and paint a picture a much more nuanced (if not entirely rosy) picture of Nevada brothel work. Notably, Kate Hausbeck and Barbara Brents have published a number of journal on the topic and are in the process of coming out with a book of their own on the topic, “The State of Sex: The Nevada Brothel Industry”. Also, Alexa Albert, who recently published an ethnography titled “Brothel: Mustang Ranch and Its Women“.

That Farley seems to have a knack for coming up with a litany of horrors not reported by other researchers, combined with the lack of transparency in her methodology raises questions as to how much Farley’s findings represent the ugly truth about prostitution and how much, as has been said about Margaret Mead, is a talent for finding what she wants to find.