The Belle Epoque - On the Game Theory of Sex Blogging

So this last weekend, finally, the first and most famous bonkblogger Belle de Jour outed herself as Dr Brooke Magnanti, PhD (or was possibly neo-outed, as Paul Carr suggests)

At SXSW earler this year there was a panel on Scandals in Social Networks, hosted by Techmeme's (nee Valleywag's) Megan McCarthy. Girl with a One Track Mind's Zoe Margolis was telling her post-outing story. So now, with Belle’s ringing in my ears I realised there may be a pattern here, and started to get interested in the underlying Game Theory of what makes up a Scandal.

The payoff table seems fairly clear - a racy blog gets lots of readers but little money, a book gets paying readers but there are limits to what marketing (and thus sales) can be achieved if you are anonymous - no book tours, signings, lectures etc. But an outed, scandal grade celebrity - now that really shifts sales into another dimension.

In other words, its a fairly predictable, repeatable process, with differing outcomes based on the decisions made on how far to push it, and thus it can be modelled as a rational Game. This is fairly easy to do as a decision tree flowchart (pro/am, blog/don't blog, book/not book etc), with varying payoffs and costs at each decision point, and you can even put optimal timings in. (How long should one wait before getting outed, for example, to optimise revenues?).

(Fascinating update here - Belle pretty much confirms this in an interview with New Scientist)

So far so good - but it doesn't take long going down this line of thought before the bigger question emerges - why should anyone even find it even vaguely scandalous that a woman indulges herself with multiple males, even for cash? Its hardly news that women have wandering appetites, after all. Scratch any suburban street, biography or sociology study and you are likely to find many Dangerous Liaisons. And there is a time honoured tradition of students putting out to put themselves through college – besides, cash for services is the cornerstone of our capitalist system (and most others) anyhow, and this particular stock has been traded since the beginning of time.

Well, one traditional adage is to Follow The Money - or in this case, the Social Capital - or Makin' Whuffie by Makin Whoopee

I read something implying modern Celebrity culture - is driving changes to what constitutes "fame" - aka Whuffie - in medialand:

Welcome to the twenty-first century where the days of celebrity status are assessed by breast size, amount of marriages/divorces, and the number of tabloid covers appeared on. Long gone are the legitimate celebrities. The best of luck to you if you're trying to find a famous Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, or Lucille Ball in today's world, as it is a much-desired rarity. What has society morphed minds into? Has the media really lost control of what is deemed as newsworthy? What about global warming? The Bird Flu? When did these lose priority to Lindsay Lohan's alcohol addiction and Pamela Anderson's latest divorce?

There is something interesting in this, I'd argue that we are looking at the emergence of new definitions of what "winning" means, in that you can now make a decent income from being famous for being famous. Money comes from media attention, regardless of how its attained.

But then – I hear you ask – if its all about Whuffie, why are there so few bonkbloggers, and not so many?. Why are all those other Dangerous (ly Liaising) Housewives not blogging it all like billy-o if its such a good Whuffie generator? The answer, clearly, is that it is still considered very rational game theory not to yell to the rafters that they've been swinging from them. So, the really interesting bit about The Scandal comes from the fact that only a very small % do write about it publically.

So Scandal is therefore not a Whuffie game, Whuffie is more a result of Scandal and most players of this game still choose not to take the Whuffie. Why?

Its worth looking at that other favourite, the game theory of male vs female procreation. Sociobiologists explain the breeding game theory between our sexes as something like this:

- The optimal male strategy is to impregnate as many females as possible, and then motivate the females to bring up those offspring with as little of that male's input as possible.

- The optimal female strategy is to optimise the male gene input, and to then ensure there is sufficient (traditionally male - but watch this space) resource to bring up the offspring.

In both cases above, the male inputting the genes and the one bringing up the offspring need not be the same male. Unfortunately other bits of reproductive game theory also says that males are not particularly motivated to bring up other males' kids (most child homicide is by male partners of females with other males' children, for example - and that's true across many species, not just ours) as there is no payoff, genetically speaking, for their investment.

So the female traditionally, to ensure male resource has to either (i) stay faithful or (ii) hide the activity of her optimal gene selection activity. (Stable, Open relationships being very rare in all species)

And if option (ii) is the game being played (which is the case, statistically, in between c 20 and 30% of all relationships apparently), then a key part of option (ii) - hiding the activity - is to keep quiet about it. Hence the army of Mommybloggers out there are by and large keeping schtum on any extra-curricular schtupping.

This is Nature’s Old Game – but there are two very important modern shifts to this:

Firstly, reproductive independence - today human females can still catch and match, but – thanks to the Pill etc - not necessarily hatch. Biologically speaking this is a huge gamechange as no longer does male male input define female output.

Secondly, economic independence - in the past females required male assistance to bring up offspring safely, but this is less and less so today as more women achieve economic independence – either via work or state support.

So, looking at this emerging game board layout, I would thus hypothesize that most of the bonkbloggers do not have kids - or if they do, are single and either do not require economic aid or wish to get it independently, as that reduces the self-censorship requirements considerably. But I'd also hypothesise that even then most women would also find this strategy risky, as:

- if they are in a relationship but are also otherwise elsewhere engaged, then broadcasting it essentially removes the connection between having cake and eating it, and will in most cases guarantee loss of

- if they are not in a relationship, then publically signalling one's unwillingness to Stand By Your Man is a fairly strong tell for males - it’s a beacon for the Kiwis (eats, roots and leaves), a turnoff for the Marryin' Kind, and a no-no for any guy who suspects his one night stand will stand up, fully rated, for posterity on Posterous or Twitter etc.

In fact, listening to Zoe Margolis at SXSW both these issues came up post outing, and I suspect that - going back to the Payoff Table mentioned waaay up top - the true costs of bonkblogging are only seen way down the line and are thus not properly costed in by these particular (smalll set of) bloggers. Thus it is likely that this strategy of public disclosure will never be undertaken by more than a small % of women, though many more are engaging in it under covers, as it were.

But even so, why is it a Scandal? Why the prurient fascination with some girls writing about who comes naturally, given that they are just the tip of an iceberg? It's quite interesting looking at what makes a Scandal in sociological theory:

1. (Alleged) behaviour breaches the rules of conduct in a given community.
2. The breach becomes known and discussed beyond the limited circle of actors involved.
3. The breach cannot be ‘managed’ within existing mechanisms for redress.
4. Often, the breach calls into question existing rules of conduct OR structures of authority.

In other words a Scandal is not just about What, but is also about How The Game is Played. I would hypothesize that, in Game Theory terms, the dynamics of a Scandal can be re-written as:

1. Behaviours breach the Game Rules in a given gameboard
2. The Game Rules become known outside the community playing that game
3. Once out the box, they can't be put back, and this changes the old payoffs to the original community
4. The Game itself then starts to be questioned, which resets the payoff benefits and hurts the original players who succeeded most

To this I'd add two further hypotheses from observation, that for it to be a Really Good Scandal, then The Game in question must:

- belong to a Higher Whuffie in-crowd and give them some real advantage over the out-crowd (ie evokes a sense of being cheated in The Rest (thus firing up all our anti-cheating social adaptations* ).

- be seen as a non-optimal strategy (ie excite the rubbernecking fascination of watching a potential trainwreck)

So far so good - we know How this could be seen as potentially scandalous stuff, so Why is this particular issue so resonant. One thought is that the process of a good scandal is quite predictable, and thus it also gives us that thing all humans love - a Narrative structure that allows us to set things into context and retell it. A good Scandalous Narrative must have a:

1. Breach - 'a social drama first manifests itself as the breach of a norm, the infraction of a rule of morality, law, custom, or etiquette, in some public arena’ [Aka Game Defection]

2. Crisis - ‘… a mounting crisis follows, a momentous juncture or turning point in the relations between components of a social field. … Sides are taken, factions are formed, and … there is a tendency for the breach to widen and spread until it coincides with some dominant cleavage in … relevant social relations’.[Existing Game payoff structures are disturbed]

3. Redress - ‘certain adjustive and redressive mechanisms’ are introduced to limit the contagious spread of the breach. These range from personal advice and informal arbitration to formal legal machinery and sometimes the performance of a public ritual - victim as scapegoat. [Resetting of Game Payoff - or the promise of resetting (this may be a game in itself of course)]

4. Reintegration or schism. - ‘The final phase consists either in the reintegration of the disturbed social group … or the social recognition of irreparable breach between the contesting parties’ [New Game Rules agreed]

Fascinating how the rules of a good story and that of Scandal have strong parallels. A very good point made about a Really Good Scandal is that the Rules of the Original Game (ie the "values and norms") should not be clear initially:

values and norms are often contested features of social life, adhered to by some individuals and groups and rejected (or simply ignored) by others. Hence scandals are often rather messy affairs, involving the alleged transgression of values and norms which are themselves subject to contestation.’ (Taylor, Scandal and Social Theory)

Echoing this, on the way back from SXSW I read a fascinating book called "The Bolter", about the life of the "Between the Wars" 1920's Scandal Girl Lady Idina Sackville, who married 5 men and had scores of part time partners etc. But the thing that fascinated me was the reason why she was scandalous. Consider the scandal of her first marriage:

To set the scene, upper class Edwardian society marriages were, like M&A deals, mainly to secure todays assets tomorrow. True Lurve was a nice to have, but not essential component. Consequently it was considered quite normal that there was infidelity, so long as the heir and spare belonged to the correct husband. After that it was anybody's game, but the risk was by and large shared among the in-crowd by ensuring all further offspring were hatched within the married upper class set - ie all offspring (official, that is - there was a whole 'nother ruleset for unofficial ones) were in the extended familial system.

Idina's scandalous behaviour was essentially to actually marry for love and demand fidelity, a very new-fangled idea in that set. So when hubby started playing Edwardian away games, she eventually wanted out and divorced (via elopement- the only real way of a woman getting a quickie divorce then) said hubby when he was not prepared to only play the home fixtures.

We immediately now know why this was a Scandal

- She breached the rules by not condoning the existing cosy Edwardian (im)morality play.
- She did in it such a way as to make it very public to other lower status social groups
- Her strategy cut her off from the economic wellspring, as the elopement target was not as wealthy as said husband - not an optimal game outcome at the time at all.

She also did it at a time when the underlying "values and norms" were under great pressure. Due to the First World War, women were having to compete for far fewer men (so many men having been killed). In these situations, game theory predicts that women will have to be more competitive to win men and men will be less likely to marry them, and a win will be a fleeting win at best - so the woman will now more likely remain unmarried or frequently dumped. Today's Trophy Wives (many women chasing small numbers of very rich men) and The Underclass (many of the men are in prison / on drugs / etc so not ideal partners) are in similar Game situations.

In other words, to stand above the crowd, women had to resort to "more outrageous than thou" behaviour (hence the Roaring 20's). Also, the general shortage of men meant, for the new and unmarried debutantes in the Edwardian Upper Echelons finding a shortage of beaus, other people's husbands were increasingly fair game (and boy were they game), rattling the foundations of the previous order which pretty much demanded a wedding band as an entry stake to play the hand.

However, at the same time women had tasted economic and social independence from working during the War, so had emerged far more self confident and prepared to go for what they want. Thus Idina and her ilk are hardly unpredictable - the husbands see more candy, the wives are less prepared to let them taste it and also increasingly believe they can do better for themselves anyway, some kick the trend off – and bingo, someone has to be first starter bolting out the gate and you get Idina.

The other thing Idina did was to do it all extremely openly, necessary for The Scandal - she was a typical Celebrity of her day, so her every doing was reported in the toff red tops of the era - Tatler etc. If blogs were invented then.....

The rest of the book is fascinating as what it really describes is the trajectory of a woman just a few years ahead of a general trend curve (divorcing, remarrying, wanting independence for herself in all things including going after what and who she wanted). In other words, she was a Scandal mainly because she was an early adopter, as it were - behind her came a wave of social changes which blew away the Old Order completely.

Summing it all up, a good sex Scandal – when all is said and done – can be seen as a marker of early adoption of new social mores in the larger culture. So – are Belle de Jour, Girl with a One Track Mind etc just the early swallows in an increasing migration? It seems fairly predictable that as women's economic emancipation increases so will the frankness of their blogging and general honesty about their real feelings - but will it be perfectly normal for girls to work at being working girls for a few years in future too?

Update - I got interested in the payoff economics when a friend pointed me to the Sunday Times article which gave £200 ARPB (work it out...) and her operating 2-3 x a week, sometimes more, sometimes less, over 14 months. A quick calculation, rounding up to 200 events at £200 a go is c £40k. Thats how much you make without going public, and thats not a particular high, um, utilisation - you can see that its probably not too hard to reach 6 figures. The blog generated a column in the Telegraph, so economically probably nowher near the original activity. The next step is The Book, which allegedly had a "six figure advance" - can't get total sales, but its sold c 150,000 in 2007 alone so - assuming c £1 for the writer and several years running - its an order of magnitude above the original activity (and pays back for considerably longer). But you don't get that book selling that sort of number without the blog, I suspect.

*The game theory of cheating for humans is fascinating - we as a species really, really don't like it - numerous behavioural studies have shown we will take "irrational" actions (ones that make us poorer / get hurt / are long term destructive ) if we feel we've been cheated by someone. We prefer to cut off our nose to spite our face rather than have our noses rubbed in it. In other words, the risk of a poor (and probably unpredictable) payoff of being outed for infidelity tend to be more negative than the game player necessarily wants to face. Another reason for keeping schtum!

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