U.S. Spent $384,000 to Study Peruvian Brothels

In 1979, the National Institute of Mental Health spent $97,000 – $384,000 in 2022 dollars – to fund a study that examined behavior and social relationships in Peruvian brothels.

Sen. William Proxmire, a Democrat from Wisconsin, awarded the National Institute of Mental Health his Golden Fleece Award for this unnecessary project.

The study consisted of a researcher and his associate spending 18 months in Peru. Proxmire said that the researchers kept going back to the brothel in the interests of accuracy.

As part of their research, they interviewed 21 prostitutes, as well as brothel staff members, both formally and informally. They also observed prostitutes outside the brothel and visited the brothel at random times throughout the day to “obtain a good idea of its everyday functioning.”

The researcher also studied ethnicity and social structures in Peru during his trip.

The researcher that obtained this funding published a book just before this excursion titled “Academic Gamesmanship,” which taught researchers how to obtain government funding for projects, and some parts of the book suggest he was teaching readers how to game the system, Proxmire said.

For example, he writes, “In addition to paying part of your basic salary, grants will typically also give you an extra two months of summer salary. You can finance numerous jaunts to domestic and international conferences out of your research money without having to… justify your trip by reading a paper.” He even encourages his readers to look into tax exemptions for extended research.

Aside from this project being unnecessary for the government to fund, it is sad that the NIMH wasted money on this project, when it could have gone to substantial mental health research that could have helped Americans battling mental illness.

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