Swinger economics and pricing in platform markets

I was interested to read this week this 2010 article by Fabio D’Orlando (Università di Cassino, Italy) on swinger economics (ungated earlier version here), published in the Journal of Socio-Economics. The article is exactly what you would expect from the title - it's on the economics of swinging in Italy. It's mostly a theoretical paper (there's not a lot of available data on swinging behaviour), but this bit in a footnote caught my attention, given the discussion we have in ECONS102 on platform (or two-sided) markets:

Another matter of theoretical interest could be the organization of the market, with particular reference to the supply of services for swingers. These services take the form of structures (in many cases, firms) which allow swingers to meet together, both furnishing (virtual) platforms by means of which couples advertise themselves and their wishes to get in touch with other swingers, and furnishing (physical) places in which couples can have sexual intercourse with other couples or single males in a reasonably secure environment. The way these structures operate implies network externalities and can be examined in the logic of two-sided markets... Generally, an access fee is charged for both single males and couples when joining the club, and this fee is higher for singles, lower for couples. Thereafter, single males pay high usage fees for each entry in the club, whereas couples pay discounted rates or enter the club free. It is therefore in the club owner’s interest to have the greatest possible number of single males entering the club. The problem is, and here is the two-sided aspect, that couples generally dislike situations in which there are too many single males: so, if the number of single males admitted rises over a certain level, fewer couples enter the club; and with the decrease in the number of couples also the interest (and willingness to pay) of single males to access the club decreases. Summarizing, the willingness of single males to pay depends positively on the number of couples present in the club; the willingness of couples to pay (or enter the club) depends negatively on the number of single males present in the club; and the owner’s profit depends positively on the number of single males present. These circumstances lead club owners to particular strategies, the most common being to pay prostitutes and their partners to pretend to be swinger couples, thereby increasing the couples/single males ratio in the club.

A platform (or two-sided market) exists where a firm brings together two sides of the market (e.g. buyer and seller), both of whom benefit by the existence of the platform, and both of whom may (or may not) have to pay to have access to the platform. In this case, it isn't buyers and sellers but couples (and single males), and the platform is the swingers club. The club owners face a trade-off though, because the more profitable sub-market for the club owner (single males) deters the other sub-market (couples), and it is access to the couples that the single males demand. So, without planting 'fake couples' in the club (as noted in the last sentence of the quote above), the profit-maximising swingers club owner would have to set the price for single males high enough to reduce their numbers in order to attract couples, but not so high that it deters too many of the profitable single males from paying for access to the club. Pricing in the real world is hard!