Goddammit
Fucking mainstream media. Oh, who am I kidding, why be so specific… fucking mainstream society.
The MSNBC request came through Seal Press, the publisher of Naked on the Internet. I said I would talk to the show’s producer and possibly do the show if I could talk about sex worker rights, politics, and trafficking. They were casting for someone who had been a sex worker to talk about the mechanics of hiring a prostitute, and the producer I talked to point blank asked me the question that is the title of this post, though then he quickly backtracked and said, “I’m sorry if I’m not using the right terminology,” and I told him that no indeed he was not. When asked if I have had sex for money, I told him I had been a fetish worker and sensual masseuse (I’ve briefly been an escort too, though for a fraction of the time of the other jobs) – which seemed to disappoint him, and he said things like, “So you weren’t a real… you didn’t have sex…”
MSNBC was only interested in having a woman who had been a prostitute talk about the mechanics of hiring a sex worker – a little salacious how-to on national television, gotta love it. They told me flat out that they weren’t interested in discussing the political interests of sex workers or the issues around sex trafficking as it is today. And while I am not ashamed that I was a sex worker, and I know sound bites are short and cannot be anywhere near as complicated as my shit is, I don’t want to be MSNBC’s whore on television. It does nothing for me personally and nothing for the movement I’m part of for me to be boiled down to the essence of “will fuck for cash. here’s how.”
I may have to ignore the internet tomorrow just so I don’t stumble onto blogs/tweets/etc. talking about the Spitzer thing. Because I just can’t fucking take the stupidity and the teeming assholes anymore.
Absolute props to Dacia for refusing to take the bait and becoming a foil for the “mainstream media”.
As for the Spitzer deal: Well, it seems that it’s not just right-wing Republicans who get caught with their pants down, isn’t it?? It’s not just an issue of right-wing hypocrisy any more, isn’t it?? Turns out that even nominally liberal Democrats can be just as suspectable to following their dicks and paying for sex as the average wealthy politician. Only difference, though, is that in our hypocritical and sex-negative society, they are the ones who get exposed and suffer the political consequences.
Of course, the women whom Mr. Spitzer paid for his own sexual satisfaction won’t be so lucky to escape merely with a shattered political career and a broken marriage…they will probably be placed under the jail…unless they can be used by the “mainstream media” for quick ratings by “revealing” how awful and terrible their experience was.
In the end, it’s nobody’s damn business if a politician goes to a prostitute to pay for sex…and their political affiliation doesn’t matter worth a Goddess damn to me.
This is just one more reason why decriminalization of sex work can’t come a moment too soon for me. It’s past time we ended this hypocritical bullshit game.
Anthony
Anthony, the thing that bugs me is, the issue here is NOT the salacious details of prostitution, but the HYPOCRISY. Spitzer prosecuted many prostitution cases, and now he is exposed as being a client himself. It’s just like politicians who campaign for anti-gay policies and then are exposed as being gay themselves.
And you are so right, he’ll get off with a relative slap on the wrist while the women whose services he paid for will get far worse, and will go largely unacknowledged by the media except as objects to be used for their own benefit. Hmm, now where is the exploitation, again…?