Comments on: It’s worse

By: Mnemosyne

Mnemosyne — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:49:18 +0000

If you could live comfortably or even lavishly on a few hours of work per month, and you didn’t mind sex work and relatively low-risk law-breaking, wouldn’t you sign up?

Not if it means that the job is short-term and completely dependent on my continuing at a certain level of youth and physical fitness. It’s the same reason I wouldn’t be a professional athlete: you have a very short window in which to make a living, the risk of injury is quite high, and once your playing days are over, you have very few other ways to make a living, so you’d better hope you saved every penny of what you made. And being a professional athlete is completely legal, so you don’t even have to worry about being arrested for doing it.

By: Jasi

Jasi — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 18:39:33 +0000

@Hot: I get that sex work sounds like an easy way to make a lot of money, but for lots of people it’s not worth it. As for education and empowerment, I see stories everyday, hear about girls dragged and lured into the sex industry. A good bit see that there’s no option out once you’re in, and even more are runaways with no where to go. Granted, some may be debs or just in it for the fun, but most are exploited. I think educating these particular women gives them more options. I think overall empowering women to feel as though they are not a commodity couldn’t hurt either.

By: bmc90

bmc90 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 17:05:39 +0000

Hot, I can go talk to my husband’s patients any time and I certainly hear plenty about their lives. Your question was would YOU sign up and my answer is no. If you are saying I should go interivew women who turn one trick a month with George Clooney and live on Fifth Avenue before I make my decision, I think I can just go rent Pretty Woman instead. Both are equally far afield from how most sex workers live and work.

By: nina

nina — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:36:16 +0000

By: Hot Tramp

Hot Tramp — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:28:34 +0000

If someone with his power gets angry at you, it seems incredibly likely you’d just disappear one day and again, who is going to go looking for you or even know of your connection with your johns until you have been very dead for a long time and his tracks have been well covered.

Oh, come on. This is not a Law & Order: SVU episode.

As for who will go looking for you — I don’t know, maybe your family, your friends, your (non-paying) lovers, your regular clients who are fond of you? Sex workers aren’t all isolated, powerless, and disposable. The high-end ones especially.

If you actually care about the wellbeing of sex workers, you might want to learn more about them. They aren’t all victims. And understanding that will help you focus on helping the ones who are.

By: Marksman2000

Marksman2000 — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 02:04:14 +0000

I feel for his wife.

Not only does she deal with the disappointment and anger–she’s publicly humilated.

My sister married a piece of shit like Spitzer. Cocky, arrogant, Holier-than-thou asshole is what he is. And I’m happy he’s sinking. I just hope that all people who live this way ultimately get what they have coming to them.

By: Amanda Marcotte

Amanda Marcotte — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:12:14 +0000

I’m still shocked that a man who is the terror of Wall Street didn’t realize that the second a teller put a suspicious activity flag on the account, that was going straight up to management and then over to the government. It’s not just the moral issues that blow my mind. It’s the appalling lack of judgment.

By: Iamcuriousblue

Iamcuriousblue — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:25:01 +0000

Since this hasn't been linked to already, I just wanted to provide a link to Bound, Not Gagged, which is having some pretty excellent blogging on the Spitzer scandal and the issues surrounding it. In depth, and a refreshing break from the Great Morality of Sex Work Debate typical of the feminist blogosphere.

By: bmc90

bmc90 — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:49:21 +0000

Hot, um – no, I would not sign up. I guess your premise is “you don’t mind sex work,” and I do personally so perhaps I’m too biased to pretend to accept your premise. However, even if in theory some sex work nirvana with great working conditions actually exists, I doubt this call service was it. The wiretap conversation sounded like Spitzer was negotiating to not use a condom. Once a prostitute is alone with him, what exact recourse does she have if he refuses to do so then? He doesn’t get his damage deposit back? Call the cops? If he’s with a lot of prostitutes I’d consider this a one way ticket to an incurable disease. If someone with his power gets angry at you, it seems incredibly likely you’d just disappear one day and again, who is going to go looking for you or even know of your connection with your johns until you have been very dead for a long time and his tracks have been well covered. Your pimp is not going to run file a mission persons report or bother to come see you in the ICU (I take that back – pimps do that at the hospital where my husband works – he has caught them having sex in bathrooms with their girls – glamorous, huh – and after one of her johns RAN OVER HER WITH A CAR). If this call service generally delt with the super powerful and rich who are used to getting what they want and have no compunction about doing something illegal, I’d be afraid. Very afraid. To go to work.

By: Shankar Gupta

Shankar Gupta — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:25:22 +0000

I’m not going to share my schadenfreude over the fall of Eliot Spitzer here, since I doubt it would be appreciated, but I did want to take issue with this part of the post:

And money laundering is a far more serious crime for a government official than paying for sex.

Money laundering isn’t really a “serious crime”–it was invented in the 1970s to try to find more reasons to fine/imprision people who had even the most slight connection to the drug trade. They’re very popular among law enforcement, because they usually get to seize the “proceeds,” which means more money and bigger budgets for them, but very rarely are the big bad guys caught by money laundering laws.