Posted on May 22, 2007 by Melissa Gira
Via Tracy Quan’s blog: her very choice quotes in this Newsday piece:
‘Other industries find loopholes in the law,” Tracy Quan was saying yesterday. “Don’t people in the sex industry have a right to interpret the law for their benefit, too?”
Well, sure, I guess. Up to a point. But does anyone really believe hundreds of Washington, D.C., power brokers were paying the so-called “DC Madam” $300 an hour just for conversation and a nice massage?
The minute I heard this talk, I knew I’d soon be needing guidance from Tracy Quan. Not so long ago, Tracy was one of New York’s most sought-after call girls. She’s an accomplished writer now, working some of the very same titillating terrain. Her latest best-selling novel, “Diary of a Married Call Girl” is out now and being translated into various foreign languages.
Tracy and I met professionally, I like to say – during the course of business in my profession, not hers. So whenever the sex business bursts into the news, she’s my tour guide of choice.
“I know a lot of people have been asking,” she told me straight off, “‘Can this really be an innocent, chaste thing?’ It can be. But that’s not the real issue here. The story just confirms what we’ve always known about the sex business: It’s 20 percent sex and 80 percent business.”
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Posted on May 22, 2007 by Melissa Gira
Carol Queen gives a stirring rundown of dealing with anti-prostitution blog commenters who conveniently forget to leave a proper email address when telling sex workers they know nothing about sex work:
Oh please, “ohplease.” I’d hoped to have a useful little dialogue with you. But, so like the many web-masked commentators who fuel their bad manners with anonymity, not to mention strew apostrophes all over like cat hair on a black sweater, you worked it out so I can’t even communicate back.
That’s so cheesy.
Well, tell you what. I dare you to reply to my question above and give us the skinny on your experience with the sex industry. It may be that you know whereof you speak (though that would be, in my experience, fairly unusual, I’m very willing to entertain the possibility).
Speaking of entertaining, the reason that I feel empowered to speak up about this is that I was a ***gasp!*** prostitute. For about ten years. I worked with madams (not pimps, “ohplease,” those are the ones with the hats). And if YOU worked as one too and had a different experience than I did, I would be thrilled to open the pages of my blog for a little discussion. But not with the “Can’t touch this” communication ethos of somebody whose communication style verges on flamery.
So since you won’t communicate with me, guess I’ll just have to communicate with you.
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