Mainstream media's trying ever so hard to milk the Spitzer scandal for all it's worth, which naturally means exploiting the good-looking sex-worker in the mix. First it was interviews with her mother, then it was the endless drone of her mediocre music, then it was her deal to make money off the former Governor's shame by posing naked in a video and today it's the story of said deal falling to pieces because she's appeared nude on video before. I'm sure you're as shocked as I am to discover that a woman who's been a sex-worker for four years has naked images of herself floating around.

Wow. Who'd'a thunk it? Alert the media! Oh, wait, someone already did.

Spitzer call girl loses $1 mln offer over videos

"Girls Gone Wild" had offered to pay Dupre $1 million to pose nude in a magazine it plans to launch but, after discovering the old footage, the company withdrew its offer.

Personally, I don't care if Ms. Dupre makes money. Good for her if she can cut a multi-million dollar deal before the public's attention drifts back to Britney's latest psychotic break. May she enroll in the Joey Buttafuoco/John Bobbet School of Media Exploitation and prosper.

Meanwhile, though no one's discussing it, prostitution is still illegal in this country. Which means that sooner or later, Ms. Dupre is going to be arrested. Perhaps her lawyer's already cut a deal for her cooperation but the real future for Ms. Dupre is lots of legal bills and time spent talking to lawyers and judges. It will be most interesting to see just what the Feds really do with the information, and who - if any - of the clients, owners, and call-girls, will end up in jail. To me, these are the only interesting questions in this scandal. Will the Feds enforce existing sex laws and, if so, to what degree and against whom? Will all the call-girls and all the clients come up on charges along with the owners and operators of the business? Are plea-deals already in the making? And by the way, what were the Feds REALLY looking for when they wired Spitzer up tighter than a tweaker's nut sac?

I'm not hearing those questions. Instead I'm getting tabloid-style fake dribble. PR spins. Prurient interest disguised as news. The transmutation of a whore from one man's dirty secret to a nation's public sex kitten.

A few short weeks ago, she was just another young woman who worked in the sex industry. Hard-working and ambitious, with dreams of moving on some day to more spiritually meaningful pursuits. In other words, pretty much your typical call-girl/stripper/happy-ender. In my experience, sex-workers tend to be pretty nice people. Also IMX, their biggest problem is not they have sex for money but that they are so desperately misunderstood, mistreated and maligned by the general public. The stress of operating a sex business in a society which both rewards you for it financially, while punishing and insulting you publicly, is killing.

Consider this irony: as a sex-worker, you don't just hear about vigilant anti-sex prosecutors and family-values-touting pastors -- you suck their cocks.

It would be refreshing to see media use this opportunity to re-examine our country's ludicrous heritage of draconian sex laws. It would be fascinating to learn what political hijinks caused NY's governor to be wired, or to speculate on the legal repercussions. It would be nice, also, to see someone, somewhere, treat sex-workers as the socially oppressed minority they are, and to change public perception of their work to something considerably more humane and forgiving.

It's really hard to be a sex-worker. It's stressful, difficult work and the most stressful thing about it is the social hypocrisy that surrounds it. I hope Ms. Dupre can emotionally insulate herself before this collective media gang-bang unravels her young life.

March 19, 2008 in Sex and Culture | Permalink

Your Comments

Mind if I snag this for reposting? Credited, of course.

Posted by: Noel at Mar 19, 2008 9:27:40 PM

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Sure, no problem :)

Posted by: Gloria at Mar 20, 2008 1:00:59 AM

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