Melissa Farley Get a Life!

I mostly don’t care what Melissa Farley thinks, I know that her position is weak and illogical. But her opinion piece opens with a question that I’d very much like to address:

WHAT do we know about the woman Gov. Eliot Spitzer allegedly hired as a prostitute? She was the one person he ignored in his apology. What is she going through now? Is she in danger from organized crime because of what she knows? Is anyone offering her legal counsel or alternatives to prostitution?

What we know about Kristen is that she was able to walk into a room with a man, take over 4K from him and STILL INSIST ON SAFE SEX. Hmmm, Kristen must be a very confident, intelligent woman who respects herself. Kristen is a hero. She understands that the quality of an intimate sexual experience does not have to be compromised by safe sex. KRISTEN could probably give young women some good ideas about setting sexual boundaries and communicating about them.

She doesn’t need an apology from him- not in the sense that Farley is suggesting. He needs to have some balls and say that he made a decision to employ the services of a woman with whom he enjoys spending time and he’s sorry for all involved that they’re in the public eye. He ought to thank, not apologize to her.

Her purpose, as a man who knew patiently explained, is “renting” out an organ for 10 minutes.

How does she justify objectifying language like this? We are not fractured and damaged beings as she repeatedly claims. Since when is ‘a man who knew’ a legitimate source of information?

Whose theory is it that prostitution is victimless? It’s the men who buy prostitutes who spew the myths that women choose prostitution, that they get rich, that it’s glamorous and that it turns women on.

Um, to many of the women who do it, that’s not just a theory. Do their voices matter at all? Unlike you, Ms. Farley, we actually have some experience to base our perspective on and we understand the realities of the sex industry better than you ever will because your perspective is limited to theory- ours is reality.

Do you actually believe that women are so incapable and ignorant that men have programmed us into announcing to the world that we like what we do and we don’t want jail and we don’t want diversion programs. We do want access to health and education resources so that all sex workers have the agency to make informed decisions without risk of economic coercion. Yeah, the men brainwashed that into us.

But most women in prostitution, including those working for escort services, have been sexually abused as children, studies show. Incest sets young women up for prostitution — by letting them know what they’re worth and what’s expected of them. Other forces that channel women into escort prostitution are economic hardship and racism.

I would really be thrilled to read any of your research or research supporting your argument that has been peer-reviewed and has sound investigation methods. Still waiting…

Economic and race issues are always relevant when discussing the sex industry. The Eliot Spitzer story does not play into the traditional stereotypes. Which is good in most ways and has some major downsides…. exclusion and a glossing over of the issues involved with the practical enforcement of prostitution laws, etc. This case did not surface because of a traditional prostitution bust. This was about him specifically. Keeping prostitution illegal will always create a tool for political maneuvering. However, this has given the public an opportunity to look at a new angle of the industry that it was pretty much completely ignored before. And if all of us, in all levels of the industry, don’t start saying something, the media and Farley will continue to speak for us. So perhaps this is a critical point for the industry, can this be a situation that sparks new alliances and awareness among a more economically diverse group of sex workers?

The Emperor’s Club often required that the women provide sex twice an hour. One woman who was wiretapped indicated that she couldn’t handle that pressure.

As often noted by sex workers, myself included, this work isn’t for everybody. Some women enjoy stripping but would never do prostitution, some women enjoy prostitution but are too shy to get on stage in dance clubs. The point is- we need to be free to select the situations that we choose to work in, to have a legal environment that does not criminalize our right to COMMUNICATE (because, after all, that IS the only difference between the pro’s- pre-nups included- and non-pro’s) about those boundaries. If you can’t do it twice in an hour, that isn’t the right agency for you- find another one. Or better yet- work for yourself.

Telephone operators at the Emperor’s Club criticized one of the women for cutting sessions with buyers short so that she could pick up her children at school. “As a general rule,” one said, “girls with children tend to have a little more baggage going on.”

Again, this is an issue of choice. A professional is responsible for her schedule. If the schedule is not flexible enough for her, she needs to be able to work elsewhere (or for herself!)- not get out of prostitution. Sex work enables many mothers to afford their monthly expenses while still spending as much time as possible with their children. She needs to have choices within sex work. Limiting the public perspective on sex work to these extremes- either the rarest high-end situation or the saddest of poverty-stricken situations- prevents people from understanding the true nature of the work and associated circumstances that can limit one’s ability to choose.

Whether the woman is in a hotel room or on a side street in someone’s car, whether she’s trafficked from New York to Washington or from Mexico to Florida or from the city to the suburbs, the experience of being prostituted causes her immense psychological and physical harm. And it all starts with the buyer.

*Yawn* Okay, yeah, it’s all because of the natural biological human sex drive which women are expected to suppress and men are supposed to lie about. It makes perfect sense, it’s like how breathing creates air pollution.