Hello, World
What if I told you that at UCLA, there are enough prostitutes on campus to comprise an entire lecture hall? Not just one of those smaller, major-specific lecture halls, but one of the huge ones characteristic of a G.E. class? A little bit hard to believe, right?
Well, believe it. Just the other day, as I did everything I could possibly do on my laptop other than follow along with the Powerpoint presentations in the middle of a lecture for a $4,500 class, I came across an article on KTLA about the recent increase in sugar babies on Southern California college campuses. Sounds like a relatively sweet and cutesy topic, doesn't it? I mean, "sugar babies" just sounds like another nickname for sorority girls or college co-eds in general, something like "house bunnies."
Well, for those of you who don't know, "sugar babies" is actually the name given to girls who seek to be the beneficiaries of sugar daddies. Of course, we're all grown and privy to what sugar daddies are: men who are more than happy to spread the wealth among the less fortunate. And by less fortunate, we're not talking about the people we'd find on Skid Row here. We're talking about gold diggers - really hot, young gold diggers.
This particular article described how a survey of an escort website, Seeking Arrangement, revealed that of the universities here in Southern California, UCLA had the most sugar babies of all with 180 young women willing to provide men with "companionship" for anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 per month. USC came in second with 70 students signed up, UC Riverside third with 69, UC Irvine fourth with 64, and Cal State Northridge came in fifth with 59.
Considering that my baby sister is currently a Bruin, this fact did not sit well with me. Thankfully, I know her well enough to say without any doubt in my mind that she isn't one of the 180. Still, I've visited her enough times to see that UCLA is the typical college campus, with incredibly intelligent people who are there for a world-class education, yet still like to let loose every once in a while at the occasional frat party. However, that's a far cry from prostitution. Sugarcoat it with whatever cutesy name you want, but let's be frank here and call sugar babies for what they are: prostitutes. And considering there's 180 students enrolled on SeekingArrangement.com (enough for that large lecture hall I previously mentioned), I couldn't help but to wonder if any of my sister's friends or even roommates could possibly be one of these sugar babies.
When you think of college, you don't think of prostitutes, right? Well, hopefully you don't, even after reading everything I just wrote above. You think of the young, ambitious, wide-eyed pupil, ambivalent about the next four years but excited to enjoy newfound freedom. Conversely, when you think of prostitutes, you don't think of college, right? Your mind instantly flashes to the crack whore you've seen all too often on the occasional Cops or Law and Order shows, the ones with dirty hair, ripped fishnets, and a face full of smeared makeup. To think that these two worlds could collide was mind-blowing. And it had me thinking, what else about prostitutes do I not know? I mean, it's only the oldest profession in the book; surely it hasn't been prevalent in every time period, region, and culture in solely the form of the crack addict on the corner, as illustrated by past royal mistresses and concubines.
Prostitution is such a taboo topic. All we'd like to know of it is that it exists, it makes for great television (especially when the cops set up those intense sting operations), and we and the people we love are not involved in it. That's as far as we'd like to know about it. Yet, how do we explain the doctors, priests, and teachers who somehow always manage to get caught during these sting operations? How do we explain why such a taboo topic is the oldest profession in the book? And lastly, how do we explain the participation of so many individuals, ultimately allowing prostitution to have persisted throughout these countless years?
As you'll come to find out, prostitution doesn't purely exist in the form of the local crack whore. Like these sugar babies at UCLA, USC, and UCR seeking financial assistance for college tuition, prostitution is a web in which countless lives, stories, and motives are entangled.
It isn't every day that I come across blogs even anywhere close to being similar to mine. Maybe it's because there's not too many new things to learn about sex; maybe sex is too much of a taboo topic for the general public. I mean, I have to admit that I probably wouldn't visit a site on sex every day. Can you imagine how awkward that would be if a co-worker glanced over and I was casually scrolling down a site filled with not pictures of Kim Kardashian out and about, but instead with all kinds of NSFW images? Actually, now that I think about it, half the things that Kim K wears can probably be categorized as borderline NSFW, but that's besides the point.
So imagine my surprise when I came across a blogger who seemed to be just as interested in the workings of the sex industry as I am.
The Sex Carnival touches on prostitution as I do, but doesn't discuss sex workers as much as she profiles them by shamelessly plastering escorts and porn stars all over the side of her blog (I bet if you hadn't yet clicked on the blog, you will now just to see those pictures). Rather than simply profiling the sex workers, I intend to instead discuss their motivations and methods, and I think this particular blog would definitely help to remind me of all the different aspects of the sex industry beyond just prostitutes.
The blogger, Viviane Tang, appears to have had that blog for several years, and in that amount of time, she's amassed a massive amount of posts on the industry, especially since she posts every week or so. She states that she writes for her friends, most of whom are "sex geeks" and "techies", but she appears to be reaching more than just her friends, considering that her blog was one of a few to have received an award from CineKink. Many in the sex world recognize Tang for her celebration and encouragement of sex positive culture, as apparent by her endless links to erotica
literature and
events which teach readers and attendees to embrace and be more open with their sexuality. I almost can't believe there are so many events on sexuality, but then I remember the time I worked at a Hilton and saw a woman in full-on leather gear walking a man who had an apple in his mouth and a spiked collar around his neck through the lobby during a week-long dominatrix conference at the hotel.
Tang's posts are not as detailed as I would like them to be, but then again, as I mentioned, I wouldn't go too in-depth either if I was writing every week for more than five years. She mostly links to book or movie launches,
film festivals, release parties, and
interactive workshops, then provides a little bit of commentary at the very end. In that sense, her writing isn't so much scholarly or academic as it is professional and straightforward, since she seeks to inform her readers about the events taking place within the sex industry rather than discussing or analyzing the industry itself.
I know if I was a bored housewife who wanted to let out the freak in me every now and then, I would definitely follow Tang's blog, and I think that's who Tang primarily targets with her posts. Her blog is directed at the woman who wants to explore her sexuality and allow herself to fantasize a bit, all the while having a significant amount of free time to indulge in erotica media and attend different events. Who better than a housewife in that case? I'm sure we've all seen just how much middle-aged women's hormones can rage in a couple episodes of Desperate Housewives and Bravo's Real Housewives, and believe me, they could use something like The Sex Carnival to settle them down a bit.
Voice Critique
There are times I ache for honest writing. Not simply truthful writing, but rather the kind of writing that conveys the absolute honest emotions of the author. The kind of writing that makes me raise an eyebrow and think to myself, "Wow, tell me how you really feel." Many bloggers, including myself, tend to have too much of an academic voice for the sake of readability and political correctness. We risk both sounding like a rambling fool in addition to losing our audience if we become too honest for our own sake. Imagine a blog from Rush Limbaugh, for example.
The difficulty of maintaining a perfect balance between a well-written blog and honesty is how I knew I had found treasure when I stumbled across
The Prostitution Experience. The author, a former prostitute known only as FreeIrishWoman, writes so well that I can't help but wonder when she found time between her appointments to pursue higher education, because it's obvious that this can't be some high school graduate writing here. Yet her advanced, academic-style writing doesn't take away from the fact that she is definitely a sex worker. You know how I can tell? She describes her experiences and expresses her emotions in such a way that only prostitutes can, in a way that neither you nor I can even attempt to imagine. Don't believe me? Try eliciting in yourself the same hatred for johns - or punters, as they say in the U.K. - that FreeIrishWoman conveys in this
post:
I met many of you. So many. Too many. And I always wondered about you. I wondered, how could you justify this to yourself? How could you tell yourself – and believe it – that I was happy to have strangers’ fingers, penises and tongues shoved into the most private parts of me? How did you convince yourself that I’d be happy about something you’d never, in your wildest nightmares, wish on your own daughter? I wondered, most of all, how could you look at me and not see me?
Let me tell you who you are: you are the ‘good’ punter. You’re the man who has a laugh with the woman you’re buying. You’re the man who strokes her hair. You ask her how her day’s been. How she’s feeling. Why she’s doing this. Did you ever think to ask that of yourself?
You are the ‘good’ punter. If you see a bruise on her you’ll ask if she’s okay. Is anybody treating her violently? Yes. Many men are. Go in the bathroom. You’ll find one above the sink.
I can see you now. You are the ‘good’ punter. You’ve got your fists shoved in your ears. You are the ‘good’ punter. And you don’t want to hear.
Her assertion that she has met "many of you" effectively groups the different kinds of people who have paid for her services altogether. They are not individuals with their own life stories, but rather all johns, all similar to one another in their characteristics and behaviors. She could have also simply said that she has met many johns, but the fact that she instead goes on to state that she has met "many, so many, too many" turns that statement into a negative one and allows us to safely assume that she harbors a deep resentment and disdain toward them.
The paragraph in which she asks a series of questions about how the johns can do things to her that they would never want anyone to do to their daughters makes her come across as someone who wants to be heard, who wants others to truly understand and empathize with her pain. Not the pain that her johns think she's in because of her profession, but rather the pain that they are personally inflicting on her by paying for her services and motivating her to stay in that profession. FreeIrishWoman wants readers to really catch on to the hypocrisy of her johns, so she further repeats the term "'good' punter" throughout her passage to emphasize her point. Putting quotes around the word "good" hints that she doesn't actually think the johns are moralistic beings, as they so often think of themselves as being just because they take the time to "ask her how her day's been", "how she's feeling", "why she's doing this", and therefore the usage of the quotes successfully casts light on how ironic it is that these men are expressing their concern for her, yet exploiting her all in the same breath.
In another
post, FreeIrishWoman speaks on how ashamed she is about the fact that she willingly accepts dirty money in exchange for sex:
Oftentimes it is small incidents that call us back, and it is strange how things that would appear of zero relevence to an observer can be those that draw us back so forcibly as to cause tension, anxiety, and sometimes reactions that are simply emotionally violent.
Had there been a fly on the wall of my hotel room this afternoon (assuming it was a thinking fly, that could observe, process and reason) it would have heard a tremble in my voice, a hesitation, something that maybe sounded like confusion, and it most likely would have put that down to social awkwardness, and thought no more, and moved on.
I heard all those things in my own voice, but I know, as the speaker, that there was something up with where those words were coming from. They were coming from a place of deep discomfort. I was sincerely awkward, not quite embarrassed but getting there; I was mildly panicked, in the sense of trying to squirm away from the situation I was in.
How is it that I can loan money, or gift money, without a thought, but it is always, to some degree or other, a traumatising experience to accept it? The situation was this: I had been invited to speak at a conference in New York, and my understanding was that my travel expenses would be met. I took this to mean my flights and accommodation, but this morning, on my leaving, the woman who coordinated the event called my hotel room and wanted to know how much I had spent on food and transportation. How much had my taxis cost? How much had I spent on my meals? I felt something rise up in me that could be best described as defensiveness. It didn't matter, I told her. It wasn't much. Forget about it.
When I put the phone down I began to question myself. Why had that been difficult for me? Why had it been so awkward any of the many other times it had happened? What was it about accepting money that made living in my very skin so squeamishly uncomfortable for me?
Bingo. There it was. Yes – I get it now.
Jesus… sometimes the answer is so obvious it makes the question ridiculous.
The wordy paragraphs followed by two simple straight-to-the-point sentences which exist as short paragraphs themselves serve to illustrate the magnitude of those two statements. She was rambling and couldn't understand her own thoughts and actions, but the two singular sentence shed light on her moment of clarity, when she finally understands why it has always been so difficult for her to accept money. Furthermore, the series of long-winded questions followed by short fragmented answers shows that FreeIrishWoman has finally come to a realization. The entire passage is reminiscent of her real life. After years of searching for the answer, as represented by the long series of questions, she has finally arrived at point of realization and comprehension, as illustrated by the simply-worded fragments.
Each post, although touching on different aspects of prostitution, all succeed in expressing her honest emotions. The way she explains herself through long paragraphs yet cuts straight to the point with specific simple sentences readily conveys her anger and disdain. Her voice stays consistent throughout, conveying to her audience just how much she despises her job, is disappointed with herself, and resents her clients.
I completely feel her pain through her writing, and if I ever even considered selling my body for money, any possibility of that has completely gone out the window, along with my previous $25,000 requirement for a sexual encounter. That price tag has gone way up; you can thank FreeIrishWoman's descriptions of her johns. Their characteristics and behaviors, the things they force her to do, the fact that they have helped make her life miserable all contribute to the overall message of the blog, which is that prostitution is a necessary evil. FreeIrishWoman wouldn't wish it on her worst enemy, but at the same time, prostitution has allowed her to maintain a specific standard of life.
FreeIrishWoman's writing style lends the perfect voice to the moral dilemma between money and self-dignity. Her voice both contrasts and complements the subject matter of the blog, depending on how people perceive prostitution. For some, such as sugar babies who see it as an easy way to pay for tuition and johns who see it as a win-win situation in which they can receive pleasure while pros can make quick money, prostitution is viewed as a positive thing. Therefore, FreeIrishWoman's obvious hatred for the profession would contrast with their perceptions of prostitution. For others who see prostitution in a negative light, however, FreeIrishWoman's voice would perfectly confirm and complement their points of view.
