DesertFox
03-16-2008, 06:12 PM
Faith O’Donnell is a full-time video artist and a part-time prostitute who sees herself as little different from the legions of ambitious New Yorkers who harness the Internet to hawk their corporeal assets, in her case for $500 an hour.
Ava Xi’an sells real estate on Long Island, and turned to selling herself when her father, who lacks health insurance, needed heart surgery. She started with how-to books from Amazon.com, raised her rate upon realizing it might make men treat her better, and is currently on a $45,000 weeklong “date.”
And Sally Anderson, an unapologetic feminist who advertises herself as a dominatrix with a holistic approach to pain, is available evenings after her day job at a graphic design firm, willing to travel to Boston, Baltimore or Los Angeles for the right price.
They are three young women practicing the 21st-century version of the oldest profession, inhabitants of the secret world of the high-priced call girl that was thrust into the spotlight last week when Gov. Eliot Spitzer was identified as one of 10 clients of the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. caught on a federal wiretap. None are involved in the case — though Ms. Xi’an said she interviewed with the Emperor’s Club and was turned away for lack of a modeling portfolio — but they provide a glimpse into the prostitution industry, a sprawling and rapidly growing underground universe that in the last decade has almost wholly migrated online. ...
Raised in a fancy New Jersey suburb with what she described as “very progressive parents,” Ms. Anderson started working at an S&M club in Midtown at age 18, she said. The harsh conditions — 10-hour days, with pay docked for sick days and early departures — led her to venture out on her own and to become active in the New York chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a group that works to reduce violence against prostitutes and advocates legalizing the selling of sex.
Ms. Anderson complained that news coverage of the Spitzer scandal had made prostitutes seem like damaged, depraved rag dolls. “Sex workers are people like you and me,” she said. “I’m against trafficking, but in all the years I’ve worked in the business, I’ve never met a woman who was coerced.”
She said she helped plan an event earlier this month to draw attention to the difficulties faced by prostitutes but “no one came.”
More (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/nyregion/16call.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)
Ava Xi’an sells real estate on Long Island, and turned to selling herself when her father, who lacks health insurance, needed heart surgery. She started with how-to books from Amazon.com, raised her rate upon realizing it might make men treat her better, and is currently on a $45,000 weeklong “date.”
And Sally Anderson, an unapologetic feminist who advertises herself as a dominatrix with a holistic approach to pain, is available evenings after her day job at a graphic design firm, willing to travel to Boston, Baltimore or Los Angeles for the right price.
They are three young women practicing the 21st-century version of the oldest profession, inhabitants of the secret world of the high-priced call girl that was thrust into the spotlight last week when Gov. Eliot Spitzer was identified as one of 10 clients of the Emperor’s Club V.I.P. caught on a federal wiretap. None are involved in the case — though Ms. Xi’an said she interviewed with the Emperor’s Club and was turned away for lack of a modeling portfolio — but they provide a glimpse into the prostitution industry, a sprawling and rapidly growing underground universe that in the last decade has almost wholly migrated online. ...
Raised in a fancy New Jersey suburb with what she described as “very progressive parents,” Ms. Anderson started working at an S&M club in Midtown at age 18, she said. The harsh conditions — 10-hour days, with pay docked for sick days and early departures — led her to venture out on her own and to become active in the New York chapter of the Sex Workers Outreach Project, a group that works to reduce violence against prostitutes and advocates legalizing the selling of sex.
Ms. Anderson complained that news coverage of the Spitzer scandal had made prostitutes seem like damaged, depraved rag dolls. “Sex workers are people like you and me,” she said. “I’m against trafficking, but in all the years I’ve worked in the business, I’ve never met a woman who was coerced.”
She said she helped plan an event earlier this month to draw attention to the difficulties faced by prostitutes but “no one came.”
More (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/nyregion/16call.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin)