Posted on by Amanda Brooks

send a friend to north korea

Blake Stilwell is a pen-pal friend of mine. He introduced me to Slaughterhouse Five. He’s a very sweet, very interesting and bright young man who has been honored with the opportunity of a trip to North Korea. He’s gotten a Kickstarter page going, so check it out for details on his trip and why it’s important. (He does not have actual children, he is in charge of a frat-house.) As a side note, he’s also a longtime microfinance contributor, participating through Kiva.

He needs to raise the funds to go to North Korea, being that he’s a grad student and all. There’s a slim possibility he can still go even if the funds aren’t raised, but he will be swimming and his arms will be really tired by the time he gets there. Yes, I’ve pledged funds to him privately. I’d like to send Blake behind the bamboo curtain. He deserves daily servings of kimchi.

He has until June 30 to get his fundraising done.

Note: edited to protect Blake from raised eyebrows (not his).

UPDATE: Blake raised the funds he needs to go — thanks in large part to the readers here. He’s leaving in August. I’m very excited for him! It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience for any American.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

love em or leave em

I’ve watched several addicting episodes of Love It or List It. The show features a couple who are unhappy with their home. They discuss wishes, desires, the need for improvement, etc. The male star of the show is a real estate agent and tries to find a new house that the couple will love, while the female star is a decorator who remodels their current home so they fall in love with it all over again. At the end of the show the couple chooses whether to stay in their house or list it and move to the new one they chose.

I’d love to see this concept done with marriage: improve the spouses while they go dating for a better one. At the end of the show, see if they’re going to stay together or not. How can you possibly ask for more reality-TV drama?

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

national geographic: sex for sale

Some of you are aware that I appeared on a National Geographic documentary that first aired in February. Now the rest of you are aware. Once again, my brush with mainstream media is generally negative. Eventually I’ll learn.

natgeo 2009

NatGeo spoke to me in April 2009 about appearing on their Taboo series. One of their episodes was going to cover sex work. Though I spoke for 90 minutes on the phone with Kate Witchard and emailed with her, they decided not to use me. This was right before I was beginning my travels and I pitched the idea to her, but she told me National Geographic wasn’t interested in following a working escort around the world.

Utter waste of time. I don’t take kindly to having my brain picked for free. (Shortly after, someone whom I suspect was producing the Belle de Jour series wanted to do that too so I quoted a price and never heard back.)

natgeo 2012

Last summer I was approached by NatGeo again. I was not interested. Daniele Anastasion, the producer, assured me this was a stand-alone documentary focusing on the US and the legal issues surrounding prostitution. After back and forth emails, I agreed to a 5 minute phone call that turned into 45. It seemed okay and I agreed to it. Of course they weren’t going to pay me a dime. (It’s a documentary! They wouldn’t do something so icky as pay for interviews!) No makeup provided either. But it seemed like it would be intelligent. It’s National Geographic, after all.

We settled on a shooting date. They weren’t thrilled about having to come to Dallas but since they weren’t paying me to show up anywhere else, Dallas was it. They wanted to shoot an interview — which was the point. They also wanted to shoot “B-roll,” which is silent footage that shows up in the background with interviewed voiceovers. This is where it started getting to be a bit much.

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Posted on by Amanda Brooks

where pen-pals should go

Someone (possibly a retired escort?) has finally figured it out. You can have the best pen-pal of all, for a fee, of course. Just like the guys who constantly write escorts without ever setting up an appointment, you will never meet your fake Internet girlfriend. Plans start at $250/month and go up depending on amount of contact required (sounds familiar). Seems to be the real deal, though I do wonder just how many different people are actually in the talent pool and if they are all actually females (it’s pretty easy to fool guys online).

Personally, I’m waiting for FakeHooker.com to debut. Oh wait, nevermind.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

time-wasting activities

In a roundabout way, I found out that this post over at Tits and Sass had mortally offended a client. No need to be offended, one can’t spend large amounts of close, personal time with another person without indulging in some (or all) of these activities. These things are what normal people normally do in relationships — only they aren’t compressed into a day or weekend or whatever.

It did get me thinking of more time-wasting activities for escorts who need a little mental/emotional alone-time during extended bookings (men: think of it as care and feeding for her soul, not as time away from you). So here are my suggestions.

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