Posted on by Amanda Brooks

fast girl and slow girl

Came across a hardcover of Fast Girl in the clearance bin at a non-local bookshop and had to have it. Yet another hooker book I haven’t read only now I have the space and time in which I could, so I did.

I remember when the scandal came out, wrote about it, in fact. It wasn’t until I read the book this week that I finally realized Suzy Favor was her really-real name because it sounds like a hooker name if ever there was one.

Her track career I read with deep envy as a sprinter who had the love but never the support or training to make anything of my obvious ability. But then, she also made it clear my love of running would have never survived the brutality of her training, as it barely survived hers, disappearing entirely for the latter half of her career, resurfacing only as a way to heal many years later.

That, I understand; survivor of the photography teacher whose motto was “make them cry in class”. (I never did, I saved it for the bathroom breaks or my dorm room because I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, but it certainly wasn’t for his lack of trying.)

Her wild escorting career was interesting to read, and laughable in some ways, like her insistence on staying in fancy rooms when she only did outcall. (She was impressed by a $300 Agent Provocateur set, I wondered if it came from the clearance rack. Then I realized I’m a jaded snob and wondered when this happened but that’s a whole different thing.) She never does math: the difference between the cost of her Vegas trips and what she actually made after the agency cut. Her husband does better hooker-math than she does.

Her sense of competition with the TER rankings was so incredibly misguided, even though it was her own sense of self that did the guiding. While that self was supposedly in manic mode during this time, that self was also her drive to win in running–it’s part of her nature no matter what and can’t be blamed on mania. It is what it is; she’s an Olympic-level athlete which makes her a rare person by any standard.

Her fall from grace, which I supported with extensive Googling, even reading the awful, original TheSmokingGun piece on her, had me asking only one question I’m not sure I asked myself when this broke because the scandal brought up so many other questions. The sole question to be asked about all of this is: Why? What did the asshole client and TheSmokingGun think they were doing? What was the purpose behind her outing?

Really? What was the actual reason?

TheSmirkingReporter for TheSmokingGun who talked to the naive Suzy (she should have told him to fuck off and that was it), and the hit-piece written never give any reason as to why outing an athlete and mother as a part-time escort was important news.

She wasn’t selling nuclear secrets, she wasn’t trading insider secrets or helping to rob casinos, she wasn’t even able to help her husband with their realty business without causing more problems than she solved. So why was destroying her two professional lives, and nearly destroying her entire family circle worth it? What was the goal? She was acting in a role millions of women have, and her clients were with her as partners in that role. They were married too. So why was exposing her and not them the big story? What made her a target? What significant social good was accomplished by exposing her?

I’m not hurt or changed in any measurable way by knowing about Suzy’s secret career. No one I know is hurt by her actions. I can’t remember that society was unduly influenced one way or another by her escorting.

As far as I can tell, the only thing the outing accomplished was to was hurt her and everyone associated with her. That’s it. It stopped no crime, exposed no dirty dealings, society is not any better for her exposure. It got clicks for TSG.

That’s it.

Ruin a woman and her entire life for clickbait.

Truly a worthy 21st century misogynist goal.

It’s a question so basic she doesn’t even stop to ask it in her book and I wish she had. She talks of her anger at those in her life who stifled her and yet she apparently doesn’t have enough anger at those who destroyed her and I’m including the website that bothered to give enough credence to the story to actually, physically report it.

It’s what’s known in media circles as a non-story and yet somehow it became a scandal.

This is all rhetorical, I know exactly why a beautiful woman was destroyed as much as possible by men who couldn’t have her.

The other reason I’m writing this is for those sex workers who also suffer mental illness and aren’t being properly treated. Suzy and her doctors would have benefited greatly from having her undergo a Genesight test. I know I’m flogging an expensive medical test. It works, though. That’s worth every penny to those who suffer.

The test results and report, and I have the original copy, show how I process a variety of psyche mediations. It also shows I have two recessive genes that ruin how my mind processes its own chemicals, specifically serotonin. I’m genetically-predisposed to depression due to mal-processing of chemicals and the only solution is the correct medication that balances my brain’s chemical processes by creating a workaround since we don’t have the knowledge to repair such issues.

My issues are indeed all in my head and my parents are to blame. How many can say that? (Anyone who has similar genes, really.) Bad jokes aside, it was a relief I didn’t know I was seeking to discover that my issues are scientifically-provable, that I wasn’t making things up, that I wasn’t making too much of things, I wasn’t crazy, I have an actual medical issue for how I think and feel and have lived. Fortunately, it’s a treatable issue no matter how invisible it has been.

Before I was treated properly, yes, I have suffered deep despair and depression throughout my life. When my situation is horrible, I’m suicidal. When my situation is better, I’m mostly okay (but can fall into a depressive state with little provocation). Adding other problems, like PTSD, into the mix just exacerbates every single issue of these illnesses to a very large degree.

Proper medication allows me space to think clearly. My deepening burnout would have literally killed me if not for being properly medicated for the better part of the last two years. Even then, it was a near miss. I had to realize that burnout was still an issue of my mind pointing out a problem to me, something I needed to fix, and it was screaming as loud as it could to bring my attention to the problem. It took a while, but I listened and have begun fixing the problem.

At any other point in my life, almost all of which was spent free of professional psychological intervention, this would have ended very, very badly. Most likely permanently–the ending I’ve seen for myself since I was very, very young.

Reading Suzy’s account of her attempts at professional help made me wish she could have taken the test. It would have changed so much in her later life. Perhaps she has taken it now, and is being properly medicated based on her actual body chemistry. It’s a much better solution than what her doctors at the time did: prescribe for her based on semi-informed guesswork, with what she claims was disastrous results.

Her story made me realize I was luckier than I thought to have access to a professional who knows of tools like Genesight. It’s just a tool, not God, a tool that takes guessing out of the equation. Guesswork when dealing with psyche meds is a terrible way to try and treat serious problems. (Says the person who was dosing herself for three years without doctor supervision with a psyche med that just made things worse.)

I hope she, and those of her audience who need it, continue to find healing.

The last thing I want to say about this story is the story itself. When I was Googling for information on her, something I don’t remember doing when her story broke, everywhere I went I found tons of pictures of her. There were always running photos and sexy photos. She’s a beautiful woman and was a beautiful college girl. Her daughter will likely be beautiful as well.

The only video I watched was her Nike commercial, which is hilarious. I’m probably going to search for videos of her running, at her peak. Just so I can be jealous of her running form, which has to be efficiently perfect. (Mine’s not great, not terrible.)

The sexy photos, however, were always on the stories deriding her fall from grace; the most sexy photos on the leering TSG article that outed her, of course. Even the Nike commercial exploits her beauty and sex appeal.

I’m not even covering the multiple verbal beatdowns and sexual harassment she received in her life due to her natural build: large breasts on a petite frame; unusual in a high-level runner. Or her disordered eating quickly descending into bulimia because she didn’t fit an idealized body type.

One long-form story on a running website that detailed her running career had an ad for another story on the same website, ranking the country’s “sexiest female athletes”, dead-middle in this story castigating a woman for capitalizing on her sexiness.

The cognitive whiplash actually hurt.

Be a beautiful, sexy woman; don’t be too sexy, don’t personally profit off it, don’t keep it to yourself either but share it freely with everyone who wants a piece of you, but don’t share too much either because that’s also very bad. Don’t take pride in yourself or get a big head but please continue to keep yourself up and be sexy because you owe it to everyone who wants to look at your. And for God’s sake, don’t profit off of it. Especially that.

How does anyone expect a woman to stay sane? It’s impossible.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

dec 17 — violence

“360 International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers 2010” by Steve Rhodes, is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Today is the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, started SWOP-USA. Violence against sex workers takes many forms, such as the legal violence of criminalization or the stigma that gets sex workers killed. There’s also media violence, amply demonstrated by the recent raids in Soho (London) that has angered the sex work community. There is violence some sex workers experience while working, which is always aided by the stigma of criminalization (criminalization empowers violent criminals, it doesn’t protect anyone).

The worst violence is when sex workers are killed because they’re sex workers. Books and movies are filled with serial killers who “practice” on sex workers because they know no one cares. For once, fiction is reflecting reality perfectly. This is why the IDEVASW exists. This is why every year there are names to be read and remembered.

There are events scheduled, but they’re few and far between. Sex workers exist everywhere on the planet, but sex work organizations do not (for a lot of reasons). If you want to Tweet about it, common hashtags are: #Dec17 #IDEVASW #EndVASW #sexwork #solidarity. I wish I knew of an online compendium of essays for Dec 17; pretty much everyone who has a blog is using it, so start with your favorite bloggers. For many of us, it’s the only way we have of making public acknowledgment of today.

One wonders what attorney Jan Schlichtmann would have to say about the value of a sex worker’s life. Though I guess there isn’t any real reason to wonder.

It’s like this. A dead plaintiff is rarely worth as much as a living, severely-maimed plaintiff. However, if it’s a long slow agonizing death, as opposed to a quick drowning or car wreck, the value can rise considerably. A dead adult in his 20s is generally worth less than one who is middle aged. A dead woman less than a dead man. A single adult less than one who’s married. Black less than white. Poor less than rich. The perfect victim is a white male professional, 40 years old, at the height of his earning power, struck down in his prime. And the most imperfect? Well, in the calculus of personal injury law, a dead child is worth the least of all.

One victory happened last week. California has ruled to allow sex workers access to the victims of violence compensation fund. At least in the state of California, sex workers are acknowledged to be human and vulnerable to violence regardless of the circumstance of the violence. Sex workers are acknowledged to have some sort of value as people. That’s a huge step forward, considering that the LAPD used to tag dead sex workers’ case files with N.H.I. (No Human Involved).

There’s not a sex worker in the world who sees violence or death as part of the job description.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

reactions

Since I often read things and want to comment but don’t, here are my comments. A lot of these links came from Tits and Sass since I no longer bother with my Google Alerts.

escort photo documentary

While the story is somewhat unique, the pictures of Eden working are completely recognizable to any touring hourly escort. Locales may differ, there may be a lack of cigarettes and wigs, but everything else is very, very true. Escort work really can be this boring and mundane. Just like stripping. Just like data entry. Just like anything.

Hong Kong escorts and review board exploitation

I remember Sex141.com when I went to HK. I was never on the site because it wasn’t a good fit for me. I was: too old, Western, English-speaker, outcall-only, had much higher rates than the local girls. I had no idea it developed into the terror it has. (TER is probably kicking itself for not figuring out the bad review scam Sex141 pulls.)

HK girls work in limbo. Sex work is partially decriminalized and partially illegal, depending on what, where and how. While the laws seem clearly defined on the surface, sex workers face almost as much police harassment as US sex workers. My firm belief is that anytime there is an illegal aspect to sex work, the workers will suffer. The public and police will exploit the illegal aspects as far as they can, nullifying any legality. This is why sex work has to be completely decriminalized across the board. No exceptions.

Because of this half-and-half system, they have no recourse against Sex141. Because of the market and the laws, the girls are regularly ripped off: unlike sex workers in the rest of the world, they’re afraid of getting the money upfront because the client will run away or call them a ripoff (I did not have that problem with the clients I had in HK — different market). They’re stuck with abusive clients and there is no legal recourse for them. After the murders in 2008, all the one-woman brothels had CCTVs installed and the images of bad clients are regularly printed out and circulated but there is no way to make sure every sex worker has that info. They have problems with clients every day, just like US sex workers.

This is not to say that the girls don’t want to work there because they do. It’s far safer than China and the money is better. The problem, as always, is illegality. The only solution, as always, is full decriminalization.

Read more

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

just pay her

So, a bunch of over-privileged dudes rips off a sex worker for $50 and complains that she stole a bunch of stuff. Reminds of some other guys who were haggling over price.

Seriously, how hard is it to just pay her? Paying people money for the work they did makes them happy. Doesn’t matter if the agreed rate is $50 or $500, just pay as agreed and everyone gets to quietly go back to their lives. A really simple concept.

If, for some reason, you don’t have the money in the first place, then don’t play until you do. (Kind of like a casino.)

This is a local story and caught my attention. That they were stupid enough to leave her in their house after they ripped her off makes me laugh. I hope she put them all on National Blacklist. Will look great when potential employers Google their names. Someone who is willing to steal a mere $50 from another person who provided exactly what was requested shouldn’t be trusted with more than a mop and mop bucket.

This also illustrates why so many girls have a “30 and over” rule and why it’s traditional to collect the money first.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

criminalization vs having rights: the scandal

As I suspected when I first heard the news this weekend, the whole Secret Service prostitution scandal was caused by good ol’ cheap rip-off clients so near and known to US sex workers.

According to the news article linked above, two agents slept with the Colombian sex worker but didn’t want to pay full price for each, instead they wanted to halve the price. That’s not how it works anywhere. No prostitute in the world is going to do double the work for half the rate. Not only that, but we get a really good dose of Western imperialism because they were haggling over $20 (she wanted $60, they only wanted to pay $40).

This is endemic in Asia. I got to witness it third-hand on discussion boards over there, secondhand via client stories. Men would haggle over $10 — a great deal to the sex worker and absolutely nothing to a Western man who can afford to travel abroad. No doubt the same problem exists anywhere in a country with darker-skinned sex workers and especially in countries whose economies aren’t as strong as the US (or countries where the US is the invading army). There’s a whole lot more I could say on this topic, but will leave it for some other time.

Other than the blatant racism, the only other thing I have to say on the scandal — and this hasn’t changed from my very first reaction — is that these Secret Service agents are used to being asshole clients in the US. In the US they can get away with ripping off sex workers, beating us and even murdering us if they really want. All without recourse or worrying about the girl saying a single thing because that’s the true beauty of criminalization: it empowers criminals. They forget they were in a foreign country where sex work is legal and sex workers have rights. Different playing field, ain’t it, boys?