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?
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.
Back in January, I was contacted by a producer from the Dr. Phil show. I was hand-picked, he said, because he liked my other interviews and what I had to say. I would be the only one in my position (“pro-prostitutionâ€) on the show. The topic was the whole CraigsList ad verification/sexual trafficking thing. That I currently advertise on CL (under another name), is a plus. Jim Buckmaster was supposed to be there, along with several state Attorney Generals and some women arrested from CL stings. I was told that there was going to be some massive new stings off CL and these women would be given the option of jail or the show. [I won’t discuss that, you’re welcome to draw your own conclusions.]
Well, Operation Innocence Lost did indeed make some arrests. I was ready for the show. Or at least prepping hard for it. I was finally told the show would be recorded March 18 in LA. They would pay for my expenses. Nice!
