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Liza and Maureen: I guess I think that asking whether Ashley is a "victim" is the wrong question. I agree, whatever her childhood circumstances, she's a moral agent and she made a bunch of choices that landed her in that hotel room with Eliot Spitzer. Those choices weren't completely unconstrained, but they were still choices, and we can have empathy for the unique and perhaps crappy circumstances that shaped her choices without completely letting her off the hook (no pun intended) for the decisions she made.
To me, the relevant question isn't whether she's a victim in some abstract sense—we're all victims of our circumstances, blah blah blah, so who cares—but this: in that locked hotel room, who held more power, 22-year-old, 105-pound Ashley with her worries about paying the rent (and presumably with at least some anecdotal awareness of the statistics Emily cites about physical assaults experienced by high-end prostitutes)? Or Spitzer, older, stronger, smarter, and able to throw thousands of dollars around like it's loose change? It's the enormous power imbalance that bothers me—and the sense that he liked that power imbalance, and did his best to exploit it—to get prostitutes to do things women who had more power might have refused to do. (Yeah, I'm still just hung up on that "unsafe" stuff.)
Searching for an analogy here ... Well, OK: on a more mundane level, say I employed a nanny who was an undocumented worker. (I don't, but say I did). "Favors" I might ask of an American college kid who babysits for me ("Listen, would you mind staying really really late tomorrow night? And the night after? And the next night, too?) are favors I would hesitate to ask of a nanny working without legal documents. The college student doesn't lose much if she says, "Gee, sorry, I can't," whereas the undocumented nanny is a whole lot more dependent on me—and under far more pressure to say yes. The power balance would make it hard for her to say no to my requests, however unreasonable.
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Rosa, for me the age-old dilemma you pose comes down to three statistics. From Venkatesh: Street hookers in Chicago experience an average of six incidents of physical abuse a year. Higher-end prostitutes in New York experience an average of two. Not much better, really. Also this today, from Nicholas Kristof: "The American Journal of Epidemiology published a meticulous study finding that the 'workplace homicide rate for prostitutes' is 51 times that of the next most dangerous occupation for women, working in a liquor store. The average age of death of the prostitutes in the study was 34."
This doesn't settle the legalization question, because these stats are from our ban-blanketed country (except for parts of Nevada). But I agree with Kristof that it makes the Swedish model of prosecuting only johns very intriguing, because after that law passed, the incidence of prostitution in Stockholm plummeted and so did trafficking.
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Conversations like this always make me feel like Bill Bennett in a skirt, but even if you're the highest-paid hooker in history—and lucky enough not to wind up getting beaten anyway—prostitution and self-respect still seem mutually exclusive to me. Because ideally, at least, isn't sex "somehow sacred"? And speaking of daughters, if any girl of ours grew up and announced, "Hey, I've found high-paying work doing what for some women could be considered a smart career choice!' could we even conceivably be fine with that? OK, time for me to toddle off to the casino now.
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Seconding Ellen: Yes, it's striking, isn't it, how many women have been mortified and collaterally damaged by this scandal. The wife. The daughters. Vacuous Ashley (maybe). Clearly, whatever else it is, prostitution is not a victimless crime. Or not in this case. Victims, here, as far as the eye can see. You do feel for the daughters, horribly, who doubtless don't want to venture outside now on even the simplest errand. As for raising them: "Daddy made a mistake, which he regrets and which we all can learn from" probably won't cut it here, will it? Nor "I'm sorry," either. He' d need something stronger and more persuasive--the claim of sex addiction, maybe? Over which he had no control? For which he will be treated? And doubtless they do love him, his daughters, which makes it all the more awful. Ruth Marcus made that point on the Diane Rehm Show this morning about Silda Spitzer: One reason she may have been out there, by his side, is that in addition to all the other feelings she may be feeling, she may well love him.
I am not so sure about the victimhood of Ashley. I had dinner recently with a friend who also came from a broken home, who had an abusive stepfather, who lived for a while in a foster home. She did not become a prostitute. She became a scientist and put it behind her.
Still, really at this point I feel sorry for all of them.
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I think it’s worth reading Ashley’s MySpace page pretty carefully. I guess I have a lot less sympathy for someone whose rent troubles seem fueled as much by delusions of grandeur as by poverty, abuse, or lack of education. If she had so much trouble paying rent, did she really need to live in Manhattan? Of course she did, because in the tradition of American Idol, if she wanted to be famous, then of course she’s a fabulous singer and that’s where she needed to be. (I don’t think I believe the anecdote about the musician and his friend bursting into the bathroom while she belts out “Respect,” either. When does that really happen?). She couldn’t possibly have lived anywhere else more affordable? Come on.
I’m not sure where I come down on prostitution, so I don’t begrudge her the choice. But I don’t think she’s necessarily a victim in all this, having made the choice to go with prostitution rather than, say, waitressing or one of the other myriad jobs women slugging it out everywhere take to get by.
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Oldest profession = oldest feminist dilemma in the book, ladies:
"It's my body, so why shouldn't I make money from it if I want to? Why is selling sexual services different from getting paid to do physical labor/give blood/provide donor eggs/give someone a massage?"
vs.
"In the world we live in (in which women earn less than men, have less political power, and are more often victims of sexual violence) prostitution can never be freely chosen. Prostitution is always a product of fear, need and coercion."
I'm sympathetic to both arguments: Hell, why shouldn't an attractive young woman like Ashley Dupre make some cash off idiots like Eliot Spitzer? The world is full of not-very-appealing economic transactions; let's not pretend sex is somehow sacred.
But I also still wince, thinking of 22-year-old Ashley, clueless as they make 'em, with her fantasies of making it big in the music industry and her fears of not being able to pay the rent. There she is, a working-class girl meeting a strange man alone in a fancy hotel room. He wants her to do those "things you might not think were safe."
She's tough and she says, "No way!" And she's also lucky, because it sounds like he didn't push.
But ... what if he had been more insistent? A lot more insistent? She's 22; he's 48. She's 5'5" and weighs 105 pounds; he's a big, tall guy who probably weighs twice that. They're alone. She's a prostitute. She thinks she needs this job—she needs this money. She's worried about paying her rent. How often do the Ashleys of the world end up going along with things they don't think are safe because the alternative could be losing a job or worse, getting beaten, or raped, or even killed? How often do the Ashleys of the world actually get beaten or raped or killed?
I haven't really researched the pro/con arguments for legalizing/decriminalizing prostitution (and I know there is some interesting data from other countries that have done this). But I think my instinct is that we should do, with prostitution, the opposite of what we do with drug crimes. With drugs, we generally have stiffer penalties for selling drugs than for buying drugs. At the moment, that's mostly true for prostitution as well: We give harsher sentences to prostitutes than to their clients. Seems to me that we should eliminate criminal penalties for those who seek to sell their own bodies but increase penalties for those who patronize prostitutes.
Ironically, Spitzer agreed, and he helped do just that in New York. Thanks, Eliot!
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I want to talk about Spitzer's daughters. What happens to them now? I'm hoping Silda will file for divorce as early as humanly possible. But the daughters, who I think are 14, 16, and 18—the oldest a mere four years younger than the whore whom daddy was banging.
All I can imagine is this: If I were one of them and my father ever tried to say anything at all parental to me (Where are you going? With whom? When are you coming home? You can't wear that; it's too provocative), it would be all I could do not to shoot back: What's that you say, whore-monger?
How do you raise a teenage daughter after being caught up in such a thing?
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So no, I wasn't. Or at least what I meant was, there's this lipstick-feminist notion out there that prostitution is a victimless crime, that being a high class hooker is a sort of glamorous life, particularly in this new online world where nobody has to walk the streets anymore. Sudhir Venkatesh gets at these distinctions in his Slate piece arguing that Spitzer didn't pay enough for his nooky. The elite escorts Venkatesh interviews sound like old fashioned mistresses; they are kept "on retainer," sometimes in their own apartments, with medical and grocery bills included. One is an ex-corporate exec (so she says) and describes prostitution in clinical, boardroom terms. So it's possible to delude yourself that high-class hookers are the ones on top, getting paid $10,000 a month to do nothing more than give some rich guy a bath and tell him he's amazing. Which makes the rich guy seem like the fool. But then you read further and the sad part always comes: They are often abused, sometimes take drugs, and every once in a while have to watch the rich guy masturbate in front of them and pretend its just awesome. At least that's the stereotype. I look forward to Venkatesh's book to clear it all up.
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Hanna and Rachael, I too was struck by the vulnerability of Ashley that emerged in today's New York Times' profile. I noticed a "primary source" ("Hot Document" speak) for the profile was the young woman's MySpace page, which by "Thursday at noon ...appeared to have been corrupted." If I were Ashley's mother (alas, I could be her grandmother) in addition to making sure she got her own lawyer (attorney Don Buchwald was appointed by the court to represent the 22-year-old—although his bio of has the feel of someone QAT Consulting could really use), I might tell her to also get some technical and PR support that will get that MySpace storefront humming again. (Tips on traffic management are available by checking out Tila Tequila's page.) I can picture the stampede of TV bookers now thundering to the Flatiron apartment leased by the young entrepreneur once known as Kristen. Since her male source of support "walked out on me," and she is clearly "not a moron," she might as well be in charge of her own image as straightforwardly ("listen, dude ...") as she took control of clients at her last job.
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Whoa, there, Nellie! Hanna, you're at least kinda sorta kidding, right? About initially being "lured into this notion that ... it was poor Eliot Spitzer who got played by a young vixen, a conniving madam, petty payment schemes, and a culture that suffocates its public figures.'' That time-honored, blame-the-girl view has cast XXers from Eve in her fig leaf to poor thong-flashing Monica Lewinsky as the temptress aggressors. But if there were anything to it, wouldn't pretty young women rule the world? Is it really any surprise that the emperor's call girl turns out to have been homeless and harmless? Paying for sex is always both pathetic and predatory. But could employment as a sex worker ever, for any woman, really be "a smart career choice"?
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Hanna,
Your post about Ashley Dupré has me wondering whether her story gives lie to some of the arguments made for legal but well-regulated prostitution. Isn't the ideal version of legalized prostitution something like the Emperors' Club? An agency that handles booking and vets "clients" seems far less dangerous than street pimps who abuse their prostitutes and send them into potentially dangerous situations, right? Makes it seem more like a career choice and less an act of desperation. But then we see that Ms. Dupré is worried about making her rent payments and considering returning to the family that she described as "broken" and that inspired her to strike out on her own as a teenager. As the Spitzer scandal has played out, we've seen outrageous sums of money thrown about: $4,300 for the infamous session at the Mayflower, the $80,000 that Gov. Spitzer may have spent with the club overall, etc. But I have yet to see a breakdown. How much do the escorts keep from their fees? Does the agency's cut go toward testing for STDs or toward health care for the women? How much better off are they than a typical street hooker?
I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about the legalization issue. But as we learn more about the Emperors' Club and "Kristen"/Ashley, it seems like even this upscale version of the world's oldest profession thrives by taking advantage of women who are vulnerable or have suffered misfortune, and that that should be taken into consideration before we rush to make this a legitimate profession.
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Over the last couple of days of reading XX Factor, I have been lured into this notion that this scandal is not about powerful men having their way, that in fact it was poor Eliot Spitzer who got played by a young vixen, a conniving madame, petty payment schemes, and a culture that suffocates its public figures. I can often bring myself to believe that prostitution, as Judith wrote, should not be illegal but highly regulated, and that for certain women it's a smart career choice. Then, this morning comes the Ashley Dupré moment (and there is always in these sordid connections the Ashley Dupré moment). She is like the pathetic contestants in the early phases of American Idol: broken, rejected, exploited through a fantasy in which she willingly particpates. I read her story and the old '70s feminist in me (admittedly, a tiny presence) rears up. A broken home on the Jersey shore. Abused as a kid. A nightclub singer. Worried about paying her rent. Men walking out on her. "Broke and homeless," and known for giving extra food to homeless guys. OK, so she's not a Thai village girl smuggled into Amsterdam. But she is a sad American type: This is Marilyn Monroe territory—a woman who can play the role of sexy and powerful but is always herself being played. I think about Ashley looking at an eviction notice and Spitzer cavalierly wiring $4,300 from one account to another, and it's very hard for me to feel sorry for him.
Read the rest of our discussion about Ashley Dupré.