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Orianda Guilfoyle

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Posted Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET

Morning staff meeting at 10 a.m. Meet the four other Classy reps in my manager's office. He discusses how to pitch upcoming articles in the paper to our advertisers. Personally, I'm not good at coming up with the right angles. Like, Hey, we're doing a story on militias in the Northwest, are you interested in buying space in our real estate section? Maybe this just proves how much more I have to learn.

Everyone in the room is holding notepads and pens, including me. I've never actually written anything down in any of these meetings, and no one is taking notes today. As a group, we realize the importance of adhering to certain rituals of professionalism: arriving at meetings prepared with writing instruments, peppering conversation with talk of "the team" and "team goals," and never once uttering the word "prostitution"--favoring instead the sanititized term "adult entertainment." Some formality is necessary; it reminds us that despite whom we're selling to, we still have one foot (some days, more like a toe) planted firmly in the corporate world. We who traffic in magic love elixirs, hypnosis, and low-fee bankruptcy.

At 11:30, I get a call from "Ladies of Lust." They'd like to change the headline of their ad from "Ashleigh: 19 Years Old" to "Babs: Voluptuous-18-Year-Old." The adult entertainers, as a rule, are extremely demanding, requiring last-minute word changes and tinkering with their graphics, as in I'm thinking I want the fleur-de-lis border this week, not the little hearts. I've divided them into three categories: the pimps, the independents, and the corporations that masquerade as independents. "Veronica," for example, who says that she is a "Bored and Horny Housewife," is actually a corporation based in Tucson, which places ads for phone sex in thousands of classified venues throughout the United States (and beyond?). Tara, my account representative, is my only contact with this "housewife." Tara is courteous and conversational, her e-mails fluid and always spell-checked. Change "Barely Legal!!!" to "Barely Legal--JailBait!!" And please make that "Jail" with a capital J, and "Bait" with a capital B, no space, thank you.

Among the independents, there is Talya, who's been a "college freshman" for two years and counting, and Debbie, a bleach-blonde "model" about 25 pounds overweight. Neither looks remotely like a model/student, but one imagines that their patrons accept some degree of hyperbole. Generally, this group is the easiest to deal with, aside from breaks in advertising due to short jail terms, or recuperation following surgical enhancements. Or the occasions when Debbie appears in the office 20 minutes past deadline to pay in cash, a thick wad of 10- and 20-dollar bills. Or when she calls in and I can hear a baby wailing in the background.

The pimps, the least likable of the lot, are mostly men and most likely to bounce checks or give phony credit-card numbers. Processing credit cards actually can be fairly time consuming, especially when you have to alert the customer that her card has been denied. One guy who calls himself Pacific, with no irony, has actually slammed down the phone, only to call back another rep and try the same card number. Another guy wigs out when I inform him that, no, photographs may not include exposed nipples or genitalia. I ask my boss how much revenue actually comes from adult ads. His answer: "A lot."

I return from an afternoon coffee run to three messages from massage therapists. There's a controversy brewing in the massage-therapy community over the definition of "sensual massage." By law, anyone advertising massage services must have a license and provide the license number in the ad. We require this of all massage advertisers--but the problem is, in addition to massage, some provide other services (headlines like "Massage Man & Master" should offer some clue). Legitimate massage therapists are sick of getting calls from johns, and the state doesn't enforce the regulation. We don't have the resources to check the authenticity of every license number, find out exactly what they're selling, and so forth. So the "sensual" masseuse types charging $250 per hour run next to the actual massage therapists, charging $60 per hour. I spend 10 minutes trying to console one recent massage-school graduate. Her training at an accredited massage school cost her thousands of dollars, and now, after two years of school, and state certification, she gets calls from men who angrily hang up on her when she informs them that she does not offer special services.

Then I feel like a traitor when I have to call "Massage Man & Master" back to renew his ad.

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Posted Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1999, at 9:00 PM ET
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Orianda Guilfoyle works in the classifieds department at an alternative weekly in the Pacific Northwest.
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