Yeah...yeah...
Vancouver Femme Fatale said:
Yes.
That's what I think.
Because I'm retarded.
Or maybe my argument, as I've stated ad nauseum is that the percentage of these ratings-bait addicted streetwalkers is not nearly as high as it's portrayed in the media. Since when does not as many as portrayed mean none?
I'll say it again, as clearly as humanly possible;
Abused crackwhores make good tv. Boringly discreet escorts in the biz by choice don't. How do I know that? Because not once, but twice, I've been approached by tv producers wanting to do a little expose of my abused and addicted/fabulous jetset lifestyle (they seem to bounce from one stupid cliche to another) and both times, I told them I was real doubtful they'd get what they wanted from my boring reality. They agreed, and presumably went onto the next ad in EROS.
Abused crackwhores make excellent "Just Say No" ammunition for an increasingly anti-sex, anti-civil rights, pro-religious United Clusterfuck of America.
Abused crackwhores make great victims. Great objects of the smug pity patronizing fundamentalist fuckwits love to bestow on their 'inferiors'.
Abused crackwhores are a much better representation of how America really feels about the poor, about drug abusers, and about those with a limited education than myself and many, many other escorts. And how does America feel? Arrest them. Let them be murdered by one another. Bang on a pulpit. Good morning New Orleans!
When something becomes a symbol, its portrayal in the media is no longer tied to reality; it's tied to those who need that symbol to promote a point of view. Unless you know what that agenda is, you won't understand the context of the information presented.
Without context you get Oprah. You get is "I saw it on TV; it must be true". You get fifty years of cultural progress circling the fucking drain.
...we agreed on most of that (though it does annoy me every time a Canadian decides to lecture on the hows and whys things happen in the United States. It is not only arrogant - a more and more common trait amongst Canadians I've come to notice...but it is also getting boring. Though I guess for the small minded it could be continually amusing. But that is another thread...I digress).
That wasn't my question.
My question - and I admit I didn't spell it out plainly - was if you would call THESE women ones who have made "a strategic financial decision".
Because if 26% of sex workers in Vancouver have HIV (and I checked - the quote said "sex workers", not "street walkers") I'd say there must be something pretty desperte drving them to put themselves at risk.
I'd say that if these women have "risky drug use patterns" and had an "early age of initiation into sex work", then they probably don't actually have tons of "choice" in the matter, by my definition. That if you only know of one way to feed, clothe and provide shelter for yourself, and you really only have one skill for providing these thigns for yourself, there is nothing "strategic" about the decision to turn tricks in order to make ends meet.
So - back to that debate - my premise remains that the VAST majority of sex workers are not like YOU. That they do so out of desperation....whether they practice their trade from a street corner in Vancouver, or from an apartment in Mississauga that they share with multiple kids that they schedule their tricks around while they (again) lament where the food and rent money will be coming from this month, because (again) the father of their children is not to be found (at least financially).
I would argue that these circumstances somewhat remove any pretense of "strategic" from the clearly financial decision made.
Back to my bottomline - the vast majority of sex workers do not do as well, or come out of it as well, as yourself. Hence there is in fact value to "shock TV" or however you wish to label it, if it deters even one young woman from pursuing sex work, or spurs one parent to get more involved in their daughters life in order that they not be so vunerable to the seduction of silver tongued pimp (be that pimp a man, a needle, or just a fucking over priced purse).
