This morning I got a weird call from WBAI, a really terrific radio station in downtown Manhattan. They said they’d gotten a tip in a sketchy sounding message from a man this morning, saying that sex workers were preparing to release a list of 100 politicians in the United States who have hired sex workers. I laughed and said that’s absolutely not true. How would that even be possible? In what spare time and with what resources would we have made that list?
A friend of mine just got a similar call from Fox News – they say that their and other newsrooms are a-buzz about this fictional list – everyone is wondering if it exists, and if it does, when it will be published.
Um, guys, think about it. A huge part of being a sex worker is the skill and promise of discretion. There’s a really high value on that, and it benefits us to be good at discretion. Why would we release a list of the top 100 politicians who hire escorts? That’s crazy talk. If we published such a list, no one would hire us and sex workers everywhere would be out of jobs. I’m not as close to the heartbeat of the industry as I used to be so I don’t know for sure, but I would bet good money that the last few days have been glacially slow for escorts, especially agencies, in NYC. Clients are spooked, they’re wondering how they could be traced and outed, and thinking that it might not take all that much.
In other news, the escort Spitzer hired has been exposed: see the NY Times piece, with pictures and a link to her MySpace page.
9:07 pm
That is such a bizarre rumor. I’m still WTF-ing over it.
10:03 pm
Yeah, this had me laughing and a little puzzled. Why would anyone believe sex workers would compile such a list? Do we as a group have the means or desire to do have one? If so it must be stored in our secret headquarters on our fancy computer database of clients – listed and ordered by number of diamonds to signify political power. Not to mention if we had such a thing would we want to publish such a list? A sound business move if I ever heard one. I think they have seen too many James Bond movies. Or perhaps the Bourne trilogy.
11:44 pm
Is it just me or is anyone else reminded of “The List” from Southpark?!?
6:30 pm
[...] Waking Vixen » Blog Archive » There is no list of 100 politicians, I promise “Um, guys, think about it. A huge part of being a sex worker is the skill and promise of discretion. There’s a really high value on that, and it benefits us to be good at discretion. Why would we release a list of the top 100 politicians who hire escort (tags: Spitzer news stupid bullshit sexwork media msm) [...]
10:35 pm
[...] the third day of the scandal, I got three calls asking about a rumored list of 100 politicians who patronize sex workers that somehow sex worker rights folks had and were planning on using. What [...]