A couple of days ago, one of the best kept blogging secrets was revealed when Belle de Jour scuppered the Daily Fail’s proposed exclusive by outing herself in the Sunday Times. Much has been said since then, by bloggers who’d known for years but kindly kept quiet and by sexbloggers who’d lost their anonymity in a less controlled fashion, but I didn’t feel it worth commenting on the matter until now. According to Tanya Gold in today’s Guardian, we are all simpletons who fail to understand that one person’s experiences do not sum up the experience of a vaguely similar group. According to Tanya Gold, prostitution has been sanitised and we should remember that it kills. Yes, KILLS! If someone’s selling £20 blowjobs on street corners to fund their crack habit and then telling people the ‘job’ is glamorous, I could understand why Gold would be so concerned. However, Brooke Magnanti’s well-written anonymous blog was so gripping and truthful that it didn’t manage to lure me into prostitution with the mention of possible earnings of £200 an hour. She didn’t glamorise it. I wonder if Gold actually read the same blog I did. It’s one thing to write an article on the horrors of prostitution because now seems like a good time to remind people, but quite another to suggest there’s a link there that we’re all to stupid to make.
Update: Just realised that Gold probably didn’t read Magnanti’s blog at all. She probably just watched ITV series The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl. I realised thanks to Penny Red who has written a much more interesting blog post on the same subject. Well worth a look.
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