Last week, I was asked to give my response to an episode of Showtime’s Secret Diary of a Call Girl, the British import based on Belle de Jour’s blog and book, which airs tonight.
(I have a hard time remembering the name because it resembles the title of every escort memoir I’ve ever seen. The term ’secret diary’ is sort of an interesting device, though. It suggests something prurient and hidden, as if it’s some lost relic and has only recently been brought to light.)
Anyway, watching that episode was a strange experience, strange because while the show wasn’t particularly good, it brought up a lot of memories for me. Like Belle, I worked for a high-priced agency for a while, so I recognized the midday call for a gig, the separation of identities, the mercenary attitudes, and the little details, like how to enter a hotel, or the mental notes we make on clients. I recognized the fun of playing with a kinky client for the first time, as well as the quiet panic of letting your real name slip. But these familiar details were dipped in cliche and some of the scenes were painfully lame, so the show felt both real and fake. There was also a palpable emptiness, which was probably unintentional, but telling. I’ve been thinking about that, about the show and the reality.
Most of the women I know who’ve been call girls or courtesans have very rich interior lives. Many are very thoughtful about their approaches to clients and recognize that they play a very therapeutic role (this is something outsiders probably won’t immediately understand). Some of these women pursue careers in activism or they develop their own businesses or pursuits. Some travel the world. I knew a great fetish worker who went on to become an escort, and she was a fascinating, restless creature with a truly spectacular ass and a Masters degree in political science – she hooked to pay for her trips to Turkey and South Asia. I know another who is easily the wisest woman I know, who is very thoughtful about sexuality and humanity and life. Actually, most sex workers I’ve known have been wise beyond their years, with startling clarity on their lives, and I wouldn’t describe any of them as superficial. This isn’t to say the women I’ve known represent the majority, but I don’t think they’re that unusual either. At least, not among independents.
Working for an agency is very different from working as an independent (I did both). It’s cynical, mechanical, and mercenary. Superficially, it can be glamorous, and this is probably because there’s an importance placed on image and fantasy. But the demands of being on-call make it difficult to develop a life of your own, and I’ve always had this rule to maintain a career outside of the sex work. I remember trying to schedule some language classes while working for an agency, but every time I put a deposit on something that required regular attendance, I’d be called out on a gig or a string of travel appointments. And the pressure to take days off of work was relentless.
When I watched the Belle de Jour show (I’ve already forgotten the name and I can’t be bothered to scroll up), it brought up memories of this, and it conveys – to me, at least – a fairly hollow existence. It made me think of the women I met through the agency. With the exception of one or two who focused on their own careers, most of the women just went straight for the money, with no goals, no side projects, and no exit strategy, and that was due in part to the unpredictable nature of agency work. It’s hard enough to protect, let alone cultivate, a private life. I knew a young twentysomething who (unwisely) used her money to support her boyfriend, and had no plans to finish college. I met another who spent all of her money on shoes and put nothing aside for the future. I knew several who just didn’t know what they wanted to do with their lives and generally felt depressed and unmoored, and working on-call didn’t help.
I haven’t seen the whole series so I don’t know how the plot will play out, but I’m sensing that they’ve missed an opportunity for complexity, or at least character development. They’re trying to making a light-hearted show about something that has, at its heart, the beginnings of an existential crisis, and they’re tuning it out. So it feels empty and the humor feels nervous, almost defensive, like someone off-screen keeps urging everyone to keep it light light light. And bawdy! Bawdy fun!
And in response to this show, TV critics and journalists prove once again that they know fuck-all about sex work.* On cue, they squeal that the show is glamorizing prostitution, and they do this by focusing on the sex itself. It irritates me that I’m still seeing perfectly intelligent people claim that prostitutes can’t enjoy what they do, among them Alessandra Stanley, who wrote in today’s NYTimes, “‘Secret Diary’ indulges the common male fantasy that whores truly enjoy prostitution.” The show is after a book and a blog both written by a woman, about her own experience, and Stanley’s claiming it’s written to a man’s fantasy? Because she enjoys sex?
And how about the common female fantasy to be a whore?
Or how about the possibility that some of us have professional-strength sex drives?
Even better, Stanley writes that Belle “keeps insisting that she really does enjoy the sex and has no underlying problems,” as if the opposite were true. That spectacular display of condescension feels familiar.
Aren’t we past this, yet? Is this even a question? Are journalists so incompetent, so incapable of carrying out the most basic research, that they can only assume that sex, for us, is intolerable? Or are these journalists really just uninterested in sex themselves and can’t resist transferring their sex-is-gross attitudes to the women who do it by choice? And why aren’t they capable of parsing the differences among sex workers, between those who have financial leverage and those who do not, those who are trafficked and those who act out of choice, those who have options and those with none, and so on? This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even advanced sociology.
I don’t want to defend this show because it isn’t very good, and there are plenty of things to complain about, but failing to meet some flawed expectations about sex work shouldn’t be one of them. And with another show about call girls on the horizon, this one based in New York and produced by Darren Star, I think I’m going to need to brace myself for much more of this to come.
Bring on the platitudes.
-
* Susannah Breslin is one of the very few exceptions.
I wasn’t impressed with the show. Actually I was a bit disappointed, but due to all of the hooplah involved around the show, there will be a second series.
It didn’t address any of the problems.
“And why aren’t they capable of parsing the differences among sex workers, between those who have financial leverage and those who do not, those who are trafficked and those who act out of choice, those who have options and those who do not, and so on? This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even advanced sociology.”
this is actually what i always wonder when i read articles about prostitution. if nothing in the world is black and white then why is it okay to do that to sex work? like everything else there should be shades of gray dammit.
incidentally i am a woman without a professional level sex drive who fantasizes regularly about selling my body or being sold at auction… what i’m supposed to assume that i’m flawed or wrong to fantasize about this? that i’m somehow broken because i occasionally think it would make a wonderful second career when i’m in my forties?
[forties because i want to have a kid and i'd like to be CERTAIN who the daddy is... ]
do i plan to do it? nope, but i sure don’t feel the right to judge those who do…
(course i just a little bit envy them)
“…possibility that some of us have professional-strength sex drives”.
I could be wrong, but I find it hard to believe you’d have any shortage of volunteers.
Unless I’m misunderstanding what you meant by it. It’s late, I’m sleepy.
I completely agree with your take on the show and the coverage of it. I also cringe at the idea of a Darren Star produced show about… anything. Much less this subject matter. It’s too bad Showtime decided to go with this rather than continue developing Michelle Tea and Laurenn McCubbin’s illustrated novel, Rent Girl.
I was hoping to catch it simply because it starred the actress who played Rose in Seasons 1 & 2 of (the new) Doctor Who. Ah well, guess I won’t try so hard or be too annoyed if/when I don’t see it.
You can’t argue philosophy with fact for the vast majority of people. Facts question the help philosophy and the tenacity with which it is clung to is maddening. It also defies reason because any angle which would be pursued by a “journalist” would merely cater to the perceived audience or reinforce their own philosophy. Moralistic judgment on deviance is America’s pastime. Condemnation is easy, acceptance and understanding require way too much effort.
That would be “held” philosophy rather than “help” philosophy…lol
I wonder if any of the speculation about Belle not being an actual courtesan is true. There’s some talk that the entire blog was fiction.
Incidentally, I can’t believe anyone in the sex trade (where anonymity is a necessity) would want to exploit their life this way. It feels like a guaranteed way to have your identity revealed and it almost reinforces the notion that her entire blog has been fiction. Then again, maybe the hefty writing fees paid by Showtime outweigh the risks.
wendy i believe belle is retired.
and if belle isn’t real then aren’t you kind of implying that debauchette isn’t either?
No, I think my suspcions about Belle have to do with selling the rights to her story. From what I’ve read, Debauchette is extremely sensitive to the privacy issues involved in this profession.
wendy it seems to me that if you are going to suspect belle for selling her story then you have to suspect debauchette for going on diane sawyer.
just saying.
personally i believe in debauchette’s reality and i think that if belle ISN’T real then she/he is friends with at least one call girl. that said, if someone offers to put your life on tv you tend to let them since the amount of money involved is generally ridiculous.
i read a little about belle after i watched some of this show and i didn’t get the impression she was a fake. that said, i am NOT in the biz and if an actual call girl wants to tell me they think she’s a fake i’m far more likely to believe it.
(don’t have any idea who you are, sorry if that’s what you do for cash)
all of that said, it’s like the straight actor playing the gay man said: “do you believe i’m gay when i’m acting? then what does it matter?”
debauchette i’m curious, if you were offered a book deal or a television show and you believed reasonably that your clients privacy could be maintained… would you do it?
I think there’s a lot of truth to Belle’s blog. She represents a form of sex work that tends to be glamorized and stripped of its dark side, but I think we want to be careful not to assume that because it isn’t dark, it isn’t real. And the fact she hasn’t been outed is probably a sign that she knows how to hide. Most escorts do.
For myself, yeah, I’d write a book, as long as I could write the book I’d want to write. Unfortunately, I think people want either a piece of fluffy chick lit or an abject confessional, and not the complicated reality.
Or maybe they do. I really don’t know.
I guess there are two different ways of looking at this. Yes, Belle sold the rights to her story and maybe that makes her a sell-out, or maybe it makes her a smart escort with an exit strategy. The other view is the logic behind something like $pread or Bound, Not Gagged, that if anyone tells our stories, it should be us. At least until journalists prove to be a little more thorough and intelligent in their coverage.
I like Belle’s blog a lot, though I haven’t read the book itself.
The show— too short, too unsure of its direction, and Billie Piper wasn’t naked. I’ll just wait for the new “Dexter” and the third season of “The Tudors”.
In any profession which requires you to bury your real persona– escorting, acting, even having to smile all night waiting tables– it can be difficult to keep your self from fading into the background while the fake you takes over.
Second, I’ve come to the conclusion that journalists must just find sex so abhorrent that they’re in denial about the fact that some women like it and even welcome the opportunity to get paid for it. That’s really the only explanation for their willful inability to understand.
I’ve been meaning to write something here to effect of the question of ‘reality’, and since it’s been brought up above – this seems to be the opportune moment.
Firstly, I’d like to say that I tremendously enjoy your blog, Debauchette. It’s well written and a pleasure to read, to say the least. That being said, I’ve found myself questioning the ‘reality’ of your account of your sex work/life. Not that I think what you are saying, regarding your comfort with one of your career choices or your enjoyment of sex-work, is unfathomable. Rather, it seems to fall into the ‘glamorized’ version of sex and sex work.
Where are the posts about the many issues that accompany an active sex life? I’m talking about unsatisfactory sexual experiences or sexual frustrations, scares over unwanted pregnancies (or abortions), diseases or infections related to skin-to-skin contact and sex, impotent male partners, incompatible partners, frightful (or dangerous) encounters?
I’ve read through a great deal of your posts and aside from mentioning some sex-bruising or soreness, and a few clients that perhaps want too much of you or won’t let go, the majority of your posts paint the picture of a near perfect sex and work life.
It leaves me with the impression that either you are purposefully omitting a lot of information so as to paint a pleasurable picture for the reader (à la pornography depiction of sex and glamorized depiction of sex work), or for yourself . Or rather, your account of your sex life and work is at least part fiction.
In any case, I do enjoy reading your accounts, it’s just a little disenchanting when you know a piece of the puzzle is missing from the account you provide.
On a side note, for all of your talk of puritanical judgments of sex workers, you seem to harbor some caveats as well (as denoted by your comments regarding certain sex workers’ lack of goals, side projects, and exit strategy). It’s my impression that a great deal of people, in any work field, lack such aspects to their lives, are ‘depressed’ and don’t know what to do with their lives. It seems wrong to parse out those with side ambitions from those who just do the job for the sake of doing the job, and obviously, to get the money.
C.
Caitlin -
My mention of some sex workers lacking direction, etc., was only to point out some of the risks of the work, risks that have nothing to do with sex and certainly apply to other jobs as well. I never suggested that women who just do it for the money are depressed (particularly since we all do it for the money) – I wrote that when I worked at an agency, I knew women who were depressed and unmoored.
On negatives: I’ve said a few times that this blog shouldn’t be read for a sex worker’s experience. The men you’ve read about here are men I’m dating, not clients.
The negatives you’re describing are your own expectations of what you think sex workers should experience, and some of them do, but in your effort to find anecdotal evidence of a pregnancy or STD scare, I think you’ve missed the negatives that are there, like a reluctance to trust, an epic fear of intimacy, the sensation of living as a disposable or at least rented human being. Another is burn-out — I can’t remember if I’ve written about that here or elsewhere, but it’s common enough and it can be brutal, if subtle.
What you are looking for – mainly client experiences – is something I’ve written about in previous blogs. The blog I kept when I worked for an agency mentioned both the great clients and the awful ones; it was also discovered by a client and passed on to the woman who ran the agency I worked for. The blog that followed was more positive, but by then I’d taken charge of my client list and, as a blogger, I was more interested in focusing on my private life, since I was struggling to reconcile the two identities. To me, that’s the bigger struggle, having to lie to people you care about, having to keep everyone at a distance so they don’t find out how you spend your evenings.
If you want a thorough account, you should check out Compartments’ blog, where she’s synthesizing her old posts into a book manuscript. She addresses the compartmentalization, which, to me, is the hardest part about sex work (not the sex). Clandestine Callgirl is another, but she quit blogging a while ago and I think she’s been archiving privately.
I didn’t watch the show, mostly because to my friends who know what I do, I didn’t want to answer all their new questions of “is that what it’s really like? But even those who know what I do, they don’t know anything about how I operate, and nor would I give them any information. But so far, it sounds like it could have been my first few weeks, or anyday after that in which I was tired.
I’ve been reading you for a while, but this is the first time I’ve had the balls to comment:
Honestly? I think the journalist to which you are referring is probably subconsciously jealous of you. We, as a society, are brought up to believe sex is a naughty, bad thing, and for a woman (especially) to actually enjoy it and seek it out is unheard of. You have a freedom that many of us secretly desire.
D-
I hate to be the one defending the journalist here, but I took the line “indulges the common male fantasy that whores truly enjoy prostitution” differently than you did. I completely agree that it’s a complex issue, and that simplification creates problems and distorts reality. I think the concern of the author is that a program that unabashedly displays the main character enjoying her job reinforces an incorrect assumption; that is, she worries that without anything else to counter-balance that image it encourages men to assume that *all* sex workers enjoy what they are doing. And that’s clearly not true.
But I’ll never know what the author truly meant, so that’s all I’ll say. ;)
–Aesh
This is a great conversation. Many of you obviously have very strong opinions about the show and may want to revisit it or if you have never seen it you should check it out here:
http://www.sho.com/site/vip/home.do?source=m_sdcg1_blogs_june08_vipeps
Hello Beautiful!
“When I watched the Belle de Jour show (I’ve already forgotten the name and I can’t be bothered to scroll up), it brought up memories of this, and it conveys – to me, at least – a fairly hollow existence.”
I cannot sleep and have been catching up on things … like your blog. I just watched several of the eight (?) episodes yesterday! It’s taken awhile for me to watch it as I really thought they’d royally fuck up her blog. Pleased to report there weren’t any shopping sprees or spa retreats with painfully handsome and rich clients. As a matter a fact, I think she’s down right lonely and depressed. Right on, Showtime!
I can only imagine whom they courted and reeled in as consultants for the writers. Too many catch phrases and truth for there not to be super interested whores ready to spill their own experiences.
Anyway, I told a friend yesterday that I was happy with the show, but somehow there was something seriously missing. It felt “hollow”. So here I come to Debauchette and she says, “and it conveys – to me, at least – a fairly hollow existence.”
Why do I even bother? You’ve got it all figured out … about ten steps before I do, My Dear.
PS … I have to tell you I read your post and the comments that followed as quickly as possible so I’m sure I missed something and am repeating stuff.
Take care of you!
Big hugs!
IB ;)
Hi Jane:
I have read the posts about the show on a lot of ladies’ only boards and it seems all the women love the show. So I broke down, got show time and watched it. Thoroughly disappointed I was. I stumbled on this post, via Facebook, and felt you nailed it. The show missed the most important aspect of being a sex worker, dealing with day-to day-compartmentalization of “real life” and adult life. If you miss everything else, how can you miss that? Well, by producing something hollow.