A few people have asked for my thoughts on the CNBC doc last night on high-end prostitutes, and I can only give a partial response. I caught it for about fifteen minutes, then stepped out, hailed a cab to Brooklyn, and watched the rest at my destination.  From what I saw, it seemed decent.  It didn’t seem to have the same all-prostitutes-are-victims agenda Diane Sawyer had in her 20/20 documentary (a term I’m using loosely), and from what I saw, they did their research and talked to the right experts, like Amanda Brooks, who wrote a handbook to escorting on the internet, long-time activist and advocate Carol Leigh (Scarlot Harlot), and Martha Nussbaum, a phenomenal philosopher/scholar specializing in law and ethics, who’s given considerable thought to sex laws. The documentary also acknowledged the range of experiences and degrees of autonomy when it comes to sex work, something 20/20 failed to do in its attempt to be as reductive as humanly possible, and it touched on the decriminalization movement and the weird warped way its opposition continually conflates trafficking with prostitution (two vastly different crimes). And they did a much better job at concealing the identities of their anonymous interviewees. If I have any complaint, it’s that it did glamorize sex work a bit, but then that tends to happen whenever you cut to someone fingering a wad of hundred-dollar bills in a nice hotel room. That said, they did address some of the risks, like arrest, the IRS, physical danger, and social isolation.

Seeing that, as well as the piece up on CNN.com, which considers two very different sex work experiences, I’m starting to think that it’s finally coming across that sex work is too broad and complex for reductive, finger-wagging blather. To me, that’s a positive step.

As an aside, I really love Martha Nussbaum. I recently finished her book Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law, which examines these emotional responses in legal judgments. It’s hugely interesting, relevant, and – to my mind – important, since we see disgust and shame frequently inflect legal and political judgments concerning pornography, homosexuality, prostitution, and so on, even though the response is irrational, subjective, and inappropriate for a society that places importance on the social equality of its citizens.

There’s been a lot of prostitution-talk in the news lately. I think I’m burned out. I feel burned out. I think Gabriel’s burned out by proximity. So here’s a photo of a topless man (probably Louis Garrel) by Hedi Slimane: