Introduction

Former Governor Eliot Spitzer was exposed as a john and identified as Client #9. His entanglement with the prostitution ring known as the Emperor’s VIP Club and the coverage of the scandal that ensued, focused almost exclusively on the presence of Silda Spitzer during his press conference, the full birth name and MySpace profile of the prostitute involved, and his devastating “fall from grace.” Example

• This is a very peculiar way of writing for the Web. Calling your links "Example" and "Source" doesn't do the reader any good: it disrupts the flow of the writing without providing any information. You could have linked from "Coverage," or you could have said, "Coverage of the story, even in the financial press," and linked from the limiting clause, or--better yet--linked not to an example but to a press survey story showing that your example was representative. When you revise the piece, please revise the linking with special care.

This paper focuses on the structure of the Emperor’s VIP Club’s bargaining process, with specific attention to the diamond-rating system used to rank and price the women prostitutes. It is my contention that this particular type of commoditization allows the john to forget or at least distance himself from what it is that he is buying and the less-than-glamorous realities of prostitution and sex trafficking. In this sense, both Spitzer and the public at large have fallen for the same distraction. Both Spitzer, engaging in such a system (albeit knowingly) and the public’s fixation on the “high-priced” factor of his indiscretions, keep the conversation of the marginalized on the margins. Finally, there is also the question of whether Spitzer has engaged in a replication of prostitution in this sense, making a deal as a politician to trade his bodily freedom (to avoid incarceration) in exchange for his office.

• That's three complex ideas, with different bearings and outcomes, all of which are supposed to be best approached through one apparently-irrelevant detail. The reader can't keep all those balls in the air while reading, so your structure isn't going to make things easier for either you or her. Choosing a structure you have to fight to win is not a good editorial decision. As it turns out, you never get to the third point anyway, so I guess it could be said you fought your structure and lost.

This paper will not explore this hypocrisy or (im)morality of his actions, his possible addiction, how he could possibly have been dumb enough to leave a paper trail of his purchases, nor will it discuss the quickness of Mr. Spitzer’s resignation that ignited suspicion of larger indiscretions than were publicly acknowledged. There are many complicated facets worthy of discussion that for the sake of brevity or my personal disinterest are forgone here.

• You don't mean disinterest, you mean lack of interest. Telling us you are ignoring other things and only keeping three isn't reassuring: three was still too many given the structure you want to use to manipulate them. Never waste words on what you are leaving out. If they had to be discussed it wouldn't do you any good to say you weren't because you weren't interested, would it?

Whore Diamonds: Part Leff, Part Veblen

The transformation of what is considered to be morally or socially depraved into an elite luxury begins, of course, with a strong pricing scheme. The Emperor’s VIP Club has a diamond rating scale. Women are rated from one to seven diamonds; however, the club is quick to boast that they only carry women worthy of three diamonds or higher. Source The rates are separated by diamond status and include dawn-to-dawn or hourly rates. Mr. Spitzer’s companion was allegedly ranked at four diamonds and cost $4,300 for the evening. It is noteworthy that, without going to graphic detail, what is purchased with the regard to the diamond scale is not related to the specific services provided. Rather, the ranking and cost are supposedly correlated with the “quality” of the woman including, pedigree, education, and recreational interests. The Elite Emperors Icon women are “carefully selected based on quality and level of education, family background, intelligence, personality, ability to create an enjoyable atmosphere and physical beauty." Source. The valuation of the prostitutes in this manner, the design of the website and frequent self-identification as an “elite” service, all contribute to the conspicuous consumption. Prostitution exists everywhere in the Unites States, but this service sells more than sex; it engages its johns to participate in a “luxury” bred by the air of exclusivity. Johns become “clientele,” further classified by the service as “90% comprised of international CEOs, partners or owners of large companies and firms.” Prostitutes become “Elite Icon models.” Source

• Are you writing only for those who consider commercial sex to be morally depraved? Such readers will find the preceding graf unproblematic, but you have nothing to say to them that they don't already agree with on general principles. If you are writing to the rest of us, the premise of the paragraph is obvious for different reasons. Sex for hire always tries to present a higher social status than that of the clientele, because sex for hire always sells fantasy, and men (particularly men, for Darwinian reasons) don't usually fantasize that sexual success will reduce their social status. The "elite" aura of a high-end outcall service or sex club isn't a smokescreen to defuse the reality of prostitutes' degradation, any more than the lace curtains and piano of a workingmen's brothel: they gratify men's fantasies about themselves. If that's moral depravity, it's the same depravity presented by every ornate union and fraternal organization hall, every Playboy Club, strip joint, hotel barbershop and cathedral in the world.

Is this just a simple Squaresville sales pitch?

• No. In Leff's terms this is Calvinist Causation of a particularly simple order. The basic slogan under which all forms of sexual excitement are sold to men, pretty much everywhere, is "You Deserve It."

Arguably, the men participating in this service are fully aware and intend to purchase sex and seek out these particular types of services.

• "Arguably"? How about "Unquestionably"? Why waste a sentence on the obvious?

What is the difference between johns who call from a phone book, make arrangements on a website or drive to a dark corner for prostitution? Surely, they are all purchasing sex. Is it simply the price?

• No. It's a multifactorial combination of habit, resources, and the nature of the fantasy. The use of the word "john" instead of "man" is more an example of the distancing phenomenon you are supposedly talking about than the evidence you are adducing. You are trying to ignore that "johns" are "men," and the behavior of "men" can only be explained in a more contextual fashion.

There is no real correlation between “safety” and price, as it is especially common to pay an exclusive service more money for riskier sex. Mr. Spitzer was apparently no different. Source Billboard on Westside Hwy

• "Safety" in what sense? A man afraid of venereal disease is better off buying the services of a higher-price girl, because she is more likely to get regular medical attention. A man afraid of being robbed or hurt is better off using an expensive outcall service because he controls the environment and because his repeat business is so valuable that the supplier has overwhelming incentives to keep him safe and take care of him. That's also why those who like brothels like brothels that are expensive and luxurious, and therefore have more to lose in the event of the raid they are more likely to pay off the police in order to avoid. But all of this is actually a diversion, because nothing that was said was about the customer's safety, only about the girl's.

Using Leff’s analysis, the importance here is not what is being purchased but how it is purchased. Once in this venue, the up-sell is also part of the lure and the scam. The business of purchasing sex through the Emperor’s VIP was conducted entirely via email and telephone contact. Imagine a sales pitch that sounds something like this: “All of our girls are rated from 1 to 7 diamonds. All are happy to provide full-services. For three diamonds, you can date Ashley. For five diamonds, Kelly. And for the most-elite, Veronica for seven diamonds.” Ashley, Kelly and Veronica are, of course, the same person. The imbalance of knowledge is as much a part of the up-sell as the drive for conspicuous consumption supporting the rationale that if you pay more, you must be getting more.

• Maybe. But Leff was attuned enough to actual commercial realities to note that this strategy is not effective as an "upsell," because the valuable repeat customer who decides to pay more for a higher-rated girl and who gets the same girl he had last year at a lower price won't come back. It's more likely that the scheme is used to give the appearance of a larger and more highly-developed stable in order to price-discriminate customers who will pay $5k from those who will pay $7k, which is two different bunches of customers. The number of customers at that upper price level who buy through agencies is small, but it does exist, and you have to pretend you have a special product to meet its needs. So, given the fact that I never talked to Leff about prostitution marketing (I knew nothing about it back then and I fancy so did he), I think he wouldn't agree that you've used "his" analysis here.

Media Fixations: We all bought the scam, too.

For lack of a better term, I refer to the frenzy and scandal presentation on radio, blogs, and “trusted news sources” collectively as the media. Unintended is the connotation of a big, bad “other” separate from public participation. The media, while not always reflective of public opinion (or truth for that matter), is representative of a collective response.

In addition to whatever elements drive the market for prostitution, another important role is played by the distinction of prostitution as an “elite” service. Consumers of these so-called “elite” services not only do so due to invidious or conspicuous consumption or as marks victim to swindling tactics, they do so in part because it allows the false understanding of their consumption as fundamentally different from other prostitution. Where there is prostitution, there is homelessness, child abuse, sexual abuse, other violence and extreme poverty. Source Source

• This is certainly inaccurate. It's obviously wrong about "champagne girls" earning $10k/night. It's also wrong about temple prostitution in the ancient Middle East, "Belle du Jour" thrill-seeking, occasional tricks turned with customers by non-addicted strippers working their way through law school, big-firm lawyers paying post-undergraduate paralegals for a little on the side, boss-fucking, "A for a lay" propositions from students to teachers, and many other forms of commercial sex that could be found in the ethnography. It's accurate, of course, about many many others. So the proposition could be put as "Lumping absolutely everything together, so as to ignore all complexities among the very large variety of practices described, an artificial entity called 'prostitution' is marked by homelessness, child abuse, sexual abuse, other violence and extreme poverty." But I don't think one gains much by doing so, because that's an unfortunately good description, lumping everything together and ignoring the variations, of another artificial entity called 'human life.'

There is the suggestion of something dank and trashy about picking up an anonymous whore from a street corner. To avoid such connotation, in every major news report of the then-breaking story of Spitzer’s demise, he was consistently referred to as being involved with a “high-priced prostitution ring.” Once the prostitute’s identity was released, there was frenzy about Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka “Kristin.” Her MySpace page became front page. Her life story, with little emphasis on the allegations of abuse and short homeless period, was framed as a perverted tale of the American Dream “from rags to riches.” Source

• I think you're wrong about the reason that Spitzer was identified as having spent fantastic amounts of money on buying sex. Had his sins been dank and trashy they would have been so identified by Rupert Murdoch and the New York Times with all the pleasure in life. They were instead heedless, arrogant, and profligate, and were so described, with similar relish. On the other side, the interest in identifying women who have sex outside the boundaries of the form of prostitution called traditional single-earner marriage is older than the Wikipedia by millennia. The primary minimizer of the negative parts of the life narrative of Ms Dupre was Ms Dupre. She is hardly the first woman to suggest that prostitution is the most effective female expression of the Protestant work ethic, particularly closely tied to the American dream. Other famous literary exponents of the same point of view can be found in the characters calling themselves "Xaviera Hollander" and "Moll Flanders," for example.

This whole process has already been replicated by the recent news of Thomas Athens, who was caught having relations with a prostitute for a mere $150. You may not recognize his name, as he is rarely identified by it. He is the husband of U.S. Senator, Debbie Stabenow.

• Wrong punctuation. There are, as you know, 100 U.S. Senators.

The prostitute involved is Alycia Martin (her MySpace page and middle name are readily available as well). The convergence of public fascination for scandals and the focus on individuals operate to quash any discussion of how insidious prostitution is in all parts of society.

• You mean "some parts of society." Or perhaps by "insidious" you mean "common."

The pictures in the headlines feature both Senator Stabenow and Ms. Martin. Thomas Athens is nowhere to be found and little mentioned.

• As A.J. Liebling famously pointed out in 1935, quoting an editor of the Hearst Features Syndicate, three things sell newspapers: blood, money, and the female organ of sexual intercourse. The male counterpart doesn't sell newspapers.

That incident has already been calculated publicly as worth about “.046 whore diamonds.” This prostitute is referred to as a “hooker.” Source

• So is Ms Dupre. 410,000 times, according to Google as of May 9 at 5:20pm. And?

Conclusion

• You haven't shown that this proposition is true, and you haven't showed that it shouldn't be true. It's like saying that Americans have learned to tell the difference between union garments and the produce of sweatshops. If anything, on that latter point, they have gone backwards: in my childhood, some people used to look for the union label before they bought clothes. If there were a broad social determination to deal with the exploitation of sex workers (or, indeed, any workers) in our economy, that would be good news. The news that workers are as usual being divided among themselves, fed to the gills with moral and racial prejudices designed to divide their force and move them to hating one another rather than those who exploit them, is hardly the news I'd want to hear.

The discussion of the status of prostitution in America has centered on what happens in “elite” brothels, featuring interviews with porn stars, other “high-priced prostitutes” and Heidi Fleiss. There are no hookers interviewed.

• Are you sure? Have you looked? Every shelf in every library from HQ110-HQ250 is a good place to try. I would also particularly suggest the anthropology of Wendy Chapkis, e.g. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor (1997).

There is little connection made to the systems of oppression that operate, of the millions of U.S. children prostituting themselves. Source

• A poor source, don't you think, consisting of an unsourced Q & A issued by a tiny organization run by one former Nevada county commissioner and specializing in publicizing the "research" of one freelance writer whose work has been pretty effectively criticized by the academic sociologists who study the Nevada prostitution system?

Little mention of power differentials supported by the legal system is made, as evidenced by the structure of laws pertaining to johns and prostitutes.A little about Sweden's System. A little about the U.S. System

• Would it have made any sense here to cite also the legal and social arrangements of Germany and the Netherlands, where 98 million people live in societies that have legalized brothel prostitution, or the UK, where another 60 million people live in a society that has decriminalized outcall prostitution?

Mainstream, public discourse has arguably been swayed by the same factors to see Mr. Spitzer’s purchase as something different than exploitation.

• Do you remember the West Coast sex workers' union that Margo St. James named Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics twenty-five years ago? Wendy Chapkis may well have been right to say that COYOTE was a white women's union, not very interested in the working conditions of immigrant sex laborers, but that's the AFL/CIO problem all over again, isn't it? You think the right solution to the craft elites' absence of concern for the fate of industrial workers at the turn of the 20th century would have been to criminalize employment? I thought the right solution turned out to be protection of the right to unionize, labor newspapers and political organizations, industrial safety legislation and accompanying government regulation, and the criminal prosecution of employers who abuse workers. But perhaps you feel that the outstandingly good results we achieve by making prostitution illegal and placing every worker in the industry outside the protection of the law justify the continuance of our old tired, religion-infused and bigoted ways?

-- MiaWhite - 07 Apr 2008

• If the essay is only addressed to those who begin from the proposition that all prostitution is "morally depraved," it can be shorter. Some people of both wisdom and learning on the subject believe that view is narrow-minded, misogynistic, religiously-prejudiced bullshit. They think that commercial sex and other sex labor comes in many different forms, including some that both economically and psychically empower the workers. They think holding workers responsible for their own exploitation and illegalizing their work is mere class and gender antagonism against a trade that constantly threatens to destabilize the nature of male hierarchical power. If you mean to engage them (and they are really the only people you can engage on this subject, unless you want to comfort yourself by preaching to the choir who just lynched Eliot Spitzer) you can't do so without acknowledging and responding to their arguments. There are answers, but you can't ignore the questions, or depend on your interlocutors' being underinformed. You have to think them through and write them out. Your position is tenable, but you aren't holding it well here and you need to do better.