Legitimizing the illegitimate
- Jun 12, 2008 - comment
The recent self-inflicted misfortunes of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, U.S. Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, and alleged D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, among others, has once again brought the “world’s oldest profession” into the harsh spotlight of public scrutiny.
To review, Spitzer was accused of availing himself of the services of a high-priced “escort service”—a prostitution ring, as it turned out and is often the case—in Washington, D.C. The accusation cost him his job, and there are still questions being asked about the shifting of funds used to make multiple payments to the service.
David Vitter admitted in July of this year that he had indeed made multiple telephone calls to an escort service in Washington, D.C., whose main service appears to be prostitution as well. He confessed after his telephone number appeared in the records of Palfrey, who was being investigated by authorities for running the escort service / prostitution ring connected to Vitter.
On May 1, Palfrey hung herself in a storage shed on her mother’s property in Tarpon Springs, Fl. Palfrey had already served a prison sentence in California in the early 1990s on charges of running a prostitution ring.
The ruination of these three lives—and the damage to the lives of those who loved them and believed in them—is virtually incalculable. Spitzer, the married father of three girls, was being touted as possible presidential material. Vitter, a Republican, is the married father of three girls and a boy. A Harvard graduate, his political trajectory was also seen as limitless.
Predictions for Palfrey’s future may not have been impressive, but her suicide is nonetheless a sad tragedy.
It would make common sense to conclude, therefore, that escort services are not the upstanding local businesses that they profess to be, and both the men who frequent them and the women who work there would be well-advised to find other ways to occupy themselves. (The diseases in play at these prostitution rings is a subject for another commentary.)
Not so, says Amanda Brooks, a former escort and “dancer” at a Dallas “gentleman’s club.” She is in the process of writing a series of books entitled, The Internet Escort’s Handbook.
“Written by an escort for escorts,” states the books’ Web site. “A frank discussion of a job rarely mentioned except in gossip or scandal. It’s not terrible or ‘bad’ nor must it be demeaning to either party. Safe, sane, successful escort work is possible.”
It’s interesting that the author of that explanation chooses to place “bad” in quotation marks, as if there is some question as to whether the word applies to the escort / prostitution business. One also wonders about the definition of a “successful” escort.
According to the Web site, Book One includes information on the “basic mental, emotional, and physical considerations in escort work.” Book Two deals with “successfully creating and selling your image online.” Other books are in the pipeline.
The appearance of these escort instruction manuals is a telling commentary on modern American culture. We have become so tolerant of sin on every level that these books gather no outrage—or even mild criticism. We see the escort / prostitution business as simply another way to make a living and not a bad way at that, if a whole series of books can be written about it.
The physical, emotional, spiritual, personal and long-term societal costs to all who indulge in such behavior is rarely considered. Like gambling and drugs (including alcohol), both legal and illegal, we have adopted a hands-off attitude. It’s an individual’s choice, right?
Perhaps we could ask that question of the wives and children of Spitzer and Vitter or the mother of Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Perhaps they’d have a different take on the “escort” business and the consequences of our casual attitude toward sin.
This article is reprinted from the May 15, 2008, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.
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