You might remember the article about sex workers in the Sunday New York Times, "The Double Lives of High-Priced Call Girls," that interviewed a Williamsburg artist and "part-time prostitute," an internet escort raising money for her uninsured father's operation, and a dominatrix. The article appeared calm and fair, and didn't identify the working women as victims. However, one of the women profiled, the artist/part time prostitute "Faith O'Donnell," was unhappy with how she was represented. The article described her as "25, is a hipster with entrancing blue eyes who carries an NPR tote bag and might offer up a few pleasantries on the Whole Foods checkout line before turning back to her Junot Diaz novel." But that's not what irked her! On the sex workers' blog Bound, Not Gagged, she tells us "How the NYT Got an Interview Wrong: For one thing, basic details were wrong, but too many identifying details were included, despite my request to the contrary (I wish I had paid off my student loans!)..."
Additionally, I felt like this was a fluff piece for the Sunday paper, only confirming one kind of way of thinking about sex workers. Had I known this, I wouldn't have participated. I turned down many other requests in response to our press release or spoke less in-depth, but the NY Times seemed to have more credibility (stupid of me), and Andrew Jacobs seemed to "get it..."[Bound, Not Gagged]
I have never identified as a prostitute or call girl, or as "a call girl who books [my] own appointments." I was told for the piece, I needed to talk about 'personal experience.' I talked about stripping (sex work includes different kinds of sexually-oriented jobs, not just "prostitution")...I would have never said I do anything illegal! And I'm not doing anything illegal. I have a relationship I didn't want to mention and a girl I'm dating and the reporter assumed I'm "bisexual" (I hate that term) and made other assumptions (gleaned as true from my coyness or hesitation to talk about some subjects). Furthermore, some details are totally out of context, as if I had said them the way expressed in the article. Andrew Jacobs spoke to 4 people at length, only 2 of whom are explicitly represented in in the article, and it seems as though some of the details are combined!
Overall, I don't think it portrayed me totally in a "bad light," (I am an NPR addict with "entrancing blue eyes" and "natural breasts" that keep 'em coming, after all!) but represented me in a way that could be hurtful to me (despite being details not about me) and was not ultimately a new story about sex workers... and also included too many personal details that were supposedly only required as "factual references."









Comments
That is one servicey sex worker
Chill, slut.
I'm with her. That journalist is a total asshole for assuming she's bisexual just because she sleeps with members of both sexes. Typical small-minded NYT thinking.
@lefty: Ew!
Aw come on, I meant that in the nicest possible way.
@lefty: Hmm. Then that's still not very nice and you grossed me out. Executioner? Some assistance?
@lefty: oh god, I know I shouldn't laugh but...
I read that article. I was disappointed that nowhere did the author ask his subject about spherical coordinate systems, the state of the Israel/Palestine crisis or whether Sonic is better than Arby's.
yeah the ny times has a knack for forgetting silly things like "off the record" and other paper of record type of details when dealing with people they think won't make a big deal out of it. like hookers.
@CodePink: oh no! I thought it was sorta funny! do I have to die too?
@CodePink: chill, narc
hooker hot
@the supergoddess: It was the unexpectedness factor that made it funny. If we all start getting executed for not saying nice things, the sound of crickets shall reign.
I mean, in the end, this piece was still for the NY Times. It was not some filmmaker doing a documentary about sex-workers wherein there would be an opportunity to remain unbias toward the issue. This WAS a fluff piece. I mean, there's nothing I relish more than riding the F train to work, egg sandwich in one hand, sex-worker story in another.
Maybe she should just write a screenplay about teen pregnancy and be done with it. No one's ever gonna understand her sex workiness until she's famous.
I'm too lost to comment.
@lefty: I'm not going to lie, I laughed too.
So the reporter published too many details which could identify her, but got some of the details wrong which is bad somehow? Not sure I follow...
Brings new meaning to the phrase "fluff piece" ...
@lefty:
Not to be pedantic, but I think she is a whore, not a slut. Still, I laughed.
I agree with her in that it was a fluff piece. What gets me about this whole things is that before before DuprA's id was revealed, many of the stories were about how THESE types of call girls were elegant and cultured and educated and really just like a New York socialite. The media perpetuated this.
Then BAM, there's DuprA on her myspace page looking like the skank she is.
@KimGordonsPanties: Really? I feel like I missed a few classes in middle-school, or something. Very sinn and bedeutung of you.
@drugman: Grr...satire, right.
but she's not contradicting the assertion that she's a hipster in W-burg, right? phew.
Sometimes fluffiness hurts.
@scroll_lock: and crickets aren't very snarky, at least not the ones I know.
@karion: Are the two mutually exclusive? Is not a whore inherently slutty?
Okay, everyone laughed at Lefty's comment. Oh WELLZ. Pink was being sensitive. Congratulations, Lefty.
Student loans? OMG - I totally know this girl!
@hypocriteoath: Shopping at Key Foods and being an Opie & Anthony addict didn't scream "intellectual hooker", so she went another route...
@dogisdead: self-righteous hipster hooker? she wears it well.
there used to be, in greenpoint, back in the heady days of 1996 - 2000 a sort of hipster brothel run by a hipster madam full of hipster hoes where socially awkward hipster dudes could go get their hipster fuck on, but first they had to pay some of that hipster cash their hipster parents deposited in their hipster Chemical Bank accounts each month. twas on Franklin ...
Ok. I see the word "hipster" and I think "three days past a shower". This is not a good trait for a hooker to have. Clean catbags sell.
I think a hipster catbag would have to be seriously discounted.
I kinda want to meet her. Is that bad?
NPR addict = heavy nose breather.
@CodePink: I didn't, but I'm a slutty whore.
It's just surprising that the NYT wrote a story that's true.
I like how she's the only person in the world who likes NPR and has student loans. Or maybe it's the blue eyes that gave her away.
I have noticed 3 separate women wearing the black and red pumps in the thumbnail. Now, I will be forced to assume every lady wearing these shoes is a hipster prostitute!
@SeaBassTian:
If these women are under 40, wearing Louboutins (and you don't recognize them as celebrities or trophy wives) than they probably are!
@City_Dater: in one sense or another, yes.
@Ha Ha Sound: Don't hookers prefer In-N-Out?
Rock on, Sheila!
+ Watch video
To the NYT reporter's credit, he tried to make a few corrections after the fact. But to Bound, Not Gagged's credit, we got him to fess up to his errors. Not bad for a bunch of blogging whores. (Which is not referring to who Denton hires, myself incl.)
we think we spotted a few of the sex workers crossing the Brooklyn Bridge -- they look like divorced mail order brides.
[fannypackantics.com]
@City_Dater: Unless they are pretty Korean girls.
@lefty:
Comment on How the NYT Got One Escort's Story Wrong It's after midnight and "Chill Slut" is still funny.
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