Alexa attributes such criticism to "jealousy," but dismissing these reactions as mere cattiness doesn't do justice to the reasonable concerns fellow sex workers have around anonymous people claiming sex work experience. All too often, prostitutes' stories are co-opted, distorted, and exploited for personal gain, even as lip service is paid to wanting to improve sex workers' lot. The already profound misunderstanding of sex work is only exacerbated by personas that are fabricated or distorted yet insist upon their legitimacy.
Even if a worker is legit, the way she selects what she shares may be taken as fraudulency. This is what fellow workers reacted to in Lux's writing, where uncomfortably clichéd lines like "It makes me want to vomit. It makes me want to kill myself. How has it come to this? When will I love myself again?" were par for the course. One response is to assume Lux is a fake who panders to the most prevalent of myths about sex workers—namely, that they all have no self-esteem and are repulsed by their work. Yet the public discourse around sex work is loud enough to affect how sex workers view and speak about themselves and their experiences, and it would be foolish to claim that no sex workers have low self-esteem and/or dislike their work.
The impulse to disavow nakedly unhappy experiences is the unfortunate yet unsurprising result of being a marginalized population; social sanctions create a propensity for self-monitoring. Devalued members of a minority—be that minority based on race, class, gender, etc.—are regarded by the dominant group as being representations or proxies of all other members of the group. As Clare Booth Luce said, "Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes;' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.' Serpent Libertine puts it into sex worker terms: "If someone is making up a phony sex worker persona […] they are doing all sex workers a disservice. We have enough problems and issues in this industry to deal with."
And, one might argue, seeming "phony"—that is, one-dimensional and following the cultural script—is regarded as problematic as being phony. Just as the mainstream gay rights movement suppressed its more flamboyant elements in an attempt to garner greater social support, so do sex workers occasionally hush the less palatable realities of their field in their efforts to minimize stigma. Certainly some strippers do use drugs at work, have sex with clients in the VIP rooms, and feel bad about themselves afterwards—but most exotic dancers wouldn't want such women as the face of their labor force. Because the common person is all too quick to take sordid and sad sex worker stories as being representative of larger industry truths that would persist regardless of legal and social adjustments, sex workers who hope to elicit change tend to downplay negative aspects of their work.
The Rise of the Authentic Escort
Another aspect of the Alexa criticism may stem from her insistence that she writes authentic, candid stories of her work under her work identity. Full disclosure is virtually unheard of among escorts who blog with their work name, for several obvious reasons.
While marketing blogs (those tied to a website delineating screening measures and pricing) often promote a view of the advertised escort as highly sexual, through discussions of what she finds arousing and some retellings of personal sexual history, they rarely include stories about client encounters. This is due to an interest in client confidentiality and the intent to create a sense of exclusivity, but concern of self-incrimination is also an important consideration. It is, after all, illegal in the US to accept money in exchange for sex, and admitting that one has done so in connection with their work identity is inadvisable at best, particularly if it's accompanied with graphic details about swallowing a client's come. (An example of a typical Alexa sentence: "My weekend of selling myself for use as a cum dumpster had come to an end.")
Kimberlee Cline, who twitters and tumblrs under her work name, articulates the problem she'd create were she to use her social outlets to relate work experiences:
I don't write about my clients on my blog. I don't think that's what they pay me for; they pay me for their privacy. I don't see any purpose in talking about my clients and the private experiences they have with me because I feel like then I would not be providing what I say I'm providing.
Jenny DeMilo, a West Coast escort who also blogs in connection to her work website, verifies, "I am limited in my blogging. I have to be careful not to say things where clients or others (girls) will recognize themselves. Being too outspoken can come back to haunt you and hurt you both emotionally and financially."
In contrast, Alexa purports to go as far as to write during appointments: "I've tweeted/blogged during a session with clients who knew and even encouraged what I was doing." Indisputably, some clients love the exhibitionistic, narcissistic thrill that comes with seeing their escort experiences in electronic ink; the florid stories on The Erotic Review are proof enough of this propensity. But Alexa adds that her blog "was [not] originally conceived as a way to attract clients" and "it was never intended to be just a blog about my work" in spite of the explicit acknowledgment on her "About" page that the blog is dedicated to being about, well, her work:
I am inviting you to join me because I know there is a tremendous interest in this work, from a variety of angles. […] Tons of books have been written by women who've been in this line of work […] but I don't think anyone has documented their entry into the work as it happens.
While it would be pointless to promote one woman's marketing approach over another's, one effect of the gentrification of prostitution has been the tendency for independents to highlight their personality as a selling point as much or more than their sexual skills and appearance, and to seek out gentleman with similar interests. Middle class ideas about the possibility or even necessity of fulfillment through work have seeped into the sex industry. Jenny frankly states, "My personality really is my most attractive quality and my best 'dates' are always with people who have read my blog and like me," a sentiment that Kimberlee echoes: "Around the time I started my tumblr, I realized that the more genuine and real I was about who I am, the better connections I was having with my clients." Selling the much-discussed "girlfriend experience" means providing the sense of a complete, authentic human being, including (shocking though it may seem) interests outside of sex.
And while Alexa's right that many, many memoirs have been written by madams, strippers, escorts, and porn performers, these books mainly mimic anonymous blogs in their salacious, repetitious content and dubious writing quality. If blogs are going to fill a void, it's not in the realm of mere storytelling; it's in their ability to build connections.
Print
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Google
Yahoo
Comments
Faux Ho
There seems to be quite a bit of this going around. The examples you note are probably the most visible, hence the most egregious, but they're certainly not singular.
There are many real, honest-to-goodness, working escorts who are blogging and writing. They have real, funny, sexy, interesting stories to tell. Thanks for highlighting some of them here.
Good article, well researched. Valuable information.
http://hookeraddict.wordpress.com/2009/12/19/the-pretenders/
Oh, look, "Alexa Dicarlo"
Oh, look, "Alexa Dicarlo" (whatever his real name is) just posted a FIVE THOUSAND word "rebuttal" on his blog. Interestingly, it consists mostly of hand-waving, blustering, and excuses.
Actually, you don't have to rely on circumstantial evidence to show that "Alexa" is a fake. In an April 2008 post, he claimed to be a graduate student in Human Sexuality Studies at San Francisco State University, starting in Fall 2008. This is a bona fide that can be verified.
This is a real university, and it has a Department of Sexuality Studies. On their website, they list all the entering graduate students for each year, with a brief background. There are only 10 women entering in 2008. None of them match up to the information on the blog. Geographic location, undergraduate university, area of research, etc.
If "Alexa" were smart, he would've claimed to be going to business school. It's easier to remain anonymous in a class of 200. But you can't hide when you claim to be one of ten people.
Alexa DiCarlo
I've read Alexa's blog regularly since she started it, and follow her tweets as well. Perhaps I'm easily fooled, but I don't think so. I've never had a wisp of suspicion that she isn't exactly what she claims: a phenomenally highly sexed individual who is bold and assertive about her desires. Her tweets match up with her blog; she hasn't attempted to gain massive notoriety or do anything that would accrue income (UNLESS, of course, she's truly an escort!). These quibbles smack of conspiracy theorism. People should maybe think that the simplest possible explanation is the truth: she's an escort. If she were a guy and could write about sex from the woman's point of view the way she does, it'd be a frigging miracle, frankly.
Yep, I count this all as jealousy.
Simplest explanation?
I don't see how the simplest explanation is that everything she says is true, unless by "simplest" you mean "easiest to insist on in spite of evidence to the contrary." Everything she says clearly isn't true, as has been proven by the Cass situation. (You can see here that Alexa tried to claim she worked for the site and the webmaster was using old pictures of her, but this isn't the case; the girl in the pictures is a still-working model with a twitter feed whose commentary I've included links to in my other comment.) In fact, if we're going to make everything "simple" and reliant on emotion instead of, say, accurate and derived from critical observation, than one of the primary reasons for some of this vehement support is less that Alexa is a convincing persona—although clearly she has been convincing to many people who have no familiarity with actual sex workers or the sex industry—but rather that those who have supported her are invested in her being real, both so they can continue to enjoy her site but more importantly so they don't feel foolish or taken advantage of.
As I tried to explain in this article, and subsequent posts by Maggie and Trixie have detailed, there are many legitimate reasons for sex workers to be suspicious of those who claim to be part of their community without having any interaction with other sex workers. If Alexa's had the successful PR campaign that she tries to claim (in terms of making laypeople respect sex workers and rally for their rights), I'm seeing little evidence of it in her supporters, who are so quick to say dozens of established, verifiable sex workers are just lacking self-esteem (ie "jealous"). What is there to be jealous of? So far, I've not encountered any actual sex worker who believes she sees clients, and she's not making any money from her endless internet endeavors.
If Alexa and her readers actually cared about sex workers' rights and voices, they'd pay attention to what actual sex workers were saying.
The women in this piece
Posted the same thing twice when my comment was held up in moderation—Apologies. See below.
Alexa is a Fake
http://twitter.com/BlueyedCass85 - "Alexas other twitter page
http://www.blueyedcass.com/ - She is also a cam girl...funny how she had sessions while on vacation in Yellowstone
http://www.princessblueyez.com/ - and here she is again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogc7I-z5J0w ...and here she is on Youtube
Plus she's a grad student, a courtesan, a writer of several blogs, a sex expert at Caitlin's corner, constantly twitters etc She is such a fraud!
Connections?
I've seen these pages referenced before -- but I've seen nothing that convinces me that they're actually the same person as Alexa, other than people stating and restating it. At most, perhaps Cailtin's Corner, but even that, what shows the connection? I never saw the photos Alexa posted on her professional site, so I can't attest to the connection there (i.e., that they're the same person shown in the BlueeyedCass photos).
What, pray tell, is so tremendously implausible about a grad student working 10 hours a week as an escort and doing blogs/twittering during the course of her day? She's clearly a very fluid writer -- someone of that skill level could easily pound out several thousand words a week, especially if she's just describing her life and not trying to pull together an analytical paper. It's NOT that tough, folks.
Occam's Razor, anyone?
Faux Hi
This woman is on twitter all day long... She has time to tweet and have convos wither others all day long, see clients, write her blog, complete grad student work, study, apply to a doctoral program, general grooming, screening clients, hosting/screening gang bangs, (at the time) maintain Caitlins Corner, participate on adult forums, maintain 4-5 Tumblr accounts, search for erotic images to tweet, Facebook, Myspace, (even) LinkedIn and scour Craigslist for ads...I could go on. This woman did all of the above and more and yet people really believe that she was a full time grad student. Sorry any student with that much going on doesn't spend all day on the internet unless you some shut in (which she probably is).
Here is a link that shows her myspace acct (prior to her deleting it): http://alexadicarloisafake.blogspot.com/
This is clearly the same woman from Blue Eyed Cass/Princess Blue Eyes
"Alexa" even admitted to Charlie Glickman that those pics were indeed her (she said they were old). How does a woman with ALL of that going on still perform on Cam (which actually coincides with some of her blog post about doing other things) on a regular basis? I have the answer she doesn't...she's a faux ho.
No obvious technical connection
FYI Alaxa's site and the two you mention are hosted by different companies in different states. - See Also http://bit.ly/8aQtjB
Lux
I initially suspected Lux to be fake due to her constant stereotyping and pedestrian observations about stripping (I've been a stripper for 13 of the past 24 years). I confronted her with my suspicions which she adamantly denied but as she continued to blog my suspicions continued that she might be a man, Eventually she revealed to me that her blog posts were based on long past experiences (years earlier), and that she has since quit stripping.
While I did (and continue to) believe her on that point, I also feel it's deceitful to pretend to be blogging about deeply personal issues in real time when in fact you're dredging up faded, distorted memories purely as a means of collecting fans to further a writing career. I also take issue with anyone representing (even in some small way) the marginalized group of people such as we (strippers) are, by perpetuating damaging, two-dimensional stereotypes. I feel her blog lacks authenticity and honesty on that point. I do not, however, believe she is a man anymore. I also don't believe she meant any harm and has probably been hurt worse than she really deserved. And for my part in that I'm very sorry.
Clarifications
Given the absolute wildfire effect that's taking place on other blogs and twitter feeds, I thought I would add a few points about the original article.
None of the women I interviewed were asked about Lux or Alexa or any other blogger—I spoke to them about their own experiences working and blogging. Nor did I give them any of the other names that would appear in this article (be they interviewees or points of discussion) because the article isn't about any one person—it's about blogging.
I told Alexa I was going to discuss rumors that she was fake before she answered a single question; she chose to grant me an interview anyway. When I suggested that we speak over the phone so I could at least vouch for her being a woman, she declined.
Since this has been published, PrincessBluEyez/BluEyedCass (whose pictures Alexa allegedly stole) has confirmed that Alexa was indeed using her (Cass's) pictures without permission, and that after Cass contacted her about it, she password protected her portfolio. You can read these responses here and here.
Thank You
Thank you for posting this article and commenting on my own blog post in response. I wish that I had possessed your courage a long time ago and your tailored comments to my post were just what I needed to hear. You are a fine writer and this is a great article.
Blog Anonymity
I no longer take any of these sorts of confessions seriously. I do recall adding a confrontational comment to 'Shirley Shave's' blog years ago voicing my annoyance ('Shirley Shave'/Henry Baum, strung a high number of readers along), for the blog author to try to make it my fault and turn me into a 'lunatic'. Like I had imagined his blog or his deception, when he decided to come clean on his blog. The encounter put me off the idea of blogging in general, but at the time, few people/bloggers were willing to discuss this issue or the problems it hast he potential to cause, especially when fake identities purport to be involved in particular professions. But these sorts of people don't care about the perception they create to potentially impressionable readers, they only care about their ego, potential fame and so on.
There will always be a problem with anonymity on the web. Unfortunately, there will be personalities who have no moral backbone whatsoever. Personally, I no longer read diaries. They're yesterday's news.
BTW I've noticed that the RPD are currently offline.
cites?
oh monica, you really hit this one out of the park.
i'd really like to quote you in my master's thesis, and also pick your brain about your research. to be clear, your article and the background info it cites are filling a huge gaping hole in my argument, something i've been fighting about with my advisor for months. i'd not only love to, but i straight up NEED to discuss this with you, specifically: mainstream/public sex work debate's tendency to focus on "black and white" and ignore the liminal, i.e. bloggers. you also touch on some issues relating to the hierarchy of knowledge production that have pertinence to bloggers--namely, that we cannot be verified and are therefore stripped (pun intended) of legitimacy.
that goes for all you other fabulous sex work bloggers i see commenting here, as well: if you know of articles (online or in print) that discuss sex work bloggers in these ways... throw me a bone, ladies, PLEASE, i'm trying to go academic with this shite. for now, at least :-)
Hm
Thanks, Monica, for addressing the issue of community self-censorship in your article. I read and liked Lux's blog when it was alive. I've been a dancer, and nothing about her writing made me think she was fake. Certainly, she was not the self-possessed, level-headed business woman most of us want to believe ourselves to be and project to the world that we are. But I appreciated what I felt to be her honesty about her bad times and stupid decisions. When I was a dancer, I sometimes had bad times and made stupid decisions, too.
After my public blog was Boing-Boinged and started attracting attention, I was occasionally accused of being an "obvious fake" and told that my "strip club scenes lacked authenticity" -- usually by people who admitted they had never been to a strip club. (Other dancers and former dancers, by contrast, were universally very nice.) There were also people who would pull individual sentences and quotes out of my writing to "prove" that I hated my job (like all strippers), was psychologically damaged and unable to form meaningful relationships (like all sex workers) and so on. Being accused of fraud was annoying, but having my words used as fodder for an already constructed opinion about the sex industry was down-right distracting. Although I was anonymous and had never posted pictures or any identifying information, it all still felt very personal. Eventually, I made my blog member-only and although I miss the exhibitionism of writing posts for any random person to see and react to, blogging privately has been more peaceful.
Of course, being an avid opportunist, I've tried to think of ways to attract clients and money through the blog, but so far have never been able to reconcile what I want to write with a public, non-anonymous face that I would want to own. Because the truth is, in addition to good days and interesting experiences, I do have days when I'm down on my job, and on myself. Even in private, I employ many filters to protect myself and anyone else that I may write about. In return, when I write about my experiences I want the freedom to be completely honest about myself and my impressions of other people -- good, bad, and mixed. This is what the readers who followed me to my private blog respond to. It is good material. But it is not, unfortunately, good marketing.