America's Growth Industries: Whoredom, LOLGifs
"In this third year of the Great Recession, it’s starting to set in for a lot of people that the rest of their lives will be, at best, a grim struggle. From early forced retirement for people who have no financial cushion to retire upon to the tens of millions of jobless younger adults still living with mom and (occasionally) dad, for all but the top 5%, it’s just a long hard slog from here on out. That’s why more and more new 'Internet companies' are based on the model of the whorehouse: Are you a reasonably attractive poor woman who doesn’t yet look 'used up'? Then you can rent (with your pre-paid Visa card) a dingy room with a twin mattress and a sink from the virtual madam, and then hopefully entice one of America’s rich men into banging you for a small fee, until he gets bored and moves on and you, inevitably, die poor and alone."
—Here's your choices, pretty much: become a "lady on the side" for a "sugar daddy" or you can found start a website, perhaps a web network of funny cat pictures that gets $30 million in investment. TIMES ARE TOUGH, MAKE YOUR CHOICES WITH CAUTION. (Also there is gonzo porn as an option, which has a low start-up cost and also few barriers to entry. Uh, that's what she said, I guess.)
Hopefully David R's generosity will extend to buying Sarah B a more flattering shade of eyebrow pencil.
oh snap!
Ken brings up a good point. What safeguards can I implement to make sure I don't choke one of these whores to death when we play the Michael Hutchence game for her heating bill money?
Sugar Babies take twice the lime to dissolve because they're loaded with preservatives and that is a road I do NOT want to go down again.
It may not be a LOLGif, but I remember doing something to that picture way back when.
Does Gonzo porn involve the muppet? I don't have anything against muppets, how lucrative we talkin?
The Double Live version involves Ted Nugent. One can only hope it pays handsomely.
Well the recession kind of also killed (okay, not killed, but seriously impacted) the mistress business. One used to be able to count on a monthly stipend of, say, $2500 for minimal effort – like four dates a month. Now men are offering way less and expecting way more. Also, whatever. If I were going to be super honest I’d admit that I’ve been there and have no regrets. It paid the rent and gave me more time with my kid when I really needed both. I grew up and got a real job, of course. You have to eventually. But I genuinely think the whore shaming is a pretty lame…
Who's shaming the whores?
Ah, maybe I'm being hyper sensitive. I just find whenever this conversation comes up it brings out the worst in people, judgement-wise.
Oh! Well fuck 'em then. You do what you gotta do and you always carry your own water. Themz the rulez.
Yeah, I was about to come in here and make an uptight comment about how I've been a sex worker and it's not something women do when they're flush with cash to start with so maybe Choire could shove it but then I thought, fuck it, and I opened a bottle of wine that I bought with my dirty filthy sex worker money.
I've never said this before because I have never actually meant it. But with you? Call me.
Indeed being a sex worker in a recession is probably the last thing I'd choose. When it hit my wife's business dried right up and as Jamieleigh has said, the clients got a lot more demanding for a lot less cash.
As for working, it's an ancient, noble and honorable profession. And it's waaaay more common than guys think (ladies be smarter than us).
We're gonna party like it's 1901:
The Ruined Maid by Thomas Hardy
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?
O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
"At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theäs oon,' and 't'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
"Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.
"You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.
"I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"
"My dear — a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.
I can't haz Puss n' Boots.
Anxiety! Aaah!