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The jig is up. Belle de Jour, the former prostitute behind the popular column "Diary of a London Call Girl" and TV series "Secret Diary of a Call Girl" is really British research scientist Dr. Brooke Magnanti, 34. Dr. Magnanti gave the oldest reason for turning to the oldest profession -- to pay for her PhD. She came forward now allegedly out of fear that an ex-boyfriend might out her. Not even her literary agent knew who she really was.
"It was time. I've felt so much guardedness and paranoia about remaining anonymous recently," Dr. Magnanti told The Sunday Times. "... I don't want this massive secret over me anymore."
But let's step back a moment -- Dr. Magnanti's story isn't anything we haven't heard before. Melissa Beech (not her real name), a college senior from a swanky suburb outside Philadelphia, has written about how a sugar daddy is paying for her schooling in The Daily Beast. Until last fall, a student alleging to be a call girl detailed her experiences at the blog Confessions of a College Callgirl. In the summer, a Knoxville, Tenn., media outlet interviewed a 19-year-old using escorting to pay for massage therapy school. (Stifle that laugh.)
The number of students having sex for tuition money has exploded in Europe, and experts believe it will continue to rise due to the rising costs of education. British researchers found this unusual trend in sex work has grown by 50 percent over the past seven years. In early 2008, France's education minister vowed to increase financial support after a freshman's diary and a book of interviews with undergrads exposed their experiences with prostitution.
It makes sense. There are few jobs you can work while going to school full-time that can truly help you pay for an education. (Read the claim by "Freakonomics" authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner that prostitution can get you the most buck for your bang.)
So since we've heard stories like Dr. Magnanti's before, maybe there's still an outcry because society still can't accept a woman using both her sexuality and her smarts. Why can't a smart cookie give up the cookie as a means to an end? Or maybe it's the fact that Dr. Magnanti went really far in her education that irks us. Commenters are hissing that she's somehow less, her degree somehow not as credible, because she paid for it with carnal currency.
The most shocking part of Dr. Magnanti's story may be that she didn't get exposed before now. With her revelation, maybe stereotypes of exactly what kind of woman engages in the sex industry will start to fall away.
And maybe the next time a highly educated woman admits she did the deed to get a degree, we won't judge her so harshly.
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Monday 16 November
By maximusmeridiuso
Also in regard to the bible, gods laws aren't the old laws against prostitution. It is the criminal justice systems law and social laws too. If not for them, you might as well be dead if there were no laws. I honestly broke away from the bible the more educated I became, it is easier to manipulate people who who can't dictate their own decisions and need to seek a higher purpose to escape the complexities of modern life and that is their decision. The individuals who are saying bible followers are saying those who do not support prostitution are living by the bibles laws are using that as leverage in their argument and attacking a group of people who did not even say anything about that on here. It isn't just the bible that says no to prostitution now, as I mentioned previously, it is the law of the justice and socially constructed rules. The majority is the group in power, remember that and you can't change anything no matter what.
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Monday 16 November
By Barbette321
I guess women can now divorce their bodies from their feelings like men. They can "get into it with a stranger" and then walk away like it's nothing. I guess after awhile, it really does mean nothing. Just do it if it feels good. I wonder what we explain to our young daughters about this type of behavior?
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Monday 16 November
By zimm
Just shows the high cost of a college education>
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Monday 16 November
By Anita Funk
Were she and Cameron Diaz seperated at birth?
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Monday 16 November
By Barbette321
Also, I wonder what we explain to our little 7 year old sons or our 14 year old sons about this kind of behavior.. I guess it's okay. Right? What's the big deal. And if she has to sell herself to some gross, fat 70 year old pervert with lots of money, she just has to bend all the way over and spread her legs, so, what's the difference! After it's over, she gets to wash up and go to the bookstore, buy some school supplies and maybe go and have a nice capuccino in an expensive little cafe. I guess she's feeling like a special person. She's really special and NATURAL. She's a natural woman and free. She feels "good about herself". She has a nice, warm, tingling, sensitive, delicate, dignified feeling about her femininity. This really is La Dolce Vita. Guys, thank you very much for this. Women, thank you for thinking of this new beautiful way of life. All of us prudish, inhibited, 'out-of-touch-with-our-sexuality' women never knew what we were missing.
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Monday 16 November
By Lily
I worked in a regular job the entire time I was in college - that was the only way I had to get through college. I would never consider selling my body for any reason. And the question arises, "If someone (male or female) choses to do something illegal to earn money to get their college degree, what employer would ever trust them to work for them?" How could an employer ever trust someone who has willingly violated laws? If someone is willing to commit a crime an employer would not trust them to make business decisions that could have legal repurcussions. This is exactly why an employer can ask an employee if they have ever committed a crime and that information can be a factor for the employer to determine whether they want to hire the person who has committed a crime. Whether you agree with it or not, prostitution is illegal. As an employer, I could never trust someone who had ever been involved in prostitution because this person has made some bad decisions in their life and I would not want someone who made bad decisions working for me. Also, there is the moral issue -a person involved in prostitution has done things with her body with men they don't even know and thus have demeaned themselves. if you were an employer how would you feel if you happened to be at a business meeting with your "ex-prostitute" and one of their "johns" - your potential customer - shows up for the meeting: no way your company is going to get his business because he would not trust that your company has a strong moral background within your company and wouldn't trust you to make moral, legal decisions. Prostitution is just the WRONG way to "work" your way through college. Anyone can get through college without becoming a prostitute.
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Tuesday 17 November
By sasssikatt24
PS LILY they ask if you have ever been CONVICTED...not if you have ever COMMITTED a crime...
Tuesday 17 November
By mjr91
Are you aware that in England, this occupation (prostitution) IS legal?
Monday 16 November
By Barbette321
And I bet she just has a heart of gold.
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Monday 16 November
By morthanawoman928
Your body is precious, not something to be sold. This should make us sad.
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Monday 16 November
By Bopco
Here's my problem with this... Martha Stuart went to jail, becasue she used her influence and contacts, to violate the law and swindle people... Few thought highly of what she did... If a CPA fudges an audit and gets caught, they will never work as a CPA ever again... As a medical doctor, how would you feel about me selling your kids a prescription for "Uppers", because the Government invested their trust in me and that being the case, I can make an easy buck, abusing that hard earned trust ... Now you can all go on and on, about a Woman's right to do what she wishes with her body, but when push comes to shove, just how many of my 230 pound muscle bound male patients, would have a problem pushing me through my office wall, instead of paying their bill... Or if these same men swung a bat for a living, we already know what you'd think of me, if I were the Doctor injecting them with Anabolic Steroids... How many Police Officers can earn a quick buck, by looking the other way, when that 24 hour "Candy Store" is also selling Crack???
Excuse me, Good People, but the word I've kept from using until now, is Crediblity... Sure, one can sometimes equate the advantages of being a loving wife, or husband, with the cold crude pay off of cash, for sex, but there isn't anyway to omit the fact that a husband and wife have entered into a credible contract, in front of the eyes of their friends and still today, their God, for the purpose of raising children, or to otherwise depend on one another...
Anyone of average intelligence, can earn a PhD. The work of a "Doctor", a "CPA", a "Research Scientist" is not so difficult, as to make Heros out of someone, who happens to posess a High IQ... I am of average intelligence... Our education is not so much an ingesting of knowledge, but the learned Crediblity, our entire society can not survive without... I, for one, would be hesitant to prescribe a Drug, I knew a Research Scientist had supposedly evaluated, who had so little regard for the rules of our society, that they prostituted themselves, to find an easy way to pay for and pass, the aspects of book learned knowledge, in their profession... Anyone can do that... Our most hopeful wishes, are that the people we pay to do their jobs, as we do our own, will provide us with the truth... Just how credible is the word of someone who knowingly broke the laws we have lived by for thousands of years, to more easily obtain their title??? Should one really believe, that this being the case, this person has changed and will be pure and honest in their trade??? Belive in the law or not, prostitution is Illegal and this person who knowingly broke the law for profit, is now asking for your hard earned dollar, to do a different "Job"... Again, where do we fit the word Credible in here???
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Tuesday 17 November
By doug
Your main argument here is about willfully breaking the law .I would remind you there is no federal law prohibiting prostitution. and it is legal in some areas of the united states . it is also legal in many places in europe and london where this woman lives .
Monday 16 November
By Jimbo Jones
What a hore! Horrible person!
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Monday 16 November
By Jane Harvey
I applied you my dear. I really understand about this life I was in it for 12 years back in the 60's when I lived in Las Vegas. it is a wasted time and it is so sicking to do this to a stranger you do not hardly know his name. And he has a old body and is 20 or 30 years older than you . Because sexy men do not pay for it. Get what I am saying You are right on dear. Best to you Jane
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Monday 16 November
By Barbette321
You see, she's quite highly evolved. This is a real intellectual. That little smug mouth, that little pout, has had the tongues of a hundred strangers in it. And she's done alot of other things with that mouth. And some day, when she finds "true love" all she has to do is brush her teeth.
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Saturday 21 November
By lol
There should be a school reform throughout. The ridiculous tuitions turn good women into prostitutes just to line pockets of fat cats.
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Monday 16 November
By Jeff
Youz a ho .... Youz a ho .... once a hoe always a hoe
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Monday 16 November
By kuuipo018
You go girl? This woman, and the many like her, sold her body to skeezy men for money. That isn't empowering it is demoralizing. There are SO many other ways to pay for college that don't require you laying on your back. Those of us not not born with money get a job, get 2 jobs, get a loan, start at community college. And when I got my degree I didn't have to sacrifice my self respect to get it.
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Monday 16 November
By maximusmeridiuso
Exactly Kuuipo! You also challenged yourself and came out of it stronger from the experience and did not seek a easy way out. Women like you are respected and looked up to for your accomplishments and achievements. You challenged yourself and came out on top, this women however did not and wanted to cut corners. You defiantly obtained more from your experience than this women ever would've. Prostitutes and skeezy men go hand and hand, no wonder that is where she ended up.
Monday 16 November
By Mac E. Otto
About on par for professors. Another way to get great grades is to entertain those professors. The developement office at the unversity uses the same methods to woo the financial gods to lay lots of money on them.
What the hell do you expect from a univeristy? A cat house full of lousey but sub subserviant lays. They also train our bankers, doctors, lawyers and educators. There is no need to be nervous. Education is th eworkds oldest profession.
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