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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Comments:
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Monday 16 November
By Arthur Low
I think it an appropriate way for college students who wish to, to use prostitution as an effective way for pay for education.
Reply
Tuesday 17 November
By San Diegan
There is an outcry because its raggity. Turning your body into a gas station restroom is just nasty.
Tuesday 17 November
By Zombies4obama
I got the money if you got the time ;-)
Monday 16 November
By Anon
I was approached to do something like this once. I seriously considered it, because my bills seem insurmountable. I can't ask my parents for any more money, and I can't work any more than I do, or I'll flunk out.
The option to get a big wad of cash quickly could come in handy...
Reply
Tuesday 17 November
By whirple
there are other ways to get a big wad ... better ideas will come upon you
Monday 16 November
By Kevin
At least these ladies are getting a higher education out of it. Beats a crack head working the streets.
Reply
Monday 16 November
By kiki
you are right about that!! It sure does beat a crack head out in the streets any day.
Tuesday 17 November
By Kalikkalack
The prostitute is not the marriage wrecker, he cheating husband is. Your entire post made me feel like your husband cheated on you, gave you a cookie, and now you are blaming the girl he was with instead of him.
Tuesday 17 November
By T
Why do people always automatically assume that because someone is disgusted with this sort of behaviour, it means they've been affected by it personally, as if there is no other reason why anyone would feel strongly about the issue? Responses like that are just unbelieveably shallow and ignorant.
What a lot of people are saying here is that the end justifies the means, as long as the end turns out good. It's pretty obvious that they've never really considered what it means to start going down that road. If the end always justifies the means, then how about if someone likes your brand new car that you just paid a mint for, and they decide it would look better in their driveway? Oh, of course, they plan to use it to bring things to Goodwill, or to pick up a friend's kids from school, or to deliver meals to shut-ins, so they will make far better use of it than you would, just driving back and forth to work. Does the end still justify the means?
Wrong is wrong, no matter what it's done for, and at some point, if we want to get off this slippery downward slope we're on, we're going to have to regain our sanity and realize that there was a reason we used to know right from wrong.
Tuesday 17 November
By Mike None
Yes you are so right about the college degree.Not selling their bodies for drugs but for a cause.
Monday 16 November
By LMW
Oldest profession in the world. Legalize it, regulate it, tax the earnings. w00t.
Reply
Tuesday 17 November
By james kennington
i though motherhood was
Tuesday 17 November
By Shari
I couldn't agree more. Time to stop being a victim and assume responsibility for your own co-created experiences instead of judging another thru your distorted lens. There are no accidents in God's world, we co'create everything for our lessons. Most of all, is time to love yourself instead of shaming and blaming.
Wednesday 18 November
By FNTCYFCTRY
Prostitution is NOT illegal in England, street walking and pimping are.
America is the only civilized country WITHOUT some sort of sex worker legislation. except fpr pahrump county nv. very progressive we are.
Monday 16 November
By recharged95
All it shows is, just because you get a PhD doesn't mean you're always *right* & *good*..
Society looks upon PhDs as these good, right, heros of the mind. They make decisions just like anyone else--good and bad. I find that most PhDs to make bad decisions, be lazy, steal, cheat, do drugs, greedy, egocentric bastards, etc... it's more the normal than the exception! They are still human, folks. It's just they appear "better" cause
a. through more education, they are better prepared, and
b. colleges are freaking networking institutions to gain access, power & money nowadays.... aside from the partying. Pay to play is a good word for most higher education institutions (with the rising costs of colleges).
For anyone to assume a PhD "does the right thing" is ignorant. Purely ignorant--simple as that.
Guess what: the OP subject girl is just like anyone else, even if she has a PhD. Doctoral students do not get a free pass from being judged--though a lot of folks that did not goto college assume that...
Reply
Monday 16 November
By bella
Wow, you are so right! Can we hear it for the ladies, like myself, who actually struggled financially? Society should not condone this type of behavior. Maybe I should tell me son, when he needs a part-time job while going to school to set-up a methlab. Or how about using my garden to start a pot crop? No, this is unacceptable!
Tuesday 17 November
By reikilight
How silly that you bought into thinking that someone with a PhD is somehow a better person than the average person ... or that you think society does somehow! They are normal and regular people with either a passion for learning or born with a golden spoon in their mouths and have that opportunity without having to work and make it on their own while they study. This woman was smart ... and I wouldn't judge her as being good or bad because she did what she did to get an education.
Maybe a little less time spent on making judgments of people and a little more time learning about yourself and building your own self worth would help you. An education is a good thing ... it gives you a more balanced life experience at times ... but certainly doesn't make you "good" or "better" than anyone! In fact I find those with advanced degrees normally a little boring and stuck in their pompous intellectual world and way short on common sense or street smarts ... but that is just my experience with people with PhD's ... and I understand it is purely from my own limited socializing with people with PhD's. To somehow equate good or bad to someone who uses her body to gain a higher education is simply stupid and very naive. I have met brilliant poor people and complete buffoons who have lots of money and a great education. The part of humans that dictate their worth as a human is certainly not the level of education or their job ... it is what is inside them. Judging someone is lame ... and very shallow. If she were my girlfriend her past (as long as she is clean and healthy) would not affect how I look at her ... it is what she is on the inside that would attract me.
Monday 16 November
By Chuck
I really don't give a s**t what someone does for a living but for all the positive comments on here about the glam/hooking life, lol, i wonder have you ever really seen how degrading and dangerous it is to sell your body. Just ask Dana Plato!
Reply
Monday 16 November
By UpChuck
Shut up Chuck. You'd do it for 20 bucks if you could. Whats all the damn dissin of chicks who do this? Its really the men that buy it that are the REAL pathetic losers.
Tuesday 17 November
By Giles
And Dana Plato, a very cute actress, was a lesbian, so those bashing men for what girls do ought to think for a change. Hookers of both genders rent to customers of both genders. They are not into it for love, and/or sex, they are into it fo money. Beyond that it varies. Most strippers, much less hookers, ARE drug addicts. Pretty hard for druggies to hold down very many other jobs. The media likes the notion all hookers are beautiful, and have hearts of gold. Not true. Some are fat, much less nasty. Half of all fist marriages end in divorce, of those, they average adultery of every marriage, five marriages, five divorces, failure every time. Maybe to them, loveless masturbation for money seems cool. Especially if they fantasize being a $200 a trick call girl having sex with handsome leading men, with multiple orgasms. Check out what the online phone sex gals over if you think it is glamourous. They are usually phone doms, talking thru sadomasochistism for money. For those thinking that is bad, the live hookers don`t just talk, they engage in the sadomasochism for money. They get sent to hospitals not just with sexually transmitted diseases, but are routinely beaten up, sometimes maimed and/or killed, for the promise of $20 bucks, which, of course, is not always paid. And their kids, since their birth control is given a work out and sometimes fails, are often mentally retarded, with fetal alcoholism and/or fetal drug abuse. Maybe legal prostitution, government regulated, would put a pretty face on prostitution, but the nasty stuff being done illegally would still be done illegally, for the same reasons it is done illegally now. I lived next door to one fat, middleaged, hooker, when the JCs went to her for a party, so the gay men could watch the others have sex with the whore (her son and daughter were my age, healthy). I`ll be having dinner Thanksgiving with the daughter of another whore, she wasn`t so lucky, but was at least adopted. And yes, The customers beat up the kids, not just the whores. It isn`t just the pimps who do that.