The outing epidemic

It happened again a sex worker preemptively outed herself. This time it was the twitter sensation “TeleEroticist” a phone sex operator who with a popular twitter feed where she was both witty and interesting detailing her work as a PSO. Some dude who knew her in her real life decided he was going to out her and  he took steps. She outed herself as a preemptive strike.  Bell De Jour the blogger turned novelist, turned subject of a Showtime TV series about hooking was finally forced to out herself when an ex decided he was going to out her. It sucks, this is just the latest example. It’s an epidemic. I don’t know a escort that hasn’t at least been threatened with being outed.  Some run scared, go underground and come back with a new name persona so they can keep working in peace but they always look over their shoulder. Some do what TeleEroticist an Belle De Jour did and out themselves before some douche bag can do it for them.

Some power hungry, or angry dude always seems to be at the bottom of it though sometimes its some power hungry angry chick though that’s not as common. Someone who feels powerless or slighted or out of control. they try to assert some kind of control over a sex worker, they want to frighten her, hurt her, ruin her.  Its prevalent, constant and always there. Hobbyist, client, friend, lover,  someone you trusted at some point or someone who went out of their way to dig out your real identity. Its an epidemic.

There’s this big fear among men who fuck hookers that the escorts will blackmail them. This fear is stoked in the fire of the message board grunt, scratch, locker room culture. It’s whispered about in private groups of whore mongers “watch out for the whores, they all want to blackmail you” its posted about on private men boards. its grown from a little seedling into a giant oak. And though i’m sure there have been occasions where some unscrupulous hooker blackmailed someone (usually someone famous or notable so it makes the papers) its not common, it almost never happens, its rare. but if you read the men’s board you’d think it was happening several times a day to just about everyone who’s ever thought about fucking a whore.

In contrast, almost every escort i know has dealt with some form of being outed. From handling general threats from anonymous emails, to dealing with admins and hosting companies in attempts to get  their info removed from websites dedicated to outing sex workers, to hiring lawyers, getting TROs, moving to other states or paying for family reconciliation therapy after their family receives a plain brown paper envelope with print outs detailing their life as a sex worker. It happens way more then it should. I myself have had my dealings with this situation which is on going. It’s an epidemic.

I don’t see this stopping anytime soon. as long as escorting is stigmatized it will continue. As long as there are angry people misdirecting their rage at whores it will continue. As long as we as a group are forced to live and work underground and off the grid it will continue.

TeleEroticist chose to take control and out herself. I applaud and support her decision to do so but it sucks she had to make that choice. Being a legal sex worker she will have to deal with the fall out in a different way then if she was an illegal sex worker and also had to worry about being arrested for what she does along with the stigma of being branded a whore, for talking to men on the phone about sex.  And from what i hear…. shes rather good at it.