Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat from Florida, was roundly criticized by fellow policymakers yesterday for directing a derogatory term at a colleague. On a radio program, Grayson called Linda Robinson, an adviser to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K street whore.” Grayson’s camp has refused to backpedal from the term, instead releasing a statement urging the media to “be clear about the context.” According to a Grayson spokesperson, “The attack was on her professional career, not her personal life.”

Read More “Sorry, Alan Grayson: “K Street Whore” Isn’t Specific Enough” »

This summer, I discovered the many ridiculous sexual euphemisms employed by johns who frequent online prostitution forums. On the Internet, dudes who pay women to have sex with them communicate in an absurd code in the hopes of eluding law enforcement officers (that’s “LEOs” to them). The code ranges from straight acronym (BBBJ is “Bareback Blow Job”) to schoolyard joke (Ed Zachary Disease is code for “A woman with an unattractive face”). My pick for the most offensive code-word? “CCL.” That means that your sex worker of choice has got the “Concentration Camp Look.”

Now, a study in this month’s Journal of Contemporary Ethnography has attempted to decipher these sex codes for real for real. The study, conducted by researchers Kristie R. Blevins and Thomas J. Holt, examines the “argot,” or coded language, of the prostitution enthusiast’s “virtual subculture” in order to discern what these communication strategies indicate about the men who engage in—and report on—prostitution. Here’s what they discovered about the language of johns:

Read More “The Secret Prostitution Code, and What It Says About Johns” »

For two weeks, FOX 5 trained “secret cameras” on the intersection of 11th & K NW in an attempt to catch sex workers in the act. FOX 5’s investigation revealed “ladies of the night hitting the streets in broad daylight.” But while reporter Tisha Thompson’s work included the requisite indignant neighbors, official police commentary, and the money shots (sex workers adjusting their underwear), there was one thing FOX 5 couldn’t get: a comment from one single sex worker. How demeaning is this segment? Let me count the ways:

Read More “FOX 5: Prostitutes “Too Gross To Describe,” Speak To” »

So, you ladies got any TCSS up in this AAMP?

Earlier this summer, FOX deciphered the secret sexting codes teens use to fuck each other on their cell phones. But teens aren’t the only ones who need to hide their sexual exploits with absurdly elaborate acronyms. Sex workers and their clients, too, are trained to use the whoooole alphabet.

If you plan to patronize sex workers—and obnoxiously detail your exploits on the Internet—you better be versed in these 31 common trade acronyms. While these sex codes are meant to help johns avoid law enforcement, they have the added benefit of making any guy who uses them sound super douchey.

Do you know the correct racial slur for your masseuse/prostitute? The right acronym to obscure your Holocaust survivor fetish? Can you describe a shitty blowjob in just four easy letters? Test yourself in our sex code quiz, below. Answers after the jump.

SEX CODE WORD:

1. AAMP
2. Aircon BBBJ + Hacks
3. Asian Cowgirl
4. Babyback
5. Baja Sur
6. Barracuda
7. BBBJ
8. BBBJTC
9. BBBJTCWS
10. Beret
11. Blue Steel
12. CCL
13. Civilian
14. CMD
15. Date
16. DFF
17. Ed Zachary disease
18. FOV
19. GFE
20. GF3
21. Hardwood Floors
22. HHHJ
23. Interpreter
24. LBFM
25. Man in a boat
26. NQNS
27. PRC
28. Russian
29. Sybian
30. TCSS
31. XOXO

Read More “Sex Codes: The Top 31 Acronyms For All Your Sexist, Racist Fetishes” »

At the moment, Diane isn’t working alone. She has grown a sidekick. He leans against her white Mercedes SUV,  mumbling shit in her ear about another sex worker he calls “Blondie.” Blondie just appeared on the block, too. It must be fate.

Is she all woman? He wants to know.

Diane assures him. Blondie is all woman.

He tells me his name is Bentley. He says he is 25 and has spent his entire previous day getting high in his home off Benning Road. He looks too athletic to be a drug addict. But as he talks about his high, stroking his goatee, he actually gets wistful about his last 24 hours.

Bentley had dropped hints that he would really like to smoke some more PCP. But now, he’s crushing hard on Blondie. He takes a seat on a concrete slab and watches her walk across K Street in his direction.

Read More “White Girls Like ‘E Pills’ In Their Butts” »

Also not catching on as face of AIDS: Scorpions.

Some people believe that every human being has the right to a full and healthy life. Others believe that every human being has a right to a full and healthy life—as long as they aren’t gay, addicted to drugs, or a prostitute.

And then, there are those who believe that only pre-born babies are innocent enough to deserve a full and healthy life. These people are the reason that the campaign against AIDS has to focus on infected pregnant women—instead of infected pregnant women, infected drug users, infected prostitutes, and infected gay men.

Read More “Why the Face of AIDS Isn’t a Gay Prostitute on Drugs” »

The Times UK has published an excerpt from journalistic power-spawn Quinn Bradlee’s new book, A Different Life. The book is about how Bradlee—son to Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee—struggled with disability growing up, and also lost his virginity to a prostitute for $35 while on vacation in the Carribean with his parents.

The weird part about this whole thing isn’t that the brothel was called “Heaven’s Gate”; or that he was mysteriously driven there by a taxi driver named “Silky”; or that Bradlee didn’t even figure out what he was paying for until “she started to take off her clothes”; or that he was “glad it happened”; or that he immediately told his mother; or that his mother then dragged him back to the brothel to pick up his prostitute and test her for HIV because Sally Quinn “worries way too much, if you ask me.”

Read More “Quinn Bradlee Loses Virginity to Prostitute, Doesn’t Understand Women” »

* For Slate, The Abstinence Teacher author Tom Perrotta explains the political appeal of Sarah Palin’s “Sexy Puritan” archetype:

I’m only trying to locate her within the context of the great American culture war, which she seems to have single-handedly reignited during an election season that was supposed to have been dominated by other issues (and may well be again, now that Wall Street has imploded). With the selection of Palin, McCain succeeded not only in thrilling the Christian right but in scrambling the categories of the campaign. It used to be perfectly clear which ticket represented youth and change, which seemed old and boring, and which had more appeal to women voters. For a moment, at least, Palin seems to have turned these certainties into open questions.

* Also in Slate: How the financial crisis is good for the high-end prostitute business:

Sex workers of the past waited on street corners, outside bars, and around parks, and their transactions were fleeting and usually for a few dollars. Today’s high-end sex workers see themselves as therapists, part of a vast metropolitan wellness industry that includes private chefs and yoga teachers. Many have regular clients who visit them several times per month, paying them not only for sex but also for comfort and affirmation.

Ahh, but what of the comfort and affirmation of your local alt-weekly?

* Stuff Hipsters Don’t Like: Hipsters. Thinking about the economy. Pregnancy:

Hipsters are very torn about pregnancy. On the one hand, they don’t have any problem with abortion seeing as they got their BA in post-structuralist conceptual astrology and have endured hundreds of hours of NPR, Ira Glass’ infanticidal socialist drone lingering in their subconscious. On the other hand, being pregnant is kind of cool. It gives them some sort of purpose in an otherwise directionless post-graduate existence. In fact, some hipster girls dream of having a traditional nuclear family. They fantasize about their husband handsomely dressed in wool flannel and Ray-Bans returning home from his long shift at the record store and coddling their infant son decked out in a vintage neon Morrissey romper.

That said, most of the time they just get an abortion.

* Women dumb! Men lazy! Unfabulouz.com shows “the difference between men and women” in this recovered gender cartoon.

* Guess what’s the only supreme court case Sarah Palin can name! Yeah, that one.

Photo by dreamsjung