* Some Thomas Circle neighbors are unnerved by sex workers walking near their Pilates studio. Why I never!

* Metro Weekly interviews the guys behind FUK!T, the safe-sex initiative behind the safe sex gay porn spoofs. FUK!T's Terry Gerace on daring to sexualize sex: "There are a lot of places where it's inappropriate to use sex to sell things, but when you're trying to sell something that you use during sex it's actually appropriate to sexualize it and not make it clinical or a fear-based campaign."

* Via GLAA Forum, a woman has sued D.C.'s Covenant Baptist Church for performing a civil commitment ceremony in 2007, which she attended and found "totally disgusting." She wants her donations to the church back.

* Via Jezebel, why it's OK to shamelessly objectify the men of the World Cup. All right, but is it OK to shamelessly objectify them immediately after the United States suffers a crushing loss to Ghana, everyone in the Black Squirrel is drunk and depressed, the the players begin dutifully removing their shirts, in a sad way? Because my brain was saying "woo!," but my heart was saying "too soon."

* Tonight, Bears Do Yoga moves to the Green Lantern!

Photo via Nationaal Archief

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."

Calling a person a "whore" in any context is derogatory, so insisting that "whore" be taken "in context" strikes me as a misguided exercise here. But let's humor Grayson's camp for a minute. According to them, the "K street" portion of the comment demonstrates that Grayson was, at least, confining the insult to Robinson's professional reputation as a lobbyist, and not suggesting that Robinson bears any personal resemblance to a prostitute.

CBS News explains the context this way: "K street is where many Washington lobbyists work, and 'K Street whore' is a derogatory—though not uncommon—phrase used to describe them in the nation's capital."

As long as we're being clear on context, we ought to note that it's not just political "whores" populating the K street corridor. That street is also notorious in Washington for hosting prostitutes of the more traditional variety. Anyone who's driven down K Street after sundown—around, oh, 6th Street or 11th Street NW—knows that tacking "K street" onto "whore" doesn't clarify a damn thing. K street is a main conduit for sex work in D.C., and "K street whores" are as likely to be actual prostitutes as they are lobbyists. I wouldn't be surprised if the high concentration of prostitutes and the lobbyist traffic went hand-in-hand.

Personally, I find casting lobbyists as "whores" offensive to sex workers. But if Grayson wants to continue to insist that the term was only meant to degrade the street's for-hire politicos, he'd to best to find a "whore" modifier that doesn't just double as another euphemism for "prostitute."

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:

* First off: Don't call them "johns." On the online forums studied by Blevins and Holt, terms like "john" and "trick" were considered derogatory to prostitution enthusiasts. Online, johns prefer to refer to themselves as "mongers," "trollers," or "hobbyists." According to the study:

For example, a user in the Inglewood forum described a successful night identifying and soliciting several prostitutes and closed by writing, “I cant wait to monger again like the sadistic one that I am.” Another Inglewood poster wrote, “Saturday morning, 10:30 am, and it was time for this dedicated hobbyist to pursue another adventure.” . . . Thus, the terms used to describe the customers of prostitutes reflect the notion that the customers find nothing wrong in paying for sex. It is simply an interest or pastime that they enjoy.

* "Pooner" is a good thing. If someone calls you a "pooner," that means you've achieved online prostitution forum street cred. (Congratulations?):

Mongers who were very involved in discussion forums and review boards were often referred to as a pooner. This term was meant as a sign of respect and status and was used to identify those with clout in the forums. For example, jester from the Atlanta forum posted a question seeking information about escorts: “I was looking for recommendations about agencies from pooners who have used them . . . I don’t need to know details (if you are worried about LE), only about ones that are half-way reliable.” Asking for assistance from more senior or experienced members in this fashion could increase the likelihood of information sharing. Thus, active involvement in both the sex trade and online resources played an important role in indicating status among johns across the forums.

* "Mongers" tend to avoid offensive terms for prostitutes. According to the study, forum users shied away from calling sex workers "hookers," "hos," or even "prostitute." Aww, how sweet. In place of derogatory terms for people, mongers used derogatory terms for objects, often referring to sex workers by their make, model, and build:

This language may be perceived as respectful and a way to neutralize the negative perspectives of their practices, mirroring their use of terms such as mongering or hobbying. At the same time, these terms treat sex workers as items, rather than individual human beings. For example, posters used the term streetwalker or SW to describe a prostitute who works the streets looking for clients. Posters would also use a letter to denote the race of the sex worker, including WSW for white; BSW for black; and LSW, HSW, or MSW for Hispanic.

* Other fun terms that treat people like objects: On the forums, skinny sex workers are "spinners"; older sex workers have got "mileage":

For example, some johns used the term spinner to refer a petite female, [according to one forum user:] "a girl who is so tiny in proportion that you can put her on top of your bone and “spin” her like a top."

. . . Specifically, johns would also use the term mileage to refer to women whose appearances reflected the physical and emotional toll that sex work takes on prostitutes. The use of a term like mileage that is typically used for automobiles is demonstrative of the perception that sex workers are offering a service.

* An "8" on the "streetwalker scale" is a "6" on the "normal" scale. Predictably, the way mongers rate sex workers is dehumanizing—they require a different scale than "normal" people:

In addition to the term mileage, johns also utilized a streetwalker scale to rate prostitutes’ appearances on a scale from 1 to 10. This ratings system was used to indicate the differences between prostitutes and women not involved in the sex trade, as in the following post from the Chicago forum: “This time I come across a very nice wsw [white street walker]. She would be a 6 on a normal scale, 8 on the sw [street walker] one.”

* These guys tend to beat the "sex workers are objects" theme into the ground. Online Web sites which many sex workers use to advertise are called "malls." Photos are available for "window shopping":

One of the most salient terms in the argot of johns that suggests sex work is a commodity is the use of the phrase mall. In this argot, a mall was a Web site devoted to advertising a variety of different online escorts and agencies. This was exemplified by a user in the Atlanta forum: "[A web-based service] is the best for finding upscale escorts or shall I say ones that charge 200 up. There are links to the escort 'malls' where window shopping is done."

—

So, what does it all mean? Blevins and Holt don't delve too far into the implications of the use of "mongers" and "mileage" in online prostitution forums. But the language they've uncovered does offer a few interesting insights into the men who solicit prostitutes (and talk about it).

First, many men who frequent prostitutes feel that their activities make them worthy of status and respect. These men don't fit the convenient stereotype the public has created for johns: sad-sack guys who have to pay for sex because they can't get girls to fuck them for free. They see themselves as connoisseurs, "hobbyists"—artists, even. They see paying for sex as a sport which can be won by frequenting the most and best sex workers for the least amount of money, hassle, and consequences.

Second—and most obvious—sex workers are seen as objects to be bought, not as humans. More often than not, sex workers are not portrayed as skilled workers who provide their customers with a service in exchange for a fee. Rather, they are things—to be perused, used, and dispensed of by the "hobbyist" who uses them to bolster his monger status. The sex worker herself is seen as the product. Again, the "hobbyist" is the thinking, creative, artistic being here, while the sex worker is denied her status as a worker, performer, or businessperson—a person capable of choosing if, when, and under what circumstances to offer a service. The idea that johns think of sex workers as objects is obvious. But it's also important. It suggests, first, that johns believe that the bodies of sex workers are available for their use in any way they choose. But it also reveals that the ability to treat women as objects is part—or perhaps even all—of a john's real interest in prostitution.

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:

1. The anchor describes the footage of the sex workers as "unsavory" and "unnerving."

2. That footage of sex workers? FOX 5 sets it to a sexy hip-hop beat.

3. Oh, and the most "unnerving" thing about it? These sex workers have the audacity to work during the day. Those whores belong under the cover of darkness!

3. When Thompson delivers the line, "It's six o’clock in the morning and sharing the sidewalks with joggers, tourists and commuter buses: prostitutes," she actually says the last part like this: "PROSTITUTES."

4. The sex workers in the footage are almost completely blurred out—not just their faces, but in some cases, their entire bodies.

5. "Neighbors" aren't just upset about the illegal activity—they're also just totally grossed out by the sex workers.

"But neighbors say it's not just the sex. They're also frustrated by what else happens on the streets," Thompson says. "Our camera caught one woman leaving a client’s car. She walks to a bus stop, then fixes her bra, her dress, and then does something we can't even show you on TV, in full view of morning traffic."

In the print version, Thompson describes the "too hot for TV" moment as "something too gross to describe."

Let's go to the tape:

I'm betting she's adjusting her vagina or something, but how would I know? FOX 5 just plopped a "CENSORED" button on top of a completely blurred-out woman! I guess you can never be too safe when it comes to a sight as disgusting as a prostitute.

6. So, if even the "neighbors" are upset about this blurry woman likely adjusting her vagina in front of morning traffic, how do you think she feels? Oh, right: FOX didn't bother to ask her.

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

—

SEX, DECODED: Editor's note: I did not make these up. I swear. Not even "Concentration Camp Look." If these decoded answers still do not make sense to you, well, maybe you just weren't cut out for the world of online john commentary. Consider yourself lucky.

1. "Asian-American Massage Parlor. This is the politically correct acronym."

2. "Scenario: When the maseuse ask, 'want aircon?' if yes, she pop one hacks sweet into her mouth and start blowing."

3. "Girl on top, squatting."

4. "Petite, young, attractive Asian."

5. "Genitals. From the spanish 'the low south'".

6. "A professional prostitute who's only purpose is to separate you from your money as quickly as possible, preferably without giving you anything in return."

7. "Bare Back Blow Job (oral sex without condom)"

8. "Bare Back Blow Job to Completion (oral sex to orgasm)"

9. "Bare Back Blow Job to Completion with Swallowing"

10. "A condom."

11. "Viagra"

12. "Concentration Camp Look."

13. "A woman who makes herself available for sexual encounters but not for financial gain. May be less discreet than a provider and more interested in a relationship."

14. "Carpet Matches Drapes (typically a natural blonde)"

15. "A session with a prostitute"

16. "Dead Fish Fuck"

17. "A woman with an unattractive face."

18. "Finger Outside Vagina"

19. "Girl Friend Experience"

20. "Girl Friend Experience w/all three holes"

21.  "Clean shaven pussy."

22. "Half Hearted Hand Job."

23. "Condom (e.g. She spoke French without the aid of an interpreter = BBBJ)"

24. "Little Brown Fucking Machine"

25. "Clitoris"

26. "Non-quitter, non-spitter"

27. "Women from the People's Republic of China"

28. "Penis between breasts""

29. "A mechanical sex device that is in the shape of half-barrel with a dildo attachment mounted in the middle."

30. "Talk Cock Sing Song"

31. "Kisses & Hugs"

Photo by Todd Huffman

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.

Blondie gets as far as Diane and her SUV.

"You got some money for me?" Blondie asks Bentley.

"How much," he asks.

"$50."

"I'll give you $40," he says.

This gets no response from Blondie.

"I'll give you $25," Bentley says.

"For what?" Blondie asks.

"I'll give you $25 and I'll put an E pill in your butt," Bentley says. His final offer.

This gets no response.

"You don't want a little E pill in your butt?" Bentley asks. He then turns to me to explain: "White girls like E pills in their butts." He says he heard this from an actual white girl. "Black girls don't know about it."

Tonight, there's a very good chance they will still not know about it.

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.

AIDS activist Elizabeth Pisani drove this point home in a recent interview with VICE Magazine. Pisani is a crusader against both AIDS and the bullshit which prevents health organizations from fighting it. There are a lot of insights in this long interview with Pisani. Most interesting to me is the way the fight against AIDS has been shaped by branding issues.

The face of AIDS, Pisani argues, has been focused so exclusively on the "innocents"—like pregnant women, their unborn children, and recipients of blood transfusions—that the epidemic has been left to thrive in the most at-risk populations—like gay men, drug users, and sex workers. The problem, of course, resolves itself in the most macabre way: The epidemic eventually spreads from "the wicked" to the "innocents," who are not as isolated as the judgmental types would like to believe.

Says Pisani:

Yes, gay men, drug injectors, and people who sell and buy sex, the three groups which are more likely to get HIV, are the so-called “wicked” people. At UNAIDS we had to find a way to turn it from a “disease of the wicked” into a “disease of the innocent”. Unfortunately, in the process of trying to do that, we turned attention from the groups who most needed it to the whole population. So what we were essentially trying to saying was, “If you don't invest in prevention for these high risk groups now, then you will have a bigger epidemic—i.e. innocent women and kids—later on.” What the politicians heard, however, was, “HIV prevention blah blah blah blah innocent women and children.” It's like talking to a dog who recognizes only its name and the name of the food. Can you recollect a precise moment for this shift in perception? It was when the African epidemic really hit people's radars. In Africa all of our data came from pregnant women, and you can't have a more touchy-feely innocent group than pregnant women and their unborn babies. That was the thing that really made people think it wasn't just a disease of 'the wicked'.

The whole interview is worth a read, including Pisani's explanation for why democracies have been less proactive at fighting the epidemic: "Democracy isn't all that good at protecting the rights of minority groups who don't vote. . . . when I say public health is a fascist discipline, I mean it." Hey, maybe that finally explains President Bush's initiatives to fund AIDS work in Africa?

Photo by bryan88

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."

No, the weird part is that this hilarious little Carribean prostitution adventure is Bradlee's way of introducing a much more serious topic: "Girls." Bradlee closes out the chapter by wondering why he's been unlucky with the ladies:

More than anything, I want a girlfriend. I think one of the reasons I have a hard time taking it to the next level with girls is because I had no contact with girls for much of my adolescence. Sometimes I think that I’m a loser, that I’ll never find a girlfriend, that I’ll be a nobody for the rest of my life.

I seem to have the worst luck with women no matter how hard I try. I feel they’re picking up some vibe from me that says I can’t handle a relationship, or I’m not mature enough to be in a relationship. Whatever it is, I am apparently doing something wrong. I’ve taken and followed all of the advice my friends and my parents have given me about dating, but it hasn’t quite worked out for me yet.

I have trouble with reading cues and I can never tell if girls like me sexually. If you’re having an intimate friendly conversation and a woman is smiling and you’re making her laugh, then you think that maybe it’s possible to take it to the next level. But, typically, the day after that kind of thing would happen with a girl, I wouldn’t hear back from her.

It goes on and on. Hmm, okay, perhaps Bradlee should first try skipping the prostitute story, and also, actually, any story where Sally Quinn completely freaks out. He might also pare down the six excrutiating paragraghs detailing why, specifically, women have never liked him down to, I don't know, zero.

Or maybe I'm wrong: Maybe the "my mom's crazy, I fucked a prostitute, women don't understand me" tactic has worked out: Bradlee's Web site says he's currently in a relationship.

* 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