If I had Matt’s graphic talents, I’d want to do one for politicians in other countries, too. Because let’s face it, there are whole categories missing that are of prime importance to parliamentarians and even presidents in Europe. The long-legged model, the long-term mistress, the long-suffering dog. More suggestions?

Oh, please. These women (and the transgendered men you mention) don’t take home those huge fees. They give a big share – sometimes a ridiculously large share- to their pimp or madam. Often they work as whores because they don’t have qualifications to do any other kind of work – indeed, they get fired from jobs they attempt in the business world because they have disorders, psychological or physical, that prevent them from staying at any routine.

In my annoyance, I called “kathyw” “maryk” in my response. I appeal to those with cooler heads to share your thoughts with kathyw, either on this site or at The Guardian.

• Decriminalization of all aspects of sex work involving consenting adults.
• The right to form and join professional associations or unions.
• The right to work on the same basis as other independent contractors and employers and to receive the same benefits as other self-employed or contracted workers.
• No taxation without such rights and representation.
• Advocating sex worker rights to be free from coercion, violence, sexual abuse, child labor, rape and racism.
• Legal support for sex workers who want to sue those who exploit their labor.
• The right to travel across national boundaries and obtain work permits wherever we live.
• Clean and safe places to work.
• The right to choose whether to work on our own or co-operatively with other sex workers.
• The absolute right to say no.
• Access to health clinics where we do not feel stigmatized.
• Re-training programs for sex workers who want to leave the industry.
• An end to social attitudes which stigmatize those who are or have been sex workers.
• Working to end child sexual tourism

I’m struggling to figure out which of these provisions the abolitionists (even apparently lapsed ones such as Eliot Spitzer) could possibly object to.

As an American politician I will stop all hypocritical, self-righteous moralizing and judgment of the lives of others. I pledge to support legislation that treats all humans as equals and ensure that foreign assistance dollars intended to stop HIV/AIDS are allocated using the very best public health strategies, based on real evidence, and targeted to those most vulnerable. When I access the services of a sex worker, call girl, escort or madame, I will always use protection and make sure s/he has access to adequate health care. I will stop dragging my innocent spouse in front of television cameras to support me in a moment of self-inflicted hypocrisy.

Read Scott’s whole post here.

So New York’s Democrat governor Elliot Spitzer admits to having been a naughty boy. He wanted to have sex with someone who wasn’t his wife, and pay for it. Tut tut. Paroxysms of delight from his enemies at The Wall Street Journal and comment about Spitzer’s staying power and other analysis many other places besides. Even the tech nerds want in on the gloating.

I don’t give a toss if politicians want to buy sex as long as the treat the person who wants to sell it decently and pay them well (which Spitzer was apparently more than willing to do). Many other people feel the same. The problem comes not with the behaviour but with the hypocrisy. Spitzer has in the past ridden around on his white charger, puffed up with self-righteousness, telling people what a great job he has done of busting prostitution rings. My sentiments were nicely put by Vincent Romano, lawyer for Frank Farella, who has mouldered in jail since Spitzer bust his Staten Island sex work ring. “My client feels that people who live in a glass mansion in Albany should not throw stones,” Romano was quoted as saying.

While Democratic Assemblyman John McEneny is quoted by Hot Air as saying:

“I don’t think anyone remembers anything like this. The fact that the governor has a reputation as a reformer and there is a certain assumption as attorney general that you’re Caesar’s wife [above suspicion]. It’s a different element than if you were an accountant.”…

Gosh, Mr. McEneny has a short memory. Randall Tobias ran USAID and before that PEPFAR (the US effort against AIDS globally). The Bush appointee championed the Loyalty Oath (which some call The Pledge), an anti sex work provision that handcuffed PEPFAR money to organisations that oppose prostitution. Then oooops! he turned up in the address book of Deborah Palfrey, aka the DC Madam. She spun a gossamer web around his self-righteous hypocisy, until there was no escape and Tobias resigned.

For some really interesting comment on Spitzer’s hypocrisy and the surrounding hoopla, check out some of the sex worker blogs — there’s a good summary on Bound, Not Gagged. I especially liked Waking Vixen’s account of how the media are sticking their snouts into the affair:

And while I am not ashamed that I was a sex worker, and I know sound bites are short and cannot be anywhere near as complicated as my shit it, I don’t want to be MSNBC’s whore on television. It does nothing for me personally and nothing for the movement I’m part of for me to be boiled down to the essence of “will fuck for cash. here’s how.”

(Read more here)

Another thing to be upset about: as Lee Rudolph has already pointed out, it seems that Spitzer may have done “things that, like, you might not think were safe”. And we allow this man to preside over the educational policies of New York’s schools?