As I've stated here previously, the Letters Project will be closing to submissions this month, although both sites will remain online. Letters from Johns closed on January 3, and Letters from Working Girls will close on January 14. In the last week, I've gotten three new letters from working girls.
"I Was a 35 Yr Old Single Mom": "I loved the way he treated me, but, was not in love with him. In fact, I could barely stand him. He was a white republican and I was not."
"I Figured, What the Hell": "Part of me does this to boost a self-esteem that isn't always there and the other part of me enjoys the power in it all. That is, having something that men want and then making them pay for it."
"I Am a Christian": "Don't get me wrong, most nights i enjoy what i do and some of the stuff i do is so crazy and funny that i can't wait to tell my fiance' or his friends, but the twist is, do they really want to know about it."
If you're a working girl with a story to tell, you've got 48 hours.
"The good part of the whole thing is that i have learned a great deal about myself, my limits, my interests, my needs. The bad side is that i have discovered that my needs keeps going up a level the longer i do this. This story has no ending."
Remember, Letters from Working Girls closes on January 14, although the site will remain online. Letters from Johns closed on January 3, although the site will remain online. The intended duration of The Letters Project was one year.
If you're a working girl who wants to tell her story, now is the time.
On January 3, 2008, I started Letters from Johns to find out why men pay for sex. Some 50 anonymous stories later, the project is almost a year old. The original idea was that the project was an experiment, and I imagined that I would only do it for a year. So, on January 3, 2009, I'm going to close submissions for the project. The site will stay online, but no new stories will appear on the site.
The same will hold true for Letters from Working Girls, which I started on January 14, 2008, and will turn a year old on January 14, 2009. Starting on January 14, I will no longer be accepting submissions for this project, although this site will also stay online.
If you're a john or a working girl who wants to tell your story, now is the time. Thank you to all the johns and working girls who submitted their stories. It was an experiment, nothing more and nothing less, and you were the only part of it that mattered.
"Initially I was pretty and fresh enough in the crack world that all of the drug dealers wanted to take me home with them. On several occasions I found myself living with dealers who would supply my dope habit just to keep me from running the streets. Eventually the dope supply was not enough for me and I went looking for a way to make money so that I could be in control of my dope."
Miracle of miracles, I got a new letter from a working girl: "I Said Yes." While Letters from Johns is closing in on 50 letters, letters from working girls are few and far between. Thank you to Working Girl #14 for sharing your story. (Image via Nevver.)
He told me that I was too young; I was 28 and he was 53. He said he wasn't looking for a "model type", but rather, a real woman. (Um, models are real women too, for anyone who doesn't know.) He talked about how much he missed touching and holding and looking at a woman. We kept talking about the human need for intimacy, and I could tell he did want the meeting. I asked him he was ready to go the hotel ("assuming the sale" like this is an old technique I always used to sell $250/hr Champagne Room visits at the strip clubs) and he said yes.
"I'm trying to understand why I do what I do--part of it is for the sex (though I have an obliging if unenthusiastic wife), but also because having sex with other women makes me feel sexy and respected. I've worked hard for years to provide for my family and to do all the right things--sometimes I just want to be appreciated as a man and to have my inner needs met, to feel wanted instead of just accommodated."
"The really rough, druggie girls were fascinating to me because they were exotic and intense. (After all, I grew up on a farm and had just moved to the city a few years earlier.) I did this in such a compulsive gonad-stupor that I only later gained the minimal empathy required to realize what hellish lives many of these women must have had. I realize now what karmic awfulness I was implicating myself in."
I've posted a new letter from a john: "I Was Smitten."
"Unfortunately, I started having true feelings for her. I remember a really sad moment where the impossibility of the situation hit home. We were having Sunday brunch at a cool little neighborhood spot, and it hit me: 'Dude, you’re dating a prostitute.'"
"I am a journalist call girl. Or at least I was, until recently. I met someone. I quit before he had a chance to ask me to. It's just easier that way."
More letters from johns and working girls are welcome.
Earlier today, I was happy to discover that Susie Bright's latest episode of "In Bed with Susie Bright" on Audible looks at Letters from Johns and Letters from Working Girls. She deems the projects "riveting reading." Bright's been an inspiration to me since I was coming up in the Bay Area back in the day, so this was kind of like a cardinal being blessed by the Pope. Contributions to both Letters sites have slowed since Spitzergate, but if you'd like to contribute, email me.
"I think I had sex with a transvestite once as well."
Interested in contributing to Letters from Johns or Letters from Working Girls? I'm looking for more letters, especially from working girls--dancers, phone sex operators, call girls, sex shoppe employees. Email me.
"Add another site to the official Heroine Sheik recommendation list: writer Susannah Breslin’s sex and culture blog Reverse Cowgirl. Frank, insightful, and fun, Reverse Cowgirl covers everything from relationship art (virtual girlfriend, anyone?) to high heels for strippers."
A producer at SexTV sent me an email today. They're looking for johns for an upcoming episode. The people at SexTV are good people; I've worked with them in the past.
"Hi Susannah,
My name is Layal and I work as a researcher for CTV, Canada's leading broadcaster. I am contacting you because we are currently producing a story on Johns that goes beyond the usual stigmas and explores the diverse reasons why men and women pay for sex. I was hoping to get your perspective on this topic, as someone who has written extensively on sex work and who has created an anonymous outlet for both Johns and call girls to share their stories. I was also hoping you might be able to connect me with people who could share their personal stories. But first, a bit about us...
SexTV is a documentary-style show that explores issues and art related to gender, relationships and sexuality - around the world -in an intelligent and thought-provoking fashion. Over the past ten years we have produced issue-based stories such as Sister Wives: Born Into Polygamy, Umoja (an all-female village in Kenya), The Mommy Wars, Censorship in Hollywood, In the Company of Men: Gender in the Face of War and The Boy Code: Forming Masculinity. We've also produced features on a wide range of artists whose work deals with gender and sexuality, including Carolee Schneemann, David Cronenberg, Nobuyoshi Araki, Lauren Greenfield, Catherine Breillat, Grayson Perry, Nan Goldin, Margaret Cho, Marina Abramovic, Richard Kern, Terry Richardson, Annie Sprinkle, John Waters, Larry Sultan, and many others.
I am wondering if you might know of any Johns who would be willing to share their stories, or if it would be possible to post my contact information on your blog so that those who are interested could get in touch with me? Ideally, we are hoping to speak to people who are willing to disclose their identities, but of course we are also open to speaking with those who are wish to share their story but remain anonymous. We often have producers traveling to New York and Los Angeles so ideally we are hoping to connect with people who live in those areas, or around the Toronto area, though it is possible for us to travel to other places in North America.
Looking forward to hearing from you! Sincerely, Layal
Layal Al-Haidari | CTV Inc. Layal[dot]alhaidari[at]chumtv.com"
"The only difficult thing for me is to be nice to people who are genuinely stupid, through no fault of their own, just a lack of brain cells, and to be forthcoming to guys in general."
I'm quite a fan of your two Letters blogs; I've found them to be wonderful bits of insight straight from the relevant sources.
I saw a recent blog post that commented on your editorial role, showing that you only fix punctuation and a few other bits for readability. I was hoping you could elaborate a bit on how you select the letters, too, to help publicize any potential publication bias (on top of the inevitable self-selection bias that exists). I may be making the incorrect assumption that there are many that come in that you don't publish, but knowing that would be helpful, too.
If I've missed previous discussion of this topic somehow, my apologies.
Thanks! Ian
Ian:
You're welcome! What you're referring to here, for those following along at home, is the Letters Project: Letters from Johns and Letters from Working Girls. (If you can't figure out what they consist of, I don't know what to tell you.)
Some chick got all up in arms over this issue on a comment to a post about the project that was on Boing Boing. Up until then, I was fixing the punctuation on the letters for clarity. Since then, I haven't been, unless it's something like the first letter of a sentence or a dash where there should be a hyphen. So, the letters run pretty much as I get them now, thanks to that lady.
How do I select the letters? Well, when they arrive in my email box, I read them, and at that point the main thing I'm trying to do is figure out if it's a real letter or a fake one. For some reason, I've gotten a strangely large number of letters that I'm pretty sure are written by men who are pretending to be a woman who has sex with a working girl (a "jane"). I asked a shrink what he thought of this, and he said: Gay. I say, no way. I don't know what's going on with that, but I think it has to do more with inhabiting the sexuality of a woman more so than it has to do with being gay. I don't get a lot of fake letters from johns, per se, except from the guy in BROOKLYN who wrote in ALL CAPS and got into a car accident at the end of his letter in which his PENIS was almost damaged but then wasn't, which he said was an act of God.
I would say I've posted about 3/4 of the john letters. I haven't posted a few of them because they were too gross, too totally boring, or too self-important in some way that just, like, repelled me. I get a lot of letters with johns rapping about how much the chicks really dig them, and she came for real but only with them, and other guys to these girls are johns but not them, and it's not like, you know, this is a showcase for them to explain to the world how much prostitutes love them. That's what TER is for.
I would say I've posted about 2/3 of the working girl letters. Sometimes, they miss the mark, for reasons I can't put my finger on quite yet. They're confused, turned around on themselves. I got one recently that I won't be running from a chick in Germany that involved way too many bodily fluids. For me, anyway.
Generally, I would say most letters get published. And I love, I mean really love many of them. If you're interested, my all-time favorite john letter is "I Am Ashamed of Nothing I Have Done," and my favorite working girl letter at the moment is a letter I should have titled "I Am a Journalist Call Girl." It might sound retarded, but I love that these men and women were brave enough to write these letters.
Mostly, I think they're love stories. Because that's love, isn't it? Totally stripped down bare yourself in front of another to ask that you be loved in spite of yourself.
If you've spent five minutes on the internet in the last 24 hours, you've probably come across the controversy over the sex and violence, as in sex-and-violence, featured in the just released Grand Theft Auto IV. After a video of the Ladies of Liberty City began circulating around, in which men drive around, pick up sex workers and/or drive over them, shoot prostitutes standing on street corners, and get some freaky-ass, legs-in-the-air, booty-shaking lap dances, everyone got all up in arms over it. The girls at Feministing weren't having it: "It is no question that GTA is merely reflective of the bigger misogyny embedded in capitalist patriarchy, but the question is why is a game that depicts such violence towards women so popular?" (Jesus Christ, if this is what degrees in gender studies hath wrought, polysyllabic bloggers still carping about the patriarchy, please fucking stop handing them out.) Jack Thompson nearly had a heart attack over it. (To wit: "Grand Theft Auto IV is the gravest assault upon children in this country since polio. We now have vaccines for that virus... The 'vaccine' that must be administered by the United States government to deal with this virtual virus of violence and sexual depravity is criminal prosecutions of those who have conspired to do this.") And Rockstar got a helluva lot richer. (See: "Record Sales Expected For Grand Theft Auto IV.") I have a writer friend known online as the Harpoonist, and if you say something totally idiotic to her, or if she is recounting a story to you in which someone says something totally idiotic, she says: "I mean, really?" I think this is her way of saying: "Are you fucking kidding me?" But without all the swear words. And that, in sum total, is my reaction to this ridiculous, overblown, cockamamie controversy over the Ladies of Liberty City and the sex-and-violence in Grand Theft Auto IV. I mean, really? I mean, are you fucking kidding me? What is this, the fucking 80s? Did politically correctness not die, like, last century? Did we not hunt down all the feminists and shut them up already? Are we not a culture so completely overrun with politically incorrectness that the only appropriate response to the latest incident of it is to laugh? Because while the feminists were out burning copies of GTA IV and building sex positive spaces in the sky, while Mr. Thompson was off getting his knickers in a major, anal crevice wedging twist over this, while Rockstar was in the corner counting its money and laughing hysterically at the grand spectacle of it, I was watching the video you can see for yourself here, and when the guy in the car with the commendable soul pole got what he wanted and then ran over the woman who gave it to him, you know what I did? I laughed. Because I thought it was funny. Because this whole moronic outcry against what is nothing but an unabashed and unashamed articulation of Man's basest impulses run amok is nothing but hypocrisy. Here's a newsflash for you. This is the way people think. This is how things are. This is the way it is. Every week, I get more Letters from Johns, and this is the conclusion that I have come to. That men seek out prostitutes because prostitutes let men express themselves ruthlessly. With utter impunity. Because if you pay her, you don't have to feel guilty. And if you think men pay women for sex because we live in a misogynist society, you should come down out of your ivory tower and live amongst the rest of us for a little while. Do you know what Mr. Soul Pole in GTA IV says before he runs down the woman who just serviced him? Were you not listening, Feministing? He says: "I'm a hired killer and I pay for sex. My mother would be ashamed." Then he takes out the girl. Feel free to take a little time to think that one over, ladies. Or here's a line from a letter I got from John 15: "My mom was nuts, and aside from the mental illness, loved her wine and valium... Sundays was a real carnival, and me being the eldest bore the brunt of her wrath." Oh, yeah--and, by the way, he's a state investigator. Or here's a line from a letter I got from John 30: "I would possibly seek companionship in this manner again, but honestly it was a frightening act of depravity fueled by a complete loss of morals related to my murder for hire status in the military." The fact of the matter is that you cannot police the sexual fantasies of men. It isn't going to happen. You can't distill one man's desires into some reductionist understanding of 21st century America that posits women as the victims of men once again. You can't continue to stick your head into the sand and refuse to believe that this isn't a part of how men really think and feel and fuck and want and love and hate and live. You just can't. To do so is insanity. To be totally honest, that's what really blew my mind about Spitzergate. That America was just so shocked, so outraged, so aghast. What do you think cocktails of power, money, and sex begat? What do you really think is going on behind closed doors, on street corners, in parked cars in America? I mean, really?
New today. Two letters. A letter from a john. That is, a jane. "I Was A Girl Who Had Gone To A Prostitute." A letter from a working girl. "I Feel More Alive." As for me? I can't sleep. In other news, I hear some chick who used to write for Jane is doing a story on male prostitutes, the kind who have sex with women, I believe, for New York. I'm probably not supposed to repeat that, but it's not like I give a fuck.
Stressed out of my brain about the heavily parental role we play when we look after our charges, many of whom are very sick and die, bullying from registrars you can't fight, the sexual tensions rife amongst lonely doctors stuck temporarily hours from home, I found myself sleeping with a teddy bear every night for the first time since I was eight. -- "I Was A Girl Who Had Gone To A Prostitute"
At the end of the day, my cunt belongs to me and I'm the one who gets to enjoy it. After I'm done, I lie in bed naked and count the cash. It's crazy and surreal and beautiful. -- "I Feel More Alive"
A night terror, also known as pavor nocturnus, is a parasomnia sleep disorder characterized by extreme terror and a temporary inability to regain full consciousness. The subject wakes abruptly from slow-wave sleep, with waking usually accompanied by gasping, moaning, or screaming. It is often impossible to fully awaken the person, and after the episode the subject normally settles back to sleep without waking. -- Wikipedia
I spent the whole last week or so working on something, and now I'm about done with it, and now I'm beat. I am not sleeping well, working myself up into some kind of state, ready to c-r-a-s-h. This morning, I had a dream that included a motorized fuck-dog and a field of trees that ate people. I woke up in a kind of fever state. Over the last six weeks, this blog and the letters blogs have gotten more attention than anything else I've done in the last three years combined, with the mentions in Time, Newsweek, the LA Times, interest from the New York Post, and mentions on various high-profile blogs. Yesterday, someone sent me some interview questions about prostitution, which I suppose I will answer. Sometimes, I wonder about the difference between porn stars and prostitutes. Because of some random law, porn is legal, but prostitution is not. They share common themes: fucking, performing, sex for money, fame, stilettos, hot chicks, dudes with issues, people trying to get it on while everybody watches. The context is what's different. That prostitution breaks the law while porn does not means the former gets beat up while the latter gets glorified--or is it the other way around? The end result is porn is America's punchline, and prostitutes are the new black. It's hard to know what to make of it. Either way, people who fuck for a living bear the consequences of a cosmic misunderstanding. I need to get back to working on my novel, which I relegated to the sidelines while I focused on this other project. Remember, we're trading in peonies here, not daisies. Sometimes I think I'm crazy. Sometimes I don't. These days, I've begun to suspect it really doesn't matter either way.
I wasn't sure whether this, too, was for effect, another mock punch, another flourish for the ever-present camera in T. T. Boy's head, or whether his father's violence was the inheritance that he did receive. Then again, maybe it was just the loud clamorings of a young man alone, trying to beat back the tundra silence of an apartment where the table was always set for a family of four, and no one was coming home. -- "Waiting for Wood," Stiffed, Susan Faludi
(via) Yesterday, my pal Xeni posted on Boing Boing about my renewed call for letters from johns and letters from working girls. Right now, I have about three times as many letters from johns as from working girls, so I'm very interested in hearing from more women. To clarify, working girls includes dancers, call girls, phone sex operators, porn stars, dominatrixes, and the like. If you've got a story to tell, or you think you have a story to tell but you're not sure, feel free to email me. One thing I've noticed is that men tend to write a letter and send it, while women are far more likely to contact me first and then write a letter. I'm not sure why this is the case. Yesterday, I received what is probably the most powerful letter from a john thus far. It's from John 30: "I Had Also Done Many Things During Two Deployments I Never Wanted To Do." In the comments on Boing Boing, Jacquilynne wrote: "I have to kind of wonder how much editing those letters are getting." The answer is very, very little. Generally, I do little more than fix punctuation in service of clarity: insert a comma there, stop a run on here, fix the spelling. To change the content of the letters would be contradictory to the nature of the project. But at times I do wonder if I should do anything to the letters at all. After all, I could simply do nothing to them and post them as they are. I do, though, wonder if that would hinder reader comprehension of what the letter writer is trying to say. And part of the point in all this is to bridge the gap between the unsaid and the unheard. Either way, I've posted the original version of John 30's letter here alongside the edited version. If you've got an opinion on the letter editing issue, let me know.
Update: Jacquilynne followed up again on the matter here. I'll take her remarks into consideration; she makes a good point, and yet also recognizes the conflict either way. Also, I suppose it bears mentioning that even without proofreading or editing, the letters are still "edited" in that they are selected at all. So, the great letters debate continues.
I HAD ALSO DONE MANY THING DURING TWO DEPLOYMENTS I NEVER WANTED TO DO (UNEDITED)
where to begin
Im a mid twenty something currently in the military. I have a stable girlfriend and several unstable yet available female friends. I am vastly overeducated for my job and am generally a well respected person. Im not too shabby in the looks department and am very seldom ridiculed. Generally being gone for a year at a time overseas is a terrible experience, every time ive gone its been a miserable series of events that makes suicide seem palatable. One day i decided to visit Toronto with some friends. After a complete failure at the bar scene i decided i could part with some money for some stress release. I had never bothered to resort to prostitution but i had also done many things during two deployments i never wanted to do. After the concierge at the hotel was appalled by my request for female companionship i hailed a cab and asked the best place to find a professional. He suggested the intersection of two streets named church and college respectively, this was very comical to me but i was eager to begin the adventure. Upon arriving i found a gaggle of women who were wearing what could only be described as whore uniforms. I decided on a young blond who seemed to fit the part. Negotiating the price during the cab ride back to the hotel we eventually made our way to my room finding many odd stares from hotel guests and the staff. This part was actually very exciting for some reason. In the room things began very fast and while thrilling it was obvious she was doing her job, which in a way was more arousing. After a seemingly endless 35 minutes of nervous thrusting I managed to complete my task which seemed the most satisfactory part of the evening to her. Pleasantries were exchanged and I handed over her garish clothing and sent her on her way. After a cigarette and some self soothe saying i managed to convince myself somewhat that the money was well spent and that I had a "good time". I would possibly seek companionship in this manner again but honestly it was a frightening act of depravity fueled by a complete loss of morals related to my murder for hire status in the military.
I HAD ALSO DONE MANY THINGS DURING TWO DEPLOYMENTS I NEVER WANTED TO DO (EDITED)
Where to begin.
I'm a mid-twenty-something, currently in the military. I have a stable girlfriend and several unstable yet available female friends. I am vastly overeducated for my job and am generally a well-respected person. I'm not too shabby in the looks department and am very seldom ridiculed. Generally being gone for a year at a time overseas is a terrible experience. Every time I've gone it's been a miserable series of events that makes suicide seem palatable. One day I decided to visit Toronto with some friends. After a complete failure at the bar scene I decided I could part with some money for some stress release. I had never bothered to resort to prostitution, but I had also done many things during two deployments I never wanted to do. After the concierge at the hotel was appalled by my request for female companionship, I hailed a cab and asked the best place to find a professional. He suggested the intersection of two streets named Church and College respectively. This was very comical to me, but I was eager to begin the adventure. Upon arriving I found a gaggle of women who were wearing what could only be described as whore uniforms. I decided on a young blond who seemed to fit the part. Negotiating the price during the cab ride back to the hotel, we eventually made our way to my room, finding many odd stares from hotel guests and the staff. This part was actually very exciting for some reason. In the room things began very fast, and while thrilling it was obvious she was doing her job, which in a way was more arousing. After a seemingly endless 35 minutes of nervous thrusting, I managed to complete my task, which seemed the most satisfactory part of the evening to her. Pleasantries were exchanged, and I handed over her garish clothing and sent her on her way. After a cigarette and some self soothe saying, I managed to convince myself somewhat that the money was well spent and that I had a "good time." I would possibly seek companionship in this manner again, but honestly it was a frightening act of depravity fueled by a complete loss of morals related to my murder for hire status in the military.
I'm a freelance journalist. I've written for Details, Harper's Bazaar, Newsweek,
Radar, Women's Health, Salon, Slate, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The LA Weekly, The San Francisco Chronicle, Variety, Inc., Esquire, The Atlantic, and I'm a Forbes contributor. In 2008, TIME named me one of the best bloggers of the year. I've appeared on CNN, NPR, and "Politically Incorrect." [EMAIL]
As I've stated here previously, the Letters Project will be closing to submissions this month, although both sites will remain online. Letters from Johns closed on January 3, and Letters from Working Girls will close on January 14. In the last week, I've gotten three new letters from working girls. 
