BY Lux Alptraum
March 20, 2008
504 views
4 Comments

We’ve mostly refrained from commenting on the Spitzer story because, you know, what is there to say? (Well, also because I was either at SXSW or in recovery from SXSW for the most important part of the news cycle.) But then we stumbled across this NY Times piece about the fairy tale that is postfeminism — and, more specifically, how the Spitzer affair reveals that, OMG, men and women view things differently — and, alas, dear readers, we could keep silent no longer.

We’ll spare you our feelings on the bulk of the article (though we were pretty into the wedding ring brass knuckles, btw), and just get to the part that really got our hackles up:

The Spitzer scandal seemed to stoke particular outrage among women. On Slate, Hanna Rosin wrote of her “Ashley Dupré” moment — referring to the name Mr. Spitzer’s prostitute uses.

Did they really say that? (Yes.) Are we bent over and vomiting? (Yes.)

If you’re a regular reader of Boinkology, it should come as no surprise to you that we’re vehemently pro-sex work (and pro-sex worker). But even if we weren’t — hell, sex workers are people too, and it would be nice if the paper of record could treat them as such.

Specifically: “Mr. Spitzer’s prostitute.” We had no idea that he owned her. Thanks for clearing that up for us!

And also: “Ashley Dupre”? What’s interesting here is that Kristen is Ms. Dupre’s ho name — Ashley Alexandra Dupre, while not her birth name (that would be Ashley Youmans), is the name she adopted for her music career.

We’ll stop taking offense at this the day we see a NY Times piece about “Snoop Dogg” and “50 Cent.”

We now return you to your regularly scheduled fun sex news.