December 30, 2011

"I love the excitement of coming out here and seeing all these beautiful people I know."

"Even my dates are a comfort. This place has made me strong. It keeps you young.”

Says a 52-year-old prostitute, who's been walking the streets for 30+ years and now has the NYT writing a flattering story about her. Why would the NYT publish this? Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

53 comments:

Scott M said...

Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

Is that significantly different from the good feelings the NYT helps its aging female whores with?

Paco Wové said...

Contracting out to rhhardin for the holidays?

MadisonMan said...

“When I’m ready to get off, I’ll get off.”

Stellar closing quote.

Patrick said...

Clearly the NYT has recently either decided to target women, or learned that women are their demographic. 'Aging' women just have more money. I wonder if the Times would consider this approach sexist?

Ann Althouse said...

"Is that significantly different from the good feelings the NYT helps its aging female whores with?"

All kinds of whores read the NYT, and they're often quite cheered up by seeing what kind of whoring the other whores are doing.

Sorun said...

Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

I'm grateful that Althouse reads the NYT so I don't have to. Thanks Althouse! (And, yes, I bought at Amazon through your portal).

Moose said...

Well, let's see: young women are postponing work for school, women fared better in the recession, women now outnumber men in college degrees. I think the NY Times sees a trend here, doncha think?
We're all just annoying sperm donors now.

pm317 said...

Why would the NYT publish this?

Because it is the quintessential liberal attitude -- 'look at us how liberal we are that we are interested in the life of this prostitute!!'

Wince said...

Not so sure she should be touting in the NYT an asset she acquired as the result of criminal activity.

Do you know how much SWAT gear the local police could buy with 80% of that forfeiture?

bagoh20 said...

Ever see a old plumber's hands?

edutcher said...

Love the headline, "52, and Still Working the Streets". Reminiscent of how they view Fidel as an elder statesman.

Still, if GodZero gets a second term, this is the future for about 20% of American women.

Anonymous said...

Wasn't stripping/pole dancing at home the latest normative way for women to express their freedom?

I've got to keep up.

Someone ought to save these Grey Lady stories in a scrapbook for laughs in the future...:maudlin, deluded, almost beyond satire.

Progress!

Rockeye said...

self-parody alert

bandmeeting said...

I live on the upper west side and I am here to tell you that the average aging female (or male) New Yorker has little to feel good about, at least physically. The average 60 year old woman around here is 5 feet tall and weighs in the neighborhood of 200 pounds, uses a cane since they have willfully diminished their ability to walk, has owl glasses, a gray near butch haircut and a truly angry scowl.

Other than that I'm sure they have a lot going for them.

And as stated earlier, the men are not one bit better.

Anonymous said...

Or wait...isn't this part of that make-prostitution-legal campaign that's coming?

Women's bodies, women's rights. We need to look at the truth and not criminalize this behavior...we need to give prostitutes rights and include them in our warm, secularly moral embrace...

...like Europe.

Pastafarian said...

Prostitute? I thought we called them "sex workers" now.

Freeman Hunt said...

She has shown younger workers the ropes: how to jump in a Dumpster to hide from the police, and how to stay alive. First, never enter a car with more than one person in it, and never let someone drive you out of the area. Get your money up front — Ms. Terry charges $50 or $100 — and try to work with a buddy.

A real mentor.

Freeman Hunt said...

Anyone else getting a strong whiff of racism off this article? The soft bigotry of low expectations sort?

rhhardin said...

It's the old gray lady.

edutcher said...

I love the "careers" tag.

Reminiscent of the old Eddie Murphy bit on SNL - Velvet Jones and his how-to guide, "Be A Ho".

I can just imagine this as the Administration's latest effort to spur green jobs.

Be a Ho for O.

WV "barlasm" What the drunk after Jesus would give you.

If you were very, very lucky.

HKatz said...

Why would the NYT publish this? Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

Because if the article were about a 52 year old male prostitute they'd say he's just a gigolo and life goes on without him.

Scott M said...

Because if the article were about a 52 year old male prostitute they'd say he's just a gigolo and life goes on without him.

Did you see they're going on tour together in 2012? Dave looks awful. Hell, they all do. That wouldn't be so bad for most rock acts, but DLR's entire schtick was rampant sexuality.

Interviewing the guy is like interviewing Richard Simmons. You say, "Hi, Dave" and then sit back and relax for ten minutes.

bozdie-bozdie-bop-ditty-bop

Jason said...

Maureen Dowd!!!

MadisonMan said...

@Freeman, I didn't even consider the race of the prostitute. There might be a class slant to the article, but I didn't get a race slant.

One data point.

carrie said...

I think it is all part of the continuous liberalize effort to normalize recreational sex and the sex trade. See, you can make a life long career out of being a prostitute!

Squid said...

Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

Do they feel good about themselves because they're not out there walking the streets, or because the "career" is still available to them as a fall-back position?

Or is that a false dichotomy?

Valentine Smith said...

This is the quote I would have used:

“Every Sunday, my mother and grandmother prayed for me out here.”

The residue of the old matriarchy supporting the transition to the new.

Scott M said...

The residue of the old matriarchy supporting the transition to the new.

How about "The old matriarchy stepping up so the new can lay down"?

WV - "swooffsk" No definition, but it sounds fast, doesn't it?

LordSomber said...

Enough about the Times. I wanna know what kind of whore reads the New Yorker.

Unknown said...

Here's hoping the Times follows this up with a story about a life-long customer of said prostitute.

Carol said...

When I first went to Las Vegas at age 20, it was suggested that I go that route, yet in the same breath the *suggesters* would remark how young prostitutes were generally used up and "old" in two years. Yeah, that's what I wanted to do with my life.

I guess some of them used the money to pay for school at UNLV. Whatever.

Hoosier Daddy said...

I just looked at the picture. That would make me switch teams.

And she looks more like 72.

William said...

For many years I used to labor in the dirty linen room of the hospital. The large chunks from the diarrhea and vomiting had to be scraped away from the sheets, otherwise they clogged the washing machine. The job lacked glamour and any chance for advancement, but, hey, it was a job and payed the bills. I tried to keep a positive attitude and be a mentor and role model to the younger people in my field, but sometimes it was very hard. I was glad to read this article. All jobs suck, but some jobs suck more than others. At the end of another futile year, it is encouraging to read of others who have perhaps even greater challenges in their struggle to find dignity in their labor.

Freeman Hunt said...

There might be a class slant to the article, but I didn't get a race slant.

One data point.


True. But I am having trouble imagining that the NYT would write the same article with the same tone about a toothless, middle aged, white prostitute who was open with her children about what she did for a living.

Perhaps I'm off base, and they have or would. I'm guessing, however, that that isn't the case.

Toad Trend said...

“When I’m ready to get off, I’ll get off.”

Wow.

I have nothing but pity and sorrow for this person.

Incredibly sad.

Anonymous said...

You had me at "toothless."



(Sorry)

wv istin - tootless "Is it in?"



(Sorry again)

Indigo Red said...

"All she knew about prostitutes was what she saw on “Starsky & Hutch,” ..."

And we're still told television doesn't teach people anything useful.

Levi Starks said...

You've all missed the real point of this article,
The NYT is the aging prostitute. The Grey Lady's been in the filthy business of making the Democratic party feel good for so long she wouldn't know how to do anything else.
But don't worry, she can stop anytime she wants to

Anonymous said...

"Just a Gigolo" makes me think of Louis Prima, not David Lee Roth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CodmlmxpZeQ

Alex said...

The oldest profession in the world, gotta love the whores!

Anonymous said...

True. But I am having trouble imagining that the NYT would write the same article with the same tone about a toothless, middle aged, white prostitute who was open with her children about what she did for a living.

Freeman, this is different. This whore is glamorous because she works the streets of NYC, the most important city in the world.

It's not like she's in the glamorously dirty, miserable trade in the South of flyover country.

wv: docks, where coastal street hookers ply their trade

bagoh20 said...

T-man @ 12:45

Your comment brought a single tender tear to my one good eye.

Bless you.

Lovernios said...

bagoh20: Ever see a old plumber's hands?

One of the funniest lines I've read this year.

Anonymous said...

Those great teeth are gone, lost to diabetes, Ms. Terry said.

In her line of work that could actually be an advantage.

By the way, Ms. Terry is hardly setting any age records. About a year ago there was an article in the local paper here on Long Island about a police raid on an Asian massage parlor. One of the women was 66 years old.

Peter

ricpic said...

Bandmeeting - An old person without wealth in the big city is well and truly fucked. Not so in a small city a suburb or the country. I have no sympathy for most of them since well past middle age they still had to be "where the action is." Such total fools deserve their fate.

ricpic said...

Lord Somber said...

Enough about the Times. I wanna know what kind of whore reads the New Yorker.

Gypsy Rose Lee was a good example of the breed. Admittedly she wasn't a whore but she was in the cockteasing business and the thing that made her a New Yorker style whore was that she most haughtily denied that that's the business she was in. She was once on a panel reminiscing about the glory days of burlesque and one of the other panelists in an unguarded moment let fly that one of the perils of the trade was that the front of the stage on which the strippers did their tease was slippery with the jism from the first and second rows. "Oh no, no such thing. It was good clean entertainment and I was an entertainer!"

Blue@9 said...

I actually have no problem with this.

I mean, she could have gone to school, gotten a worthless degree in comparative feminist studies, walked away with six figures in debt, mooched off her parents, camped out in parks and blamed "the system" for everything.

But no, she works and makes money and is happy to be doing so. Now, if only she paid her taxes it'd be grand.

ampersand said...

"Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough." Robert Towne via Noah Cross.

Anonymous said...

Because the NYT is all about helping its aging female readers feel good about themselves.

If the older ladies want to feel really good about themselves maybe they need to call,

Fred Garvin Male Prostitute

Methadras said...

Is this Ron Paul approved?

Micha Elyi said...

Clearly the NYT has recently either decided to target women, or learned that women are their demographic. 'Aging' women just have more money. I wonder if the Times would consider this approach sexist?-Patrick (9:45)

Recently?

All the feminist caterwauling about men making more money was just a diversionary tactic to keep people from noticing that women spend more money - and that the enjoyment of money is more often in spending it than the working to earn it. You betcha women are the target; since the 1960s studies have repeatedly shown 80-85% of every consumer dollar is spent by or for women.

As for musing about the sexism of it all, since when has the Times noticed that 'feminism' is itself a sexist word?

Critter said...

Down here in the South this person is what we refer to as a "crack ho". We have plenty if the NYT wants to interview them

Bob Loblaw said...

You've all missed the real point of this article,
The NYT is the aging prostitute. The Grey Lady's been in the filthy business of making the Democratic party feel good for so long she wouldn't know how to do anything else.
But don't worry, she can stop anytime she wants to


I figure it's just research. All those Times employees are going to be looking for a job soon.