Everything Else You Wanted To Know About Hookers (But Didn’t Care Enough To Ask)

Ashley who? It looks like New York's governor hooker scandal has finally gone from Stage One (shock and outrage) through Stage Two (lurid fascination) and is now firmly in Stage Three: "What does it all mean?" Everyone is bored with Eliot and his escort, and the tri-state area has moved on (or back?) to New Jersey's bisexual gubernatorial threeway scandal. So the rest of the media is now free to pump out feature stories and editorials that deal with "the big picture": sex work and prostitutes, who they are and what they do and why the rest of use can't stop hiring them. Everyone's an expert on sex work all of a sudden, and they're going to teach us all about it for at least another week or so until they likely go back to not caring again. Another exhaustive link roundup is after the jump, though if you're not included in it don't worry: if you're one of the two dozen or so Americans who haven't yet been personally interviewed about this story, we'll be happy to put you in touch with a desperate newspaper editor somewhere who needs your help.

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· Spitzer's fall offers glimpse into sex business (newsday.com)
· The Double Lives of High-Priced Call Girls (nytimes.com)
· Porn vs. prostitution: Why is it legal to pay someone for sex on camera? (slate.com)
· Johns Help Each Other Find the Right 'Internet Sex Provider' (wired.com)
· Cassandra: The really annoying thing about Eliot Spitzer (timesonline.co.uk)
· Smerconish: Legalize hookers (daveralis.com)
· Europe does sex scandals better (latimes.com)
· No sex scandals for women in power (freep.com)
· Hop on: we are taking sex tourism global (telegraph.co.uk)
· Threesome With New Jersey Guv Out-Trashes Spitzer Scandal (Gawker)

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Previously: The Curious Case Of Client No. 9: An Honest To Goodness Political Sex Scandal, Today's Gubernatorial Sex Scandal Update: The Apotheosis Of Ashley