Why Eliot Spitzer did what he did

Since Eliot Spitzer has announced he's running for New York City comptroller, it seems like a good time to revisit my Letters from Johns project.

The project ran from January 2008 to January 2009. I requested letters from readers of my blog who had paid for sex, letters in which they shared their experiences and why they did it.

A few months after the project began, Spitzer was busted for patronizing a call girl.

At that time, I wrote about the project for Newsweek: "Dear John."  

"I Am Ashamed of Nothing I Have Done":

One can try to hang a sign on us, the collective john, as perpetuating the global conspiracy of sex/slave traffic, and I'll grant that my Thailand trip may have/probably did contribute to some sort of thuggery. But in the end, I am ashamed of nothing I have done.

"I'm a State Investigator":

I keep a coded diary, in case it's discovered. 1 dot is oral, 2 dots is vaginal sex, and 2 connected dots is anal sex. In the event that someone questions the dots, they are associated with good/bad days: no dots are normal days, 1 dot is a good day, 2 dots is a great day, and 2 connected dots is the best day for that week.

"I Have a Physical Disability":

I am now a regular customer, although not as regular as I’d like to be. This is mostly because my brother has moved overseas, and it is hard to find people who will willingly accompany me. However, each time I go, I no longer feel like a cripple. I feel whole. 

Corrections

I've got a new interview up on Interviews with Johns: "The Correctional Officer."

What’s the relationship between your work and visiting escorts?

I’m not sure there is a relationship. Obviously, after swearing an oath to uphold the law and avoid behaving in any way that would bring the [redacted] into disrepute, I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. But let’s be clear, I started doing this long before I started working in law enforcement. My job is something I do a few days a week. Outside of that, I could care less about law enforcement.

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Dear Johns

While Letters from Johns is no longer active, I've recently launched Interviews with Johns.

So far, I've heard from a site reliability engineer:

There was a lot of overlap with business travel. Earlier when I was at a startup, I was’t dating at all and was working 80-100 hours weeks, it just seemed easier. 

And a teacher:

I answered an ad on an escort site. This was before Craigslist or Backpage. She was an olde lady in a trailer park who walked me through the process. It was fun, but not hot. I forgot to pay her I was so on edge. I drove back to give her the money and she was really nice about that too.

If you're interested in being interviewed by email -- it's anonymous -- you can email me at susannahbreslin at gmail.

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Why men pay for it

Yesterday, I posted that I was reading Chester Brown's Paying for It. Basically, it's an autobiographical graphic novel about how Brown paid prostitutes for sex.

I think I got it yesterday in the mail and finished it last night. Generally speaking, I didn't really like it.

Mostly, it's depressing. Which isn't to say it's not accurate. I got the sense it was very accurate. Brown kept a diary of when he did who, and that's the structure that guides the narrative.

But Brown is a nerd/robot, and because of that, you don't get -- well, I was going to say, much in the way of feeling, but really you don't get any feeling at all.

Brown feels kind of dead.

Dead to me. To him, I think he feels like himself. He's very mechanical. Logical. Thorough.

But it's sort of like watching someone fuck a hole in the wall.

You get glimpses of the women, who are mostly disguised -- by speech bubbles over their faces or the absence of specific details -- but not a lot.

Mostly, I felt like the book read like a polemic that was pretending to be a diary. Brown is a fan of the legalization of prostitution. Which is fine. I don't have a problem with that.

There's a lot about his troubles with love, but in the end, it's like his real issue is a lack of ... passion.

Which left me feeling like I ate a sandwich with nothing in it. 

Aesthetically, I loved it. It's all tiny boxes, and little opaque people, and the sex scenes are like a sperm trying to penetrate an egg. I liked the way it looked the best.

What I'm reading

Paying for It, Chester Brown

Cheaters and strippers

Two things regarding my latest Letters Projects.

Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs closes to submissions on October 26th. So if you're a guy who's ever been to a strip club, you can send in your anonymous letter now or forever hold your peace.

In other news, I find it odd that I'm not getting any submissions to Letters from Cheaters. It's on Blogger here and Tumblr here. I got two letters from women right after I launched it, and since then it's been radio silence.

Possible reasons:

1. "Cheaters" makes people think it's a "you're bad for cheating" site. It isn't. It's like all the other Letters Projects. It's just a way of collecting stories about why something happened. Take, for example, Letters from Johns. It's just the letters. No judgment.

2. The fact that two women submitted the first two letters is making men less likely to submit. I don't know why this would be the case. Unless it's guilt inducing or something.

3. It's hasn't gotten around enough yet, and when it does people will submit.

4. People are worried about getting caught confessing. I guess it's possible, but maybe we used to believe that our private internet stuff was really private, and now we worry about anonymity. If that's the case, there's always Hushmail or something like it.

5. What do you think?

In any case, send me your strip club and cheating confessions. That way we'll find out more about why we do the things we do. Anonymously.

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Looking for a john

I'm looking for a john to interview for a book I'm working on. I'm looking for someone successful, in their thirties, forties, or fifties, who sees escorts regularly. Anonymous. Email me.

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Stripclubland

Not long ago, I created Letters from Men Who Go to Strip Clubs. The first letters blog I created was Letters from Johns. The strip club one was born out of a series I'm doing on my Forbes blog.

So far, I've gotten 12 letters.

Email me HERE if you want to add your anonymous letter to this project.

Now we live in a suburb up the street from one. She is very serious when she says she would have been a stripper if she’d had the body for it. I have to be honest and admit the same. Even if that honesty is mostly me trying to be interesting. I also have to admit that I will probably visit the one down the street eventually. I’ll take the excuse as soon as it presents itself to tell myself that it’s research. I actually DO want to legalize brothels and popularize burlesque houses as a way to make strip clubs less a depressing lie for everyone. Even if I never go inside another one I’ll always be pretending I’m some kind of enlightened porn-cocoon butterfly rather than just another porn fly. That truth seems less depressing than a lie, and maybe a little more erotic.

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Why do you go to strip clubs?

I'm working on a series on the strip club economy on my Forbes blog. Now, I'm asking my readers to tell me why they go to strip clubs.

"Why Men Go to Strip Clubs"

Some men go to strip clubs because they’re lonely, and they want someone to talk to who will be judgement-free. Some men are single or not having sex or the sex they want with their partners, and strip clubs are a way for them to explore their fantasies. Some men go to strip clubs to conduct business meetings, or because it’s easier to find a woman to spend time with when you’re paying her than when you’re with your friends at a nightclub, or as an escape from the grind of work, of monogamy, of being whatever a man is supposed to be in the 21st century.

At the end of the post, I ask readers to tell me why they go to strip clubs. Email me your thoughts. I may include them in an upcoming post. They will remain anonymous. 

I also mention in the post Letters from Johns, a very popular series I did in 2008 wherein I asked men why they paid for sex.

The project generated quite a bit of buzz when, a few months after I launched it, Eliot Spitzer was caught up in a prostitution scandal. I wrote about the letters in Newsweek, it was mentioned on TIME.com, and Susie Bright called it "riveting reading."

Here are some of the most interesting letters from that project:

"I Am Ashamed of Nothing I Have Done"

One can try to hang a sign on us, the collective john, as perpetuating the global conspiracy of sex/slave traffic, and I'll grant that my Thailand trip may have/probably did contribute to some sort of thuggery. But in the end, I am ashamed of nothing I have done. 

"I'm a State Investigator"

I keep a coded diary, in case it's discovered. 1 dot is oral, 2 dots is vaginal sex, and 2 connected dots is anal sex. In the event that someone questions the dots, they are associated with good/bad days: no dots are normal days, 1 dot is a good day, 2 dots is a great day, and 2 connected dots is the best day for that week.

"I Have a Physical Disability"

I am now a regular customer, although not as regular as I’d like to be. This is mostly because my brother has moved overseas, and it is hard to find people who will willingly accompany me. However, each time I go, I no longer feel like a cripple. I feel whole.

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Letters from Johns, an update

From January 2008 to January 2009, I conducted an online experiment called Letters from Johns. Why do some men pay for sex? I put out a call for letters from men about why they sought out prostitutes. Over that year, I published 51 letters. Recently, I heard from one of those johns. His original letter: "I Was Smitten." I asked him for an update.

Two years ago, I responded to the "Letters from Johns" project because it gave me an opportunity to finally tell a secret. Reading over some of the other men’s letters, I sensed a lot of shame and self-hatred, but those weren’t the reasons I had always kept my involvement with providers to myself. As I detailed in my letter, I was more worried about the social and family implications, which came to a head when I started actually falling for one of my providers.

Looking back over my letter now, it reads more melancholy than I meant for it to. My time with providers was actually a lot more thrilling and adventurous than I related. And it wasn’t just about skilled sexual technique, but also about being with a lot of different kinds of women, with different kinds of erotic energy. And while it’s true that providers perhaps contributed to somewhat unrealistic expectations for my "real" girlfriends’ sexual prowess, it’s also true that they taught me a lot about how to please different kinds of women.

Being with a provider was never a one-way street. I only felt like the hour was satisfying if I knew she had gotten off, too. I’ve always thought that men who can be duped by a fake orgasm have no idea what they’re doing; a woman can’t really fake vaginal convulsions, copious lubrication, or rapid, full-body shudders. And there are as many different ways to make a woman come as there are women. Providers showed me how to be rough without actually being violent, how to go slow without being a wuss, how to direct sex even when being more submissive.

Ironically, I haven’t been with a provider since I wrote my "Letter from a John." Instead, I’ve been in two monogamous relationships with a few one-night-stands in between. I wonder if, by writing the letter, I released myself from the fascination with/romanticizing of the special charms of providers. I occasionally look at the local escort review board to see who’s new, but I haven’t made contact with anyone. My current girlfriend is as sexually experienced and skilled as anyone I’ve been with, so that may be part of it. Or maybe I’ve just gotten whoring out of my system.

I’ve also grown to wish that I didn’t have to keep this part of my history a secret anymore. Recently, my girlfriend asked me if I’d ever paid for sex, and I said "No" without thinking twice. She’s somewhat jealous as it is, and I knew that telling her the truth would be a recipe for disaster. Some small part of me thinks that, ultimately, the perfect partner for me would who be a woman who knows, accepts, and is maybe even turned on by my former experiences with providers. This feels like a tall order; I’m guessing that I will always keep my secret to myself.

[Letters from Johns]