Philly Weekly Sinks to a New Low
Two weeks ago, the Philadelphia Weekly published a poignant and compelling story about women trying to escape prostitution.
This week, they published an article about which Chinatown brothels offer the best handjobs. I’m not linking to the article because I think it was exploitative, disgusting and was less a news and opinion column than it was an advertorial, like those Exxon-Mobil ads that appear in the print edition of the New York Times. One of the commenters at the Weekly’s latest low opined, “This is really gross. Congratulations on paying for sex from a most likely trafficked woman”, and I have to concur: sex slavery is an ,a href=”http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20100331_Massage_madam_s_Swan_song_.html”>ongoing problem in Philadelphia. It’s something to be ashamed of, not something to celebrate and enable.
I’m not a prude, and have no problem with the world’s oldest profession, which should almost certainly be legalized and regulated for the safety of the sex workers. I’m also fully aware of the financial problems facing the newspaper industry, especially the free alternative weeklies, and have no problem with the ads for brothels, prostitutes, chicks-with-dicks, and other assorted novelties in the back of the paper. And I understand that a column like Lush Life, which is typically about partying and getting drunk, is expected to be edgy.
But this is beyond the pale. The column rejoiced in, and normalized, the exploitation of women. That’s disgusting, and I’m embarrassed to have been associated with the paper.
