charming

Her website is http://www.sexyescortads.com/escort-67-25837.html

PhDD, at 6:17 am EST on January 20, 2006

Double Standard?

I don’t see the big deal about a former professor being a prostitute. Many of us study sex and sex-work in our professional lives, and I suspect that academia is rife with people who have either sold or bought “sex,” even if it was a lap-dance in a strip club, or downloading porn off the internet.

We’re fascinated with forms of cultural interaction such as burlesque, go-go dancing, pornography, and flat-out prostitution, but then people get up in arms when they find out that someone is actually PRACTICING what they preach. Why not have a sex-positive approach to this scandal?

I think the more disturbing things are the professor’s questionable behavior with respect to falsifying data and apparently not being a great teacher. But the sex part is her private life, and since she was no longer a professor at the time of her new career, I don’t see why that is the “storyline” here. It’s kind of interesting!

Anon, at 11:25 am EST on January 20, 2006

No

No, Larry, I don’t agree. This represents a problem. Most professors with sex-for-grades schemes aren’t caught. Neither are most rapists, 50% of murderers and any significant number of drug smugglers. When they are caught, there is good reason to nail them to the wall to the full extent of the law. Simply because many people get away with it doesn’t mean when one is caught, they should go free.

Secondly, since this professor is about to be charges with a number of felonies, it would be a good time for the school to display some semblance of responsibilty and fire her.

Kevin, Undergraduate, at 1:14 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Who’s in charge of titles here?

Maybe this story has nothing to do with higher education, but it’s still good dirty fun. I must, however, chide the editors for missing an opportunity. During my time in the publishing racket (speaking of whorehouses), part of my job was to devise snappy titles for articles. “Madame Professor?” isn’t bad, but I seem to recall an Elizabethan or Jacobean play titled ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore. Now that would have been a nice title for this piece. Classy and literary, you know. Articles about the intellectual lifestyle can never have too much tone.

A person getting busted for prostitution always raises an interesting question. How can it be illegal for a person to do for money something that she (or he) can legally do for free an infinite number of times? The public-health argument doesn’t work, because mere promiscuity—without any dough changing hands—poses the same risks to public health. Moral arguments seem weak and hypocritical, since one is perfectly free to degrade oneself for money in any number of other ways—working in advertising, public relations, or politics, for instance. We can peddle our minds and souls; but woe betide those who rent their bodies. Perhaps someone can explain this.

Stu Pfied, Utility infielder in English, at 7:47 pm EST on January 20, 2006

Agree with Stu Pified

I agree with Stu the publisher. We publish books and write grant proposals about sex; we create “sexy” titles so people will buy the damn things; we privilege “queer” explorations dealing with socio-sexual deviance and other unconventional approaches to gender and cultural morees.

But when this unfortunate woman (who happens to be recently divorced, bankrupt, and possibly a victim of domestic violence) takes matters into her own hands and makes money practicing her sexual deviance, people act appalled.

Without prostitutes, we wouldn’t have some of the most interesting fiction and factual studies of our time. Without sex-workers, what would our fantasy lives be? I think what threatens many people is that this article proves a “prostitute” could be most anyone: your teacher, your student, your neighbor, your girlfriend, your wife, your husband....

This also makes me think of an on-line blog by a self-professed escort. “Alexa” keeps a blog of her banal daily activities, but her readers don’t believe she’s an escort because she writes a blog! They don’t think escorts are supposed to be intelligent, funny, and literate. I would certainly want MY escorts to be smart and funny if I were going to hire someone to entertain me!

Another Publisher, at 4:24 pm EST on January 21, 2006

Kevin,

I appreciate your quest for justice, but comparing serial killers and rapists to someone who’s been charged with prostitution is a real stretch. Rapists and serial killers are violent criminals who often (in fact, usually) commit crimes against women. In the second case, we’re talking about a woman who has committed a “social” crime, or crime against accepted morality. As far as we know, no one with whom she had contact was physically or psychologically injured. No lives were lost.

It’s embarrassing, no doubt, but hardly a cause for comparison to Hannibal Lector.

Dana, Serial Killers?, at 9:46 am EST on January 23, 2006

A couple of observations: most sophisticated houses of ill-repute actually do pay their taxes. Indeed, it is not a crime to pay taxes on illegitimate income.

The only places where people exchange sex for security or favors without paying taxes are in marriage or college classes, and nobody complains about them.

Obviously, Dana, prostitution is not nearly as bad a crime as serial murder, but many think that people are injured by it. Some of those injuries are silly, and, I find it hard to have sympathy for the wife who complains that her husband strayed when she failed to have sex with him less than 5 times a week. Whether their injuries are worthy of criminal action is one for the legislature, and the legislature sides with those who think that marriage is a game of bait and switch.

Larry, at 1:25 pm EST on January 23, 2006

It’s clear to me she became a hooker to pay the mortgage after she lost her job at UMBC. The more interesting story would be why UMBC let her go.

yellojkt, at 9:30 am EST on January 24, 2006

Education, degree levels, institution of attendance...none of these issues have anything to do with who this women “is” or was. I have a problem with how the media is exploiting Brandy. Howard County needs to come up to speed and the nosey neighbors (LOL). This type of thing happens “everywhere,” especially in the more “plush” neighborhoods. The only diffence is, in those neighborhoods, the man is sleeping with other women and in many cases other men outside of the home—& often there is an exchange for money, or other materials possessions because this keeps them safe/unattached to the behavior (money=power and control). I think Brandy was having a difficult time accommadating an keeping up, thus she resulted in something that she felt she was talented in doing—give it a rest.

Pierre, at 10:56 am EST on January 30, 2007