In response to the City Paper article “The Sheriff of Naughtyham” (5/15)…Jake Tapper, get a life! You really are fascinated by prostitutes, aren’t you? Do you actually know any? Do you ever bother trying to get a real-life perspective from these working women? I am so sick of self-indulgent City Paper articles, written by men, that fetishize female sex-trade workers. What the hell do you know about it? No one ever gets to hear the story from the women themselves. I certainly don’t think that any sex-trade workers would refer to themselves as “hos” or “crack whores,” as the men who police them or write condescending articles about them do.

Also, I don’t think you realize the damage you do with these articles. For example, a few years ago, City Paper writer Jose Padua wrote a very sexist, condescending article denouncing the dancers at a local strip club, and this article ended up directly affecting the lives and incomes of these women. The owner of the club was very embarrassed by the article and cracked down harshly on the women working at the club, which in effect greatly reduced the amount of money the dancers could make and resulted in many women losing their jobs. These are real people—women with kids to raise and families to support, women trying to put themselves through school or pay medical bills, women just trying to survive.

Jake Tapper, you fail to give voice to the very women you write about. You fail to question a system that impoverishes people, then criminalizes them for trying to make a living. As I’ve said before, a blow job is better than no job. Why don’t you try it out? I’m sure you’d be better at that than you are at writing for the City Paper.

Mount Pleasant