The pleasure of Stacie’s company used to cost $450 an hour, but no longer. Her clients were capped at 35 and older; today she’s taking almost anyone. Sex acts once off the menu are suddenly back on — recession specials, served with a side of shrugging compromise.

If she doesn’t do more for less, Stacie says, another prostitute will. And her weekly income is still down by half.

The illegal prostitution economy in Clark County is a multimillion-dollar beast fed by a black market so diverse that it’s impossible to pin down. On one hand, mid-range prostitutes like Stacie say they’re being crippled by the economy. On the other, high-end call girls claim they’re not feeling much pain. And the women charging the least reportedly are making the most these days — counter-intuitive in an industry where bargains come with risks.

Consider the work of sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh, who surveyed hundreds of high-end prostitutes in New York and discovered that 40 percent of “trades” in the sex economy never went beyond light petting or kissing.

In Las Vegas, the economy’s effect on call girls is even more complicated: The bulk of clients — or johns — here are from out of town, tourists or businessmen who spend days in convention halls and nights in hotel rooms with to-your-door entertainment. These men are bread and butter for local prostitutes, provided the clients come to town. And anybody in the hospitality industry — here that illicitly includes call girls too — can agree that fewer men are flying in, with less money to spend.

Meanwhile, more women reportedly are getting into the business, which creates a classic supply and demand squeeze. An escort agency owner told the Sun he’s getting about 40 interested applicants every day, the majority of whom are women running from the wreckage of lost finance jobs.

Now fold another factor into that dynamic: When the economy is bad, when people feel their mortgages closing in, they seek comfort: alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, pornography and perhaps prostitution.

When all these elements collide in the nebulous economy of escorting, a trend emerges: The Clark County call girl economy has a tipping point — about $650.

In Vegas, prostitutes who charge between $600 and $700 are being hit the hardest. The women (and the smaller number of men in the business) who charge in the $200 to $300 range are doing the same business as before, if not better, according to Susan Lopez, founder of the Sin City Alternative Professionals’ Association for local sex workers. And women who charge thousands of dollars for multi-hour appointments tell Lopez, and the Sun, that they’re not really being affected at all.

Although this is no scientific study — and people should be wary of any numbers that claim to definitively capture any element of the sex-for-pay market — the tipping point does make sense: People tightening their belts are downgrading to cheaper service; people who don’t need to tighten their belts aren’t really doing it at all. If you can buy a Bentley today, the logic goes, you’re probably going to be able to buy one tomorrow.

Or maybe you’ll buy an evening with Rebecca. She’s been a call girl in Las Vegas for several years, after leaving a job in finance behind. Winters are always slow, she says, but overall, the money is good. How good? Her best month was $32,000. An average month is more like $15,000.

“I get a lot of doctors and lawyers and they don’t even blink,” she said. “By January or February I’m fully expecting to raise my rates.”

Her rates, for now, are $2,000 to start. Overnights cost $4,000. Travel and multiple-day excursions are negotiable.

If you don’t believe people would pay that kind of money, consider the case of former New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer, who authorities allege spent $80,000 on escorts in one year, despite having a lot more to lose than the cash.

Well, Ricky will be happy to know that going rates are now at half-price or less.

Like Snoop Dogg says, “I don’t love them hoes”, but Stacie sounds cute.

Read the rest of the article at Las Vegas Sun.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

John McCain and Barack Obama, if you’re wooing a population of registered voters who are young, female and drawn to men in suits, then Allegheny County has 675 ladies ready to pull your lever.

They’re convicted streetwalkers, escorts and brothel babes collared in 2000 and from 2003-2006, uncovered by the Trib.

Based on the prostitutes’ voter registration cards, they’re destined to become Obama girls in November. That’s because 78 percent of them registered as Democrats. Countywide, Dems make up only about 62 percent of voters, according to the Division of Elections.

The Illinois senator also has the advantage with local “johns” — 72 percent go Democratic. And convicted pimps: Four out of every five register Democratic. And for the most special of special interest groups — male transvestite hookers — they’re batting a thousand for Dems, albeit in drag.

“For years and years we had politicians paying too much attention to hookers, so it’s great to finally see hookers paying attention to politics,” said Dan Fee, a top Philadelphia Democratic consultant who helped Obama’s Pennsylvania primary campaign.

Does Barack Obama love the hoes?

The arrests occurred early last week.

The depravity of this world is outstanding!

According to the New York Times, Al Gore supporter and lawyer, Louis Posner, who fervently contested the result of the 2000 presidential election and started an organization advocating voter reform used it to hide profits from another venture, the police say: a strip club that offered more than dancing.

The lawyer, Louis Posner, ran the Hot Lap Dance Club out of a fifth-floor loft in Hell’s Kitchen, where the police said the wealthy clientele paid as much as $5,000 for sex with dancers in private rooms.

According to the police, Mr. Posner, a 52-year-old tax lawyer, funneled the club’s money to an account for Voter March, the grass-roots demonstration organization he started shortly after the 2000 election that has been largely inactive since 2004. He deposited money into several other accounts, the police said, adding that the amounts were low enough to avoid raising a red flag at the Internal Revenue Service.

Investigators seized $570,000 from 13 bank accounts and two safety deposit boxes held by the Posners, all of which could be traced back to the dance club, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said.

According to the police, in addition to sponsoring events with Vincent Bugliosi about Bush stealing the 2000 election, Posner ran a prostitution ring out of his club, the Hot Lap Dance Club, where employees say they were required to have sex with Posner in order to work there. No wonder Posner was so testy about the 2000 election—he wanted to preserve the glory of the Clinton years.

-Ann Coulter

Hat Tips:

Ann Coulter

sayanythingblog.com

NY Post.com (full details)

Fox News.com

Ashley Dupre, the call girl known as “Kristen” who brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, was seen with a married New Jersey businessman on Tuesday renting a hotel room in Manhattan and leaving separately on Wednesday afternoon, according to the New York Post.

Dupre, 23, and 35-year-old Thomas J. “TJ” Earle, the wealthy scion of a major New Jersey asphalt company, were spied ducking into the Gramercy Park Hotel, where they rented a room Tuesday after a long day of drinking, dining, shopping and snuggling together in limos around New York City, sources told the Post.

The two then separately left the Gramercy the next afternoon, after spending much of 24 hours in each other’s company. They walked out of the hotel 10 minutes apart, seemingly to avoid being photographed together, according to the Post.

Earle lives with his wife and their two kids fewer than two miles from Dupre’s family home.

His apparent date with Dupre might have been kept quiet if they had not chosen to reserve a room at the Gramercy on the same day Lindsay Lohan and her DJ gal pal, Samantha Ronson, were staying there. Lohan’s presence drew a swarm of paparazzi, one of whom recognized Dupre when she got out of a car with Earle.

The Earle Companies’ Web site says, “We understand that our reputation for honesty and integrity took many years to build, but that it can be destroyed in just a few moments.

Photos Courtesy Of NY Post.com

Thomas Earle hops from a town car in NYC.

Ashley Dupre is not far behind from her new “man”. Dupre and Earle spent much of 24 hours in each other’s company.

Activities included drinking, dining, shopping and snuggling in limos around the Big Apple.

Ashley Dupre leaves the Gramercy Park Hotel and is walked from the hotel by her bodyguard.

Earle left the hotel 10 minutes later.

Fox News.com

SAN FRANCISCO —  A measure that aims to keep prostitutes from facing criminal charges has qualified for the November ballot in San Francisco.

The measure, which qualified Friday, would bar authorities from spending money to investigate or prosecute prostitutes for engaging in prostitution.

A San Francisco first-time offender program that allows men to avoid charges for soliciting a prostitute if they attend a class and pay a fine would also end under the measure.

The Erotic Service Providers Union recently announced it had gathered the 12,000 signatures necessary to put the measure on the ballot after failing to get a similar initiative before voters in 2006.

Mayor Gavin Newsom says the measure would hurt the city’s ability to investigate and prosecute sex-trafficking crimes.

Gotta love San Fran-sicko’s progressiveness!

Guys, if you are going to pick up a girl for a night of casual sex, at least have a bit of self-respect and dignity, and go to a high-class strip club! There’s gotta be a Scores in every state, right?

Seriously, prostitution is not a glamorous lifestyle, no matter if you pay $5500 an hour.