Time magazine ran an article about “The Girlfriend Experience” quite some time ago. The concept is both intriguing and under explored in general popular works although there has been a new television series based on something similar. Basically a woman with a good career and a well off family decides to experiment with prostitution. Not street walking but hired girlfriend for events and weekends.
This subject matter has been popping up in bit roles for over 30 years. As a writer you need to consider exploring it in some of your work. Ordinarily it is relegated to a bit part as it was in the first season of “The West Wing.” Movies which choose to explore it as the main subject matter tend to get scorned. It is a dark area of human culture which many are not willing to admit exists.
One movie which did a phenomenal job with the subject was “Crimes of Passion.” This is a movie every person needs to watch several times. You have to watch it several times just to get all of the lines Anthony Perkins chants as the deranged preacher. “Crimes of Passion” came out in 1984 and I have seen occasional spins on the plot line in other works, such as the description for “The Girlfriend Experience.”
Before you all start making comments about 12 year old me using 50+ year old me to write this post, do your homework. While the street walking part in “Crimes of Passion” seems to be a bit of a stretch, we have historical facts about women making the choice to lead a life much like described in “The Girlfriend Experience.” Some of you are probably too old to remember “The Mayflower Madam.”
Most of you will probably have heard of Heidi Fleiss though as she was recently in the news again. I will admit I never read the book about The Mayflower Madam but I did watch the movie with Candice Bergen. We have an ever narrowing window for some kind of documentary or docudrama interviewing women who have went down this path to find out the reasons behind it. I say it is narrowing because of all the on-line hook-up services out there from personal ads on Craig’s List to things like Tinder. It would be very difficult to research women who become $5000+/night/weekend escorts to find out what makes them tick and why people are willing to pay so much.
I understand it with politicians. Most likely the date is paid for by a lobbyist and you cannot take just anybody to an official White House function. People, now more than ever, have to be vetted by the Secret Service.
As a writer or film maker interested in the documentary genre you really should consider exploring this topic. While one most likely cannot expect to get the list of women (and most likely men) who worked for the Mayflower Madam or Ms. Fleiss you may have one entry point into this research. That assumes you could talk Charlie Sheen into participating. In truth, were he looking to trim just a tiny bit of his bad boy image he would be the ultimate person to put such a documentary together. I mean, his exploits aren’t exactly secret.
Yes, I was saddened to learn he is now HIV positive. His overly documented exploits would have killed most mortal men before they reached the age of 25. In many ways he is a biological anomaly like George Burns. A box of cigars per week and half a dozen or so martinis each night yet George still managed to live to 100.
From a documentary aspect and, perhaps, from a psychological one, this is an area which should be explored. Culturally we’ve known it existed for many decades. With the advent of social media it may well slip into another dark recess once again avoiding journalistic exploration.
