Nowadays we hear escort more often, but not that long ago call girl was the symbol of high-class prostitution and savvy sex workers. Here are some images and a video version of Butterfield 8 that pretends the protagonist was just a slut. The imagery dates from recent enough times, when sexual liberation was a term masking gender inequality and sexism. A typical device was to grant bad women agency – a ruse we now see through but in some ways preferable to current victim imagery. This is interesting if one likes thinking about all aspects of culture change in reference to commercial sex, not just politicians’ and feminists’ statements (which provide only a narrow understanding of what’s going on).
Elizabeth Taylor as Gloria in Butterfield 8
In John O’Hara’s original novel of Butterfield 8, there was no doubt that Gloria was a call girl.
In Yugoslavia they were not confused about the film, either – note the explanatory subtitle.
Many of these images come from Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books. Feliz año nuevo.
–Laura Agustín, the Naked Anthropologist
See also Fanny Hill?
I wonder if she would identify as a call girl. Do you remember how she connected with customers?
Alas, no (it’s a book I know of, but not yet read) – I was thinking how having a sex worker (however she’s described) as a central fictional (or biographical) character enables lots of sex in the narrative while allowing the reader a vicarious tour of the world of ‘vice’.
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