October 2, 2017--Hookers

Rona is getting involved with hooking rugs. A great fall and winter pastime  

On the way home from Bangor, Maine where there was a weekend workshop for hooking aficionados, we wondered about the etymological history of hooker as applied to prostitutes.

We thought maybe it was assigned to street walkers who would hook the arms of the men they were seeking to lure. We couldn't come up with anything else that made much sense and so, since we do not have a smart phone, we looked it up when we were back at the house.

It has quite an interesting and unexpected history.

According to the Urban Dictionary it first appeared during the Civil War when General Joseph Hooker of the Union Army tried to protect his men from venerial disease by recruiting uninfected women and pimping then to his corps of 20,000 men. They were thereafter referred to as "Hooker's girls."

Digging deeper, according to other sources this is not necessarily accurate. 

There is evidence that the term "hooker" was used as early as 1845, well before the War Between the States. It is thus more likely that it derives from the concentration of cheap rum and prostitutes around the shipyards and ferry terminal of the Corlear's Hook area of Manhattan's Lower Eastside in the early to mid 19th century.

Sounds right though I continue to prefer the Urban Dictionary's version.

Corlear's Hook

February 12, 2105--Lust for Life

The French can be, well, so French. Take Dominique Strauss-Kahn for example.

Perhaps the last time you were aware of him was in 2011 when he was under posh house arrest in New York City awaiting trial for allegedly forcing a chamber maid at the Sofitel Hotel to perform oral sex.

There was some of his semen on her blouse but he beat the rap, claiming the DNA evidence was not conclusive and that she had a checkered past, having accused other rich and powerful men of sexually assaulting her and attempting to cash in.

He, on the other hand, did not deny that they had sex, claiming it was consensual, which appeared to be all right with his America heiress wife, who said at the time something like, "That's the way men are."

Subsequently, back in France, Strauss-Kahn, who had been Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and was preparing to run for the presidency of France, was accused of raping a journalist and having been involved with a ring of prostitutes. This was too much for his long-understanding wife, who finally dumped him.

And now, in Lille, a trial is underway in which Strauss-Kahn and 13 others are accused of pimping and abetting prostitution. If convicted, he could go to prison for up to 10 years.

According to a report in the New York Times, earlier this week, there was testimony about "sex parties with high-flying power brokers and prostitutes." Outside the courtroom topless protesters threw themselves at the Strauss-Kahn's car. For what reason I do not know. But, vive la France, it made for more juicy headlines and vivid video in a country that could use some diversion after last month's Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Though that testimony itself would have been enough to provide some schaudenfreudian relief, from the witness stand Strauss-Kahn offered up even more salacious fun--his defense.

It is that lust is no crime.

He acknowledged having been at sex parties (though as he put it during his testimony--it was only "four times a year") but claimed he had nothing to do with organizing the orgies nor hiring prostitutes--both crimes in France.

On the other hand, prostitute witnesses such as Mounia (no last name) authoritatively offered, that "it was obvious that those at the party were prostitutes," even though she acknowledged that she never discussed money with Strauss-Kahn.

His defense is that since at least the 16th century, there is a long tradition in France, libertinage, that makes legal "freewheeling sex and pleasure among multiple and consensual partners." But Mounia, when asked about the consensual nature of their activities, said that was not the case--Strauss-Kahn had forced her to engage in "a brutal act," she said, "I felt like an object."

Jade agreed, admitting she had engaged in prostitution but not libertinage, "I was not a person but a thing that was supposed to complete a task."

Duh.

But Strauss-Kahn had the final word--when insisting that at the quarterly orgies he was unable to determine who were prostitutes and who were non-working girls, he shrugged his Gallic shoulders and declared, "I dare you to distinguish between a prostitute and a naked socialite."

C'est tout.