Woke up at 9:30 A.M....

Didn't go flyin' today.  Ended up watchin' a whole lot of King videos instead.  Still tryin' to get ready for my written exam.  I keep trekkin' through, but with over 900 questions to be prepared for, it's slow progress!  I still have hours more videos to watch.  Not sure what the next couple of days are lookin' like...the forecast is callin' for rain.

I spent a couple of hours in the FBO this afternoon chattin' with the guys, then took a nap in the afternoon, then headed into town to enjoy our 76-degree temperature, then just drove through the country...which again turned out to be a bad idea!  A Mazda Protege is made for pavement, and it turns out that Kansas doesn't really believe in pavement...I cruised at a leisurely 25 MPH on the rocky roads with a whole lot of dust in my mirror...

Tonight was rather slow.  So I spent some time on the internet tonight since I had studied today, and I came across a rather interesting clip from The Today Show.  It's entitled "The Life of a High-Priced Call Girl," and I imagine it came about because of the hype with Spitzer and his clients...

Anyway, I recommend checkin' out the short clip (video.msn.com), readin' the interview (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23589422/), and lettin' me know what ya think!  Obviously, this has nothing to do with flight training, but, hey, it's a blog...I can do whatever I want!  ha!

I guess it hit home with me because a couple of my friends have been or are highly involved in the porn industry...and I'm just tryin' to see or understand their side of things...

Here are some of my takes on the interview, and I realize that one girl's responses don't cover the entire industry's viewpoint, but at the same time, maybe they do...?  At least it's an insider's perspective...

In the end, and perhaps it's no surprise to any of us, but I really feel like the entire concept often boils down to money.  Do the girls enjoy the sex?  I'm sure sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.  But time and time again, it's money that either leads the girls into the industry and eventually leads them out...what do I mean by that?

Simply this...from what I have seen and learned thus far, most girls enter into the industry in order to gain a few bucks.  Whether it's strip-club dancing or sittin' in front of a computer and doin' whatever a client asks you to do to puttin' pics of yourself on the internet, I really hold that the main reason is behind it all is money.  Again, do they enjoy what they do?  Sometimes.  And I won't discount that...but should it come as any surprise that sex can be fun?  I don't think so...

Anyway, money is what leads them in.  Even on the interview, Brooke, Jody, and Natalie all mention money as a key (if not THE key) factor when startin' or at least continuin' in the profession.  Brooke says that a guy pays out more when she talks intellectually.  Jody was jealous when her friend had a Mercedes, and she wanted a piece of that pie.  And Natalie wanted to improve her personal financial situation.  hmm.

That resonates from other people I've talked to.  Look at the horses she has!  Look at the truck she has!  Look at this, look at that, gimme, gimme, gimme!  It just seems than the girls will do whatever it takes to get $600/hour...$2000/hour.  $29,000 in one weekend.  In all actuality, money becomes the moral compass.  If it makes you money, then it has to be good, right?

Which leads me to the second half of that equation.  Money is also what gets the girls out...lots of it.  Brooke wants to retire at 30, Natalie wanted to use this as a short-term solution...get ahead of the game financially, then coast after that.  I don't want to make any poor comparisons, but if we allow money to become a moral compass, then how can we ever denigrate something that makes money?  We should honor executives who cheat people, we should reward banks for offerin' high mortgages on poor properties, we should even condone slavery for that matter.  Right?  (To be fair, as I never want to pose a poor argument, I realize that these comparisons do in fact have other factors involved...human rights, equality, etc.  The problem with prostitution is that it's (often) a self-imposed practice...frankly, you are the only one makin' the decisions...there is no outside bank, no outside boss, Master, etc., and as such, how can we ever accuse anyone of anything?!  After all, they are just doing what they want to do, right?  With no one really influenced outside?  Therein lies the fuzzy lines with these practices...)

Anyway, watch the interview...here are some quotes from the girls and my very own personal responses...

"What are the young kids of New York State goin' to think"?  That's a good question, Natalie.  What are they goin' to think when they get up early for school this mornin' and have a few minutes to watch TV, and there they see a beautiful girl happy of the life that she has lived in the prostitution (oh, excuse me...call-girl...oh, wait...adult entertainment...there, that sounds better) industry?  I mean, sure, if it's a governor, then there is no way that he can do it.  But you're just a girl in Manhattan?  Oh, well, shoot, yeah, then it's OK.  That's what I'm hearin' anyway...so help me out here...when exactly does it become OK to solicit sex?  As long as you have no influence with people?

Is it OK for Spitzer to engage with prositutes up until his election?  But to stop for his term?  And then continue after his term?  Why the high standard for others but not for yourself?  Simply because you are not governor?  I see a dis-connect here...and just how much influence do you have to have before your actions have to change?  I mean, if you only influence 20 people, keep on doin' what ya want?  But once ya influence 3 million, then ya better second guess things?  I don't get it.  Are you sayin' that you have no influence anyway?  On your parents?  On your siblings?  On your friends?  For cryin' out loud, you're on stinkin' Good Morning America!!!  That's influence.  "As adults, we do have to set examples for younger people..."  Hey, look, we agree with each other!  Yet you flaunt your profession, your money made, your experiences, as if to encourage other young girls to pursue the same.  "Spitzer, you fool!  How could you have used the very business that I am in?!"  I just don't get it.

This is what I'm seein'...I'm seein' a restaurant sellin' burgers.  Now the restaurant advertises throughout...on TV, in the newspaper, on the radio, on the internet, and even on signs out front.  And the workers even talk about how fun and enjoyable (but like most jobs, not always) the profession is.  A worker even goes on TV to share her experiences!  And she talks about how much she gets paid each hour, and it's way more than minimum wage!  She's soooo excited!  And she seems really excited to sell hamburgers to people!  Well, sort of.  You see, she doesn't mind sellin' hamburgers to people she'll never see again.  If they walk out, go and have a heart attack, what is she to care?  What are the workers to care?!  As long as I get paid, it's all right.  But it's when an important town official comes in that the workers begin to feel uneasy.  "Hey, wait a second, this guy might send other people here..."  But isn't that what you want?  You have signs, you're on the internet, you advertise for clients...and yet when you get what you want, you don't really like what you get.  But it's not enough to stop anything.  So you sell him a hamburger.  After all, he pays...

I'm not just pickin' on her, either.  I just don't understand the double-standards we place on ourselves.  I know of countless people who think that sleepin' around is more than OK...it's recommended especially while young!  Well, until marriage, of course!  As if you can stop the feelings, emotions, drives, urges, memories of your past girls or guys.  As if you can just one day wake up and change your morals with the push of a button.  Yesterday I slept around!  Today I don't!  Yesterday I used call-girls!  Today I don't!  Yesterday I couldn't control myself!  Today I can!

Riiiiiiiiiight....Any guy (or girl) will tell ya it's just not that easy...

But I get off track...

"My conscience was clearer when I knew that the client that I was seeing was single..."

Question:  "But it didn't make a difference in the end"?

"Well, I was making my choices, and the clients were making their choices.  I wasn't in charge of anyone else's moral compass, I was in charge of my own...I did what was right for me."

So if both sides claim no moral boundaries, then it's completely and totally OK to proceed on course?  I choose to do whatever, and I will look for someone else that agrees with what I believe.  I remember in sixth grade I had a teacher that would always say..."Birds of a feather flock together."  So true, so true.  And if my short life has taught me anything already, it's that you can ALWAYS find someone to agree with you, no matter what stance you take.  That statement within itself should be enough to scare us all.  Don't think that because people agree or follow that it's right...

But it's quite common in this industry.  Other girls are doin' it.  Shoot, even guys are payin' for me to do this!  It's gotta be right...right?!  I'll never forget goin' to a debate with Ron Jeremy as a speaker.  And he asked if any couples in the audience had ever used porn to get aroused for each other.  The hands shot up.  And Ron smiled really big and then said, "See"?

As if morals are determined by the popular vote.  That really, really scared me.  It still scares me.  All that it takes is for a group of people to call for something...anything!  If the group gets big enough, then judging by the above standards, it has to be morally right...right?  If we can get enough people to want to have slaves again, then we have to be allowed to do it.  If we can get enough people to want to have legal sex with girls 12 and older instead of 18, then it has to be right...right?  If we can get enough people to take the law into their own hands and shoot whomever, whenever, then it has to be morally right...right?  Shoot, if we want to keep goin', then if we can get enough people to want to have multiple wives or same-sex marriages, then it must be right...right?  And if we can do that (surely that will never happen), then if we can get enough people to want to have bestiality, then it must be right...right?  I mean, if some people get to choose their partners because they argued so much, then don't I get to choose my partner?!  It's only fair, right?  Right?  Ok, I'm done.  I hate to go there, but it's a forecast that nobody wants to address.  The patterns are all lining up for a major storm, yet we can only see today's sunshine.  Are we not watchin' what we're doin'?

If I can get enough people behind me, then I can get what I want.

Friends, if that's the case, hang on.  This world is goin' to get uglier before it gets better.

Again, let me just reiterate that I don't intend to pick on any girl or any one person.  I realize that life is comlicated, that we all (yes, I do, too) make decisions that we would rather not have made.  I realize that life is difficult, ugly, and downright mean sometimes.  I realize that money is desirable, that an easy life of livin' on the beach looks nicer than a 9 to 5 of work.  I realize that shiny cars and big houses and horses and lots of clothes are desirable.  I realize all of these things.

But at the end of the day, I just wonder...

If I didn't get any of that stuff (no money, no horses, no trucks, no beach, no big house, no nothing), if I didn't get any of that...would I still do what I'm doin'?  Would my "moral compass" still point in the same direction that it does now if the money was taken away?  Or if the money was taken away, would my compass shift to a different direction?

My instructor has on a couple of occasions pulled out his cellphone during our flight and placed it next to our magnetic compass in the airplane.  That compass spins like crazy!!!  And it no longer points to the true magnetic heading.  Shoot, even in normal flight, with no cellphone next to it, we sometimes have to correct for compass errors....executing turns or even our location on the earth can lead to incorrect readings on the compass.

So again, I'm not pickin' on anyone.  I guess all I am askin' is if maybe there might be some errors in some of our compasses?  Maybe something has come so close to us, so dear to us (money?  comfort?  a guy?  a girl?  a job? avoiding work?  avoiding pain?), that we have allowed it to throw off our moral compass...perhaps just a bit...or perhaps several degrees.  Sure, we can even look at that compass, and maybe even be fully confident that we are reading the correct heading.  Yet we still could be totally wrong.

That's all I'm sayin'.  Sometimes it's easier to have someone outside the airplane let ya know that you are really heading west...instead of north.