Episode Air Date: September 27th 2007 (in UK)

Review Date: March 30th, 2016

Reviewer: Talia

 

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Meet Belle: Londoner, West Wing addict, and Self-Proclaimed “Whore”

Or “escort,” “prostitute,” or “hooker” – Belle doesn’t care what you call her, particularly because all these words are directed towards Belle: a high class call girl who charges by the hour for her time. These words don’t apply to the real woman behind the pseudonym: Hannah.

Within the first 3 minutes of the episode, Hannah tells us that she was not abused as a child, has no children, and does not suffer from addiction – all from her own rather nice apartment, in comfortable clothes and no makeup. She is blonde, white, appears fully able, well spoken, and gorgeous. In other words, Hannah is perhaps not how you imagine a sex worker. 

 

This is useful to the social dialogue surrounding sex work because it is a good estimate at what a randomly selected sex worker might be like – after all, indoor sex workers like Belle far outnumber outdoor sex workers. And in fact it is not an estimate; Secret Diary of a Call Girl is based on the blog and books by former call girl Brooke Magnanti, a.k.a. “Belle de Jour.” This being said, in this episode Hannah warns against generalizing about sex workers, explaining that “there are as many different kinds of working girls as there are different kinds of people” - this TV show is the story of a single individual’s experiences.

 

In this episode, Hannah explains her personal rules about being a sex worker and sees two clients, one of whom (an attractive twenty-something man named Daniel) challenges her first rule to keep work and life totally separate.

 

Hannah’s first rule is representative of the shame and stigma associated with being a sex worker. Not even Hannah’s best friend Ben knows what she does for a living; along with everyone else, he thinks she is a legal secretary. Hannah expresses her awareness of this stigma when she is told that another of her agent’s girls was found out by her boyfriend, saying, “I couldn’t bear it if my mother found out.” Though Hannah doesn’t personally seem ashamed of her work, especially as the reasons she gives for becoming a call girl are (1) loving sex, (2) loving money, and (3) enjoying being her own boss (in comparison to, say, becoming a sex worker because of a lack of other job opportunities), she is all too aware of the shame others will associate with it, and accordingly with her. This seems fairly in accordance with other sex workers’ accounts of the work itself not having negative effects on sex workers’ lives, but rather the social stigma being more problematic. Of course, this is from a fairly privileged point of view (later in the series we meet Hannah’s family and learn more about her middle class upbringing) – it is of course possible that for other sex workers, the work itself has issues. Take street-based sex workers for instance; they are at a much higher risk of violence than indoor workers.

 

The show’s portrayal of clients is rather interesting: Daniel is young, handsome, presumably well-off by the suits he wears, and uninterested in made-up and sexily-dressed Belle but very interested in girl-next-door Hannah. The other client has fantasies about having sex on a farm, and he and Belle laugh a lot during their sessions together, jumping around on the bed wearing a horse saddle. Hannah ends the episode touting the benefits of clients like this man, with whom she can maintain her boundary between Belle and Hannah, even if he is not the richest or youngest of clients. This desire for regular clients that are safe and the sex worker is most comfortable with seems representative of those with the privilege of picking and choosing clients at will. Hannah decides not to book Daniel again.

 

Hannah explicitly addresses safety with the audience multiple times. First, while getting ready before seeing a client, she tucks a condom into her clothing: “this goes without saying.” The camera pans to condoms and condom wrappers while she is with clients, including them as natural parts of the interaction. Safety is also her third work rule, and doesn’t just include safe sex practices like using condoms but also check-in phone calls with the agency once she is with the client, and when the session is over. These phone calls are natural parts of her interactions with clients; neither of the two men react to the phone calls whatsoever. Another way the show includes safety as a normal and natural part of sex work is when Hannah meets with her agent and some other call girls to discuss business. At this meeting, the agent distributes a drawing and description of an “ugly mug” who tried to pay another agent’s girl with fraudulent money. This ugly mug discussion seems very similar to Vancouver’s Bad Date List, albeit it is not distributed online.

 

The fact that Belle/Hannah is the main character of this show is rather progressive: she is portrayed in such a way that the viewer likes her and can relate to her. The show uses such things as her jokes, her addiction to the TV show West Wing, normal and fun interactions with her best friend, her pride in doing her work well (shown by her disappointment when Daniel has difficulty reaching orgasm during their first session, and her unasked-for persistence in rectifying that), and her discomfort in crossing her own boundaries (like when Daniel guesses her real name). We can relate to Hannah by the show’s very human portrayal of her. This humanization of sex workers hopefully helps viewers think of sex workers as people just like anyone else.

 

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Safety

• Condoms are always used

• Check-in phone calls with the agency are routinely used

• The agents distribute information among themselves and to their girls about dangerous clients to avoid

• Hygiene is valued; both on the clients and Belle’s part – this shows that sex workers are not the only ones responsible for being clean, clients equally need to shower before sessions

Word Choice

• Belle uses words like “hooker,” “escort,” “whore,” “call girl,” “prostitute,” and “working girl” for her job title – she doesn’t address the stigma associated with these names in society, which could be used. Even if she is comfortable with these names, not all sex workers are 

Inclusiveness

• Belle/Hannah is the main character and the subject of the show, which is great for focussing on stories by sex workers, not just stories about sex workers – this is a different perspective than the main street media is used to

• We also meet her agent Stephanie and some fellow call girls – her agent is portrayed as very business-like and money-oriented, perhaps taking more than her fair share from the girls though also focussed on their safety. The other girls have barely any screen time; Stephanie makes cracks about the value of their appearances for their work, and the girls have a confused disagreement over whether or not one of them said something racist. They all look well made-up and dressed.

Facts

• The show seems to accurately portray this one particular woman’s experiences, and focusses on a type of sex worker (indoor) that outnumbers the street-based sex workers that certainly get more buzz in the news, and it deals with the stereotype of high class escorts as glamorous by portraying a very human, normally flawed human being navigating her unique life just like anyone else

Type

• Hannah smashes the stereotype of sex workers as powerless when she discusses her interactions with clients

• Hannah also confronts the stereotype that no sex worker is a sex worker by choice; she enjoys her job and seems to have purposefully chosen it over others. Further more she is quite privileged, meaning the odds were in her favour for finding work outside sex work

• Belle has no addictions associated with sex work

• Clients are not portrayed as these faceless, inhumane men but as men with quirks, kindness, fantasies, and respect for Hannah/Belle’s time (especially when Daniel, during his first session with Belle, makes a point to not stay overtime)

 

Overall SWIFT Rating: 

• This episode earns 4/5 red umbrellas because it gives the viewer a very real idea of what Hannah’s life is like - not all glamour, not all danger, mostly enjoyable, but also laced with social stigma and the odd bad date. This show is a beneficial tool to demonstrate the potential of sex work to be a great job!

• It lacks a 5th star because this episode skims the surface on what it is like to be a sex worker; perhaps necessarily considering it is only approximately twenty minutes. Further into the series, more issues are explored, but this first episode paints Belle’s life as mostly glamorous and desirable. It doesn’t yet fully portray the complexity of being a sex worker during this day and age.