The New York Times is reporting an exclusive interview with the prostitute that was allegedly at the center of one of the United States Secret Service’s most embarrassing scandals ever last week in Colombia while in the country in advance of President Barack Obama’s state visit there.
According to the unnamed, 24-year old single mother/hooker, she took offense to the media’s classification of her as a ‘prostitute,’ stressing that she is high class, and not one to roam the streets trading tricks for chump change.
According to the lady of the night in question, the moral line between dirty whores and upscale, liberated working women is whether or not they “can dress nicely” and “wear nice makeup.” Thanks for the clarification, unnamed 24-year old single mother/hooker.
Based on the woman’s statement to police, after the night she shared with the Secret Service agent in question (she was unaware of his connection to the President) he offered her $30 for the services she recollected negotiating at $800 the night prior.
According to the Times:
By 6:30 the next morning, after being awoken by a telephone call from the hotel front desk reminding her that, under the hotel’s rules for prostitutes, she had to leave, whatever deal the two had agreed on had broken down. She recalled that the man told her he had been drunk when they discussed the price. He countered with an offer of 50,000 pesos, the equivalent of about $30.
[...]
Eventually, she lowered her demand to $250, which she said was the amount she has to pay the man who helps find her customers. Eager to resolve the matter fast, the American men eventually gave her a combination of dollars and local currency worth about $225, and she left.
Frankly, I don’t care what Americans do on Central American vacations. The exception to that rule, however, is when they are in an agency generally purported to be filled with elite members of an organization that prides itself on rigorous standards and screening procedures.
The agents in question screwed up. End of story. Whether the woman’s version of the story is true or the version provided by the Secret Service agents involved that the women were picked up at a bar for a drunken hookup, rather than a business transaction, is true, the behavior is beneath what should be expected of members of the President’s personal protection team when working abroad.
The more amusing turn in this story is how much of a victim the prostitute has made herself out to be. Call girl, streetwalker, escort, prostitute. The language is unimportant. She sells sex, end of story. That line of work carries consequences; one of those inherent in the work is the possibility of being embroiled in disputes–whether they be marriages, or full-blown scandals.
Perhaps she’s earned her $30, but not my sympathy.
