The Honest Courtesan

Don’t feel bad if you got caught by my April Fools’ Day post yesterday; they nearly always catch most of my readers.  I guess it’s because I’m so serious the rest of the time, but even so I always try to leave some hints in plain sight even if the content isn’t a giveaway.  Yesterday’s started right from the title; my “In the News” columns are all numbered in the 500s this year, so “401” was clearly out of place, and was a reminder of the date (4/01).  The low number of items should have struck y’all as odd, and the fact that the links all went to blogs rather than news sites might have given you a hint if you’re the sort of reader who clicks on those.  Unfortunately, as more than one reader pointed out, the ludicrosity of the stories was not really a giveaway because real “sex trafficking” stories degenerated into absurdity a long time ago.  I’d like to thank Korhomme (“Finding What Isn’t There”), Mike Siegel (“The Widening Gyre”), Marijke Vonk (“Checklist”), Kaytlin Bailey (“Scapegoats”), and Brooke Magnanti (the “Page 3” parodies) for helping me with this prank, and now all I have to do is figure out how to top it next year.