All in all, I think I can safely declare this blog a success. – Maggie McNeill
When I started this blog five years ago today, I had no idea it would go this far. Certainly I hoped it would become popular, maybe even very popular, but my success has exceeded anything I could have expected in even my most sanguine moods. Over 1800 posts, 94 assorted pages, over 44,000 comments, about 1200 subscribers and nearly 6000 Twitter followers, and 3.8 million page views from all over the world. I’ve also seen my work published in Cato Unbound, Reason and the Washington Post, and have done so many interviews, speaking engagements, consultations and other such work that I’ve completely lost count. My name is widely recognized in the demimonde and in sex-positive and libertarian circles, and lots of people treat me as an (admittedly minor) celebrity; last year my readers even demonstrated their love and generosity by financing a three-month book tour for me! That tour opened up a whole new world for me, relaunched my sex work career and resulted in my moving to Seattle, so I’d like to express my thanks in some concrete way. Starting tonight at midnight PDT (7:00 UTC tomorrow) the Kindle edition of my book, Ladies of the Night, goes on sale for 99¢; 24 hours later it will increase to $1.99, and 24 hours after that to $2.99, where it will stay from now on. So if you haven’t read it yet, now’s your chance! And if you have, please review the book and tweet about the sale. Thanks to all of you for making the past five years an amazing experience for me, and I’m looking forward to at least another five!
Maggie,
Congratulations on your 5th year! I’ve been reading along for most of that time and have enjoyed all your columns and the resulting discussions in the comments as well. I had missed your article in the Washington Post and have just read it now, a very good article. Keep it up.
This blog of yours, Maggie, has been SO helpful, because of your incredibly assiduous record-keeping, keen insight, and broad and deep intellectual capacity. It’s so wonderful to use the search box and come up with answers to all my questions.
Without your work I would not have been able to come to the understanding–even before I read your column on the number of sex workers who are pimped–that there are many jobs within the sex industry such as stripping (when I told my wife, Moira, that stripping was sex work, it opened her eyes a little more), massage, porn (I think it’s SUCH an absurdity that you can pay me to have sex with you and it’s illegal, but if we filmed the encounter and placed it on the internet it’s porn and legal), escorting, streetwalking, BDSM, camming, and sugar daddying [I am sure I’ve left things out]–and some of that list is legal and some not; but all of them can be entered into voluntarily and most of them are, which means that the percentage of people who enter the industry because they are “trafficked” is very small, and that is one of the frame flips needed to get all sex work decrimmed.
Thanks so much for your help!
Congratulations, Maggie! Am grateful to you for widening my horizons. you’ve become a staple in daily life and you feed so many aspects in unpredictable ways.
I look forward to the next five years,wishing you all the love, luck, material and emotional prosperity your capacious being can handle,
All well deserved
Congratulations, Maggie! Your success is built on a lot of hard work and very well deserved!
I don’t regret coming to your site. I disagree with many of your commentators, but at least it’s always interesting.
Congratulations! Something to be proud of.
Congradulations, you do great work with your site and your wisdom, please keep it up.
It is such an integral part of the human condition, and if you love humanity, then you must love whores as well. There is no better and greater concentration of knowledge, history and commentary than your site that I know of. When it comes to sex work with an honest perspective on this subject, you have excelled. Thanks, Maggie, you go to the heart of this aspect of human nature better than any single person I have encountered.
Congratulations, Maggie. I’ve learned a lot from you in the past five years, and I hope to continue learning in the future. I also hope that you will eventually show some growth in your attitude about clitoral erectile dysfunction.
You once denied that clitoral erections can be easily seen, and often denied that difficulty or failure to experience clitoral erection is a form of dysfunction – even though I’ve linked to the evidence that clitoral erectile dysfunction is unsurprisingly considering that girls are usually mentally castrated.
My forthcoming blog post will feature a photo of a clearly erect clitoris, which may be unusual but only because mental castration of girls and subsequent dysfunction are so widespread.
Happy Anniversary, Maggie! I can’t tell you how much of a difference your blog has made in my life just over the last six months. Here’s to another five years!
I just want to know if, by my devoted effort, I qualified for reduced pricing on preferred stock before your IPO? Let me feel the love!