The Honest Courtesan

I’ve been promising that The War on Whores would soon be available on Amazon for a couple of weeks now, and Paul Johnson was mystified as to why it was taking so long when all his other films only took a few days after submission.  Naturally I thought it might be a matter of FOSTA-related censorship since the film could be interpreted as “promoting prostitution”, but I was only slightly correct.  We finally found out the reason, and it’s one Ken Russell would sympathize with:  they objected to the word “whores” in the title.  However, in going back and forth with Amazon customer service, he was told they would not object to the title The War on Sex Workers. The silliest and most eye-rolling part is, the film isn’t going to change in any way; when it’s played from Amazon streaming you’ll still see The War on Whores as the title, and there won’t be any other censorship (or so I’m told).  Only the display title on Amazon will be bowdlerized, presumably to protect the delicate eyes of browsers from the sex rays emitted by a very ordinary English word.  Vimeo will continue to  display the proper title, as will the DVDs when they come out in a few weeks; it’s possible iTunes will clutch its pearls in the same way as Amazon, but that remains to be seen.  And maybe this will generate a bit of buzz it the same way putting “Banned in Boston” on a book cover or movie poster used to.  In any case, it’ll be the same movie, containing the same hard-hitting content and the same opening scene of me in sexy lingerie (you didn’t know that was in the movie?  Oh yes.)  And from an ethical standpoint, I don’t feel as though faking modesty in a title is any different from faking an orgasm:  it’s just done to please someone in order to get them to give me money.