As you probably know if you’ve been paying attention to the media recently, 26-year old Julissa Brisman was murdered at the Marriott Hotel in Boston on April 14, 2009. Julissa was offering massage services through Craigslist on an incall basis – the client comes to her room. She had a table set up and had seen multiple clients during her stay at the hotel, according to police. She may or may not have been offering “happy endings,” slang for a handjob (or more) to complete the massage. We don’t know for sure and it doesn’t matter, actually. Thankfully, late this afternoon, Boston police arrested the suspect they believe responsible for killing her.
The public perception is that she was selling sex, and that is the assumption everyone (including the media) has been operating on. Her killer is believed to have attacked other sex workers prior to her killing, and again in Warwick, Rhode Island, the very day after her murder. He is, at a minimum a serial criminal. Who knows what else he has been up to or who else has been victimized by him? Most sex workers won’t come forward to report crimes because they are often arrested themselves for being engaged in illegal work. The police are like that, sadly. It is quite possible this asshole had been victimizing sex workers for some time and we don’t even know about it. These sociopaths know that the providers can’t or won’t go to the police, so they’re pretty much free to victimize them at will. And, really, when you get right down to it, there’s not much of a disincentive to killing a sex worker – sometimes you only get one day in jail for it.
Did you know that sex workers are much more likely to be killed on a per capita basis than any other specific group of people? Here are some interesting statistics:
- Prostitute women have the highest homicide victimization rate among any grouping of women ever studied. (1)
- Serial killers account for 35% of prostitute homicides. (1)
- Women involved in street prostitution are 60 to 100 times more likely to be murdered than are non-prostitute females. (2)
When a sex worker is killed or injured doing her work, those of us who work in the business spend a lot of time gleaning the stories to see if we can figure out what s/he did or didn’t do with respect to their own safety. Not to place blame, but rather to learn from what transpired in an attempt to prevent it from happening to us. Sometimes the facts of what happened to the provider can help others – a sort of voice from the grave if you will, extoling the rest of us to watch our backs and make sure we take that extra step, lest we fall victim to a similar fate.
There are other voices that make themselves heard when a sex worker is killed as well, however. These are the trolls who post asinine comments to the various news and blog sites where the stories are posted. You’ll often hear sex workers and their allies lament the fact that we are dehumanized by many sectors of our society. Reading through these comments will demonstrate that for you very clearly.
Here are some examples taken from just the story of Ms. Brisman’s death, almost all taken from Boston.com, BostonHerald.com, ABC News, and the CBS News web sites (most of these comments are still there, so you can verify them if you’re so inclined). I might also add that, almost invariably, when it is possible to ascertain the gender of the person doing the posting, it is a male, or at least a person who has a male user name. I think that is quite telling.
Read through these and think about how you’d feel if it were you being discussed; if it was your mother, your sister, or your daughter. I’ve left all of the spelling and grammatical errors intact – I think that speaks to the intelligence level of these degenerates anyway.
This is really disgusting that hookers with STD’s use the same rooms that the public rents. Just imagine the diseases that hookers leave behind in these room — from their body fluids and hands, they leave germs for herpes, AIDS, chamadilla, gonorehhea, etc, on the same surfaces that we tough (on the faucet handles, toilet seats, shower stalls, door handles, remote controls, light switches, etc. The cleaning staff does not disinfect these rooms between customers! This appears to be a dirty little secret of the upscale hotels — that they rent to upscale hookers to make $$$. Next time I take a vacation, I will stay with family and forgo renting a hotel room so I don’t catch a contagious disease from the room.
So the tramp in Warwick is accompanied by her husband during her tricks.
Why are we subjected to this lousy looking HO plastered on the front page
Maybe if these hookers tried another line of work we wouldn’t be subjected to these unending stories
No pity here, i’m not condoning murder but this chick was selling sex no doubt about it.
Too many women think just because their sexy they deserve money
I would rather help prevent the death of another person than spending too much time mourning the death of someone who was more concerned about a quick buck than her own safety.
Just another burden to society off the streets!
Too much of this homely, retarded looking hooker
Another whore bites the dust. Big deal.
This is about a hooker — a prostitute, a whore — who met a John and it went sour. A risk of the trade. This lunatic needs to be caught, but lets quit pretending he killed some poor innocent.
Do you know how many hookers get offed every day, not to mention dying of aids, contracting STD’s, and engaging in drug and other criminal activity other than the obvious? I don’t weep for her.
No trying to diminish the murder of anyone here but quote bothered me..”"She talked like Paris Hilton”"…If I was paying a woman to go to bed with me and she talked like Paris Hilton I cant say for sure i wouldnt shoot her.
Tell me again why we care about the death of a stupid whore?
Although tragic, just like any death of anyone under these circumstances, a woman who uses her looks for her livelihood has a greater chance of meeting these types of fates: weather its because of stripping, prostitution etc. My advice to anyone like her: please stay in school and learn mathematics and science!!!! Get a talented job and feel good about urself from books and a great job ’nuff said
Ewww,two stank ho’s with silicum implants,straw hair and trout pout. If that chicken head madame was making as much as she claimed,we are truly in the last days people. She could back a pack of dogs up out of a meat factory while wearing a pork chop necklace and sausage bracelets.
Sharia Law would prevent all this teenage prostitution by not just treating these girls as juvenile delinquents, but by beating the hell out of them or stoning them to death. If you want to get rid of prostitution, kill the prostitute, especially if she is young so she doesn’t destroy the other apples in the bbl (This was a comment on a story about treating teen prostitutes as victims)
There are the occasional glimmers of hope and compassion from those who post. This is an excellent example:
Whether the woman was a masseuse, or a call girl or some combination she was a human, a daughter, a sister, a friend and she deserved to live. The animal who took her life offends all of us and he should be eliminated.
Indeed.
Julissa, I grieve for you; many of us grieve for you, within the sex industry and without. I know you’re in a better place and at peace with everything now. Know that, in spite of the immature comments some of these ingrates feel compelled to leave, the vast majority of us lament the fact that your light no longer burns, your face no longer brightens someone’s day, your soul no longer touches those who were close to you. May you always rest in peace.
SOURCES
(1) Brewer, D. D., Dudek, J. A., Potterat, J. J., Muth, S. Q., Roberts, J. M., Jr., & Woodhouse, D. E. Extent, trends, and perpetrators of prostitution-related homicide in the United States. Journal of Forensic Sciences, (2006), 51, 1101-1108
(2) Salfati CG, James AR, Ferguson L. Prostitute homicides: a descriptive study. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, (2008), Apr;23(4):505-43.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
One more reason why criminalizing sex work drives crimes to go unreported and allow people to think they can get away with victimizing other people. De-criminalizing sex work & regulating will do much to stem these crimes.
I wonder if the people with such venom against the victim even understand that he specifically chose women through CL and more than likely was not the only place he committed his crimes or searched for victims. There’s a simple reason everyone should care,
Martin Luther King Jr. expressed it better:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
– “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 16 Apr. 1963
This is so sad. I don’t care what else you are guilty of, when it comes to being a victim of murder, you’re always the innocent one unless you killed too. It’s a shame that people spew these ignorant things all because of sex and what they perceive as wrong. I’m honestly saddened by this and it’s a shame a woman has been murdered and the people don’t care.
Just reading those comments made me want to vomit. I fear for our species that some of these people might breed.
How can any person who claims to have a conscience be anything less than appalled and saddened by this woman’s murder?
same problems here to an extent.
rather than overtly misogynist, public sympathy is mostly media-engendered. when the story is about a killer on the loose, people pay attention to whatever sensational soundbites. when the story gets stale it becomes clear that few people ever considered (or were manipulated into considering) acknowledging the victims’ right to protection, and see no reason to consider crediting that right to anyone else who faces similar danger.
for as long as we allow people like rupert murdoch, or even the more liberal mainstream media, to shape public opinion, we will continue our (mostly, though not exclusively, male) biblical/qu’uranical hatred of the female body.
That is why I stopped reading comments to such stories. They make me so angry, furious and helpless at the same time. They make me want to run into these people in my social circles and do something to them, make them feel part of the pain they are inflicting on others by helping propagate the violence by essentially approving it – a want that is as useless as it is dangerous to me… Not a good thing to feel.
I think, Amanda said once that sex workers today are the new Blacks: as in, not the proper humans.
I’m shocked. I suppose I shouldn’t be, but I am. I’m shocked and appalled by the lack of humanity and the holier than thou crap people feel entitled to spew. What makes the death of a sex worker, a massage therapist, or a factory worker any different? Do the lives mean less if they are engaged in something that society deems less valuable? Is our worth or worthiness to live dependent on what we choose to do for a living? Does the crime of murder somehow become justifiable if I am not a doctor or a lawyer? Where is the line and who gets to decide? I guess the thing I am most disappointed with in those comments is that I thought we as a society had matured from the days when being black made you less of a citizen – when someone killing a black man was excusable just because of the color of his skin. Clearly, I was wrong. We are in the same place we were 100 years ago. I am honestly ashamed to be an American when I read things like this.
I am angry at all of the people commenting on the mainstream media sites treating sex workers as non-human. It’s very clear that those people think that Julissa Brissman didn’t have a right to life. I hope that this sicko who killed Ms. Brissman gets sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.
My condolences go out to Ms. Brissman’s family and friends.
Fuck. It’s comments like those that make me shudder at people’s code of ethics. I concur with Thais…cannot read the filth of the blind.
My heart goes out to her family and those who love her. So stupid, so tragic.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for a mature, intelligent and moving commentary on Julissa Brisman’s murder and the social/media response to it.
US is indeed (except for a precious minority) not that far from Iran, Taliban and other cultures we like to sneer at, in anything that deals with sexuality. I’m hoping that the loud voices such as yours will gradually swing the tide to more acceptance of sex work and sex workers. Stereotypes tend to shatter when people get to know each other face to face, even if only virtually.
“US is indeed (except for a precious minority) not that far from Iran, Taliban and other cultures we like to sneer at, in anything that deals with sexuality.”
Yes, this. I always point out this shameful fact to people whenever they start in on the whole, “America is the best country in the world! We’re so free!” bullshit spiel. The archconservatives in this country that were definitely in control for the past eight years, and still have some control since they are the Democratic party’s puppetmasters, tried their best to make this country like the radical Islamic ones that we fight on the basis of “freedom”. Please. I think the Taliban is the US Christian Right’s inspiration and source of jealousy.
I couldn’t finish those comments… I probably read about five of them.
Horrible, disgusting. When will these attitudes change?
They don’t get any better jemand.
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