Madam As A Woman-Hero

Marjorie Campbell, marjorie@marjoriecampbell.com

I was distressed to read about the suicide-by-hanging of DC Madam Deborah Jean Palfrey.   She worked in DC, had 52 years of age and knew a lot of hookers ~ me, too - although I am not quite 52, and I did not arrange dates for hookers, but only defended them when they got busted.  Still, when you have dabbled in the dark side, these sorts of stories can provoke a deep sense of gratitude ... but for the grace of God go I.  (Read Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy from the Loyola Classic Series, by Rumer Godden if you doubt me.)

I read, today, Ms. Palfrey's suicide notes.  She left one for her sister, one for her Mom.  In both, she expressed great love for each of them, and regret for the pain her actions would cause them.  But, she assured her Mom "I can't live behind bars" and promised her sister there was no other "way out".  She commended them to each other, and left them "surprise" money.  This, alone, is her legacy - unless you count Hustler Magazine's Larry Flynt's bizarre insistence that the Madam was murdered. 

Good grief.  Thanks, Larry for your posthumous support, but ... this is not what God intended for women - as John Paul II described in Mulieres Dignitatem - that a "woman is left alone, exposed to public opinion with "her sin", while behind "her" sin there lurks a man . . . she alone pays and she pays all alone! "

All of which brings to mind my February 10 2007 post, a letter addressed to Amanda Marcotte, who, at the time, was fool-hardily potty-mouthing her way to dismissal from the Edwards' presidential campaign.  As I said to her,  "At age 29, you might think you have the political world by the horn.  But, dear, that's a tail in your hand - and the ride you flirt with will not be what you expect.  May I make a suggestion?  Identify a woman-hero with all the characteristics your anger holds dear:  someone who has lived a long life of promiscuity and multiple abortions; someone who has repeatedly taken the "morning after" pill and viewed having a baby as a "punishment' for having a uterus; someone who spent a lifetime publishing cuss words and hatred of religion.  You can't think of anyone?  Hmmm.  I wonder why."

If you were keeping a list of heroines, lives you would love to lead, Amanda, go ahead and cross through Deborah Jean Palfrey, who died, sadly, by self-hanging.  Was hers a life anyone would dub "woman-hero"? 

Comments

[Pamela]

I have worked in the sex industry as a stripper for three years, and there is nothing more annoying to me than hearing feminist justifications for working in this trade. Deborah Jean Palfrey is but one of countless women and men who have died as a direct result of participating in this dark and unsafe world. The entire experience actually led to my conversion to Roman Catholicism. My testimony is on my site www.savedfromstripclubs.org. God bless.