Girl Johns

Photo from AP

Guess what. Soliciting prostitutes is not a male-only enterprise any longer. Yes, I see that look on your face that says, “Nigga, ’scuse me?” But I’m 100 percent cereal here. And when I say soliciting prostitutes, I don’t mean 40-year-old cougars calling an escort agency to have some failed male model meet them at a room at the W when they get out of the office. I’m talking about real live women rolling down the passenger window so one of America’s saddest and scabbiest can lean in to tell them how much. Local news reported that when a blood test administered to a john picked up on Tampa’s Nebraska Avenue last October (for some reason “he” had refused urinalysis) revealed two X chromosomes, the booking officers naturally assumed there had just been some fuck-up at the lab. It wasn’t until two days later, when Harold Glidden called to complain about finding his name in the local crime blotter, that they realized the real fuck-up was letting his sister Samantha pass herself off as a guy with her brother’s old license, some expired credit cards, a crewcut, an Ace bandage across the tits, and a really fake-sounding deep voice. The cops involved offered Harold a sheepish apology over the phone, claiming this wasn’t just the first time this had happened in Tampa, but probably anywhere. However, when we talked to Shawna, a former streetwalker from Trenton, New Jersey, who now works as an exotic dancer in Long Island City, she said this was just plain ig’nant. Vice: So you had customers that were lesbians disguised as men? Shawna: Definitely. First time it happened to me, I was with this really short KD Lang-lookin’ dude. I reached down and it wasn’t real. It was one of those crotch-packing things that you get at sex stores. I fucking beat her ass off me and ran out the motel to tell the other girls, thinking they’d be as shocked as me. They were both like, “Shawna, please.” It’s that common? I don’t know how often it happened before that time, but once I started paying attention I’d notice it maybe once every two months. They always keep their pants up and just pull it through the zipper, with the condom already on—that’s how you could tell. Plus, they’re always a lot smaller and richer-looking than the regular guys. And if they kiss on your neck or your titties you can tell right away. Their skin is just way too smooth. It’s never been shaved. So they would have sex with you using a strap-on, never acknowledging that it was a dildo? Basically. Sometimes they even wanna go down on you. I’m not about to stop them if that’s what they’re paying for, but I know I sure as hell wouldn’t go down on me after a night working those streets. TARYN SHUBERT