She’s been featured on Refinery 29; now she’s being featured on The Huffington Post, of all places. Her name is Alice Little, reportedly the highest-earning legal prostitute, or as she calls herself, “sex worker” in the United States
“I describe myself as the country’s highest-earning worker in the world’s oldest profession, by which I mean I make more than any other sex worker at any legal brothel in the U.S,” Little’s op-ed begins.
Knowing fully well that her work will spark the ire of judgment in readers, Little cuts right to the chase about the alleged dignity of her work and notes that she is an educated and “well-spoken” woman who also defies the “sex worker” stereotype by standing at just 4 feet, 8 inches tall. In the same breath, she also claims she’s not a “victim of a tragic circumstance” before going on to admit several paragraphs later that her parents’ painful divorce may have in some way spurred her into prostitution.
Currently, she works at the infamous Bunny Ranch in Nevada, the subject for the HBO docuseries “Cathouse,” where she works as many as 60 to 80 hours per week between tending to clients (she works by appointment only), running her own YouTube channel, and writing sex education articles.
As to why she finds her profession of trading sex for cash fulfilling, Little says she finds joy in helping “people rediscover personal connections and intimacy.”
“I believe Americans are facing an intimacy crisis, and I believe loneliness to be America’s fastest-growing public health epidemic,” she writes. “I specialize in therapeutic sexual services that can help build sexual confidence, provide an opportunity to practice building connections and teach sexual techniques to work around physical limitations. If you’re a man terrified of talking to women, it can be intimidating to get out there. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a dinner date with a girl whom you can not only be romantic with but also ask for dating pointers to boost your confidence? Having someone on your side, cheering you on, can make a big difference.”
So other than teaching awkward men who have such a difficult time with women that they have to hire a prostitute to teach them how to talk to women, Little then describes the alleged wonderful work she does for couples, which boils down to educational threesomes:
Couples frequently seek my services to rediscover intimacy, improve bedroom communication, explore safely and fulfill fantasies. I believe seeing a legal sex worker when your relationship needs fine-tuning is just the same as going to a mechanic when your car needs repairs. I love working with couples because of the special chemistry that already exists between them. It challenges me to see where I can fit into their equation and work around their dynamic to help enhance it. It gives me pleasure to know that they have entrusted me with one another and have honored me with the privilege of helping them improve their relationship.
According to actual professional sex therapists, however, couples suffering from intimacy issues should not seek the help of anyone who either wants to be a voyeur of the intimate act or a participator in the intimate act, regardless of the consent involved. They argue it creates greater damage to the couple’s intimacy. Keep in mind, HuffPost published this op-ed without so much as a disclaimer.
“Sex therapy should never include nudity, sex, or any type of sexual touching in the presence of a therapist,” writes Dr. Joe Kort in Psychology Today.
Though Little characterizes her work as something she willingly participated in without any psychological wounds, she then reveals how her parents’ divorce made her see physical intimacy and romance in a rather extreme light. “In my teen years, I witnessed my parents’ marriage falling apart. As they were entangled in their divorce, my family was torn up and I felt helpless,” she admits. “I struggled to understand it back then, but as I grew older, it dawned on me that their divorce was due, in huge part, to a lack of intimacy and romance.”
The push to use sanitized phrases like “sex work” instead of prostitution for Little’s type of profession has been ongoing in recent years. Julie Bindel at The Guardian denounced this movement as a “green light for pimps to populate brothels.”
“The decision to include prostitution as an ’employment skill’ is a green light for pimps to populate brothels to meet the increased male demand for the prostitution of the most vulnerable women,” noted Bindel. “The practice of using human bodies as a marketplace has been normalised under the neoliberal economic system. Supporting the notion that prostitution is ‘labour’ is not a progressive or female-friendly point of view.”