This guy I know had a female friend who was, psychologically, a total dependent mess, like, the opposite of girlfriend material. But when he found out her dark secret– i.e., she enjoys playing a dominatrix at sex clubs to blow off steam– he was suddenly very, very sexually interested in her, despite himself.

The servile “Asian Bodywork” type is another stereotype that I’d assume gets men’s imaginations working. If I myself can be permitted to stereotype, it seems to me that Asians in the city are almost ruthlessly adept at finding a niche wherein they can gain economic or enterprise success, even if that means exploiting American perceptions of them– hence the nine million handbag knockoff shoppes in Chinatown, the fact I have ten–count ‘em, ten Chinese restaurants in a three-block radius, and the fact that there are pages and pages of happy ending massages being advertised in the Voice.

Like you, though, I wonder how they can get away with posting ads that are obviously for escorts– of course, they get away with it quite flagrantly on Craigslist, so maybe it’s just an issue of the volume of prostitutes being so high there’s very little the cops, who generally have more pressing issues to tackle, can do.