Daily View: Belle de Jour
The the identity of previously anonymous call girl blogger Belle de Jour: She is Dr Brooke Magnanti, a research scientist. Newspaper columnists on the whole argue that her memoirs have glamourised a dangerous profession. Meanwhile bloggers are more interested in what this means for anonymity.
that nothing bad happened to Belle de Jour. She says any educated woman who has a choice should feel ashamed at defending prostitution. , saying that Magnanti was lucky and that prostitution is a profession which kills.
what made her stop in 2004 if the job was so enjoyable.
, suggesting that Magnanti's writing style could be used well in epidemiology - a subject so boring that Robson says you would only read it if you had to. Ex-editor of the Erotic Review Rowan Pelling met Dr Magnanti. that hers is not a shocking story, the only shocking aspect being that she wrote so well.
Giving the perspective of a pioneer blogger, he had worked out who Belle De Jour was five years ago as he recognised her writing style from her other scientific blogs. He explains what he did to monitor if anyone else knew:
"During this time I published a googlewack hidden in my blog - the words 'Belle de Jour' 'Brooke Magnanti' and 'Methylsalicylate' were published and available in Google's index on a single page on the internet - my weblog. This 'coincidental' collection of links could in no way reveal Belle's identity. But I wondered if anybody else knew the secret and felt that analysing my web traffic might confirm my long-held belief. If someone googled 'Belle de Jour' 'Brooke Magnanti', I would see it in my referrers for LinkMachineGo.I waited five years for somebody to hit that page (I'm patient). Two weeks ago I started getting a couple of search requests a day from an IP address at Associated Newspapers (who publish the Daily Mail) searching for 'brooke magnanti' and realised that Belle's pseudonymity might be coming to an end."
Meanwhile [some offensive language in link] that, having worked at a literary agency, he finds it incredible that she was able to keep her identity even from her agent.
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