Celebrity Prostitutes: You Might Want To Turn Off Your TV

It pays to be a prostitute nowadays, I guess. But you knew that already, right? If you didn't, well, you should get out more. Or turn on your tv. Divine Brown and Ashley Dupre's

assignations with a famous actor and politician respectively, has brought them both a great deal of wealth for the former, and attention, for the latter. The jury's still out on any projected earning's for Ashley, as for Divine, according to her Wiki page, she's delcared herself a "millionairess" and has, allegedly, made enough money to put her kids through college and bought herself a four bedroom house. Ashley might go her one better if her upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer does anything to improve her brand status. Not bad work, if you can get it. And it's not surprising considering the glut of glorified hos, male and female, starring in "reality" shows like VH1's Flavor of Love, I Love New York, I Love Money, and one called Tila Tequila Sunrise or something like that, which I never had the chance to view. These shows definitely have their appeal, and I like to watch people act the fool and get down and dirty at times (like a lot people, I suppose it makes me feel better about myself, but that's between me and my therapist), but are your kids watching as well?

Some of the young 'uns in my family are well aware of shows like BET's College Hill, MTV's My Super Sweet Sixteen and The Hills, and I have to wonder how they're putting it all into context. I hardly ever see them cracking a book like I used to when I was a kid, so what kind of adults will they turn out to be? I try to mentor them and talk about how reading a book transports me to places far more interesting and richly layered places than I could ever image some of the stuff I see on tv could ever take me, but their eyes just gloss over and they stare at me like I'm an alien from Planet Oblivion, which is actually how I'm viewing them.

I grew up in the late 60's & 70's and, of course, these same arguments were bandied about by the parents of my generation, and I'm sure that they, too were told that that's how it is, things were different and changing, and that The Kids Are Alright. I was young, wild and did my share of walking on the wild side, to boot.

And I ain't about to turn off my tv yet, either.