For every Kristin who chooses prostitution over positive and productive ways of making a living, there are thousands of girls who are lured or forced into the worst kinds of sexual exploitation - modern-day slavery. Most of the American victims enter prostitution at an average age of 12-14. Many people see a big difference between high-class call girls and prostitutes in a brothel, but beneath their glossy exteriors, the high-priced call girls have more in common with the girls in the brothels than with the women who are wife material for the wealthy and powerful. Sadly, after spending their physical beauty plying the sex trade for a few years, the glamorous call girls end up just like the more ordinary and less glamorous whores, their dreams of a modeling, singing or acting career forever out of reach.

One of the often neglected facts about prostitution is that the call girl's beauty and gorgeous body won't last "in the business." It won't take long before she joins the 85 percent of prostitutes who want out. But she will continue to be sold - in increasingly less prestigious venues; she'll probably be in an ordinary brothel before she's 30 and being pimped in a sleazy dive by 35.

A booking agent's recent exposé revealed that a john had offered one of her call girls $40,000 for condom-free sex. With that kind of drive for unfettered sexual intercourse, and with the power imbalance in promiscuous couplings, what chance does the girl have when the jerks want to throw away the condom? Also, why should we be surprised at the recent news that one-in-four teenage girls has an STD?

That same booking agent described the "common story" of her girls. Around age 25 they develop "that knowing, experienced look" that repels high-powered clients, and their options become very limited. Most of the girls "sort of fade away" into "loneliness and poverty."

While the public is mesmerized by the implosion of Eliot Spitzer's political ambitions, we should take time to mourn his wife's blatant pain and lament the sordid quagmire of Ashley Dupre's sad circumstances and poor choices.