Some time ago, I wrote a piece about Secret Diary of a Call Girl, then airing on Showtime. This weekend, the writer of the book and blogs the show was based on came forward and unmasked herself. Rumor is that she decided to expose her true identity because some ex-boyfriend was shopping her story to the tabloids. She says she decided to out herself because it wasn’t much fun not being able to go to her own book release party for the recently released Belle De Jour’s Guide to Men.

Around this time last year, Belle wrote in her blog, “What I write about is something every depiction of prostitution in this country in recent years has not been permitted to say. There will be no comeuppance. There will be no guilt and shame. And most importantly, there will be no white goddamn knight . . . Myself, personally, I am enjoying life. Neither in spite of nor because of my past but because I choose to . . . because no one else wants to say these things, I can: I will. I am unrepentant. I make no apologies for my past or what I write. And my future will be no worse than yours as a result.”

It will be sociologically interesting to see how outing herself pans out for her future. So far, people’s reactions seem mixed. Because here is the kicker: Belle de Jour is a research scientist who specializes in the impact of pesticides on children, such as exotic cancers. So the people who were hoping best-selling author and high end escort Belle was pathetic in her real life are disappointed. And the part-time sex workers who hand themselves a blue ribbon and an award for having got through a few months of college are feeling a bit inadequate. There are exceptions, but a lot of the press on Dr. Brooke Magnanti seems sort of hostile, like they either have to refer to her research science as obscure or her sexual past as very very naughty.

My response: How fucking cool is it that someone could be hot enough to charge three hundred pounds an hour via Barbarella’s escort agency as a young woman and go on to be both a witty best-selling author and work on science to help sick children?! That is like female Buckeroo Banzai level awesome.

Yes, I’m probably biased, given that my first published glossy non-rock journalism was a feature for Hustler’s Chic about my experiences as a non-sexual escort. Belle’s overall takeaway was, “Let me state for the record that if being a man was easy, hookers wouldn’t exist. Fact.” and mine was more that what people are generally trying to buy from sex workers is different and more tragic than I’d thought. Not incompatible observations really. I had some interesting conversations with some of my 60,000+ most intimate friends on MySpace, after posting the article about Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and, no matter what the variety of sex work was, practitioners tended to get unusual insights into the human condition.

Belle de Jour a.k.a. Dr. Brooke Magnanti, however, did an entertaining and successful job of sharing her insights with the world. And she has a doctorate and does research science to like cure or prevent pediatric cancers.

Los Angeles can be a difficult city to make deep connections with others in. I know literally hundreds of people who I genuinely like and enjoy in Southern California, but I can’t say most of them know me particularly in-depth or vice-versa. Sometimes I find it difficult to escape the feeling that every interaction is somehow tainted with business. And not in a cool getting-neat-creative-projects accomplished sort of way. A lot of people get a certain kind of bone marrow level lonely in Los Angeles and turn to drink, drugs, or specific religion.

I’ve said for years that, if I stayed in Los Angeles for long enough, I would need to end up either in AA or the Church of Scientology. I live walking distance from the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center and this may mean I am required to become a Scientologist because I have a few problems with Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

There are a few traits AA and NA folks tend to pick up, which I would really be disappointed to find in myself. AA people are always simultaneously telling you that they are more virtuous and goody two shoes than you and more wild with fuller and more exciting lives than yours. This is rude, but a potentially unavoidable side-effect of working the program.

Secondly, AA and NA people always make their struggle with addiction the whole narrative they hang their existence on. I know some amazingly accomplished Hollywood artists who believe the story of their lives is how they got addicted to something and then dealt with being addicts. The books they have written, music they have performed, and people whose lives they have made better are all footnotes; the real story for AA folks is the road to and from addiction. Even though most addicts relapse at least occasionally, so this self-view does not even really work from a literary narrative structure perspective.

My largest obstacle to joining AA or NA is that I don’t have a particularly addictive personality. I mean, I’ve been enjoying my iced soy lattes made with gourmet, fair trade, artisan-roasted coffee bean espresso, but it wouldn’t kill me not to have them. I love beer, but, most of the time, a beer looks too much like twenty soul-sucking minutes on the elliptical to me and I’d rather spend the calories on something else. Maybe if cocaine and heroin came in tasty beverage form, I’d look into getting addicted to one of those, but I can’t imagine the bother involved with getting into an actual habit of reverse picking my nose or sticking pins in myself. I have enough trouble getting into the habit of working out. I mean, I feel good after I exercise and picking up heavy objects and putting them down again is much less annoying than most of the modes of ingesting addictive drugs.

But I digress. The important thing is that goofy sign generators are fun. Now you can each make your own Church of Scientology sign, hit the upload option, and be sure to use one of the “Hotlink for forums” code copy/paste snippets to share your sign here.