TV is by its very nature a reductive medium. The best TV producers know this and consider it a challenge to rise to; how to make something complicated, thoughtful and even beautiful despite the ways executives want programming to look and the ways audiences expect it to passively wash over them. The worst producers know it too, but instead of creatively working through the medium, they rely on the effects of sound bytes and constructed images to avoid dealing with complication in their narratives, conflict that can’t be easily resolved or pesky things like journalistic integrity.

So it’s interesting to hear from people who agree to be interviewed for television because they are interested in the former kind of television but end up featured in the latter kind. Such was the situation for debauchette, who agreed to be interviewed for the Diane Sawyer anti-sex work diatribe 20/20 Special Report: Prostitution in America. As it turns out debauchette’s parents saw the show and despite production attempts to hide her identity they recognized her. Her post is a little bit about the show, a little bit about her parents, and all about her. Like many great blog posts it comes across as honest, messy, and not in any way meant to spoon feed her readers. Here’s one of my favorite parts where she is talking about how she feels about a note her mother sent her about the show:

In some ways, I feel the way I felt when I was sitting across from Sawyer. I feel like I can only sigh, because I doubt I can begin to penetrate the many layers of misunderstandings and preconceptions, let alone that relentless working assumption that a woman’s value as a human being decreases as she gains sexual experience. (Sawyer asked me about preserving the ’sanctity’ of my body, as though sex without the imprimatur of love were inherently degrading.). I’m glad my mother didn’t lash out in anger or patent disgust — what’s come across in her note is some mix of restraint, confusion, and extreme discomfort. That deserves some kudos, even if I still feel miles away from having a real conversation with her about this, which, unsurprisingly, is exactly how I felt when I sat down with Diane Sawyer. We just don’t see eye to eye.

The insight and honesty in the post stand in such stark contrast to the 20/20 show. It also makes evident the kind of richness of experience and depth of content TV producers could mine if they took the time to actually let people speak for themselves.

Read the entire post here - Debauchette - Boom