Call girl turned teacher!

An interesting article in Marie Claire about a teacher who confesses her call girl past...

"In college, she stripped. In graduate school, she sold sex on Craigslist. Then Melissa Petro became a popular grade-school teacher, known for inspiring her students. Her secret past could have stayed that way — until she blogged about it.

Sitting at home on a sunny fall afternoon, coffee in hand, Melissa Petro looks like the picture of tranquility. Light streams in through gauzy curtains; artfully hung collages grace the walls of her cozy Manhattan flat. But outside her front door, a media storm rages. Reporters and photographers have been hounding her for weeks, ever since she got yanked from the Bronx classroom where she taught. The reason: Before becoming a teacher, she had sold sex on Craigslist — and she had recently blogged about it on The Huffington Post.

The 30-year-old Petro, who had been granted tenure last year after three years at her school, says she loved teaching art and creative writing to grade-school kids, and they loved her back. Today, she is on “administrative duty,” which, she says, simply involves sitting at a desk all day, doing nothing. Here, Petro tells her story to Marie Claire, describing why she went public with her past — and how it actually feels to sell sex on Craigslist.

Marie Claire: Why did you decide to blog about your past?

Melissa Petro: The point of my blog post was to criticize Craigslist for shutting down its adult-services section amid concerns that it enabled prostitution and exploitation of women. I argued that for all the victims in the adult-services section, there were a considerable number of people who chose sex work of their own free will, as I had done in college and grad school, to earn a little money. Prostitution is a far from perfect occupation — I will be the first to admit that — but it is an occupation, and it is an occupation that many individuals choose.

I disclosed my history because I think if you’re going to state an opinion, you ought to back it up with your credentials. A lot of people have such strong opinions about sex work and yet they have no experience or personal knowledge whatsoever. I don’t claim to be an expert on anything other than my own experience. I’ve been a stripper and I sold sex. I also conducted interviews with sex workers across Europe and in the United States--this research became my undergraduate thesis at Antioch College."

You can read the rest here: http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity-lifestyle/trends/melissa-petro-exclusive-interview