Now that we’re in an age where it seems like literally everything is endlessly reviewed by someone with a VERY IMPORTANT OPINION on social media, it can be easy to forget that this is nothing particularly new.
Back at the dawn of journalism, when Grub Street hacks made their money penning absolutely anything they thought would sell, there was a burgeoning genre of books reviewing prostitutes in London, which apparently sold very well and in some cases produced annual volumes for decades.
These detailed what the girls looked like, how they dressed, what they were prepared to do for cold hard cash, and most importantly, whether they were ‘clean’, ie uninfected with STDs, or not.
Possibly not ‘clean’.
Some fastidious hacks even went so far as to trial the wares and test the girls medically to insure their information was up to date and accurate.
One early example of the genre had the catchy title of “A catalogue of jilts, cracks, prostitutes, night-walkers, whores, she-friends, kind women, and others of the linnen-lifting tribe, who are to be seen every night in the Cloysters in Smithfield … during the time of the fair.”
Later volumes focused on Covent Garden, where the porous borders between streetwalker, actress and high class courtesan was navigated by impecunious teenagers seeking a living however they could.
Not every literary genre deserves to survive and to my knowledge, this one died out by the 19th century. That said, no doubt some sleazy bloke somewhere is carefully curating a blog or bulletin board detailing what the cracked out desperate women of his city are prepared to do in return for his social media money.
It’s probably called DickTok.