The XX Factor: What women really think.

Ashley, Please Babysit

OK, so I am a sucker, or at the very least confused. Ashley grew up in a nice middle-class suburban neighborhood? She spent her young days cheerleading and putting up signs for baby-sitting? So, can someone answer me these questions?

1. Why does a nice suburban girl pretend she was homeless and broke? Do you get more play on MySpace if you're abused? Does this make for better American Idol fodder? Was she just ashamed of being a hooker so had to invent a sad past so when she got busted people like me would feel sorry for her?  

2. Could there have been something weird going on in that nice suburban home of hers, with the stepfather?

3. Could something have happened when, as a teenager, she went off to live with her own father?

4. Or, like Venkatesh writes, is being a high-class hooker now a middle-class aspiration? 

All I can say is, the fathers of Wall, N.J., must have been begging her to baby-sit.