My 6-Degrees of Separation with Belle de Jour  

This is just so unexpected and at the same time so statistically plausible that it made me smirk all day. I was having a conversation with some acquaintances when I learned that if I were to draw a line from me to the notoriously famous and lately extremely newsworthy Belle de Jour, I would need only one node to connect to her. And Actually, I could even do it through a good number of nodes...

It made me smile for various reasons, but first and foremost because I had no idea of this. It's quite amusing to think about the things that go unnoticed until they finally are under the spotlight for everybody to start chatting about, and to realize how they relate to you.
As it happens, through various people, I am connected to both Brooke Magnanti or even her alter ego Belle de Jour. And I both have personal and professional ties to both of these persona.

But what made me smile even more is simply that this simple fact, which looks so random and unlikely, and made me feel special for half-a-second until I realized the reality, is most probably a very common occurrence for a good number of other people, most of them being unaware of it.

Which brings me to wonder: how many die-hard anti-legalized-prostitution republicans are connected to Brooke Magnanti without even knowing it? How many could one day trip in the middle of a conversation if you could tell them "by the way, your friend X had a relationship of Y with Belle de Jour"?
Isn't it a bit fun to think that people who would demonize prostitutes could be linked to them in so many ways? I'd laugh my ass off if some guys who treat girls Amber like girl could be identified as someone related to another person in the business. Or if legislators ruling against sex-workers in criminal cases and minor offences could even be potentially linked as witnesses in some other cases.

Even better, how would they like to see themselves portrayed in Secret Diary of a Call Girl or an extended edition of Belle's book The Intimate Adventures of a London Call-Girl?