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Karen Abbott is a journalist and author of the New York Times bestseller Sin in the Second City, an exploration of the role of brothels in the cultural and political[…]

We have a vicarious need to see how far we could go, Abbott says.

Karen Abbott: I think people are . . . want to see how far their darker natures can go, and what exactly constitutes their darker nature and where it might take them. You know there’s always, of course, an attraction to what’s dangerous, and what’s ____________, and what’s forbidden. And I think that vice is a big part of that, and you know the people who put vice . . . who offer vice, and put vice out on display, and who trade in vice where vice is the currency, such as in a democratic machine, big city machine – all of these things are just inherently interesting because they speak to a nature of ourselves that we don’t always offer for public consumption.

Recorded On: 1/22/08


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