The Wonderful World Of Twitter Prostitutes, Starring Ronny Turiaf And Ms. Candy Deepthroat (UPDATE)

Twitter has opened up a whole new world where skirt-chasers and jersey-chasers can pursue each other with a minimum of fuss. At least until the girl puts the athlete on blast.

Candy Deepthroat (not her given name) comes from a long line of professional escorts who have long serviced the rich and famous. But here in 2011, things are done different. No more word-of-mouth from teammate to teammate, no more surreptitious phone calls to equipment managers to find a girl. No, Ms. Deepthroat is as adept at self-promotion as she (presumably) is at her last name.

She's got her own website, where she trumpets herself as the reason Matt Barnes postponed his wedding ( she put his text messages on Twitter after a spat). In her "about me" section, she explains exactly what it is she does for a living:

I just enjoy myself and I'm a very sexual person so I sleep with sexy guys and I get paid for that. A lot of girls do it for free. I just have the mindset that if I'm gonna be boning somebody sexy, why not benefit more than just getting my orgasm on?

And just in case there was any doubt, her Twitter profile lists her phone number and her location as "NYC (on my knees) 34th st."

It's a new generation of side pieces, an unbroken chain from Karrine "Supahead" Steffans to Kat Stacks to Candy Deepthroat and her ilk. And it hurts no one as long as it's kept quiet, which, because business is conducted so publicly, is harder than ever to do.

After some kind of spat with Knicks center Ronny Turiaf, Ms. Deepthroat exploded on Twitter. First bashing him for unfollowing her, then a wild claim that she's pregnant, and finally the shocking revelation that - gasp - he took her shopping. A photo was posted, to be followed by "the other pics" if he doesn't give her a call.

That's the danger of arranging your rendezvous via any method other than prepaid cellphone. There's a paper trail, and the escort's ability to announce your transgressions to the world (Candy Deepthroat has nearly 23,000 Twitter followers, and more by the second). Add to that a culture where women can reach a modicum of fame just for doing what it is they do — Ms. Deepthroat has a publicist, who sat in on her recent interview with Vibe Magazine — and that's a recipe for public humiliation.

Of course, we can tell athletes not to do anything they wouldn't want everyone to know. But that's pissing into the wind, so the company line on chasing women is simply: " be more discreet." These days, that's becoming harder than ever.

Update: A Knicks spokesperson tells us this:

This individual asked for a photo with him while he was shopping. His father took the photo. He has never met her before in his life."

And Turiaf addressed it in a broken-English Tweet. So the moral here: beware strange women at the mall.