Why we couldn't stop reading Melissa Gira Grant

Go ahead, call Melissa Gira Grant a "hooker." From the first, she hooked Valleywag readers with her provocative insights into how sex, money, and technology collided. We first hired her to write a column on the sex trade, and she became a sought-after expert when the Eliot Spitzer-Ashley Dupré scandal exploded on the Web. But her talents soon overflowed the confines of that narrow subject. What's next for Melissa? She's in the market for a programmer for her sex-map startup, Boffery, and she'll continue writing at melissagira.com.

• Melissa's debut column was not afraid to be servicey — and also telling about the Valley's peculiar sex culture:
  How do I get a Stanford girl to blow me?
• The first question Melissa got asked: "No one actually goes to sex parties in the Valley, do they?" The second: "Can you get me in one?" That prompted a column:
  Sex parties in the Valley — how do I get invited?
• The sexographics of the Web's top companies:
  Googlers getting laid way more than Microsoft, Yahoo
• We called the SXSW conference in Austin "spring break for geeks." Melissa lived it:
  The art of the SXSW orgy
• Melissa tackled the Web's relentless misogyny with wit:
  Five reasons why women really do need to get off the Internet
• And she also critiqued the media's writing about the business of sex with an insider's eye:
  How the New York Times missed the latest escort scandal
• My all-time favorite?
  How to lie to your friends with Web 2.0