What I love most about my escort blog is that it gives me a platform to express my thoughts and opinions about this profession. This time, I would like to share some (eight, to be exact) common, but unfortunate stereotypes and myths that people (perhaps) derive from pop cultural references, such as Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman and the many Law and Order: Special Victims Unit episodes devoted to the topic.
Although these questions tend to be unpleasant generalizations, they don’t necessarily come from an evil place, but rather from simple ignorance about the everyday lives of people in the sex industry. Instead of framing discussions about sex and sexuality through a sex-positive lens, many people work tirelessly to remove these topics from educational settings, which leads to a culture defined by slut-shaming remarks and behaviors.
We would all benefit from questioning some of these tired stereotypes and tropes so that, hopefully, they won’t be part of our conversations again.
1. When are you going to get a “real” job?
By far, this is the most common response I get from people — whether it be from tricks who think I should instead be an academic scholar or an acquaintance I meet at a party who cannot conceive of sex work as a legitimate field of employment. What these people don’t seem to understand is that I happen to have other jobs too. All of the work I do is equal in my eyes, although some jobs pay me more than others.
To be frank, my sex work income has far surpassed any other employment wages I’ve received during the past 10 years, and also it is through my involvement in the sex industry that I gained the independence to pursue other types of work. So within a capitalist context, escorting has been my primary job, and if I switch to another form of employment, it won’t make that work any less real.
2. You are smarter than I’d thought you’d be.
Although my chosen profession happens to be in the sex industry, it does not immediately make me a high school drop-out. I graduated from high school and college with exceptional grades and I have always been an enthusiastic student. Indeed, many women I know personally in this business have higher education.
However, we should deconstruct the idea that being “smart” is about having access to a particular language and knowledge about current affairs.
It doesn’t matter if you share the same way of speaking as a sex worker, because in order to exist in the world of the criminalized sex industry, one must navigate all kinds of people and potentially dangerous situations. If you think intelligence is about the ability to discuss the philosophical viewpoints of Michel Foucault, you probably have a limited understanding of what it means to be “smart.” Perhaps if you expand your idea of intelligence to include people who are street smart, your perspective on the people around you, including sex workers, will be more accurate.
3. You must get a lot of assholes.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not work with assholes: cheap, bad-mannered, entitled, and sometimes all three. The reason for that I am a classy woman providing a high class escort service and not a street walker. I do not get into strangers’ cars in the middle of the night. In fact, I don’t even answer my phone that time. I carefully filter and select my clients and I only establish meetings with gentlemen who deserves me in every way.
My clients are actually quite interesting and refreshing and they are a pleasure to spend time with. They greet me at the door with fresh clean breath and two sealed bottles of water. Some of them are deeply interested in learning how to be better in bed and have hired me to teach them. Others send me flowers for my birthday and help me write my resume, just because we’ve become real-life friends and they are nice people. At the end of the day, it is just like in any other service sector.
4. Are you addicted to drugs?
Unfortunately, this is a very common assumption about escorts. Some sex workers are drug users, others aren’t — I only know sober and clean living escorts, myself included. But I am sure that there are many of them who engage in sex work in order to obtain drugs. But overall, making assumptions about sex workers and drugs makes an ass out of you. What someone does for work doesn’t indicate anything about what else they do with their bodies.
Moreover, the same presumption about drug abuse and addiction could be said for any type of job which is indeed highly respected and admired by the public. Or have you not watched The Wolf of Wall Street?
5. You must at least be a nymphomaniac.
If I were a nymphomaniac I would have sex for free with anyone, anytime. Period!
Instead, I patiently wait on that client visiting from out of town who expects me to be STD-free and clean. For me no “one-night-stand” worth the risk of getting in trouble.
I’ve always considered my work more important than any casual sexual opportunity, so turning down a “free-ONS” has never been an issue for me.
Now, if I had a sexual compulsion I probably would find that difficult to do so. I know women getting laid by uninterested males and be thrown away like a used Kleenex afterwards. In my eyes they are not just nymphomaniac, but also stupid as hell.
6. Oh wait, I just saw your price list! You must be rich!
Unfortunately, escorting is only a part time job for many in the industry. Escorts are not working 5 days a week like other professionals, and they don’t have a fix pay check at the end of the month either. I am not talking about the few lucky ones with a stable millionaire sugar-daddy in the background, who sends a monthly fix allowance.
It is a rather unsecured and high risk business. Maybe one does not have a single client for a week or two. One can assume how frustrating it might feel like, because the bills won’t stop coming. It all depends on how strong and reliable one’s regular client base is; and that also differentiates a successful escort from a rather lousy one.
7. It must be really hard for you to find dates in real life.
People pay me for my good company, looks and sexual skills, so not really. That being said, I am queer and part of a community where non-monogamy is generally accepted and polygamy isn’t as stigmatized, so my dating pool is a little less rigid about sex workers than many other, more mainstream people’s. Quite a few people in the sex industry do run into difficulty finding partners who accept their career choice, but this is a shame for those people who refuse to date a sex worker, given the fact that this job naturally has a time restriction. I don’t know any elderly escort/sex workers. LOL
Generally speaking, we’re pretty cool people.
8. People like you are home wreckers and should be ashamed.
I’m not trying to steal your man or start a thing with him. Although I may have enjoyed his company, we ultimately engaged in a business transaction.
I haven’t asked to know for sure, but I must assume that some of the married men I’ve seen had partners who weren’t aware of me. That is their choice to tell their partners and I have no influence on that.
It’s my wish that people communicate honestly in their relationships and behave in a trustworthy manner. However, I am not the one breaking up other people’s relationships. If someone’s partner chooses to break trust or cheat — that’s on them.
Some of the reasons that clients might see me include the fact that they are either kinky or sexually unfulfilled in their relationship. Some of them are on the road towards ending a partnership they currently have. Yet, other men see me occasionally, because I am a safe place for sexual exploration that will not impact their relationship.
And by the time the sheets are in the dryer, your man is probably already off my mind.
