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Original poster

Any parents experienced with teens and escort sites

140 replies

Hectorshousewasfab · 22/04/2021 20:39

Friend has found her daughter using an escort site to earn money. Still at school, just turned 18 and lives outside the family. Mother is devastated and school want police involved.
Has anyone had any experience like this they can share? Daughter seems oblivious to dangers and just says she wants to be financially independent.
Can anyone share any experience of this!?

OP posts:
loveyoudoll · 23/04/2021 07:33

This story keeps changing and changing. First she's shagging the landlord to pay her rent, then the landlord is contacting her family, now they're in a relationship.

Either this is all absolute bullshit or your friend is a really shitty parent who seems to want to control what her adult daughter does whilst seeming to have abdicated responsibility for her child before she even turned 18.

They can't have it both ways and packing a 17 year old off to her own flat and paying the rent directly to her was dumb.

Again, if any of this is true.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep · 23/04/2021 07:41

[quote nimbuscloud]@Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Yes I know she’s not a child. But I would imagine there are other under 18 year olds who are in similar situations and the NSPCC may have advice on where the mother can get support.[/quote]
What kind of support?
There are services working with under 18s who are being sexually exploited but they wouldn't apply to this mum. There aren't services to support parents of adults who are working in the sex trade.

picklemewalnuts · 23/04/2021 08:02

To be fair beep, this started when she was 17. So there may have been an issue then.

That said, a friend's 15yr old left home to live with a 50yr old and they couldn't get her back. No one would help.

KurtWilde · 23/04/2021 08:20

Did you get what you wanted from the thread, OP? The majority of us are in agreement and have repeatedly told you that at 18 it's not a child safeguarding issue, the NSPCC only deal with children (and she's an adult), and unless she's vulnerable or has special needs (which there doesn't seem to be evidence of here), then there's no one who can advise or stop this happening. There's no support for a parent who's going through this, it may not be nice for her mum to think about but honestly at 18 most parents don't know what's going on in their adult child's sex life and rightly so!

Original poster
Hectorshousewasfab · 23/04/2021 08:35

@KurtWilde yes thank you ! At least it consolidates my thoughts so that I can try and help her mother make sense of all this. It’s not something I have any experience of and certainly very different from my home life so it has been really helpful to listen to everyone’s viewpoints !

OP posts:
WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 08:54

Perhaps you might want to check out this charity and see whether they might offer advice and support to the mother if not the daughter also when she is ready. www.streetlight.uk.com/

Original poster
Hectorshousewasfab · 23/04/2021 09:31

@WalkingDownTheStreet thank you! I’ve just taken a look at it and it definitely seems like a great place to start.

OP posts:
WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:00

Happy to be useful and hope they can help in some way. I don't know anything about them as I just googled for support for sex workers and they came up.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:10

I know one girl through a group therapy group we were both in a couple of years ago. She was a sugar daddy bunny or something. She had turned to addiction to overcome the stress and to be honest, the field she was in would probably have been one of the safest ones from what I know. She spoke about it a bit. Often she had to dress up as a school girl and tell them she was 14 and act all childish and girly. She was out of it by the time I met her. The thing which she found hardest to cope with having left the 'industry' was going back to having no money. Financially it can be alluring I suppose.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:12

I don't know how that charity works, but speaking to someone who has managed to leave it might be helpful to your friend's dd. I think it's one of those things that unless you've been there, you don't understand it, so you or I trying to talk her out of it won't get far.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:14

These bunnies or whatever they're called can earn serious amounts of money. The long term cost to their mental health doesn't compensate, but I think it can be difficult for them to see at the time.

Original poster
Hectorshousewasfab · 23/04/2021 10:15

@WalkingDownTheStreet I’m also thinking to suggest the charity to head of pastoral at school as well, maybe they can give a talk at school to Y13s

OP posts:
WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:17

[quote Hectorshousewasfab]@WalkingDownTheStreet I’m also thinking to suggest the charity to head of pastoral at school as well, maybe they can give a talk at school to Y13s[/quote]
Yes, that could be a good idea. She could then contact them in her own time and feel like it was her decision. If you do, don't let her know that it's you and her Mum who have requested it.

Maggiesfarm · 23/04/2021 10:18

[quote Hectorshousewasfab]@KurtWilde well honestly I wouldn’t waste my time if it wasn’t for the fact I’m out of my depth trying to help someone with something I have no experience of.[/quote]
I don't think you can help, Hectorshouse, except for being a listening ear for your friend. Nobody can expect any more from you.

Your friend is understandably upset, no-one would want their daughter to do this but, unless there are aspects of this which we do not know, it doesn't sound as though the girl is doing anything illegal.

It is a great pity the school found out about it, frankly. However she will presumably be leaving school in the not too distant future.

I hope the girls gives it up fairly soon and stays safe in the meantime.

You are a nice friend to be so concerned.

Cowbells · 23/04/2021 10:21

I can't imagine a circumstance where I'd let my child live independently while still at school. If the school is so far away, you move nearer or move school, you don't leave your child to live alone during A level years. Something isn't right there and it's contributing to her ending up on an escort site.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:25

The problem is this as I see it. Initially, the thousands they earn can seem so brilliant. After a while they start to feel the effects on their mental health but that isn't always noticeable to them initially. The girl I mentioned said that she used to get drunk before seeing a client and often did cocaine during the process. At first she felt empowered and only time allowed her to see how much it was damaging her. It was actually her dependence on alcohol and drugs which forced her hand to come out of it in a way. That was the only way she could cope with it in the end.

I would worry about the long term implications for her as to how she will view men and sex. Having seen the depravity of men and how they objectify women must put you off sex in some way. When or if she does come out of it, she will need some therapy to sort her thinking out around sexual relationships I should think.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:26

@Cowbells

I can't imagine a circumstance where I'd let my child live independently while still at school. If the school is so far away, you move nearer or move school, you don't leave your child to live alone during A level years. Something isn't right there and it's contributing to her ending up on an escort site.
That's sort of beside the point. The fact is, she is where she is and now a problem has arisen. What we all might have done differently is largely irrelevant.
WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:28

The girl I knew was stunningly beautiful, educated and intelligent. Your stereotypical tall blonde beauty.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:32

These punters also tend to buy the girls a lot of gifts and treat them well, if you can call it that. They'll be chauffeur driven to posh hotels. Champagne on ice. Dinners and drinks sometimes. I wish I had stayed in contact with that woman as I know that she would be happy to help. We met at a women's support group. She, like me, struggled a lot with men (for different reasons), so it certainly had taken its toll on her.

Cowbells · 23/04/2021 10:33

Not entirely beside the point @WalkingDownTheStreet. First thing I'd do in this situation is move in with my daughter where she lives. Or move her back home with me. She's not entirely independent if the parents are paying her rent and living costs, so why not do the whole parenting thing and bloody well be there for her, in her face, supporting her, caring for her while she studies for exams and being a great big road block preventing her from being an escort by being constantly present.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:35

@Cowbells

Not entirely beside the point *@WalkingDownTheStreet*. First thing I'd do in this situation is move in with my daughter where she lives. Or move her back home with me. She's not entirely independent if the parents are paying her rent and living costs, so why not do the whole parenting thing and bloody well be there for her, in her face, supporting her, caring for her while she studies for exams and being a great big road block preventing her from being an escort by being constantly present.
Because she's 18 with a live in boyfriend and that's a silly suggestion.
Maggiesfarm · 23/04/2021 10:36

@Hectorshousewasfab

I guess I’m asking because I feel so awful that my suggestion of talking to school has not provided the Mother any support or help I hoped it would offer. If anything it’s going to worsen communication.
I don't think she should tell the school. What can they do anyway? The girl is eighteen so a young adult. She needs this business to be private because she will eventually move on from it. The fewer people who know about it, the better.
WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:39

If she's doing it through an agency of some sort, from what this girl told me, their sexual health is well looked after in that they have frequent STD tests etc. I'm inclined to say monthly, but it might not be that often. My memory isn't the sharpest! The girls seem to support each other a lot as they understand each other and dare I say it in this way 'the pressures of the job'. I think it's hard to get out of because of the money they earn. It can be hard to walk away from 2k a week.

WalkingDownTheStreet · 23/04/2021 10:41

She needs this business to be private because she will eventually move on from it. The fewer people who know about it, the better.

She needs support to get out of it though and how that happens is hard to tell. I really wish that I had kept in touch with that girl as I know that she would have helped.

Maggiesfarm · 23/04/2021 10:44

@Cowbells

I can't imagine a circumstance where I'd let my child live independently while still at school. If the school is so far away, you move nearer or move school, you don't leave your child to live alone during A level years. Something isn't right there and it's contributing to her ending up on an escort site.
I imagine the girl is doing it out of a sense of adventure as much as anything else. You'd be surprised but a lot of young people crave excitement, to walk on the wild side, etc, before reaching the settling down stage.

Of course her mother is worried, who wouldn't be?