Being a "high end" sex worker and what it means/involves

[OFFS]

I have another thread going, in which dittany has suggested that I am a male fantasist, and therefore a liar. She says this because I have said that I am a prostitute, and generally enjoy my work, though it is not without problems. I have started this thread so that those of you who have questions about "high end" (SBG's phrase, not mine) prostitutes can ask me, directly, any questions you might have.

Please note that I am not a street-worker, I do not work in a brothel, and I have no pimp. My clients approach me via email - I do not hang out in hotel bars, and I require at least 24 hours notice of an appointment. I have no knowledge or personal experience of these other aspects of sex work.

I choose which clients I see, and can walk out at any time. I am not trafficked or abused, and have never had a violent client in eight years. I pay my taxes like any other self-employed businesswoman. I do not have any addiction to any illegal drugs, and I always use condoms with my clients. I have regular check-ups at my local GUM. While I have no direct knowledge of parlour/sauna/brothel work, I do have trusted prostitute friends with that experience, and I will do my best to furnish the information you require.

Please also note that I am not qualified or experienced enough to discuss women who are trafficked, abused, drug-addicted or so forth. I can, and am willing, to discuss my own life - I am not responsible for others.

And stay single as a choice if you want to.

I chose not to have children of my own (well I can't anyway it seems) but I'm perfectly happy fostering.

I find this thread very sad.

Dittany has been singled out by the OP in her very first post which was hugely unfair and read like an invitation to others to have a go.

I can actually see where Dittany and others are coming from and I don't think it's fair to berate them for having opinions. All too often I've been accused of having "issues" when I voice an unpopular opinion - that's just underhand and nasty.

Why can't you have a debate about this topic WITHOUT naming anyone and WITHOUT resorting to snidey and underhand tactics to get your points across? OFFS, I did read what you had written on the other thread and I appreciate that. But to take expats point, this is a little suspicious because:

As soon as dittany appeared on that other thread you seemed to blow her comments all out of proportion when she only said what others before her had said.

You didn't let us know the resolution to the original problem until much later on, which makes me question the original problem.

You paint your relationship in this thread as a close, huggy, supportive on, which was not how you portrayed it on the other thread.

You started this thread VERY quickly whilst, I note, you told me you were having the time off to talk to your dh.

This thread does read like an ad for sex workers. You knew this type of thing would reel people in and it has.

For what it's worth, I think you are naive. The majority of sex workers are exploited and beaten, they are hooked onto drugs, come from troubled backgrounds and certainly do not enjoy their jobs, or their lives. You are in the minority. Not everyone is as fortunate as you are and I think you are being irresponsible to make it sound so. The sex industry is a dangerous game, many pimps also traffik women/girls from East European countries and they deal in weapons. So let's take off the rose-tinted glasses and please acknowledge that, whilst for you it's a breeze, for the MAJORITY it's a nightmare. And I do have the statistics and research on my side.

Dittany, I think we are at cross purposes. I am not sure what you think I am saying but I am certainly NOT arguing that in some way prostitution is empowerment.
In fact in the post that you quote I am trying to get a handle on what you are arguing, which you have expanded and elucidated in the rest of your 12.57 post (thank you).

But I think you are attributing to me a position which I do not hold so please have another look at my posts as I don't want to be associated with being some kind of cheer leader for prostitution. Not at all.

The only thing I might have said to give that impression was something about a continuum, which many women have found themselves on at some point - various less well defined personal and economic relationships which arguably amount to a sort of sale of sex. I didn't say anything about what I thought about that though. To say it is not unusual is nothing like saying I support it.

I feel ashamed of some of the "for a quiet life" shagging I have done by the way. I look back to a certain period in my life and wish I could go back in time and give myself a good supportive but no-holds-barred talking to, about this and many other things that I thought I had to put up with because I was young and broke and insecure (in every sense).

I feel frustrated and infuriated by "be a good wife" posts on here which make me think that the number of women who are genuinely prepared to put their hearts and souls and backs into a proper sincere attempt to renegotiate the default terms on which women and men relate to each other is horrifyingly low. (It doesn't seem that there are that many women who think everything is fine - just not that many who are prepared to a. get uncomfortably analytic about why, or b. do anything about it.)

I think that SGB is one of such women but I don't support everything she says and I have no, repeat NO intention of standing up for prostitution. However unlike many on here I don't think I know anything about prostitutes and the world they inhabit, so am not about to opine on whose experiences are more representative of the way things usually are.

You dont sound pious Laurie. I cant have any more children and feel so sad and angry for those born that will lead lives filled with abuse and degradation. I wish they all had someone like you to teach them that the only real way to be happy in any relationship is to be happy alone first.

Solid gold, a happy healthy relationship is an exchange of support, opinions, intimacy and respect. Sex work is an exchange of services for cash. The two cannot be compared and people who are fortunate enough to be in a great relationship should not be accused of enabling abuse because they are pleased about it. That is a ridiculous notion. You may as well say that high end restaurants serving great, well cooked food are the reason that many people cant cook any more and the whole country is going to pot. The fact is that there is a lower end market willing to abuse, cut corners and show no regard for human life, just as in relationships there is a core of abusive men willing to sublimate a womans right to choice and abuse her instead.

No, Dittany, not a dig - just clarifying that I am not one of the posters who can have an opinion on the authenticity or otherwise of the OP.

Sorry if you missed where I said in my original post that I was interested in your, and SGB's position, was attempting to summarise them, and asked you both to set me straight where I had misunderstood.

I can understand why you feel strongly about these issues, but why are you annoyed with me?

In Preston, where we used to live. I was constantly being propositioned on the way home in the evening (we lived on the edge of the red light district) and that was quite scary. dh was also approached and even followed by women wanting him to pay for their services.

We even took some women in, after we found them beaten and crying in the street. One of them snorted cocaine in our bathroom. We gave them hot drinks and drove them to a safe place. They told us their stories which all sounded horrendous - but we could see they were all hooked on drugs and their 'jobs' were the only way to pay for them. They were also beaten regularly and raped by their pimps, who they were terrified of. I hope we showed them that not everyone thought they were scum of the earth, but I doubt they'd even remember.

Very empowering - not.

Oh and a prostitute was murdered near where we lived, she was 5 months pregnant.

A girl i knew when i was working was pregnant, she would at first try to hide it, buy when she got bigger she SAID she only did oral, i dont know what happened behind closed doors though.
I don't know what happened to her because i left that parlour. i feel a bit sad for the baby though, i hope she sorted herself out.

I do have opinions about the principles, but not on what actually happens.

I think prostitution is an integral part of a distorted and immoral (but very long standing) triangular relationship between men, women, and material resources.
I think it is not the only manifestation of this distorted triangular relationship.
There are many ways in which women (and men) in daily life make their peace and compromise with this set-up to get by. Some of them are more demeaning and have more negative effects than others in individual cases. It is not impossible for me to imagine, in theory, that a particular prostitute is less damaged by her transactions with her clients than another particular woman is by her relationship with her husband, or another with her boss in a "legit" job. However that it is neither here nor there because I just imagining logical possibilities and don't know anything about what really happens.

(However, bosses are probably not allowed to treat women the way that was standard when I was in my early 20s and very pretty and insecure; I was basically told to flirt and put up with - pretend to enjoy, actually - minor sexual assault to keep the older partners happy, as part of my job. This is probably non-standard now. I hope. But as an unappealing old boot I wouldn't know)

x-posted, Dittany - yes, that is what I mean about the distorted relationship to material resources:

women are not supposed to have money, because when women have money, presumably women can make choices, and one of the choices that women can make is not to be with men.

For what it's worth, I think all the 'high-end sex worker,' stuff is a load of Belle du Jour shite.

It isn't glamorous, you still have to sleep with fat, sweaty men with bad breath and herpes.

You still risk your physical and mental health every time you do it.

You are not the one in control, however much you think you are. He goes home to his family/dog/computer. You have to do it all again with someone else.

Gosh, this is an interesting discussion and I am in no way as articulate (and well-researched) as some of you contributors. I find myself agreeing with some principles from most of the arguments (typical of me to fence-sit)

However, one thing did strike me and I'm sure it will disappear on this fast-moving thread, uncommented-on.

SGB seemed to infer that for people who sell themselves in the sex industry, the sex itself doesn't take on an awful lot of importance and is easily dismissed as just a "task" to do or a "commodity" (sorry, am paraphrasing badly)

However, I would say that the anonymous hubbie and his wife are pretty much fucking obsessed with it, to the point of risking their whole "other life" as pillar of community etc. I found his post to be shocking, that even though I love sex (and are found on many of the light-hearted threads, discussing it), I would be appalled at myself if it took on such a disproportionate importance in my life.

The picture he painted was of a couple who have no intimacy with each other and seem to be constantly chasing the next sleazy thrill. Bloody awful actually, how far some people are willing to go.

I mean no offence, and hope I have not encountered this MN'er on other threads, having a giggle about bumsex etc. I know my boundaries, however, and precious intimacy stays within my territory and is freely given between people who love or at least respect each other equally.

Anyfucker, sex is more important to some people than it is to others - it's one of those continuums (with the willingly celibate at one end, the unhealthy compulsive sex-seekers at the other, and most people somewhere in between).
Dittany: WRT to me only posting a couple of lines on the other thread, I didn't feel that starting a big debate with that poster was fair or necessary. She had a horrible time, she has escaped, she doesnt need to be told that what happened to her wasn't what really happened, or could be interpreted in a different way, or that she could have done things differently. What happened to her isn;t what happens to everyone in the sex industry, but I can't see how telling her that (again) is going to make her feel better.

Dittany: Fair point, to clarify: sex is important to different people in different ways. Some people want lots of sex with lots of new partners, some people aren't bothered about quantity but for them sex is 'important' in that it has to mean something (more than just physical enjoyment or whatever) to them, some people don't like or want sex at all, some will engage in it without thinking it's a big deal, out of politeness or as a favour or as a commercial transaction.
And sex is very very important to some people, who don't actually have much of it but who are obsessed with controlling how much other people should be allowed to have. That isn't a pop at you (your sex life being your own business), but it is a mindset I have noticed in other people and I think it's a particular type of sexual dysfunction.

SGB - i am afraid that is the norm in all of the places i have worked, we would talk about how we don't let the punters bring us to orgasm because that was the only thing we had left, that and kissing on the mouth.

I never once met a 'WG' who enjoyed it, instead we would talk about ways to make it look like we were, like slipping in the loo before we go in and lubbing ourselves up so the punters think we are turned on, the more turned on they thought we were, the quicker they would come and leave.

I don't think WGs enjoy it unless they get to sleep with men they would otherwise love to sleep with, it is an intimate thing and now i have problems letting people near me and can't seem to shake that.

The only reason i have posted is becaus i had noticed tat it looked like a poster had started to think about doing this and if me bringing my experience (similar to all of the working girls i have met) can prevent her from getting herself into this industry it is worth it.

Its chat,so I'll throw in my opinion. THis is what I think about prostitution, not the OP, as I haven't read the original thread.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with society when one type of person has so much excess cash that they can use it to buy another person's body, and then another person has so few other means of earning decent money that they end up selling their body. This is a basic inequality. It reminds me of young black American men who "choose" to join the army. For many a black man in America the army is the only real viable option he has of making something of himself and earning some real money. So he ends up choosing do to a job that can lose him his life. Except its not really a choice, is it? And thats where the problem lies. If society was set up in a way that women earned really good money for the work they did (say, for childcare!), I doubt very many of then would become prostitutes.
But society is not set up like that. So for some women it is a "choice".
HAving read the thread dittany and MrsMattie post the comments that make the most sense to me. Mrs MAttie's description about those young emaciated girls being approached by men in BMWs really hit home for me how wrong it really is. Yes, one or two women may enjoy it and perhaps choose to do it but look how many others girls are in misery. Maybe we should say that prostitution is wrong and forfeit the few who really do enjoy it so that we save all those thousands of others who have been sucked into it.

.

Dittany - sorry to hijack - but can I just say that no matter what views of yours I disagree with (and there are plenty), I do think the current attitude towards you, as a poster, sucks. You have reacted to the other thread telling you not to post with great dignity. Far greater than I who would have started a huge argument there and then.

You put your posts extremely well and always back up your arguments.

Mumsnetters forget that behind every poster there is a person, an individual. So I do hope that you are not hurt or upset by the unkind remarks levelled at you. I didn't want you to think that we all feel the same way. I may disagree with you on certain issues, but that doesn't retract from my respect for you as a person.