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.

MrsMattie, tbh if I had a daughter I would prefer that she not work as a prostitute, but if she'd made that decision there would be nothing I could do about it (I'm assuming my putative daughter would be as headstrong as me).

I've also just realised that I said there were over 30 years between my rape and becoming a prostitute - there were actually 24. I am in my forties, but not quite that far into them!

do you resent your husband for allowing you to do this?

when are you going to tell your children?

when are you going to retire?

What did you do before you became a prostitute if you don't mind me asking?@OFFS.

Sorry OFFS if I pried, it just seemed such a cursory reference to something that was obviously traumatic. I hope you received some good counselling to help you cope with how you felt about it. I don't think you have to have been regularly abused to be able to compartmentalise in the way I suggested, I think it's the normal human reaction to something very traumatic to just shut down that part of the brain that acknowledges what happened if you see what I mean.

Do you associate sex with love? If you do, then how do you feel about your clients? Surely you don't love them, or is sex something you do with them, and you make love to your dh? Don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of silly drunken shags with men I don't love, but it's always been because I was uninhibited by alcohol, I couldn't do it cold sober, but that could just be me.

conniedescending My husband doesn't "allow" me to do anything, what a bizarre idea. Does your husband "let" you work? I'm not planning on telling my DCs ever - it's none of their business, and hope to be well-established enough in my new career (for which I hope to start training in a couple of months) to retire from this one in a couple of years.

MrsMattie, I worked with children in a number of different settings. I was CM for a while, and worked with abused children after that. In my last "respectable" job I worked with teenagers with "challenging" behaviour and figured that if I was going to do a job that involved regular physical and sexual assaults and for which I had no public respect, I might at least get well-paid for it.

HeadFairy, as weird as it seems I didn't interpret my rape as "traumatic" at the time (though I recognise it was). He was my boyfriend and he simply went too far, ignoring my saying "no", but he didn't beat me or anything, and I was so innocent I wasn't even sure what he'd done. Obviously I figured it out later and went through a bad time getting my head round it, I even attempted suicide nine months later (an interesting time-gap, don't you think?) but have never had any counselling. I did a lot of reading, became a rampant feminist in my teens, went though a stage of hating him, another of "understanding" him, even "forgiving" him. Then I decided he really doesn't deserve so much of my energy.

I did become very promiscuous after I turned 16, because I had been raised (very old fashionedly) to believe that the main "thing" of value I brought to a relationship was my virginity, and having been robbed of that, I may as well fuck around. It did feel empowering to be desired, but I recognise now that I wasn't valuing myself at all.

DH was my last one-night stand.

do you have kids op?

I don't love my clients, but I do like most of them, and don't see again anyone I don't like. Sex just isn't all that big a deal to me - it's two people (see how vanilla I am!) having fun in a way that harms no-one and keeps a roof over my head.

ssd Yes, I have two adult DCs, who still live at home and are students.

The thing is, marriage has a long history of being about the buying and selling of women. IN some countries and cultures it still is: women's virginity is a form of currency.
Many women are economically dependent on men who beat them up, psychologically abuse them, publicly humiliate them and quite often rape them as well. Yet women are still peddled the myth that the only way to find fulfilment is to engage in a couple-relationship, that career acheivements or an interesting life spent seeing the world are less important than having a sexually exclusive partner.
Just reading a short selection of threads on MN reveals the extent to which some men still think they are entitled to own women, that women will service them domestically, socially and sexually in return for their board and lodging and a bit of 'romance' now and again.
I'm quite aware that some women who choose to enter into relatinship-work do so of their own free will and have an enjoyable time of it, but I am not actually sure they are the majority.

I live in UAE and I have yet to see young, forgeouse women who are sex workers. They are mostly from the Phillipines and here making as much money as possible so that they can send money home to support their family and young children. Very sad.

If I were to go into the sex industry I could buy my grand piano within a week. The men here a gagging for it lol

Irisheyes, Arab men or Westerners?

That is a point that certainly made me think solidgold.

off to question how liberated and feminist I really am!

That's really interesting, thank you for taking the time to reply, offs!

Would you say your 'real' work is more about
empathising with your clients than the act itself?

I might underestimate your clients but I would imagine that the sex bit is over fairly quickly.
Certainly relative to the chatting/dining bit.

thanks offs.

how many afternoons / evenings do you work? is it always at night, or during the day / weekends too?

OFFS, do your kids know what mum does for a living?

I think the most pertinent point by far, by far is that OFFS in very much the exception to the rule. The middle class student paying off a debt through the odd night of lap dancing, the educated, literate, post-feminist 'high ender' quasi-mercy fucking in safety; all the stuff of colour supplements and undoubtedly part of the rich and varied spectrum of sex and society...BUT ...whether you are for it or against, fear it or celebrate it, surely both sides must concede that these women are exceptional-defensive and explanatory because they have to be. There are so few of them.
Most prostitutes are NOT in the mold of the OP, and do it as a result of abuse, dependancy or as part of a simply shitty life.

When people ask what you do for a living?
What do you say?

The fact that you couldn't go into schools and give a talk on it as a career option should tell you that it is a very poor life choice and not what people want for their daughters. I can just imagine the Headlines in the newspaper and the outrage from parents if it was done!
Would you have been happy if your mother had worked in the sex industry?

There are quite a few jobs you couldn't go and talk about at a school's careers evening, you know. Counter-terrorism work, for instance. Funnily enough, the sort of government work that involves colluding with torture is IMO rather more immoral than having sex for money.

Any job that couldn't be talked about as a career choice at school is not a suitable job for anyone!

ah but pisces, my friend told me that is exactly what she told the NUNS at her school when they spoke about careers - she had watched some film or another about being a prostitute to rich arabs or something along those lines, all glamour and shiney things apparently.

The prostitute that i met (she described herself as a whore ) Was very open about what she did. A friend and i met her in the pub one night - she was american and really friendly, good company - pretty. Had a strange little man with her who gave me the creeps. She tried to drag me into it telling me i could just give hand jobs for £40 a throw. Didn't see my arse for dust - i was 18 at the time. She didn't strike me as being abused, but i don;t know - she said she was doing it to fund her trip to the uk.

Piscesmoon: that would apply to quite a lot of jobs that no one thinks of as a career choice, such as office cleaner, burger flipper, toilet attendant. I can't see schools careers evenings offering 'bailiff' as an option, either. Or traffic warden.

There is no shame in being a cleaner-I wouldn't call it a career choice but many people find it fits in with their life. We need traffic wardens too, there is a road near me where the illegal parking drives me mad-I would love to see a traffic warden sorting it out. People can do these jobs and keep their self respect.

There is no shame in being a prostitute either