EscortGal.Com Weblog

I was down on my luck and had been pitying myself for two weeks and decided that I needed to snap out of it. In a week’s time I had broken up with my girlfriend and lost my job. For two weeks I rarely left my flat and I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I had decided that this feeling sorry for myself streak had to end and I was trying to think of something that would brighten my spirits. I decided I was awfully lonely so I decided to call upon UK escorts to help me feel better about myself and get things going in a more positive direction again.

I had been with many a UK escort in the past and decided that I would call on one of the Bunnies of London to help cheer me up. I opened my computer and quickly logged onto the website that I was familiar with. I paged through the pictures of all of the beautiful and busty UK escorts. The girls were all unbelievably beautiful and it was hard to choose just one. I finally came upon a picture of an escort named Molly. She had red wavy hair that spanned to the small of her back, and she had piercing blue eyes that seemed to reach out through the photograph. She was wearing absolutely nothing in the photograph and I couldn’t help but stare at her curves for a moment before making a reservation.

I made the reservation for later that night and was happy when I found that Molly was free. I was depressed but all of a sudden I felt very excited about Molly coming to my home to cheer me up. I asked that Molly just wear something casual, no need to dress up just to come over to my flat for the evening. I decided I had better take a shower and shave since this beautiful UK female escort coming to my home. Since losing my job I hadn’t been worrying about hygiene all that much, but decided this was a good time to start worrying again.

I jumped in the shower and for the first time in awhile I felt alive. I pictured Molly in my mind and I couldn’t help but become aroused. I reached down and touched my hard penis and stroked it gently at first, and then with increased momentum. I continued to picture Molly in my mind and all of the things that I could do with her when she arrived. In moments I had to grab onto the shower wall to brace myself and I continued to stroke my erect shaft. All at once the pleasure mounted and as I came I let out a moan and then stood still for a moment, allowing for the pleasure and sensitivity to lessen just a bit. I felt refreshed, excited, and ready to go out into the world again. I finished showering and got dressed and tidied my flat a bit in anticipation of Molly’s arrival.

About a half hour later Molly arrived with a knock on the door. I opened the door and was shocked by the fact that she looked even more beautiful in person than she had in her picture. Of all of the English female escorts I had met in the past she was easily the most beautiful and exotic. I smiled and said, ?You must be Molly” She nodded coyly and entered my flat when I motioned her in.

As soon as I closed the door to the flat I couldn’t help but begin to kiss her. I pushed her up against the door and began to kiss her neck gently, which caused her to moan which only made me more excited. I then moved up to her mouth and I kissed her deeply and she returned the sentiment by doing the same. She was wearing a skirt and I lifted her leg and reached my hand up under her skirt. I noticed that she was wearing thong style pants, which I thought was very sexy. I slowly pulled her pants down and I reached between her legs and felt satisfied when I felt the moisture mounting. I then unzipped my jeans and pulled them as well as my pants down and worked my way out of them. When I was free of the clothing I pushed Molly up against the door and entered her. It took some force, because as moist as she had become, she was awfully tight. The tightness heightened my arousal. I thrust in and out of her gently at first and then began to thrust harder and harder. Each time I would push into her she would moan and her hands would tighten around my shoulders and then move up to my head.

My legs were growing fatigued so I gently guided Molly’s body down to the cool tile floors in the entryway. She gasped when her bottom hit the floor, but I wasted no time, entering her again. The floor provided me more leverage, so I thrust hard and fast. Molly was almost screaming with pleasure and unable to hold back any longer I let go and came inside of her, enjoying an intense orgasm, screaming out in unison with Molly. I lay down upon Molly then as we both struggled to catch our breath. We said nothing, but the rise and fall of her chest underneath mine was very sexy.

After a moment I rolled off of her and grabbed a hand towel for her to wipe off with. She stood up, picked up her pants from the floor and straightened her skirt. I felt a bit awkward because we had shared just a couple of words before I had initiated sexual contact. I wasn’t sure where to go from here, so I simply kissed her on the cheek, led her to the kitchen, and we both enjoyed a glass of wine. She was just as beautiful, if not more so, now that her wavy hair was a bit disheveled from our encounter on the floor. She stayed for just an hour or so more and that was it. I was officially free of depression and ready to go out and get a new job!

Whores no more.

On the job, the key for many of us is adapting by adopting — an alternate personality, that is. But some jobs arouse emotions and sensations that are too overwhelming for the conscious mind. In the process called splitting, we shunt those off to a kind of branch line of our consciousness.

Sex work is such a job. Its laborers often find the only way to survive is by putting as much distance as possible between their real and work selves. The lack of self-respect inherent in these evasion tactics is magnified by the need to hide the nature of their work from loved ones.

If only because of the contortions into which many are forced to twist their psyches, sex workers deserve as much respect as those tilling any field. Granting them the legal right to organize and providing them with protection under labor and employment laws would be a start.

Is that likely to happen anytime soon? It’s tough to say. But, due to its prevalence on the Internet, porn has begun to gain acceptance with segments of society hitherto unacquainted with it. Such as teenage girls, some of whom not only dress, but undress, like porn stars, after which they seem to have no qualms about being videotaped.

Others, less bold, avoid condemning porn out of fear that boys will think a girl is a buzzkill. It’s the reverse of the way girls were slimed as sluts in previous generations. But the effect is the same.

Second, we all know how the opportunity to make big money confers status on any enterprise. If gangster rap, spawned, in part, by the crack culture, can find a home on MTV, why can’t porn break through?

In a May 15 Rolling Stone article, “The Sex Queen of L.A.” (not available online), Vanessa Gregoriadis chronicles how a California madam named Michelle “Nici” Braun was sought out by Turkish billionaire Hakan Uzan.

“The money and word-of-mouth business that Nici received from Uzan enabled her to do what no madam had done before: create a new high end of the escort industry. . . . Prominent athletes, TV stars and Fortune 500 CEOs. . . flocked to Nici for access to her elite clientele. . . the pinnacle of L.A. beauty. . . models for Maxim and FHM, big-name porn stars and Playmates. . . a Survivor: China contestant and [a] WWE star.”

The magazine models and Survivor contestant may have had no other immediate prospects. Along with the WWE star, though, the porn stars had careers, however short-term. But it seems a porn career isn’t what it was.

“There is no real money to be made anymore,” Gregoriadis writes. There are too many “girls willing to show the world their nakedness, no matter how hot they are. . . . willing to be ogled [on the Web]for next to nothing.”

They’ve been replaced at the strip clubs they used to tour for extra money by women at least as attractive willing to work for less money. “For Playmates and porn stars,” Georgiadis writes, “there’s only one way left to supplement their income: meeting fans in private settings.”

In fact, porn-industry journalist Luke Ford told Georgiadis, “Almost every porn star is an escort now.”

It’s not just in pornography where the stars are doing the mountain-comes-to-Mohammed act. In the music industry, file-sharing is not only eviscerating the sales of CDs, but cutting into those of MP3 files as well. Except for top acts, recorded music is now viewed as a promotional tool to draw fans to performances, where the real money is made.

Both fields are also paralleled by the lecture circuit, where people are making more money speaking than on whatever made them famous in the first place.

It’s true that the Internet has depressed the music and sex industries. But at least it’s yielded a nugget of irony. Musicians spending more time on the road than ever and porn stars making social calls runs counter to the Internet’s reputation for facilitating isolation, whether it’s in the form of cocooning or agoraphobia. Consumers and providers are face to face again.

Meanwhile, will escort services ever be unconditionally accepted in the mainstream of American life? Give a madam her own reality show and we’ll see what shakes out.

Looking for a job? Escort agencies are hunting for female university students who seek an additional source of income.

They say it’s the world’s oldest profession, and it’s coming to a campus near you.

We’re all familiar with the terms associated with women who work in the sex trade: whore, prostitute, call-girl, hooker, escort… student. With the rising cost of post-secondary education, some students are looking for alternative ways to finance their higher learning. Posters advertising jobs in the escort market indicate that our city’s sex trade is recruiting, and students, namely young women, are a hot commodity.

According to a recent report by CTV W-Five’s 21C, Canadian tuition fees have risen by a staggering 135 per cent in the past decade and most students now graduate with debt-loads averaging $25,000.

“The chance to make big money, fast, can be very tempting,” .
When contacted for more information, the escort service hiring professed to pay hourly rates of up to $280.

“You could make as much as $600-$1,000 per encounter if [the client] likes you,” claimed a representative of the agency, who wouldn’t reveal the company’s name. “It’s very easy work. You’ll have a lot of fun.”

With that kind of earning potential, cash-strapped students can be easy recruits for the sex trade, despite the taboo associated with the industry. And as tuition and the cost of living continue to rise, more young women may be tempted to pursue an evening job as an escort.

For many people, the image conjured up by the word “escort” is likely one that involves exceptionally beautiful women who are paid to accompany wealthy men to lavish social events and expensive dinners–women whose charm and splendor are worth several hundred dollars an hour to particularly affluent clients. But in reality, the Pretty Woman fantasy simply does not exist. The escort business, like all business, is about money, and it is driven by the same economic force that motivates the entire exotic industry–sex.

Shockingly, the agency currently prospecting for new blood on campus eagerly offered a very candid job description: “What you do is see men and spend about half an hour to an hour with them in their private place of residence,” revealed the agency’s delegate. “But to be honest, most of [the clients] will be expecting sex from you, which means you probably will have intercourse, with the use of a condom, of course.”

Behind the doors of the escort business, as with most other sex-related jobs, exists a world of temptation that can potentially jeopardize a student’s academic future, as well as their health and general well-being. Increased access to drugs and alcohol, which often become a means of coping with the callous reality of the industry, provides a heightened potential for addiction, among other more immediately dangerous draw-backs.

Is the sex-trade an alternative means of making money? Yes. Is it a lucrative industry? Perhaps.

Escort agencies are companies that book and dispatch escorts to a customer’s house, hotel room, or requested location. Some agencies also provide escorts for longer durations, who may stay with the client or travel along on a holiday or business trip. While the escort agency is paid a fee for this booking and dispatch service, the customer must usually negotiate an additional fee for any sex work services.

Business model

From a legal perspective, escort agencies claim that they are dispatching these individuals to provide a social or conversational service, since prostitution laws often forbid taking payment for sex or communicating for the purpose of arranging a contract for sexual services. Advertisements for escort agencies often carefully skirt the legal line, and avoid specifically offering prostitutionor sexual services. This fact in turn is well-known to police and the political powers, who, where prostitution is illegal, usually prefer to act against more visible and problematic street prostitution. This has been criticized as hypocrisy, especially where governments license and tax the escort agencies.

Some countries have used a two-pronged attempt of criminalizing street prostitution but permitting or licensing prostitution in brothels or via escort agencies.

Escort agencies often recruit individuals to work as escorts by placing employment advertisements in a magazine or newspaper. Escort agencies typically maintain a list of escorts of different ages and appearances to cater to the varying interests of clients. Some agencies may specifically deal in a certain type of escort. There are male-for-male, female-for-male, and female-for-female escort agencies, as well as a few male-for-female agencies. Agencies commonly specialize in only one sex. Transsexuals are available from some escort agencies.

It is very common to find that escorts enter the business through referrals from friends that have been in the business. The effectiveness of ads in weeklies or specialized sites has been questioned by some operators as there are so many that they are diluted. Typically, an escort will interview with an agency.

Once an agency decides to hire a model, she will provide photographs or pose for a photographer. These pictures will be posted on their site or circulated among clients to drum up business.

Escort agencies typically advertise in regional publications and telephone listings such as the Yellow Pages. Some larger escort agencies maintain websites with photo galleries of their escorts. Clients contact agencies by telephone and offer a description of what kind of escorts are sought. The agency will then suggest an escort who might fit that client’s need.

The agency collects the client’s contact information and calls the escort. Usually, to protect the identity of the escort and ensure effective communication with the client, the agency arranges the appointment. Sometimes it may be up to the escort to contact the client directly to make arrangements for location and time of an appointment. Generally the escort is also expected to call the agency upon arrival at the location and upon leaving, which improves the safety of the escort.

The arm’s length relationship between the escort and the escort agency is designed to protect the escort agency (to some degree) from prosecution for breaking laws against prostitution. If the employee is solely responsible for arranging any illegal prostitution-oriented activities, the agency can maintain plausible deniability should an arrest be made.

Escort services aim to provide an experience that allows the operators to claim that whatever happens between the escort and the client is consensual. Operators tend to avoid discussing specifics to avoid complications.

Income and commission

The amount of money that is made by an escort varies with many factors, such as sexual attractiveness, competition from legal and illegal sources, and the commissions to be paid to the agency. Typically, an agency will charge their escorts either a flat fee for each client connection or a percentage of the pre-arranged rate. According to police in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, the high fees charged by escort agencies may make escorting less lucrative than street prostitution, especially as agencies often also deduct the license fees directly from the earnings.

Independent escorts may have differing fees depending on the season, or whether the client is a regular or semi-regular customer. Independent escorts may tend to see clients for extended meetings involving dinner or social activities whereas escorts who work through agencies generally provide only sexual services.

In New York City, escort services charge anywhere from $200 to $1500 or more per hour. The level of rates is usually determined by the attractiveness of the escort and her popularity with clients. However, it is not the case that the best looking women always command the highest rates. In many cases, the level and intimacy of the service can justify higher rates.

A 50-50 split between the girl and the agency is typical. Given the level of business can vary week to week, it is not uncommon for escorts to be featured by more than one agency. In some cases, different agencies may be operated by the same ownership group, but in many others, escorts work for several agencies to maximize business opportunities. Interestingly, one agency may charge a different rate than another one for the same girl.

Buyouts

Some escort services offer a buyout provision if a customer wishes to date an escort privately. The Emperors Club VIP, for example, allowed its member to pay a mutually agreed upon lump sum “to compensate the company for its role in and allocation of valuable resources which make it possible for this relationship to occur between the client and model.

Statistics

A 2005 government survey in New Zealand (where prostitution was regulated and for most part legalized in 2003), estimated that of the 6,000 prostitutes surveyed, around 20% worked for escort agencies, while 70% were in massage parlours (Brothels) and 10% worked privately. The study apparently did not cover street prostitution.

A 2007 UK directory survey revealed some figures in regards to escorts in Great Britain: out of 8000 escorts 84% belonged to escort agencies, and only 16% worked independently

Lay your badge, whatever kind of official badge it is or wherever it is from, under cash that you are paying a girl for sexual services. This gives us heart attacks! How dumb can you be to do that and have no intention or jurisdiction of arresting a girl?

I went to a call with a girl to an extended stay hotel on the very southern end of The Strip. The guys acted a little flaky when we asked what brought them to Vegas but once they passed my little test we felt a little more comfortable. I stayed in the bedroom while the other girl went to the living area with the second client. My customer and I came to an agreement for services and I got up to get my condoms and when I returned he had laid the funds out over his wallet on the bedside table. I pick the money up and I see a badge and an official id. My heart stopped and I almost waited for him to say something like, “you’re under arrest for solicitaion”. He said nothing and I yelped, “What is that?” and he says, “Oh I am sorry… I’m a fireman back in Florida”. I finally took a deep breath and asked why in the world he would do that. He claims he didn’t even think about it. Yea right… I just think he likes to scare the living daylights out of people.

So lesson learned, official government people not in Clark County Nevada, don’t ever do this! You might just kill your lady for the night.

“Do you have a lot of violent calls?”

Actually no. I very very rarely have a call where someone gets physical or gets seriously pissed that security has to get involved. I am not one to screw people over or lie about some fee that an agency has me collect before I negotiate my own pricing. Why risk my own safety for money that I am not even receiving? I am very forward and blunt when it comes to stating, “this is an agency fee and is non refundable”. What is more plain and forward than that? Humans only like to listen when they want to listen, and don’t want to believe that indeed the fee gets no sexual acts what so ever.

Well until this week did I have a record of two calls in a row that had me in a bad situation (the second one was not a big deal like the first, but it was stressful dealing with two big drunken New Yorkers who were pissed for no reason). The first guys were not very fluent in English and very fluent in border-town-Mexico Spanish. One guy spoke English quite well though and translated well from what I understood in my knowledge of Spanish. Fee was collected all three of the girls (myself included) did a strip show. Once we realized they didn’t want to tip AND wanted sex, we had to leave. One girl somehow darted out leaving us 2 behind (very improper etiquette for girls) and left us in the room with angry Mexicans demanding their money back. One guy was pushing me and pulling the other girls hair while saying he “respects us”. Right. I get a hold of my driver (who thankfully was there even though it was an off night of the week) and he waits downstairs by the elevators to escort me out. By this time the guy is holding us hostage in the room demanding the money back even though we inform him the girl who left has it. My driver hears the situation while still on the phone and tells security we need an escort out of the room that we are being held up in. Luckily they finally come up and handled the situation nicely by telling the guys that they are committing a felony of kidnapping and are lucky that we are not pressing charges. The whole time the guy is saying in a heavy accent, “I’m from my coantrey and I respect”. They inform them again how escort services here work and they pay a fee to get girls to the room and you have to tip. In the end the head of security of the hotel gives me his card and says, “if you ever have another problem just give me a call.” Wow I am shocked.

The fear of working here in hotels/casinos and getting in a situation like that is how security will help you out of a room but then turn right around and trespass you from the property or as we say, “86-ed”, even if the guy gets his money back. After then you are permanently barred from the casino and can be arrested if you violate that order. Its ridiculous but its how it goes here… so this reaction by a security person was quite out of the norm.

I will write about my next most popular repetitive question in the next installment which is probably what people will want to ask me after reading this entry, “Why do you work for agencies?”

“Why don’t you work for yourself… why work with an agency?”

This is actually a pretty good question because I have other girls from online or that I meet in Vegas who wonder the same. Not just customers ask me this question. First I point out that I do work for myself and have online ads, plus when you go as a girl from an agency you are asking for your tips independently from the company. The agency can’t tell you what you can or can not charge or do with a client. I could ask for $3,000 and give him 15 minutes of lap dances… of course I would never do that, but they can’t tell you what to do. If I solicit illegal acts I do that at my own risk and solely responsible for myself.

Anyway, the main reason is I don’t want to deal with being kicked out of casinos, run the higher risk of being arrested, and just don’t want to be so paranoid about making money by working bars and such. The girls who answer the phone at the agencies are (usually) good at their job and filtering out all of the cheap/rude/not serious clients. Also, I can’t really run my own business without advertising of course, and advertising costs lots of money just to stand out in Las Vegas. Then you have to hire someone to answer those calls and of course, there is a special business license you must obtain to even have a business like that.

Yes it sucks to collect a fee before discussing my money and yes it stinks to have to tip approximately 20% to the phone girls, but then again I don’t have to risk myself as much but trolling the casino floors for customers and I can goof off while I wait for calls to hotels. One day I might open my own agency, but in the mean time I’ll work for other companies.

I’ll post more questions in the future! Gotta make a good list of them .. I know there a lot

Lots of customers ask me how I got to Las Vegas… which I usually respond with a quirky, “I drove here”, to get a chuckle out of them. Really I first started coming here during the summer months to escape the slow season in the topless clubs that I worked in back home. It worked out well and I would make way more money than I would have before. I sometimes would pay off only my tip-out at the clubs back home due to the number of men staying at home with their kids while they were off from school or would be out on vacations. Why not work where they went FOR vacation? Was a good plan for sure.

Then their next question is: “How did you start doing this?” The answer is a slightly complex one that I’d rather not go into, but basically when I was working in the clubs in my home state I was already dealing with levels of prostitution but in denial about it. Complete denial. After getting fed up with dealing with working in Las Vegas strip clubs where it is hustle or die with no regulars, I decided to give an agency a shot. I was sick and tired of the men hassling me and begging me to solicit then only give me 20 bucks for a pathetic dance. Things in Vegas were changing at the times in the strip clubs: massive clubs were being built, Cheetahs/Jaguar’s owner was under federal indictment, and I had been about 10-15 lbs overweight and that never helps when you want to get the good shift at the Spearmint Rhino from a manager named John who is notorious for being highly selective. I lied to the first agency I went to and said I had worked for an agency before but not in Las Vegas. Looking back I acted like a complete imbecile when dealing with them, but I learned a lot. I also came to learn that I worked for the toughest agency in town (and still is to this day) so at least I started out with the worst which means it can only get better! I got a different, less tough agency to work for soon after then (which is now owned by some one else who recently just lost their *mind*), and met a girl who referred me to a service that I still work for today. That’s my little story of how I began… it’s been almost 5 years since I started working out here, and it’s still completely unpredictable.

I have a lot of customers who see me through agencies I work for who are confused and a lot of times want to argue about what and what I do not make out of initial fees. Lately the trend is for people to argue that I am lying about how much of the fee they paid do I actually keep. When I tell them honestly I make nothing out of it they cry bullshit and sometimes it ends up souring my mood when people want to argue right off the bat. I mean if a fee is a couple of hundred dollars and the girl actually got to keep a portion of it then it would be along the lines of $50 which barely fills up a tank of gas these days…

So my point to all of this is to share with people how things really break down here in Las Vegas with escort services compared to other cities. Things work differently everywhere you go when trying to find an escort whether in the U.S. or abroad and hopefully I can explain things that go on behind-the-scenes with agencies.

Each company works a little differently but all around they generally follow the same guidelines:

Company #1: One of the main companies I work for relies solely on the referral business from cab drivers, limo drivers, and VIP hosts. Since cabbies and the like can be tough to deal with this company has been forced to raise their fees up over the years that I have worked for them. Their fee is now $250-$300. Yea it’s nuts and it does sometimes cause problems when customers really don’t believe that I walk away with any of that amount. Believe me I don’t! This is how it breaks down:

$250 fee collected = Cabbie gets $200 of it + $50 goes to owner of the company
Girl is tipped lets say $400 = 20% to the phone girl who booked the call and depending on the tip the company gets what’s called a “bring up” of $25. The more the entertainer gets tipped… the more the “bring up” is. Each company has their own “bring up” levels.

In the end, this example of a call gets split up like this
Cabbie= $200
Owner= $75
Phone Girl= $80
Entertainer= $295

Company #2: This example applies to a number of other companies I work for. They advertise by handing out those cards on the strip, magazines in the racks on the road, mobile billboard trucks, and the internet.

The fees range from $100 a girl to $250 depending on the where the customer found the advertisement and can be lowered depending on the circumstances. This fee goes 100% back to the company. The entertainer works off of tips after the fee is collected and is up to the girl to negotiate that of course. Some of these types of companies charge 10% for the bring up and 20% goes to the phone girl.

For example if a girl made $500 tip and picked up a $150 fee it would break down like this:
Owner/Company= $200 ($150 fee + $50 from the 10% “bring up”)
Phone Girl = $100
Entertainer = $350

So why do I work for agencies? You can read that in previous post about questions asked repeatedly. In the end I just can’t solely live off of my internet bookings. After all this is a town where people act on impulse not necessarily something they would plan as much as if they were back home.

Are they ‘glamorizing’ sex work?

Blogs by sex workers have added a point of view to mainstream prostitution debates that actually come from some of the participants themselves. Imagine that! A few have even been snapped up for their titillating allure and redistributed as mainstream entertainment.

The latest example is Belle de Jour, an escort blog successfully turned into a book and now, a British TV series. In the 90s, before blogging took off, Tracy Quan did this with her Salon.com column, the Nancy Chan diaries, which eventually turned into the book, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl. Guest columns and talk show appearances followed, along with book sequels, as the original has now been optioned by SONY with plans for a movie or TV series produced by Darren Star.

For a while it seemed like Alexa’s blog, A New York Escorts Confessions, was moving in the same direction until she abruptly stopped posting about a year ago (the blog is still hanging there, framed by local escort classifieds). Shortly afterwards a blog called Confessions of a College Callgirl started up with a writing style quite similar to Alexa’s, but coming from a middle-class, Middle America point of view rather than Alexa’s urbane East Coast world. Sometimes I wonder if it’s the same writer but maybe it’s just a coincidence. Judging from the comments, she’s followed mostly by male readers (as was Alexa) and has become wildly popular within the past year. Recently she has earned paid invitations to write sexy articles for Elle and Playboy, so keep an eye on this one for bigger things to come.

One might argue that these kinds of high-class call girl stories aimed at garnering mass appeal just contribute to the glamorization of sex work, and that may be the case. But consider how the entertainment industry glamorizes a host of occupations like police work, news reportering, law, emergency rooms, and even air traffic controllers, and of course, the military. These are all such exciting, heroic and therefore glamorous occupations once Hollywood gets its hands on them. Viewers watch TV and movies to escape their mundane lives and imagine greener grass in the life of a young, hot-shot lawyer for example, not having to consider all the years of law school and tedious paperwork behind one important moment at trial. Because when you watch a real, live, televised trial (OJ Simpson anyone?), you see how downright boring it really is.

Most people who will watch Belle de Jour will have no interest in reading the book, and some who read the book wouldn’t care to have seen the blog, and of course behind the blog is the real life job with all of its mundane frustrations and challenges. Like most other jobs.

I think glamorizing for entertainment value still can’t hide some of the basic truths that have come out of these call girl stories, and they will most certainly inspire some viewers and readers to learn more about sex work. Then in the future, sex work representation in the mainstream may be even more truthful, and so on…

Reviews of prostitutes are really important to johns who consider prostitution a “hobby,” but how much weight should they be given by prostitutes themselves?

For those who don’t already know, there are quite a few websites for johns to write reviews of their sexual encounters with prostitutes. They offer a virtual world where frequenting prostitutes—what most people might associate with sex addiction—can be considered a “hobby.” The websites have accompanying message boards for “hobbyists” (johns) and “providers” (prostitutes) to discourse on prostitution and sex. Members of these message boards often write about how they feel part of a “community” or “brotherhood.” For prostitutes, these websites offer a free place to advertise and connect with potential customers through the message boards.

The Dark Side of Reviews

I think the majority of johns browsing escort reviews have benign enough intentions: looking for their next fix, whacking off, finding escorts in their price range, making note of dangers to avoid, and writing their own missives for the benefit of others. That’s just their “hobby,” and review websites make it more interesting for them.

They write what acts the escort performed and whether or not she did it with a condom. Acronyms have evolved to describe even the littlest sex acts (do you know what BLS means?), rendering them quantities to be valued and bargained for. They scale rate an escort’s looks and attitude and criticize her rates. They even reveal if they got her to do something she normally doesn’t (like swallowing semen or not using a condom), or if she eventually accepted less money than she advertised for. Occasionally, some write reviews with malicious intent, lying about what happened, if it happened at all, to try and damage an escort’s reputation.

Unfavorable reviews by themselves are merely harmful to an escort’s morale and psyche. No matter how unhappy a particular john was with her looks and service, business continues just fine for ethical escorts who don’t steal and/or use violence. What escorts should always keep in mind about reviews however, is that while they are certainly insipid and most often harmless, they are also unwitting databases of potential victims at the fingertips of unstable people, as few and far between as they are. After all, it only takes one psychopath to do a lot of damage.

The sinister side to reviews stems from the way johns encourage each other to give so much detail about their encounters. Cyberstalkers with a penchant for prostitutes could feasibly zero in on escorts whose weaknesses are consistently shown in their reviews, like being easily pressured into unsafe acts for example. Or being inexperienced, new to the region, dependent on drugs or having emotional problems. They can see how careful or not she is with safety measures like screening. Anything like this can be revealed about escorts in sex reviews.

Even when escorts themselves post on message boards about their lives and views, they can reveal things to sick people with enough time on their hands to add it all up and select a target. It does happen sometimes that an escort who puts a lot of stock into reviews and message boards gets taken advantage of by a john with bad intentions who connected with her through the message board, touting himself as a “well known” member of the “community” whose review could make or break her business.

Do Reviews Help or Hurt Escorts?

In terms of business, both. But not by much in either direction, I think. What helps the most is paid advertising on the Internet and local publications with tasteful photos and straightforward text. Paid advertising looks professional and can direct traffic to an escort’s own website and even to her reviews if she thinks they matter.

Free advertising on review sites should be understood as the complementary service it is. The customers of those sites are the johns who pay membership fees, not the escorts who get reviewed, criticized, and intimidated into offering more for less. Access to information about escorts who offer more for less, and the ability to pressure them to do so through a virtual “community” are part of what these customers are paying for after all. Escorts should understand this.

While it’s best to have paid advertising complemented by free classifieds and reviews, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for escorts to rely solely on review websites and their associated classifieds and message boards, especially if they’re not in a big city. Most johns cruising the escort classifieds are not necessarily also reading the reviews or following what people post on the message boards anyway. So even in that case, the reviews wouldn’t matter so much.

In terms of safety however, reviews could help or hurt by showing how consistently or not an escort looks out for herself, which could either deter or attract a potentially bad encounter, stalker, blackmailer, or worse. It’s not likely, but still possible, and should always be at the back of an escort’s mind. This is illegal business after all, and prostitutes are not exactly society’s most favorite people.

Screening Matters More

Reviews can be helpful or harmful, but shouldn’t be given more weight than they deserve. In my experience, a good screening method is what really matters. If you read my blog regularly, you’ll notice most of my irritable rants occur at the screening level of my escort work. And yes, I can admit that my intolerant attitude very likely turns away decent business sometimes at my ill-humored whim. But whatever. I’m SAFER for it.

I also have a day job, so I’m not as deep into sex work as some other ladies out there. So this is the philosophy that works for me: If I can afford to hold out for the best, everything else will fall into place–decent encounters with good people followed by tactful reviews if any at all, and freedom from the mental anguish of being addicted to a message board.

Not to mention earning the same money for less work in the long run.

The mental anguish of being addicted to a message board only adds unnecessary stress to an escort.

Around year 2000 I figured out that I could advertise myself as an escort independently on the Internet, forever closing the door on my agency days. But it took almost another year to discover that there were websites devoted to reviewing the performance of local prostitutes. Business would be going along swimmingly thanks to my paid advertisements on Internet-based classifieds, yet occasionally some guy would send e-mail asking if I’d been “reviewed”, and if not, that I should try to be.So I joined a particular review site in my area and discovered I already had a couple of reviews. They were good, but I hadn’t known yet what a double-edged sword review sites and their affiliated message boards could be. All I considered was more exposure, so I posted a free classified and a few comments on the message board in hopes of attracting more calls.