The years that a woman subtracts from her age are not lost. They are added to the ages of other women. – Countess Diane of Poitiers
I described myself to customers on the phone so many times that it became entirely automatic. “I’m five foot five and weigh one hundred twenty-five pounds; I have long, curly brown hair and brown eyes. My bust is thirty-four triple D, my waist is twenty-five inches and my hips thirty-six.” If the gentleman was from another country, I expressed it metrically (166 centimeters tall, 57 kilograms, bust 105 centimeters, waist 63 and hips 90). All of these numbers were (and still are, I’m proud to say) exactly accurate except for the weight, which was actually 132# or 60 kg, and still is. And that of course raises the question: With a figure like mine, why lie about my weight, especially for a measly seven pounds? The answer is that I had to because every other woman does.
During Countess Diane’s time (the early 16th century) body weight was not the big deal it is today. Few people owned a scale at all, much less one large enough to weigh a human on, and few that did would have bothered to weigh themselves anyhow. There was simply no point; at the time beauty was judged by its qualities rather than its quantities. Either a woman was beautiful or she wasn’t, and without mass media the only way to judge beauty was in person. The advent of modern telecommunications, however, made it possible for the fame of a beauty to spread to people who would never meet her, and though the typical photo might show her general appearance it gave little clue as to her physical presence. Furthermore, the Industrial Age had engendered a mania for quantification, and by the end of the 19th century the desire for exact measurements of everything, including human beings, had become the rule. The measurements of film actresses were included in their publicity, and by the 1920s it would have been a rare woman who did not know her own by heart.
Even then, however, weight was not the sore point it has become for modern women. A woman’s weight wasn’t nearly as important as how it was distributed, so even actresses who would today be judged as heavy for their height (including Mae West and Marilyn Monroe) were considered sexy if they carried that weight in the right places. It wasn’t until the thin look became fashionable in the late ‘60s and the advent of the modern health craze in the ‘70s that absolute weight, no matter how a woman carried it, became the most important quantitative factor of pulchritude, eclipsing even bust and waist size. Yet, most men still prized the voluptuous figure which cannot help but add weight to a woman’s frame, and since not all curvy girls are shorter than their slender sisters this presented a problem.
Every woman knows that men and women sometimes have different standards of beauty; a look which other women may hail as beautiful may leave men unmoved, and one which engenders lust in men may strike other women as unattractive. A truly great beauty is one who appeals to both, and since most women wish to be seen as attractive by everyone this can often present a dilemma to the voluptuous woman who also wishes to be fashionable. Men find her figure appealing, but fashion demands a low weight number, and so she has little choice but to lie about her weight lest she be declared “fat” by silly people no matter what she looks like. And thus the chain reaction begins.
Back in the ‘60s I sincerely doubt most men cared about what women’s bathroom scales said, so long as they looked good; but once women started routinely lying about their weights, men got used to the figures they heard. If every shapely woman of my height, both in person and in men’s magazines, claims to weigh 120#, sooner or later guys believe that this is the proper weight for a shapely woman of that height. And the obvious consequence of this is that I have to lie about my weight as well, because if the customer (who obviously cannot see me through the phone) hears that I weigh 132# he will immediately think of me as chunky and will not wish to see me. My seven-pound adjustment was relatively modest, but I’ve heard some which border on the absurd. A year or so ago my husband showed me a girl in Playboy who had exactly the same waist, hips and build as I do with only a barely smaller bust; she was, however, three inches taller than I am and yet claimed to be seventeen pounds lighter. Another time I heard a 5’10” actress of athletic build claim to weigh two pounds less than I do, and so on. The practice is so prevalent that one of my regulars, an expert in the security field, told me that most cops and security guards are completely unable to form accurate estimates of the weights of female suspects, who are routinely described as thirty pounds or more below their actual weights.
It goes without saying, then, that it would be a rare escort who doesn’t at least fudge her weight. Many do more than just fudge, and don’t restrict themselves to weight; I knew a particularly egregious example, a veteran escort in New Orleans who would tell a client absolutely anything she thought he wanted to hear. Her bust, weight and age were particularly variable; I was once told by a customer that this woman had described herself as 25 years old and busty, when in actuality she was well over 40 and a B cup. He had of course turned her away, and several other girls as well; one of them actually called me when I was en route to see him in order to warn me away from “this guy who has refused girls from every service in town.” I assured her that he wouldn’t turn me away, and indeed he did not. Why? Because he was honest with me on the phone, and I was comparatively honest with him.
The customer was obviously a New Yorker of Italian heritage; he sounded like a character out of a movie and expressed himself bluntly and honestly. He wasn’t asking for the moon; all he wanted was a pretty, busty girl in her twenties, and nothing else mattered. But that was what he wanted, and he told me point-blank that he wasn’t going to settle for a bait-and-switch. All of the girls he talked to had assured him that they were indeed what he was looking for, but none had been; as he described it, several hadn’t been remotely busty, and the only one who was might have been pretty 15 years ago, but not any more. When he opened the door to me, however, it was completely different; he instantly broke into a wide grin and proclaimed, “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” He welcomed me in, told me about the other girls, and said “I’m not hard to please, all I want is a little eye candy!” And he was as good as his word; in fact he was one of the easiest calls I ever had. He explained that though he found it impossible to enjoy intercourse with a condom, he was sensible enough to recognize that unprotected sex was not an option for either of us; he therefore merely wanted me to put on a show for him while he handled things from his end. Since all he wanted was visual stimulation, he needed an exceptionally attractive woman rather than one who could just do the job, and he was totally satisfied with me. I got undressed, obeyed his instructions as to what I should do, and he was done in ten minutes. He then tipped me an extra hundred dollars, told me I was beautiful, and walked me down to the lobby on his way back to the casino.
This story of course illustrates the danger of dishonesty; though many customers will indeed accept whatever they get because they’re either too horny to wait or too intimidated to turn a girl away, some others will not. And no matter what the outcome of the initial call, nobody is ever going to give a girl who lied to him a second chance. As I’ve described above, it’s pretty safe to fudge weight because most men are unable to judge it anyhow, and lying about measurements is just stupid because it doesn’t take a lingerie saleslady to know the difference between a B cup and a D. But what about that most important of numbers, the one about which women have lied since the invention of the calendar? How much can a woman understate her age without being revealed as a fraud?
Men ask for lots of different things when calling escort services, but the single most common request is “as young as possible”. Other men specifically request women in their 20s, older or highly-educated men often prefer those in their 30s, and a few even want an escort in her 40s or even older. But except for the latter group, even the clients whose primary concern is some other factor (big tits, red hair, Asian ancestry, etc) usually prefer younger girls to older, so it’s generally a good idea for an escort to claim as young an age as she thinks she can get away with. I never stated my age unless a client specifically asked it because I hate having to lie, but whenever I was asked the age I gave for the first few years I worked was 28. As the years went by I increased it to 29 and 30, and just before I retired I was claiming 31; in actuality I was just a few months short of my 40th birthday at the time. Now, I look a great deal younger than the average woman of my age; I am 43 now and most people still guess that I’m in my early 30s. Good health, regular exercise and never having borne children have combined to give me a smooth, even complexion free of wrinkles or lines, and my skin retains all the elasticity it had when I was 25. So most of the clients I saw never even guessed that I had stretched the truth a bit, and those who did probably didn’t care because I was beautiful and sexy and sweet and gave them their money’s worth.
Once in a while, though, I gave myself away, especially if the pillow talk turned nostalgic or intellectual. Sooner or later I would demonstrate just a little too much wisdom or knowledge for a woman of the age I had claimed, and at that point the client might ask (though always with a smile) “how old are you, really?” And I would always answer truthfully, adding something like “if I had told you that I was 38 but look 30, you wouldn’t have believed me.” They always agreed that I was right, and always assured me that they were totally satisfied despite the deception. After all, a call girl is not a girlfriend; giving her customer an exciting and satisfying experience is vastly more important than providing him with scientifically accurate data on the exact physical characteristics of her body. So in the end, it’s the motivation behind the distortion which determines its morality; when I slightly adjusted my weight and age it was because I knew that I was going to give the client a better experience than he would have with anyone else in town, and that is a far cry from flagrant dishonesty intended to cheat a man of both his money and the positive experience he deserves.
As I’ve told you before, a friend of mine and I last year went into business together running an escort service. We hired an escort–a very pretty woman in her late 30s–and askd her to write a profile for herself. She put her age on the profile, but I convinced her not to post her age and only to give it out if clients specifically asked. She agreed and has gotten many calls since then. I’m always glad when someone els’s experience vindicates my instincts. Thanks, Maggie!
You’re quite welcome; I’m always glad to be of service. 😉
As young as possible?! They’re all pedophiles!!!!!
Oops, sorry. Just had a mainstream media moment.
When I described a character I invented as weighing 5′ 7″ and weighing 130 pounds, I was asked, “Is she chubby?” I then explained that she had been raised by wild bears and was built like a heptathlete. This USUALLY shut them up (and yes, I had to explain “heptathlete” several times). Now I’m thinking I made her too lightweight.
Heh heh, I wonder if I’d have had the nerve to ask you to growl for me. ^_~
5’7″ and 130 is pretty slender. You know what I look like, and I weighed in at 130 this morning, though I’m 2″ shorter than that. And since muscle is heavier than fat, a muscular girl of 5’7″ could weigh up to 160#. You may want to bookmark this for future reference:
Notice that the Playboy model and the actress I mentioned in the column claimed weights so low they’re not even on the chart, which means if they really weighed that much they would have to be built like Olive Oyl.
Thanks. I’ve now decided that Perdita the Bear Girl (and usually the Bare Girl) weighs in at 150 lbs.
The way I arrived at 130 was that I took the stated weight of a Playmate (I don’t remember exactly who) of that height and added, I think it was 10%. I was in my mid-twenties and, yes, she’s another D&D character.
Maggie, you wrote that Marilyn Monroe would “today be judged as heavy for [her] height”, but in fact, she was quite skinny by any standard.
“The average waist measurement of the four Monroe dresses was a mere 22 inches, according to Lisa Urban, the Hollywood consultant who dressed the mannequins and took measurements for me. Even Monroe’s bust was a modest 34 inches.” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-24/hollywood-auction-ends-myth-of-zaftig-marilyn-virginia-postrel.html
I had always heard those Hollywood myths the article speaks of; thanks for correcting me, Josh!