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Archive for August, 2010

Advice for Clients

Posted in Call types, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 21, 2010| 117 Comments »

Treat a whore like a lady and a lady like a whore.  –  Wilson Mizner

In a reply to my column of August 17th, I gave Black Hole of Genf a little advice on dealing with professionals, and I would like to talk about that subject at length today.  There are a number of essays and lists of “dos and don’ts” for escort clients available on the internet, but I don’t think it hurts to add another one because it gives a broader view of what different working girls consider important.  This is not a list of my personal pet peeves, but rather commonsense advice and warnings against behaviors I know annoy most whores rather than those which just annoy me in particular.

Don’t ask rude, stupid, pointless or prying questions, or those to which you don’t really want to know the answer.

This could almost be a column by itself; day after day we’re asked the same questions which one would think men would have better sense than to ask, but obviously don’t.  My own pet peeve is, “Are you clean?”  Now, think about this for a minute; do you honestly think an expensive call girl won’t be?  And if you’re dealing with a streetwalker, do you honestly think she’ll tell you the truth if she isn’t?  Just keep your eyes open and be as scrupulous as we are with condoms and you won’t have to waste your time with this rude and pointless question.  Then there’s, “What’s your real name?”  If she wanted you to have it, don’t you think she would’ve given it to you?  Again, both rude and pointless.

If you live in a police state where our trade is suppressed (such as the US), a number of questions fall into this category, such as the amazingly stupid, “Are you a cop?”  This derives from the myths about undercover cops (largely spread by druggies) which claim that there is some magic formula for detecting them.  Nothing could be farther from the truth; a cop can lie, cheat, misrepresent himself, bring up the subject of sex first, take his socks off, or even shag a girl to completion and still bust her, and it won’t ruin his case one atom because even if there were rules of this sort (which there aren’t), he would just perjure himself and claim he didn’t do whatever it was he wasn’t supposed to do.  If the streetwalker you’re trying to pick up claims she isn’t a cop, the statement is worth exactly what it cost her to make:  Zero.  Another such question is, “Is this legal?”  How the hell is the girl supposed to answer that?  I mean really!  “No, I’m a criminal?”  All this question does is to make her uncomfortable and to cause her to wonder if she’s being taped.  An even worse (and unfortunately far more common) one is, “What do I get for my money?”  If a girl ever answers this question with anything more specific than, “You get an hour of my time,” you should suspect that you’re being taped because no experienced girl worth the money would ever say anything else.

The last category includes such questions as, “How many men have you seen today?” or “Are you married?” or “Has anyone ever hurt you?”  Maybe the real answers would turn you on, but they might also turn you off, and your escort has no way of knowing which.  You might very well think you want to know the answer, and then change your mind when you hear it.  So it’s best to avoid these kinds of questions in the first place, and if you ask something which the girl seems not to want to answer don’t press the issue.

Be clean.

Just that simple; give a professional the same respect you would give an amateur.  Take a shower, shave, brush your teeth and cut your fingernails.  Change into clean clothes and refrain from smoking in her presence unless she is also a smoker or has ashtrays available to signify it’s OK.  If you’re uncircumcised, clean the area under your foreskin thoroughly, and if you have any sort of skin condition please clean it properly and let her know what it is as soon as you disrobe.  And if you see even the slightest sign of any kind of sexually transmitted disease, please seek medical attention immediately and do not even attempt to hire a girl until your doctor pronounces you clear!

Employ normal good manners.

I know proper etiquette is less common than it used to be, but c’mon guys, this isn’t rocket science.  Just try to remember all the things Mommy taught you; ask rather than demanding, say “thank you” at the end, answer the door in at least a bathrobe, take off your hat when a woman is in the room, etc. You’ll be surprised how much of a difference it makes in your experience.

Remember that we are businesswomen and that this is our business.

You wouldn’t make a cashier have to ask for her money, and you shouldn’t make us ask either; different girls want the money handed over in different ways, but we all want it up front.  Also, you wouldn’t expect a plumber, exterminator or other professional to “hang out” with you off the clock after the job for which he was contracted was done.  Good call girls try to create an exciting illusion for you; don’t destroy it by forcing us to remind you that we’re there for the money.

Be where you say you’re going to be when you say you’re going to be there.

If you’re going to an incall, try to be on time and call if you’ll be more than five minutes late; if the girl is coming to you, don’t leave to go to the store, the ice machine, the front desk or the ATM when you expect her any minute.  You should have done those things long before; if there is a real emergency just call to tell her so she can delay arriving for the time it will take you to get back.  And if there’s a substantial delay which is your fault rather than hers, please don’t be an ass if she cuts the session a bit short; she may have other appointments and she didn’t force you to arrive half an hour later than expected.  Finally, if you get cold feet please call to cancel, and if she’s already on the way just face her like a man and pay her cancellation fee ($50 is fairly typical for a call girl); she may have turned down other appointments to keep yours, and it isn’t her fault you misplaced your balls at the last minute.

If receiving a date at your home or office, provide basic necessities.

One would think this would be obvious, but one would be wrong.  A man who would never invite a social date or a business contact to a place without furniture, running water, air conditioning or heat may think nothing of inviting a business date to such a place.  Here’s a word of advice, guys:  Next time, use the $300 to buy a bed or air conditioner or have water installed, or else find a place which already has those things.

Don’t have anyone there who isn’t participating.

You may simply want to show your friends the choice bit of tail you’re about to enjoy, but she may find it very threatening to have a door opened to a room full of guys, even if they immediately file out as soon as she arrives.  I’ve left calls (with the money) because drunk and/or obnoxious frat boys or convention attendees keep banging on the door, ringing the phone or trying to take my picture through the crack allowed before the chain stops the door, and so would any other girl with a particle of common sense or an iota of self-esteem.  Arrange your liaisons when your friends won’t be around, or if others will be there ask if it’s OK up front (as in the case of a bachelor party).  Also, I really don’t care if your son or daughter is “too young to understand”; hire your whores on weekends when you don’t have visitation, or at least find a babysitter for the time you need.  We’re not monsters without maternal instincts out of Victorian propaganda, so having a child in the next room is very uncomfortable for many of us.

Don’t try to turn her into a criminal.

If you ask her to bring drugs, she’ll probably just hang up on you because cops love to get two busts for the price of one.  And don’t ask her to tell the agency you cancelled, then come to see you anyhow; not only is this dangerous for her since nobody will know where she is, but also puts her job at risk because the agency will fire her the second they find out she’s stealing calls.

Keep your fingers outside of her body.

As I said in my column of August 16th, the average professional strongly dislikes having dirty, rough, bumpy fingers forcibly inserted (often without warning or lubrication) into her vagina, anus or even mouth.  Even surgically clean fingers with nails trimmed down to the quick can be terribly uncomfortable, and once the man starts to wriggle them around violently it can become acutely painful.  If you have a fetish for this please ask if it’s OK before doing it, and abide by whatever answer you get.

Don’t even ask to go without a condom.

Even though we hear it all the time, it doesn’t mean it isn’t annoying or even infuriating.  If you want a whore to think of you as an imbecile or a fool, “Do I have to use a condom?” is the most effective way.  If you want to insult her at the same time, opt for “How much to do it without a condom?” instead.

Respect her limits.

Just because you’ve hired a girl to do a job does not make her your slave.  If she tells you she doesn’t “speak Greek”, don’t try to penetrate her anally.  If she is uncomfortable with some fetish you didn’t bother to warn her about, leave it alone.  If she doesn’t want to give you her home telephone number or let you take her picture, drop the subject.  A professional is not some naive schoolgirl you can seduce into doing something against her will; all you’re going to accomplish is annoying her and wasting the time you paid for, and if she feels threatened enough she will leave and you will be out your money with nothing to show for it.

Above all else, just apply common sense and common courtesy; scour every trace of the Madonna/whore duality and the myth of the wanton out of your mind and treat a prostitute as you would treat any other businesswoman and you can’t go very wrong.  You’ll be the kind of client professionals like to see rather than the kind we dread, and you’ll find your experience is much more rewarding and fulfilling because of it.

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Celebrities

Posted in Call types, tagged , , , , , , on August 20, 2010| 15 Comments »

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get. –  Kevin Costner

One thing I learned from whoring was the reassuring fact that most men, no matter how wealthy or famous or powerful, are still simply men; they all put their pants on one leg at a time, and most of them want some variation of the same thing from women.  It’s therefore not at all unusual for an experienced call girl to find herself in the company of a local, national or even international celebrity who is usually much more excited about seeing her than she is about seeing him.  As is my custom I’m going to use pseudonyms in this column, so anyone who is reading this for the name-dropping might as well try a gossip site because you aren’t going to get what you’re looking for here.

Now, as I’ve said many times whores are not really different from other women, so a minority of girls do care very much about the fame of a celebrity client; a well-known comic actor regularly saw a girl from Doug’s service every time he came to town, and this dumb bunny was so star-struck she eventually imagined that he was going to marry her.  Now, obviously I wasn’t privy to their pillow talk, but would any girl in her right mind believe that a famous, wealthy American in this day and age would marry a prostitute even if he genuinely loved her?  The tabloids would have a field day!  Clearly, the girl was too fascinated by his celebrity to assess their relationship in the harsh light of reason as she would’ve assessed her relationship with a non-celebrity client, and was therefore bitterly disappointed when he eventually stopped seeing her.  As I understand it, she was so upset she even quit the profession and left town.

I, on the other hand, had already cultivated a much healthier attitude toward celebrities while working as a stripper.  At Mardi Gras of 2000, literally only a few weeks after I started escorting full-time, I was on Bourbon Street with a lovely redhead whom I’ll call Sheila; she saw men professionally but preferred girls for fun, so we were having a great hammy time together showing our tits and kissing for pictures.  Anyhow, at some point this little guy not much taller than I am started chatting me up; he said something about being “back” in New Orleans so I asked if he was from there.

“Yes, but I live in LA now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Well, it’s not so bad; I have my own TV show.”

Though outwardly polite, I inwardly rolled my eyes and thought, that and $300 will get you a date.  Aloud, I said, “Oh, how nice.”  He then told me his name and that of the show, and though I had heard other people mention it I had never seen it myself, so I said to him, “I’m afraid I don’t watch television.”  I had never heard of him, and even if I had it wouldn’t have been bankable, so I handed him a card and told him he could call me if he was interested; since he never did I must presume he decided to fish in waters where his celebrity would be sufficient bait.

Fame is of course relative; a local celebrity from one place might go completely unrecognized somewhere else, as in the case of the Irish footballer who seemed a bit annoyed that I had no idea who he was.  The same could be said of those who have a distinct audience; I once called on a standup comedian who was apparently quite well-known among a particular audience, though I had never heard of him.  He seemed quite amused by my ignorance, and just a couple of days later I happened to see his picture on a large billboard advertising his show in New Orleans.  On another occasion I was hired by a porn starlet and her husband; he called under his name, and since I don’t watch porn I did not recognize her.  I therefore had no idea who they were until the call was almost over and the subject of occupations came up; she then told me her stage name, which was well-known enough for me to recognize.  And yet another time, a friend of mine asked me to check her business emails while she was dressing; I noticed the name of a popular writer among them and said something like, “It looks like you have a literary client.”  When she expressed puzzlement I told her that the gentleman was a popular author of a particular genre of fiction, and she replied that she hadn’t known because she never read that genre.

As a former librarian, I had a bit of an advantage on her there since we are familiar with the names of many authors whether we’ve read them or not, but once I surprised such an author because his work was scholarly and therefore unknown to the general public.  While doing his credit card I noticed “Doctor” in front of his name and made some sort of small talk about it; he replied with “Oh, I’m not that kind of doctor; I’m an astrophysicist.”  I then impressed the hell out of him by asking him a few sensible questions about his work, then realizing I had read one of his papers in school.  Apparently my recognition of his name really stroked his ego, because as I was about to leave he tipped me an extra $100!

As I said at the beginning, most celebrities are no different from most other men, and that includes their treatment of girls; I found that most football players, congressmen, musicians, actors and artists treated me just as politely as most normal businessmen did, and were every bit as complimentary and pleased by my looks, personality and performance.  But as with normal men there were a few bad apples, and when a nasty disposition is combined with the virtual immunity to consequences which fame and money can secure the result is very bad indeed.  One example which springs immediately to mind is the “bad boy” sports star well-known for trashing hotel rooms; he called Doug one night for a number of girls, but I declined to go because he wanted them to do cocaine with him and his friends and I never touch the nasty stuff.  Even if he hadn’t wanted that, however, I think I might’ve turned it down due to some of his weird habits.  But I would’ve seen him regularly rather than go even once to the home of a certain rock star who was blackballed by every agency in town before I started working due to his evil habit of slicing whores’ arms with razor blades during sex.  Much as I would love to expose this disgusting piece of filth, I don’t dare because it would be hearsay (since he never did it to me) and his pockets are vastly deeper than mine.

So, given that most of these celebrities could have fans or groupies for free, why do they pay for call girls?  The answer, I suspect, is twofold.  Firstly, it’s convenient; a hired girl will give him exactly what he wants when he wants it, with no nonsense or fine print.  For celebrities, as for every other man, free pussy is the most expensive kind; groupies give themselves because of their own emotional needs, and those may leave “strings” that the gentleman is unwilling to deal with.  Just as it’s more sensible for a businessman to hire a girl rather than pick one up in a bar, so many celebrities find it more sensible to hire one rather than bedding a fan.  The second reason is, I think, precisely because the whore isn’t a fan, and thus allows him to behave like any other man interacting with any other woman on equal terms, free from the deceptions and facades he normally encounters in everyone he meets.

This viewpoint was expressed best to me by a man who was not himself a celebrity, but worked with them often.  The week New Orleans hosted a convention of adult video producers and distributors was one of the busiest I ever had; beside all the “cold” calls from men who requested someone like me I also got plenty of callbacks and referrals from one customer to another.  And they were almost invariably nuts about me; they tipped me generously, praised me effusively and even recommended me to their friends.  All this had me scratching my head, so finally I dared to ask one especially friendly video director just what they all found so special about me when they should be used to being around beautiful women.

“That’s easy,” he replied, “it’s because you’re real.  Most of the girls we deal with are the same ‘California blonde’ clones, with tans and implants and nose jobs and bleached hair and teeth, and if they have any personality at all it’s a fake one.  You’re beautiful, but in a natural way; you have your own look which isn’t like everyone else’s.”  After I pointed out that I did have implants he laughed and said, “See, just your saying that shows what I’m talking about; you’re a real, honest person, and it’s very refreshing.”

I understood what he meant, and later realized it applies to celebrities as well.  The reason so many of them like whores is that we’re the only women who treat them like men rather than like icons, and whose motives toward them are honest and forthright rather than hidden behind layers of fakery.

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Recognition

Posted in Call types, tagged , , , , , , on August 19, 2010| 6 Comments »

You and I will meet again,
When we’re least expecting it,
One day in some far off place,
I will recognize your face.  –  Tom Petty, “You and I Will Meet Again”

Everyone has had the experience of running into somebody one hasn’t seen in a while, often in the most unusual of circumstances, and it’s no different for whores.  The only difference is that, since most of us don’t usually advertise our profession to casual acquaintances, these meetings can be rather awkward or even amusing.  Perhaps in a large city such encounters would be rare, but in a city as small as New Orleans they happen with sufficient frequency to deserve writing about.

Sometimes, one encounters clients in public later, and their reaction generally depends on the circumstances.  If a former customer is alone he may smile or wink, and on rare occasions I’ve even had one ask for my business card again, but if he’s with his wife you can bet he’ll just go right past with no reaction (unless it’s to speed up his pace).  In my July 16th column I related the story of encountering a young couple whom I had recently visited parked right next to me in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and in one particular instance a client recognized me without remembering how he did so. As I’ve mentioned before, all my medical professionals knew what I did for a living because I felt it was only right to tell them; I was particularly friendly with my dentist’s receptionist, a very pretty girl who had admitted to fantasizing about working as a call girl and often had questions for me.  Anyhow, I was coming in for a dental appointment, and a gentleman who was leaving asked me, “Have we met before?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t recall,” I said.

“You just look so very familiar!” he continued.

“People often say that to me; perhaps I just have that kind of face.”

“But I could swear I know you!”

“Well, maybe you saw me in a store or something,” I suggested.

“I guess that must be it,” he said, then bid my receptionist friend goodbye and left.

“That was so strange, the way he kept insisting he knew you,” she said.

“He does,” I replied, “he just doesn’t remember how.”

She was about to ask, then her eyes got big and her mouth dropped open.  I nodded, and she broke into a big smile; normally I would never divulge that information, but because he had made such a big deal of it I figured it was better to admit the truth and ask for her silence than to risk her mentioning it to the other office girls and having someone put two and two together.

But this sort of encounter is inconsequential compared to the awkwardness of being called by a client one knows socially.  It’s not so bad when the acquaintance was casual and/or a long time in the past; for instance, we had a regular for years who had been a schoolmate of my cousin Jeff’s.  I had met him a couple of times and remembered his distinctive French name, but had always avoided seeing him just in case; then one night he asked me to describe myself and when I did he said he wanted to see me.  I decided to risk it, but there was no difficulty; if he ever for a moment associated the glamorous call girl who came to him that night with the skinny 14-year-old he had met in passing two decades before, he gave no sign.

There was another case which could have been really awkward, but worked out for the best in the end.  He was a recently-divorced man only a few years older than I was who had taken me for the whole evening; we went to dinner and the symphony, then back to his room, and were getting along famously.  It turned out we had a great deal in common, and were both science-fiction fans who had attended UNO around the same time.  Then suddenly I stepped on a mine; I mentioned a casual acquaintance of Jeff’s (I’ll call him “Gary”) who orchestrated a regular Friday night role-playing-game session I had attended a few times, and to my surprise he replied, “But I’m Gary!”  I pointed out he had given me a different name, and he explained that since he was a “Junior”, he had gone by his middle name when he was younger but started using his first name in the professional world.  I looked at him closely and realized that he was indeed the overgrown boy I had known, less baby fat and half of his hair, and with contact lenses rather than thick glasses.  I decided to take the plunge and reminded him of exactly who I was, adding, “You see, if you had known then what you know now, you could’ve had me for free!”

We both laughed, and he pointed out that at the time he was much more interested in older women, and would have thought of me as nothing but jail bait.  I remembered the specific woman he had been interested in; she was the wife of a young professor and they had an “open marriage”, which even back then I recognized as an invitation to disaster.  As in the other two such marriages I had encountered, the wife had become involved with an easily-dominated boy in his late teens and eventually left her husband for the boyfriend (in this case, my client).  The results of this ill-conceived alliance would have been predictable to anyone who had been on Earth for a few decades, but not to a naïve university student such as he was at the time; his ten-year-older wife completely dominated him, and though the poor man eventually escaped her he was badly damaged by the experience.  The castrating bitch had apparently expected a green lad to perform like her more experienced ex in bed, and became abusive when he failed to satisfy her (which had been often).  As a result, he was badly inhibited, and though he had no trouble achieving erection he had immense difficulty reaching orgasm; it took well over an hour of constant stimulation, gentle coaxing and repeated reassurances that I was there for his pleasure rather than vice-versa to finally enable him to achieve the release he hadn’t had with a woman in literally years.  So in this case, my prior acquaintance with a client served as a tool rather than an obstacle; because I remembered his ex-wife and the considerable gossip about their relationship I was able to achieve the kind of rapport with him which might otherwise have taken several sessions.  Our previous connection, however tenuous, served to decrease his nervousness about seeing a professional and thus relaxed him enough that he could trust me and allow me to guide him to a much-needed release.

It’s definitely not usually that way.  On another occasion Gilda gave me a name I recognized well, since he was the (now-retired) chief deputy sheriff of the rural parish (county) in which I had grown up; I especially remembered him from the time he had tried to shift the blame to me for a traffic accident in which a local politician had run a stop sign and totaled my car.  But I am nothing if not a consummate professional, so I called him anyhow, and the conversation went something like this:

“Hi, Mr. D_____, this is Maggie; the agency said you were looking for a girl who would go out to {Ourtown}, but there’s a slight problem.”

“What’s that?”

“I know who you are, and you may remember me as well.”  My family had some minor political connections and I knew for a fact he knew my mother on sight.

“I’m retired now,” he said defensively, “I guess I shouldn’t have called, but I’m recently divorced, so I’m very lonely.”

“I understand; you don’t need to explain yourself to me.  I’m not the one in the business of persecuting people for consensual behaviors.”  He then broke into a flurry of excuses, which I interrupted with “Relax, your secret is safe with me.  I’m not going to tell anyone you called; that would be highly unethical.  I just don’t think it’s particularly wise for us to see each other.”  And he did indeed relax; in fact, he thanked me for my kindness, said he knew I was right about the inadvisability of going through with the call, and bid me good night.

The most awkward case of all, however, involved Karla.  As I mentioned before she was quite young, about 21, and lived in the suburbs north of Lake Pontchartrain; because it was a bit of a drive many girls from that area preferred to stay home on weekdays and take whatever calls came in from there, rather than drive into town to await calls which might not come if the night were slow as they sometimes were.  So one afternoon I described her to a gentleman who sounded quite interested, only I could never have predicted Karla’s reaction to his name.  She asked me to repeat it, then checked the phone number and squeaked,  “Oh my God, I can’t see him!  He’s my friend’s dad!”

Clearly, there was nothing to do but call him back; since there was no other girl working there that day I just had to tell him Karla was temporarily unavailable.  Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be put off; he had liked her description and asked when she would be available.  I then had little choice but to be honest with him: “Sir, the young lady can’t come to see you because she already knows you and feels it would be too awkward.”  If I had hoped for him to accept that I was sorely disappointed; he reacted like a kid caught stealing the milk money by a strict nun.  Despite my reassurances that she could not ever reveal him without also revealing herself, he refused to be placated and demanded I tell him who she was.  “Please, sir, don’t be absurd!  Surely you understand that I can’t give you that kind of information!” He responded that it wasn’t “fair” that she know him and not vice-versa, and I let him know politely but firmly what I thought of his kindergarten notions of “fairness” where my girls were concerned.  Needless to say, he never called us again.

In all of these cases, the acquaintance was a personal one; things go a bit differently when the client is known not only to the girl, but to the general public, as we will discuss tomorrow.

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The Empress Theodora

Posted in Biography, Harlotography, History, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 18, 2010| 18 Comments »

Justinian fell violently in love with her. At first, he kept her only as a mistress, though he raised her to patrician rank. Through him Theodora was immediately able to acquire an unholy power and exceedingly great riches. She seemed to him the sweetest thing in the world, and, like all lovers, he desired to please his charmer with every possible favor and requite her with all his wealth.  –  Procopius

Theodora (c. 500 – 548) was inarguably the most successful courtesan of all time, rising from humble beginnings in a theatrical family to become empress of the Byzantine Empire as the wife of Emperor Justinian I; like her husband, she was also canonized in the Eastern Orthodox Church.  If there has ever been another whore who became an empress in life and a saint after death, I’ve never heard of her.  Theodora was probably the most powerful woman in Byzantine history and among the most influential women in all of history, but like most great courtesans she was also the victim of character assassination by men who envied her status.

There is considerable disagreement among the ancient historians regarding her place of birth and family details, but everyone agrees that she was an actress and prostitute; most of the histories used in schools merely say “actress”, but the professions were indistinguishable at that time.  Indeed, some historians claim she worked in a brothel, though this is highly dubious because actresses were courtesans whose clients came from among the members of their audiences, while brothel girls were at that time either slaves or de facto slaves.  It is likely that this is simply libel intended to make her look bad, as were rumors of her voracious sexual appetite and multitudes of lovers; the myth of the wanton was already well-established by the 6th century, ensuring that male writers would assume any whore (even a retired courtesan) to be what we now call a nymphomaniac.

The Empress Theodora, from a contemporary mosaic

Eventually Theodora became the mistress of Hecebolus, governor of the city of Pentapolis, but later quarreled with him and left, working her way to Constantinople by way of Alexandria.  It was during this period that she became friends with a dancer named Macedonia, who was apparently regularly employed by Justinian (who was then commander of the eastern army); it appears that Macedonia was the one who first introduced Theodora to the future emperor, and he fell “violently in love with her”.  At first he could only keep her as his mistress due to a Byzantine law (similar to our modern “sex offender registration”) which, though it did not criminalize prostitution as in our modern “enlightened” countries, prohibited whores from ever marrying; Justinian therefore had to content himself with making his beloved fabulously wealthy and elevating her to the patrician class.  Eventually, however, he persuaded his senile uncle, the Emperor Justin, to make a new law allowing men (including those of high rank) to marry repentant whores.  This law was on solid legal ground since it was based on the established precedent that a slave could be restored to freedom and have his rights fully restored as though he had never been a slave; by the same logic a whore could have her rights restored by renouncing her trade and finding a man to marry her.  This, however, did not stop snobs and bluenoses from decrying the change in the law, especially after the death of Justinian when they were safe from possible imperial reprisals.

Soon after his marriage to Theodora in 527 Justinian was made co-emperor with Justin, and not long afterwards the old emperor died of a chronic illness, leaving Justinian as sole emperor and Theodora as empress.  They were a very popular couple; Justinian was a strong and respected leader and Theodora a very beautiful, charismatic and intelligent woman who was said to be “superior in intelligence to any man”.  Justinian was wise enough to recognize his wife’s talents, and rather than keep her as a mere consort he allowed her an active part in his decision making.  Though it was well-known that Theodora had been a courtesan, her charisma won the hearts of the people, the army and most of the officials, much to the chagrin of prudes who envied her success and immediately began spreading vicious rumors about her supposed infidelities and frequent abortions.  These lies do not seem to have affected her popularity either in life or in death, but can be found in a number of period histories (especially those of Procopius of Caesaria, who was at first a supporter of Justinian but later turned against him).

The law which officially de-stigmatized whores was only the first of many increases in women’s rights which Theodora convinced Justinian to enact.  In 528, rape law was expanded to cover lower-class women and slaves (who had previously been unprotected) and to mandate the death penalty for either rape or the kidnapping of any woman; this law even defined certain forms of seduction as a lesser (non-capital) form of rape, much like our modern “date rape” laws.  In that same year (the first of her reign) Theodora also personally acted to free brothel-whores from bondage by purchasing them at cost from the brothel-keepers, dissolving their contracts, and giving them a new dress and a small amount of money; later she banned such brothels altogether.  In 534 it was made illegal to force any woman (even a slave) into acting (and therefore prostitution) without her consent, and in 535 this law was expanded to prohibit underage prostitution even if the girl’s parents consented (which was not uncommon in the poorest families of that time).  Another law that year defined marriages as deriving from “mutual affection” and therefore illegalized the practice of new husbands divorcing brides whose parents had reneged on the promised dowry.  In 537 a law was enacted to allow actresses or prostitutes to renounce their occupation at will, regardless of previous contracts, and criminalized the practice of forcing women to sign such contracts.  Other laws increased the rights of women in divorce, child custody and property ownership and prohibited infanticide and the murder of adulterous wives.  And though Theodora died in 548, her views clearly had a lasting influence on Justinian because he continued to enact pro-woman laws even after her death; for example, in 559 he prohibited the imprisonment of women for debt (they were still required to repay) and established a separate women’s prison system (with nuns as guards) in order to prevent the systematic rape and ill-treatment of female prisoners.

“The Empress Theodora at the Colisseum” by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (c. 1875)

Theodora seems to have had mixed feelings about her former profession, though it is very difficult to tell because of the multitude of contradictory accounts.  Some pious writers claim that she outlawed prostitution altogether, though this seems more like an attempt to whitewash her reputation for Christians of later centuries than an objective analysis of her actual actions.  It is clear that she eventually created and generously endowed a convent called the Metanoia (Repentance), where ex-prostitutes could live as long as they wished; at first this was open only to the freed brothel-girls, but later to streetwalkers as well.  Procopius claims that Theodora actually rounded up all the streetwalkers and forced them into the Metanoia (much as later governments forced whores into the “Magdalene homes” described in my column of July 22nd); he further adds a lurid description of the fate of some of these girls: “…she confined them in the Convent of Repentance, as it is called, trying there to compel them to adopt a new manner of life.  And some of them threw themselves down from a height at night and thus escaped the unwelcome transformation.”  Other writers, however, describe no such confinement of unwilling streetwalkers despite the fact that such an action would certainly have met with the approval of the Church officials who later promoted Theodora to sainthood, so I think it’s safe to say that the story is simply more libel on Procopius’ part.

Justinian and Theodora enacted a host of other legal reforms far too extensive to detail herein; they built roads, hospitals and churches and expanded the power of the Eastern Roman Empire to its greatest extent since the fall of the Western Empire to Odoacer in 476.  In all these matters they presented a unified front, though in religious matters it was quite the opposite; Justinian was a devout Orthodox Christian, and Theodora an adherent of the Monophysite sect which taught that Jesus had only one nature rather than two.  Critics have argued that her support of a variant teaching undermined the unity of the Church, but others have pointed out that her policies actually delayed by centuries the conflict which eventually resulted in the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.  In any case, the contributions of both Justinian and Theodora were considered important enough to result in their eventual canonization by the Orthodox Church.

Theodora died of an illness (possibly breast cancer, but it is impossible to be certain) on June 28th, 548; she was not yet 50 and predeceased her husband by 17 years.  He was observed to weep bitterly at her funeral, and loved her so dearly that even after her death he not only continued legal reforms of which she would have approved, but also kept his word to her to protect the Monophysites and to attempt to reconcile their differences with the Orthodox Church.  The lasting influence of the courtesan empress is incalculable; her reforms gave Byzantine women rights that women in other European countries would not again enjoy until the 19th century, and indeed a few that women do not have even in Western societies today.  Considering that Theodora did not rise to her position in spite of her profession but rather because of it, the life and accomplishments of this amazing woman represent a shining and powerful refutation of the dogma that whores are intrinsically maladjusted, exploited and degraded.

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Legal Sundries

Posted in Current Events, News, Perception, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 17, 2010| 15 Comments »

Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.  –  St. Augustine

I really wanted to comment on the “Craigslist Killer” story while it was still topical, but since I didn’t have enough to say about it to make a full column I decided to piggyback a few other articles about legal issues affecting sex workers which also aren’t long enough to be columns by themselves.

Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

Paraphrased from an AP article:

Philip Markoff, 24, a former medical student who was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist committed suicide in the Boston jail where he was awaiting trial, authorities said Sunday.  “Markoff was alone in his cell, and all evidence collected thus far indicates that he took his own life,” a spokesman said.  The facts and circumstances surrounding his death will be investigated, the district attorney said.  Saturday would have been Markoff’s first wedding anniversary, but his nuptials were canceled after his arrest.  Markoff pleaded not guilty in the fatal shooting of Julissa Brisman, of New York City, and the armed robbery of a Las Vegas woman; both crimes happened at Boston hotels within the span of four days in April 2009, and Rhode Island prosecutors also accused him of attacking a stripper that week.  Markoff had met all three women through advertisements for erotic services posted on Craigslist.

Pardon me if I’m not to broken up about this.  The sleazebag didn’t even have the excuse of being psychotic; he was only interested in robbing them to support his compulsive gambling and was smart enough to realize that even when sex workers dare to report crimes against us, the cops are never terribly interested in investigating said crimes.  I honestly believe the only reason they even bother investigating murdered sex workers is because the crime tends to result in public outcry even if the victim is “only” a whore.  Those who followed this case may recall that the Boston District Attorney’s office tried to use it as an excuse to pressure Craigslist to discontinue adult services ads, rather than admitting that it is the suppression of our trade rather than our method of advertising which makes us targets.  Hurrah to Craigslist for refusing, though I must include the caveat that the popular website agreed two years ago to cooperate with cops in 40 states by providing them on demand with information on girls who advertise therein, so cops can use that information to deceive, molest and persecute them.

As for Markoff, I’m just glad he decided to face his karma like a man rather than submitting to a show trial which would undoubtedly have resulted in another round of persecution against both sex workers and our advertising venues under the guise of “protecting” us.  Ever notice how governments are always trying to “protect” us from everyone but themselves?

And here’s a good example:

New Orleans’ Nasty Little “Sex Offender” Game

In my column of August 5th I mentioned that women arrested for prostitution in Louisiana are routinely charged with “Crime Against Nature”, but in the case of escorts this is generally just a scare tactic to get them to plead guilty to misdemeanor prostitution.  Those whores who have neither the means nor the organizational skills necessary to arrange a lawyer, however (i.e. streetwalkers) usually get stuck with the charge, resulting in their being classified as “sex offenders” for at least a decade and thus unable to get out of whoring even if they wanted to.   I wish I could tell you that this strategy was something unique to New Orleans, but it isn’t; the idea of officially branding women as prostitutes and then prohibiting them from holding other jobs (or in some societies, even getting married), thus ensuring that they can never leave prostitution, goes back many centuries.  It was, in fact, San Francisco’s practice of this strategy which inspired Margo St. James to found COYOTE, the first prostitutes’ rights organization in the US, after she found herself a victim of it.

Women With A Vision Inc. is a New Orleans organization which is now taking on an important anti-criminalization campaign and needs support and volunteers; the “No Justice Project” will combat the sentencing of sex workers under the two-century-old “crimes against nature” felony law.  Modern penalties for this law (which were strengthened several years ago in response to public hysteria over pedophilia) requires women to register as sex offenders for the next 10 years and places the label “sex offender” on their driver’s licenses (among other prescribed penalties); the vast majority of those so convicted are black women and transsexuals (click here  for a more in-depth article).  WWAV needs volunteers and support immediately; if you are in New Orleans, please consider volunteering with WWAV, and if you aren’t please consider supporting WWAV’s urgent work with a contribution.  For information on how to support or volunteer with WWAV telephone (504) 301-0428 or email wwavinc@wwav.nocoxmail.com.

This morning I spoke to Lorie Seruntine at the “No Justice Project” and explained that I wanted to mention the project on my blog; she told me that due to a recent grant from the National AIDS Fund they are finally able to get the program, which was formerly hampered by a dearth of funds, rolling in earnest.  She provided me with PDF files of their brand-new brochure (No justice brochure August 2010) and flyer (No Justice Interview Flyer), and we spoke about the vital need for their work and about the necessity of all sex workers and those who support our rights unifying to stop the kind of abuses which inevitably result from the prohibition of prostitution.  She told me that their website is currently being rebuilt and will be fully up to date probably next week, and said she would keep me posted on any other developments.  Furthermore, she asked me to post this emergency request, which I am happy to do:

Dear Friends, Supporters, Allies, and Sisters of Women With a Vision, Inc,

We are writing to ask for your help for a woman we recently met at a No Justice Project event, we will call her DC to keep her anonymity intact. The same year that Women With A Vision opened our doors in 1991, nearly 20 years ago, DC was convicted with a La 14:89 Solicitation of a Crime Against Nature. Ever since that day, DC has been haunted with this conviction. Fast forward to yesterday at our No Justice event, DC has been clean for several months, and recently gotten the opportunity to move into Catholic Charities Voyage House, a housing program for women. This is a great opportunity for DC, one that she could not pass up and one that her sobriety depends upon, but this required her to move from Jefferson Parish back into Orleans. Due to her prior conviction and sex offender registration requirements, she is forced to pay for sex offender notification cards and mailing fees, which totals $1,208.67. The court is forcing her to pay this fine by the end of next week, August 16-20, or face the original sentence of 40 months of hard labor in the Department of Corrections.

We are asking you to make a gift of an emergency monetary donation to help keep DC out of jail and the hands of the Department of Corrections, and to help support her decision to remain sober even if it meant moving into Orleans Parish and facing these fees. She is committed to her sobriety and has pledged her commitment to the No Justice Project and the fight we have ahead.

You can make a tax-deductable donation several ways: you can mail us a check or money order to 215 N. Jeff Davis Pkwy New Orleans, La 70119 and label the check with “Funds for a free DC,” or go to our website at wwav-no.org and click on our pay pal donate button an follow the steps to donate online.

We will be in the courtroom with DC next week to help support her through this ordeal.

On behalf of the women of No Justice and Women with a Vision, we want thank you for you generous support and let you know that we appreciate you.  If you have and questions or want to know more about the No Justice Project, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

You are appreciated,

Women With A Vision, Inc.     

My prayers are with DC and with WWAV for their continuing efforts.

Here’s another case in which relative wealth results in different standards of “justice”:

Third Party

Did you ever wonder why porn is legal but prostitution isn’t, even in Hollywood?  The excuse given is that in porn the actress is paid by a third party rather than the one she has sex with, and that makes it legal.  Oh, really?  In that case I’ve been on quite a few calls which were not prostitution, such as the many times I’ve been paid by a best man to give the bachelor a last fling at his bachelor party or the several times I’ve been hired by parents (of either sex) to take their son’s virginity on his 18th birthday.  A few times I’ve even been hired as a bribe (such as the time a snack food distributor bought me for a Wal-Mart executive).  Even if one attempts the spurious argument that to qualify for the “porn exemption” both people having sex must be paid participants, that still allows the very common “two-girl show”, where a client pays two whores to have lesbian sex so he can watch and masturbate without touching either of them.  Yet in a case in Arizona where sleazy cops arranged such a show and then busted the girls, their conviction was upheld on appeal.

What it comes down to, of course, is money; the movie industry (of which the porn industry is a subset) is extremely powerful in California, so no governmental entity is going to rule against it for fear of interrupting the flow of both tax revenue and campaign contributions.  I might also point out that most porn producers are male, and therefore constitute no threat to the egos of legislators and judges the way whores do.  If we had the backing of a major lobby group I’m sure we could buy politicians just as easily, but until the mainstream women’s organizations purge themselves of puritanical, anti-sex elements and recognize the obvious truth that prostitution rights are as much a feminist issue as abortion rights, there seems little hope that we will be able to afford to hire any of these political whores any time soon.

Another Reason Not To Do Cowgirl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_fracture

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-you-really-break-your

Those guys who are brave enough to read these articles will notice the most common cause; for those who aren’t brave enough to read them, look at the heading of this subsection.  A guy in Boston actually sued his girlfriend for injuring him in this way (yes, she was on top), and though he lost his case I’m not sure he would have had she been a professional.  When I first heard of this story back in 2003 I advised my girls of the possible danger.  Since I already avoided the position it didn’t affect me, but it certainly gave me a new and powerful excuse: “I’m sorry, but I can’t risk that kind of liability.”

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Aversions

Posted in Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 16, 2010| 76 Comments »

The total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution. –  Bertrand Russell

In a response-thread following my column of August 11th, Sailor Barsoom and I discussed the difference between what women want and what men think we want, and I theorized about why so few women are willing to tell men the truth about it.  I pointed out that because women are taught that sex is “dirty” they do not generally want to talk about it, and also that since most women instinctively wish to please our men we tend not to criticize male performance because we don’t want to hurt your egos.  Other factors include the unfortunate female tendency to forget that men cannot read between the lines as well as we can and are therefore mystified or infuriated by female guessing games of the “You should know what’s wrong without being told!” variety; and, the unfortunate male tendency to think that if a little of something is good a LOT of it would be much better.  Some problems arise from simple differences in terminology; an English-speaking person would probably be happy to be offered a “gift”, but a German might call the police because the German word gift means “poison” in English.  As I mentioned in the aforementioned thread, when men say “sex” they usually mean “intercourse”, while women mean everything from kissing to afterglow.  So if a woman says she wants “sex” to last hours, a man might think she actually wants to be pumped for hours, while in reality she means no such thing.

What it all boils down to is that ignorance breeds conflict, and the absolute WORST sort of ignorance is that which, rather than being characterized by a dearth of information, instead consists of a surfeit of misinformation; though both sexes are equally ignorant of the other’s sexuality, the latter type of ignorance is much more common among men.  Most women know little to nothing about male sexuality (many are actually willfully ignorant), but most modern men are thoroughly convinced they know all about female sexuality even if all they actually know is a lot of myths, advertising spiel, propaganda and outright lies promoted by anyone with an agenda.  One of my primary motivations in creating this site was to help dispel both kinds of ignorance, both by providing information and by exploding myths.  And one of the most pernicious of these myths is the obviously false yet doggedly persistent notion, strangely common among both men and women, that most members of the opposite sex want the same thing as each other, or even worse that they want the same thing as the opposite sex!  The truth, however, is that while there are some things 90% of men enjoy and some things 70% of women enjoy, and some things that 25% of humans enjoy, there is absolutely nothing which everybody wants all the time.  This may seem obvious to the more worldly-wise reader, but you’d be amazed how many people don’t realize it.

So what I would like to do today is talk about some of the things I, personally, dislike in sex.  I’m not doing this out of the bizarre exhibitionist impulse which inspires so many modern people to reveal their entire lives to complete strangers on Facebook or “reality” TV shows; after all, my neighbors don’t know me as Maggie McNeill.  No, my motivation here is to demonstrate that even a woman as sexually open-minded as I am still has her own idiosyncrasies, so if you think “every woman” likes some of these things you would be wrong.  If I know or suspect that a particular dislike is common either among whores or among the female population in general I’ll mention it, and if any of my female readers feel brave enough to comment on their own dislikes (or their feelings about the ones I dislike) I invite them to do so.  Male readers need not feel left out; if there’s anything that “all men like” which you don’t (such as watching two girls together) please feel free to weigh in.

Woman on Top Position: I know I’m not alone in hating this one because I’ve talked to quite a few others who absolutely abhor it, though one wouldn’t know it from watching modern Hollywood movies.  IMHO this is the lazy man’s dream position, because it requires the woman to do all the work.  It’s great for men with small penises (big ones tend to bottom out) and excellent for premature ejaculators because it takes most men at least three times as long to come this way as in one of the male-dominant positions; once a man starts to get close he tends to speed up, but if the woman sets the pace he can instead concentrate on controlling it and thereby stop nature from taking its course.  For this reason I can’t comprehend why any whore would prefer it, though I suppose some convince themselves that it puts them “in control” when in fact the opposite is true; one is far more in control with the man on top because one can control the angle and depth of penetration with one’s thighs and hips and one’s hands are more free to touch, stroke or whatever.  In addition to everything else, “cowgirl” is just way too acrobatic for me, and I’m just not built to pump my pelvis up and down or back and forth like that.

Tongue in the Ear:  You really do not want to see my reaction to this.  Trust me.  Really.  A lot of women do seem to like it, but I’m not among them.

Sex in Weird Places:  I know most guys and even a lot of women think this is very sexy, but as far as I am concerned a bed is more than adequate as a venue for sexual relations.  Sand, dirt, dry leaves, insects, spiders or other, less identifiable debris in my genitalia are NOT my idea of a smashing good time, nor is being arrested for indecent exposure, nor having my head banged repeatedly against concrete, nor being crammed into some weird, cramped, smelly, unsanitary or all of the above position.

Pelvic Gyrations:  Some men (especially of one particular ethnic group) seem to believe that moving their bodies from side to side and thus entering a woman from various angles like some kind of eccentric crankshaft is an advanced and effective sexual technique, but it’s so silly-looking and uncomfortable that even when it isn’t actually painful I have to fight back laughter.

Hickies:  I know there is some primitive part of a man that wishes to leave his “mark” on a woman, but that is what buying her jewelry is for.  Ugly purple bruises do not go with anything, and can put a working whore out of business for days if they can’t be concealed with makeup.

Gynecological Examination:  I understand that men are visual creatures, but let’s face it:  A woman’s genitals are not exactly pretty, and visiting the gynecologist is not exactly erotic.  So for a man to closely examine my folds as if he were looking for ticks, or to stare into my vulva as though he expected to see the future in it, makes me very uncomfortable and triggers paranoid feelings about how I might look or smell no matter how carefully I clean myself before, after and between customers.  I know for a fact I’m not remotely alone in despising this.

Foodstuffs:  Grapes, bananas and other solid foods are fine; what I am referring to here are messy, sticky substances like caramel, honey, whipped cream, etc.  Not only is this plain nasty, guess which partner is stuck cleaning the sheets?

Fingers Jammed into Orifices:  I’m not really sure what pleasure men derive from this, though I suspect it may be nostalgia for teenage groping in cars.  Fingers are nubbly, rough and have nails; they are sometimes dirty and/or calloused.  A little finger is a LOT more painful than a big penis.  I know lots of girls who hate this, especially whores (I even saw it in a published list of “don’ts” for escort clients).  If you really want to maximize the annoyance potential, jam a few fingers into a girl’s vagina and anus simultaneously without benefit of lubrication, wriggle them around violently and then ask her in a leering voice if she likes it.

Female on Male BDSM:  Although it doesn’t do anything for me, money is money.  However, I refuse to ever let a man inside of me once I have dominated him (though some clients do indeed seem to think they’re going to get that).  Given that few if any professional dominatrices will have intercourse with customers, I suspect that dislike of the combination is pretty widespread.

Fellatio by Force:  I think everyone who has had the privilege of being on the receiving end will agree that I am quite expert at this activity; it is therefore unnecessary for the recipient to guide me by putting his hand behind my head and forcing it down onto his member until I am gagging and unable to breathe.  I have only ever talked to one girl who was turned on by this, and she was a sexual submissive who was partial to rape fantasy; for whores this maneuver is especially threatening because it might be intentional rather than just something guys do when they’re excited.

Cunnilingus:  I’m definitely in the minority on this one, because most women love it (though I do know a few others who don’t).  I don’t hate it or anything, but neither does it do much for me; my clitoris is small and responds much more readily to indirect stimulation (by finger or intercourse) than direct.  Most girls can at least get me aroused by doing it, but few men seem to know anything beyond the “dog’s water bowl” and “rub whiskered face into crotch” techniques.

Bad Kissing:  Because so many men are bad kissers, I am very reluctant to kiss even regulars whom I suspect may be among them.  There are three main classes of bad kissers:  The Invader, who thinks the point of kissing is to shove his tongue all the way down one’s throat and leave it there for as long as possible; the Slobberer, who thinks the point of kissing is to remove all of one’s makeup with his mouth; and the Lizard, who flicks his tongue in and out of one’s mouth about twice per second, usually while wriggling it about wildly.  The first two types are bad enough, but the Lizard makes me want to run screaming from the room.  General advice for men:  Most women kiss others in the same way as they like to be kissed.

Around the World:  Although a change of position during intercourse is sometimes stimulating, it is unnecessary and annoying to try every position in the bloody Kama Sutra during every session.  Moving furniture is not erotic.

Obviously, I could tolerate some of these in customers because it was for work rather than fun and had to be endured only for an hour at most.  But can you imagine if I were an ignorant virgin married to a man who did one or several of these things?  I might very well have ended up in that 20% of American women who think of sex as a “necessary ordeal.”  As in so many other areas of human interaction, knowledge and communication go a long way toward preventing resentment and strife.

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The Clipboard Effect

Posted in Perception, tagged , , , , , , on August 15, 2010| 14 Comments »

The most successful prostitutes are invisible, because the sign of a prostitute’s success is her absolute blending with the environment.  –  Camille Paglia

One of the most common effects that the Hollywood hooker stereotype has on escorts and call girls is the tendency for inexperienced clients to be concerned about their dates’ appearances.  Since the Hollywood stereotype prances around in a miniskirt, fishnets, gobs of makeup, etc this concern is probably understandable; imagine the possible repercussions to a client if hotel security followed such a creature to his room, or if any of his neighbors saw her coming to his door.  That sort of costume would be hard to miss, which is precisely why experienced escorts don’t wear them.  Camille Paglia is exactly right; the most successful working girls are those who attract the least attention, either in calls or where they live.

“How will you dress?” is one of the most common questions high-end clients ask, and they’re certainly not unjustified in worrying; I’ve heard a few horror stories about inexperienced low-end escorts dressing like strippers or Hollywood streetwalkers.  But such a girl never lasts long in the business unless she learns quickly; no businessman or professional will want her twice, and her agency owner will tell her better the first time she sees her in such a getup.  Experienced girls understand that it’s best to dress in such a way that one wouldn’t attract undue attention in a shopping mall; I had only one wardrobe and wore the same sort of clothes whether I was working or not, and indeed wear the same sort of clothes today.  Obviously one must dress attractively, but there’s a vast difference between ladylike and skanky; I told my girls to dress as though they were going to court or to meet a boyfriend’s mother.  Some girls even wear business suits and carry briefcases, ensuring as complete a camouflage in a business-class hotel as any beautiful woman can ever hope to achieve.

But it isn’t only about dress; demeanor is just as important.  When orienting new girls I always stressed the importance of the “Clipboard Effect”, which is my term for the fact that if one acts as though one belongs in a place (such as by wearing a white coat and carrying a clipboard when in a lab or hospital), everyone will assume that one does belong there.  In hotels, it’s best to walk briskly through the lobby directly for the elevators as if one had done so many times before (even if she has never been in that particular facility) so as to avoid looking lost and thereby attracting the attention of a helpful staff member who may ask where one is going.  And on those occasions where one has no choice but to ask directions, a smile and a simple question (followed by a smile and “thank you” afterward) arouses no suspicion, while sneaky behavior does.  I told my girls to always keep in mind that they were not doing anything wrong, but simply visiting a business client; they wouldn’t feel guilty if they were a pizza delivery girl or sales rep going to his room, and so shouldn’t in our business either.  It is truly amazing how much our thoughts show in our faces; shame and paranoia create a shifty, furtive countenance, while confidence and self-assurance are equally reflected in one’s face and manner.

In truth, the hotel staff (with the possible exception of overeager security guards) really doesn’t care about escorts; why should they as long as no guests complain?  And unless a girl makes a spectacle of herself, guests are unlikely to notice her any more than they would notice any other pretty woman.  For example, take the Airport Hilton; for some reason I’ve never been able to ascertain we got an awful lot of calls from that one hotel, so many in fact that I was there at least four or five times a week and sometimes more than once in a night.  I had to pass the front desk on the way to the elevators, and it seemed the same night clerk was there every time I passed.  He could not possibly have failed to notice a strikingly beautiful woman passing his desk twice (about an hour apart) nearly every night for almost seven years, and he knew I was neither staff nor guest, yet he never said a word to me or gave me a dirty look.  Why?  Because I walked straight to the elevators and never attracted the attention of any busybodies.  In other hotels the staff actually got to know me; the parking valet and doorman at the Windsor Court always greeted me with a cheery “welcome back!” as though I were a guest, though they well knew I wasn’t.  And the concierges of several hotels would call me when a guest asked for a referral, I’m sure in part because they knew they could rely on my discretion.

The modern mania for security has made some hotels a little more difficult to navigate, especially late at night; some of them require a hotel key-card to activate the elevators, and keep the lower doors to the stairwells locked.  When visiting such hotels one must either piggyback with other guests or call the client to meet one downstairs, which he is often loath to do.  What I always did in such hotels was to glance to the reception desk to see if anyone was checking in; if so I simply lingered in the lobby pretending to read tourist brochures, then nonchalantly walked into the elevator with him and let chivalry take its course by saying “fifteen, please” (or whatever floor I was going to) and letting him swipe the key card and press the button.  If there was no guest about it was a simple matter to use my smile and eyelashes to convince a custodian to use his key, usually without any need for explanation.  Only if the lobby was bare of either guest or custodian did I have to resort to calling the client; I preferred to mystify him with my apparent ability to penetrate doors he knew to be locked at night.  Apartment-complex gates opened by key rather than the usual code could often be passed in the same way, by riding in behind another car, and thus neither annoying the client nor attracting the attention of security guards.

Some calls require being inobtrusive in a completely different way, and these are in my mind the ones which mark the true professional; she is a chameleon who can provide public companionship for a gentleman in any setting as easily as she can provide sexual favors in private.  She must therefore be able to dress, converse and conduct herself as the occasion demands should her client wish to take her to a restaurant, the symphony, a party or any other public event.  In such situations she must perform exactly as a “regular” date would, entertaining her client by her conversation and company and allowing not the slightest sign to any observer that she has been paid to do so.  Call girls, in other words, are the modern equivalent of courtesans.

Alas, since tyrannical laws prevent modern courtesans from openly declaring our calling as our spiritual ancestresses did, blending into the woodwork is even more important in our private lives than in our professional.  Even if a girl is fortunate enough to have the full support of her family and friends (and few do), her neighbors may not be quite so tolerant; unfortunately, the world is full of busybodies who would happily call the police to report any activity which offended their personal biases, and this certainly includes prostitution.   It is therefore imperative that not the slightest hint of one’s unorthodox trade enter the minds of those one is not prepared to trust with the knowledge.  And here, as with the customers, selective honesty is the best policy.  Some girls have a “normal” job as a cover, some invent a mythical job to explain their odd hours, and those who are married simply allow the neighbors to assume that they are housewives.  But except for this one deception, it is best to be as friendly and open with one’s neighbors as is typical in that neighborhood.  As Poe pointed out in “The Purloined Letter”, the best place to hide something is in plain sight.  When people see secretive, suspicious behavior they naturally assume one is hiding something and will usually set out to discover it.  But if one is natural, friendly and neighborly one blends in; if she pets dogs, helps old ladies with their groceries and coos over babies, they will all say, “What a nice young woman that Maggie is!” and overlook her eccentric hours.  In this one way, the stereotypes about prostitutes work in our favor; since everyone knows all prostitutes are diseased, drug-addicted criminals, obviously clean, friendly, good-hearted women can’t possibly be whores.  If prostitution were decriminalized we wouldn’t need to hide, but as long as the authorities insist on promulgating false stereotypes in order to support their oppressive laws we can appreciate the poetic justice that the very falsity of those lies serves to hide us from the laws they were created to support.

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New Film Reviews

Posted in Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2010| 9 Comments »

The following are simply a few new movie reviews which are being incorporated into the filmography page; I realized that if I didn’t call attention to them regular readers who had already read that page would miss them, so I felt it was better to feature them in the column. Besides, it gives me a break from having to write a full essay today!

Doctor Detroit (1983) is an absurd 80s comedy whose heart and head could not be farther apart.  In heart, the movie borrows heavily from Man of La Mancha; Dan Aykroyd portrays a timid university professor with a powerful sense of chivalry who embarks on a Quixotic mission to protect three beautiful hookers from gangster domination by posing as their flamboyant “pimp”, the titular character.  At heart, therefore, the film portrays whores as women just as worthy of love, respect and chivalrous protection as any other woman.  Factually, though, it is populated by the usual silly Hollywood “hooker” and “pimp” stereotypes moving through a ridiculous series of settings and situations which resemble the real lives of whores about as closely as The Blues Brothers resembles actual church fundraising.  But if you’re a Dan Aykroyd and/or 80s comedy fan and can check your brain at the door, you’ll probably find it an amusing way to kill 90 minutes.

Full Metal Jacket (1987) features what must be the most widely-remembered portrayal of a streetwalker in the past several decades, namely the Vietnamese whore who opens the second half by sauntering on to the screen while “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” plays on the soundtrack.  Her “me so horny” and “me love you long time” advertising spiel quickly became standard catchphrases for anyone portraying a stereotypical Asian prostitute, and they were made even more famous when rappers 2 Live Crew sampled the lines for their 1989 hit “Me So Horny”.  I feel compelled to point out, however, that though the hooker’s approach is rendered comical by her poor command of English, it is actually the same strategy employed by many porn stars, sex writers and whores:  The appeal to male fantasy by the pretense that one’s primary motivation is lust rather than profit.

An Indecent Proposal (1993) was, IMHO, an awful, depressing movie; a couple in dire financial straits (Woody Harrelson and Demi Moore) see a way out of trouble when a billionaire (Robert Redford) offers them $1,000,000 to spend one night with the wife.  After some deliberation they agree, and the rest of the movie is nothing but Sturm und Drang as Harrelson’s character is eaten up by jealousy and the ease with which his wife took to whoredom.  Obviously, I’m prejudiced; my husband would never have inflicted emotional torture on me for rescuing our entire economy by one night of work (or even several years of work), but then he’s not a shallow, two-faced dickhead like the husband in the movie.  Another fatal flaw in what could’ve been a provocative exploration of the falsity of the Madonna/whore duality was the way that the edge of the dilemma was dulled by a typical Hollywood reductio ad absurdum; the fee isn’t simply generous, it’s a MILLION DOLLARS; the couple couldn’t just use the money, they’re sunk without it; and the billionaire is played by freaking ROBERT REDFORD, for Aphrodite’s sake!  I daresay few people could’ve declined the offer, no matter what they claim in public, and that totally invalidates the moral dilemma.

Incidentally, the one thing I liked about this movie was that it gave me the opportunity to blatantly state my true feelings about prostitution in a socially acceptable manner; it was the subject of discussion among the women in the library staff room, with most women claiming that they would never take such a deal.  I of course piped up, “I would,” then in response to the scandalized looks I said, “And so would most of you no matter what you say.  You know how much money a million dollars is?  You and your husband could both retire and live better than most people just on the interest.  Hell, most of us would sleep with Robert Redford for free, much less for that kind of cash!”  Of course that speech was greeted with blushes and nervous laughter, because most of them knew I was right.

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) is Norman Jewison’s screen version of the seminal Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock opera released three years earlier.  I review it here because, as in so many popular treatments of the life of Jesus, it portrays Mary Magdalene as a prostitute; in fact, my first encounter with that tradition was in listening to the album at the age of 12.  In the number “Strange Thing Mystifying” Judas takes exception to Jesus’ relationship with her, provoking a musical argument which is followed by “Everything’s Alright”, in which she massages Jesus’ feet with ointment in order to calm him down; later in the film she sings “I Don’t Know How To Love Him”, in which she expresses confusion and frustration over her inability to think of Jesus as dispassionately as she does her clients.  This view of Mary appears to have been influenced by the Gnostic Gospels, except that here it is Judas rather than Peter who argues with Jesus over his treatment of Mary.  The music is just as good as it ever was; personally, I thought Webber was better when he was partnered with Rice but that’s just IMHO.  As for the film itself, well, the fact that it was made in 1973 is amply demonstrated by its hippie-style costumes, minimalist sets and heavy-handed symbolism.  Even so, it’s still worth re-watching if you’re over 40 or enjoying for the first time if you like early ‘70s rock.

Pretty Woman (1990): It’s nigh-impossible to find an internet discussion on this film without at least a few would-be critics complaining that it is “unrealistic”.  This would merely be a case of “No shit, Sherlock” if they actually knew what they were talking about, but they don’t; none of them ever mention that Julia Roberts’ character Vivian is a Hollywood whore who looks like a call girl but acts like a streetwalker.  Nobody talks about how the film makes her only barely a prostitute by saying she’s very new at the job, was pushed into it by extremity and cried through her first call; nor how it cheats by having Richard Gere’s character “accidentally” pick her up rather than simply hiring her.  Few of them even seem to notice that the plot was lifted straight from Shaw’s Pygmalion (on which My Fair Lady was also based); you didn’t think that real-life Eliza Dolittles actually made a living just by selling flowers, did you?  No, these jackasses bray that the film is unrealistic because it doesn’t show Vivian as a pathetic, diseased drug addict who is dominated by a pimp.  In other words, they denounce the film for following Hollywood’s unrealistic stereotypes rather than the ones preferred by governments, neofeminists and bluenoses, and thereby reveal themselves as nothing but opinionated ignoramuses.  It’s a romantic comedy about a hooker made by Disney and you expect cinéma vérité? Please, get a life.

Total Recall (1990) is a science-fiction adventure set in a future human colony on Mars, where prostitution is legal (at least in the red-light district called “Venusville”).  Not only is the heroine Melina (Schwarzenegger’s love interest) a working whore, nearly all of the positive female characters are!  Their brothel is a front for the resistance movement dedicated to overthrowing the evil dictator of Mars, and a number of the girls (including some mutated ones) are active and even heroic members of the resistance (as were many French prostitutes during the Nazi occupation).  In addition to enjoying the clever plot and sci-fi Arnold action, I must admit I really enjoyed seeing the whore cast as the “good girl” and the wife as the “bad girl” for a change!

Whore (1991) was billed as “The dark side of Pretty Woman”, and that is an apt description; where Pretty Woman portrays a sort of Disneyfied Hollywood hooker stereotype, Whore portrays a Ken Russell-ized social purity activist hooker stereotype.  Both characters are supposed to be streetwalkers, both are innocents who fall into bad ol’ prostitution because of hard knocks, and both have to be rescued from their terrible lives by men.  Both films make the typical assumption that most whores are controlled by pimps; Pretty Woman’s Vivian vows never to have one (implying that most others do) and Whore’s Liz is controlled by a rather nasty one (though to the movie’s credit, he’s white and dresses like a businessman).  But while Pretty Woman is a Disney fairy tale with a happy ending in which the heroine is rescued by a handsome prince, Whore is a Grimm fairy tale in which the heroine’s life is one horrible misadventure after another.  I’m sure there really are girls whose lives are as horrible as Liz’s, but for most of us that portrayal is as much a fantasy as Vivian’s life is, despite the opinions of film critics who wouldn’t know a call girl if one sashayed up and kissed them on the nose.

The Wicker Man (1973) has been called “the Citizen Kane of horror movies”, and it certainly transcends its genre.  It would be more precise to say “genres”, because it actually falls into several simultaneously.  To describe very much about it would ruin the experience, so I’ll limit myself to saying that the film portrays a zealously Christian policeman (Edward Woodward) investigating a possible crime on a remote Scottish island which is home to a fully-developed pagan society (ruled by Christopher Lee).  What makes this movie interesting for our purposes is that it contains what is to my knowledge the only positive cinematic portrayal of a sacred prostitute (Britt Ekland), if not the only cinematic portrayal.

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Friday the Thirteenth

Posted in History, Miscellaneous, Perception, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on August 13, 2010| 26 Comments »

Thank God it’s Friday! –  Jerry Healy (American disc jockey from Akron, Ohio)

Today is Friday the 13th, believed by the superstitious throughout much of the Christian world to be a day of bad luck and ill omen.  The superstition is of relatively recent vintage; it seems to have first arisen in 19th century Italy and did not become common in the United States until after it was popularized by a novel published in 1907.  It appears to be the compound of two earlier superstitions that Friday is an unlucky day and 13 an unlucky number; presumably someone decided that given these beliefs, it was only logical to assume that a day which represented both would be doubly unlucky.  Now, most of you are probably asking, “What the hell does this have to do with whores, you silly bitch?”  Patience, dear readers; all will be explained.

1st century copy of one of Praxiteles’ statues of Aphrodite, later desecrated by Christian vandals (note cruciform gouge); the model of the original is believed to have been Phryne.

Friday is the day which in most pre-Christian European cultures was sacred to the goddess of love and beauty; in Germanic myth she was named Freya, hence Friday = Freya’s Day.  The Ancient Greeks called the day hemera Aphrodites (Aphrodite’s Day) and the Romans dies Veneris (Venus’ Day), the latter being the source of the French vendredi, the Italian venerdi and the Spanish viernes.  In ancient European cultures the day was therefore sacred to devotees of the goddess, including whores, but when Christianity started to displace pagan religions ancient traditions had to be either absorbed or destroyed so the new religion could secure an absolute monopoly on belief.  Popular festivals such as Saturnalia, Samhain and Eastre were given Christian meanings (becoming Christmas, Halloween and Easter) so they could be continued, but the old gods were declared to be demons and those who refused to give up their worship were therefore labeled witches, heathens, devil-worshippers, etc.  Since the Christians already had their sacred day there was no need of another, but it would be absurd to declare all other days evil since there were only seven.  Still, the human mind seeks balance; if one day is especially blessed it seemed reasonable to our ancestors that another should be especially baneful.  And there was no better choice to the misogynistic Christian mind than Friday, the one day associated with a goddess (Monday was more associated with the moon as an astrological influence than with the moon-goddess); and not just any goddess, mind you, but the goddess of sex and patroness of whores and other carnal, unsavory, ungodly things!  As if that weren’t enough Jesus was crucified on a Friday, which certainly sealed the deal; by the end of the Dark Ages Friday was firmly established in the popular mind as a day of ill omen, associated with witches and bad luck.  It is mentioned as such in The Canterbury Tales, and the superstitions of many professions (especially those of sailors) held that it was particularly bad luck to start a project or journey on a Friday.

The idea that 13 is unlucky is of uncertain origin, but likely has to do with the numerological fixation of several ancient cultures (including the Babylonians and Chinese) on the number 12.  This fascination was probably due to the fact that twelve is the lowest number with so many nontrivial (i.e. higher than 1) factors; it can be evenly divided by two, three, four and six, which makes it very versatile for subdivision.  Many ancient number systems are duodecimal (base-12) and there are twelve months in a year, twelve hours in a day or night, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve items in a dozen, twelve Olympian gods, twelve Tribes of Israel, twelve inches in a foot, twelve pence to the (traditional) shilling, etc.  Given this obsession with 12, it seems only reasonable that the rational Western mind (inheriting the ancient Greek love of order and balance) should consider the prime number 13, which is the orderly twelve with one disorderly extra unit, to be somehow disreputable or irrational.  But so is 11; why did 13 come to be considered unlucky rather than 11?  The answer, I suspect, lies in the moon.

The moon’s synodic period, that is the time it takes for it to change from one phase back to exactly the same phase again, is 29.53 days, but this cannot be determined without advanced techniques of calculation; most ancients would’ve estimated it at either 28 or 29 days (which, incidentally, is why the week is seven days long; it’s roughly the time it takes the moon to change one phase, a quarter of its cycle).  365 days in a year divided by 28 or 29 comes a lot closer to 13 than it does to 12; expressed another way, the majority of calendar years enjoy 13 full moons, not 12.  This fact must have irritated the ancient mathematicians immensely, because they chose to round the month up to 30 days and then add a few extra days here and there rather than let the regular, masculine year be divided into 13 untidy, feminine months.  I say “feminine” months because in many ancient cultures the moon was viewed as feminine; beside her glaringly obvious association with the menstrual cycle she is changeable, soft and mysterious, unlike the steady, harsh and dependably regular masculine sun.  This celestial “bad girl” even refuses to stay in what men would consider her “proper place”, the night; she sometimes rises before dark, at other times refuses to rise until almost morning, and at the time of the new moon makes no appearance in the night sky whatsoever, instead following the sun about in a most unseemly fashion.  Is it any wonder, then, that the female-dominated witchcraft religion practiced its rites under the moon (away from prying Christian eyes) and used the mystic, feminine 13 (the number of the moon) as the traditional number of witches in a coven?  Unruly, uppity, whorish 13 scandalized the male numerologists in a way timid, docile little 11 never could, and so was doomed to go from merely irrational to thoroughly shunned.

There is another, not-completely-separate tradition associating the number thirteen with misfortune; in Norse mythology, Balder was the favorite of the gods but his untimely death had been prophesied.  His mother, Frigga, therefore extracted an oath against harming Balder from all things in the nine worlds, but skipped mistletoe because it was so small and soft.  Loki, the god of mischief, envied Balder’s popularity and so vowed to cause his death; he used a trick to learn of the overlooked plant and made a magical spear from it, then disguised himself to crash a banquet at which there were already 12 guests.  After dinner the gods made a game of hurling weapons at the now-invulnerable Balder, but his blind brother Hodr was unable to participate; Loki disguised his voice and gave Hodr the spear, offering to help him aim it so he could join the game.  Hodr of course presumed the spear would bounce off like every other weapon, and so was tricked into murdering his own brother.  From this myth grew the Norse belief that it was unlucky to have 13 guests at dinner; perhaps the specific number was even related to the unwelcome 13th lunar guest at the sun’s table.  But whatever its origin, the superstition dovetailed perfectly with the Christian tradition of the unlucky 13th guest at the Last Supper (12 apostles plus Jesus), and when the “13 at dinner” tradition combined with the general discomfort about the number 13, a full-blown superstition was born.

And a powerful superstition it is; triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) is such a common phenomenon that many buildings in Western nations even lack a 13th floor.  The fear of Friday the 13th specifically is called either “friggatriskaidekaphobia” or “paraskevidekatriaphobia”, and is widespread enough to have a interesting effect on the accident rate; ironically, insurance statistics show that fewer accidents of all kinds (including traffic accidents) happen on Friday the 13th than on other days, probably because those who fear the day either stay home or are more cautious when they go out.

Given the origin of beliefs about Friday the 13th, however, even the superstitious whore has nothing to worry about, as I explained to Paula when she once expressed concern about working on the day.  Since Friday is the day sacred to our patron goddess, and 13 the most feminine of numbers, Friday the 13th should be good luck for whores even if it really were bad luck for Christian men.  Now, I’m not really superstitious; I don’t believe that a day can bring either good luck or bad.  But considering that the reasons for fear of this day are so closely related to the reasons our profession is maligned and suppressed, perhaps whores and those who support our rights should make every Friday the Thirteenth a day to speak out in favor of full decriminalization and an end to the institutionalized persecution of prostitutes.  I therefore ask my readers to start a new tradition today; speak out for us to at least one person who will listen, or if you’re not comfortable doing that openly at least make an anonymous post on some other website in defense of us, or containing a link to this column.  Let’s start getting the word out that whores are no different from other women, and that “a woman’s right to choose what to do with her own body” is more than just a euphemism for abortion.

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Nuisances

Posted in The Dark Side, tagged , , , , , , on August 12, 2010| 8 Comments »

If one cannot command attention by one’s admirable qualities one can at least be a nuisance.  –  Margery Allingham

One of the most annoying aspects of owning an escort service is having to deal with nuisance callers.  Many of these are one-time occurrences such as obscene phone callers or strokers (guys who masturbate while listening to girls describe themselves), but others manage to become major annoyances by repeatedly wasting the time and energy of both services and girls they either cannot or will not ever purchase services from.  Some of these nuisances are demented, others are just sleazy and exploitative, and still others are so bizarre that they defy categorization.

The first type is typified by a man I’ll call the Major, a retired and quite senile military officer who lived in a house as decrepit as himself.  When I first encountered him he was harmless; since he was totally impotent he just wanted a girl he could touch and talk to, though his sheer neediness could be a bit off-putting.  The first time I saw him he spent the first forty minutes of the call repeatedly telling me I was beautiful, which quickly went from complimentary to creepy to downright uncomfortable.  But after that he got stranger and stranger; he would try to pay with checks or expired credit cards after claiming on the phone to have cash, and once he physically attacked a girl for no reason she could determine.  Needless to say, no service would even talk to him after that, but luckily he had become so senile that it never occurred to him to change his phone number, and seeing his name on the caller ID allowed us to simply ignore his calls (which never stopped though nobody had answered him for literally years).

Unfortunately, most nuisance callers were much more lucid and changed their telephone numbers often.  Fortunately, they could not change their stripes as easily as their listings, and their distinctive patterns of behavior allowed sharp operators to recognize them no matter what the caller ID said.  The prime example of this type was one we called the Peeper; he lived in a front apartment on a narrow street with another apartment complex directly across the way, and his modus operandi was to ask a girl to come dressed in a miniskirt and high heels, then give her the address of the apartment directly across the street from him.  Clearly he was a voyeur who enjoyed the spectacle of a leggy girl walking around, and he would just sit in his apartment across the way peeking through the blinds (and no doubt playing with himself) while she banged fruitlessly on the door of an unoccupied apartment.  I’m sure he rotated through the various services in an attempt to keep us from getting wise, but two things gave him away; first, despite frequent phone-number changes neither his name (on the caller ID) or address ever changed, and second, he always used a certain stock phrase when describing how short a skirt he wanted the girl to wear: “The more leg I see, the more dollar signs she’ll see.”  It never seemed to occur to him what a dead giveaway this phrase was, because he kept right on using it despite the fact that none of the service owners who were wise to him would ever send a girl after hearing it.  I must admit to having a bit of fun with him on occasion by pretending to be a different girl, describing myself in glowing terms and then of course not going; it amused me to imagine him sitting there behind his blinds awaiting a victim who never showed.

But no nuisance caller in New Orleans was as universally despised as Diaper Man, so-called because he always asked for the oldest woman available and wanted her to treat him like a baby, put diapers on him, etc (he had a particular fixation on Desitin diaper-rash powder).  The first time anyone ever heard of him was when he called my service in the summer of 2000; the call actually went through that time, but I daresay securing a bank loan would have required less effort.  He called repeatedly for days after the appointment was set, obsessively asking the same sorts of questions over and over; I knew he was trying to obtain wanking material, but I wasn’t about to give it to him.  Then there were several monetary delays; though he was in his mid-20s his mother controlled his bank account, which probably explains his perversion.  Eventually we met and I played his nasty little game, but the experience was so draining that I was left exhausted and literally shaking.

That, however, was the one and only time a call from him was ever anything more than an annoyance.  The second time he called I refused to see him, but I referred it to Jeanette, one of my best girls, because she was willing to do domination and other such unusual calls.  I warned her about what a pain it had been to make my date with him go through, but Jeanette (who, incidentally, was a competetive kickboxer and a former US Army sharpshooter) was willing to give it a shot because she had nothing better to do.  Well, she talked to him, then he repeatedly called me back asking for her to call him again.  I did this exactly once, then kept putting him off with “you can ask her that when you meet.”  Only they never did; when she got there he had no money, and I only allowed one strike in that department.  From then on I would tell him off whenever he called until I realized he was enjoying it, after which I simply stopped answering.  Then he called Doug’s agency and Doug called me with it; I explained the situation and he was blackballed from a second agency.

But that was only the beginning; he soon became almost as good at being an annoyance as I am at being a whore.  He must’ve eventually moved out of home and into his own apartment, because about a year after the one completed deal he called from a new number with a disguised voice and only asked for the oldest girl available; I went to the apartment, recognized him immediately and furthermore found that he didn’t even have the money for a cancellation fee.  Obviously, he was hoping I would hurl abuse at him, so I had to resist the temptation (I don’t give freebies!) and just walk away, pulling out my cell phone as soon as I was in the car to let the other friendly agencies know Diaper Man’s new phone number, caller ID name and address.  That stopped him for a few months, but soon there was another number under another name and another fake voice; the only reason we were not fooled was because he asked for the oldest girl available and alarm bells went off.  Obviously I couldn’t assume it was Diaper Man merely because of that request, but a little judicious probing on my part revealed his infantilism fetish and Click!

After that, he made a hobby out of it; he would call from a bewildering array of phone numbers (some were pay phones and I assume others were friends’ phones) using a wide variety of names, and if he had gone into cartoon acting he could’ve made enough money with his different voices to hire as many whores as he wanted.  The one thing he couldn’t disguise, though, was his fetish; even if he sometimes tricked me into getting a girl to call him she would soon call me back with, “Maggie, this weirdo wants me to change his diaper!” and I would know that I had again been fooled by the chameleonic creep.  The only reason I’m not more embarrassed than I am about this is that he never again fooled us for long enough to actually get another girl over there.

Sometimes he would call Doug, whose standard response to him was “There’s not a girl in town who would come to see you even if you had money, you little freak!”  But alas, he was a heterosexual pervert and being abused by a guy didn’t seem to do it for him, which meant he called me much more often since we were the only service in New Orleans at that time whose phone was never answered by a man.  Not even Hurricane Katrina could stop him; though he called less and less frequently as the years went by, we still got occasional calls from the infantile irritant up until the time I retired, and for all I know he may still be up to his old tricks today.

Every experienced whore understands that male sexuality sometimes becomes fixated on a particular idea, image or behavior; the man with such a fetish may be unable to achieve climax without it, and even if he can he might still have a powerful yearning to experience whatever it is he’s obsessed with.  Part of our business is to give men the opportunity to explore these fixations even if other women won’t, and when a man’s fetish is so unusual or extreme that even most whores are repelled by it there are still specialists who will willingly and non-judgmentally cater to his needs.  Nearly any girl would have been happy to cater to the Peeper, and I could’ve referred Diaper Man to half a dozen women who would have helped him, but these cheapskates didn’t want that; what made them and others like them so pathetic and loathsome was that they preferred to steal their pleasure than to honestly pay for it.

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