Narrative prose is a legal wife, while drama is a posturing, boisterous, cheeky and wearisome mistress. – Anton Chekhov
Anti-whore activists like to claim we have more than our fair share of drug addicts, thieves, women who were abused as children, women who are unhappy with their work, women who feel trapped in the job, etc; it is unlikely that any of this is true. While there are certainly druggies, dishonest practitioners, neurotics and misfits among our number, I doubt we have any more than any other profession and possibly fewer than some. But there is one type of woman whom I certainly believe we have more of than any other profession except for stripper, actress and singer, and that is the drama queen.
Why should this be? Well, explosive overreaction to conflict or disappointment isn’t unusual among teenage girls; many of us (myself included) tended to wildly exaggerate the importance of everything when we were 13 or 14. Every crush is “love”, every pimple is a disaster, every argument with one’s parents induces screaming and every Saturday night without a date is the end of the world. But most of us learn to control such histrionics as we get older, and most who don’t learn by the end of high school are forced to learn when they enter the work world. A drama queen is one who is so self-absorbed that she just can’t take the hint, and goes on imagining that she is the star of her own movie and that everyone else are just supporting characters. The reason our profession has more than its share of such prima donnas should be obvious; without a rigid work framework under a “boss” there is nothing to discourage a woman with drama queen tendencies, and the freedom, good money and being the center of the undivided attention of adoring males can turn even an ordinarily levelheaded girl into a diva. Though I am usually quite self-possessed, even I tended to be more labile and impatient when I was working, so I can only imagine how escorting can go to the head of a young woman who finds herself a “star” for the first time.
This of course flies in the face of neofeminist propaganda about prostitution; a woman who is “degraded” and “humiliated” does not behave like a spoiled pop star. No, such a woman becomes meek and submissive, which as just about anybody can tell you hardly fits the profile of the average hooker. Even those of us who do not ascend the drama throne tend to be steel magnolias, iron hands in velvet gloves, whose soft, sweet, yielding veneer vanishes in a heartbeat if we’re sufficiently provoked. But the good customers never get to see that in call girls or escorts of quality, whereas anyone who has ever visited a hooker board has seen the (usually but not always) young drama queens in action. And it’s even worse behind the scenes; in dressing rooms of strip clubs, offices of escort services and female-only areas of escort boards these girls are free from even the most minimal constraints they must adopt in order to avoid offending men, and it becomes a huge Kabuki performance. Every bad customer is Satan, every slow week is the Great Depression, every spotty review the end of her career and every publicized bust of a streetwalker the beginning of a pogrom. Older and wiser ladies avoid fanning the flames, but unfortunately drama queens encourage each other so the melodrama never ends and Chicken Little never shuts up.
Alas, it’s part of what we have to deal with; funny how the things the general public (not to mention prohibitionists) imagine to be our biggest problems are not the things we have to worry all that much about. If anything, I think the single largest cause of stress among escorts comes from clients failing to respect our personal boundaries. There are many forms of this, all bad: Asking improper questions, failing to call or show up, attempting to negotiate price, trying to do things to a girl she clearly doesn’t like, attempting to change the rules or reverse the relationship (“But I want to give you pleasure!” or “What do you want to do?”), spying, stalking, prying into her personal affairs…these are the things which upset, worry and embitter most whores, not the “terrible humiliation” of giving a guy head. A friend of mine recently sent me this link; though it is exaggerated for humorous effect and overly dramatic and hostile (unless she has a lot more bad customers than I ever did), every complaint she makes (other than those which apply only to touring girls) is one every hooker has encountered at one time or another, and some often. I disagree with her on a couple of points (refusing to take the money in your hand directly will NOT protect you from arrest, sugar, and drinking with a client is far more dangerous than BBBJ), but otherwise she covers a lot of the same ground I have in various places, especially my Advice for Clients column. And her extended restaurant analogy at the end is both hilarious and dead on target.
In a similar vein…
Whores have no monopoly on histrionic behavior nor, apparently, men on aggravated sexual assault. Here’s the exception that proves the rule, reprinted from The Smoking Gun:
Meet Melissa Lee Williams. The West Virginia woman, 41, is facing assault and weapons charges after allegedly waving a knife at two men who declined her demands to engage in sexual conduct at a West Virginia motor inn. The October 22 incident is detailed in an amusing/gross Jackson County Sheriff’s Department report excerpted here.
According to investigators, Williams–who lives four doors down from her estranged husband at the 77 Motor Inn–showed up at his door and asked Danny Williams and another man to “eat my pussy.” At this point, Williams, pictured in the mug shot at right, “commenced to undress herself,” reported Deputy Ross Mellinger. While Danny Williams “declined said invitation,” the other man, Adam Watson, told cops that he “agreed to perform at her request.” However, as Watson approached Williams, “he became overwhelmed by horrible vaginal odor emitting from Melissa Williams.” Watson, understandably, “declined to proceed any further.” This is when Melissa Williams allegedly “produced a lock-back folding knife,” opened it, and pointed the weapon at her estranged husband. She then reportedly uttered a line never before memorialized in a police report: “Somebody is going to eat my pussy or I’m going to cut your fucking throat.”
When Deputy Mellinger arrived on the scene he observed Williams–who, like the two men, appeared to be intoxicated–nude from the waist down. After pocketing a knife that was on the coffee table in front of Williams, Mellinger arrested her for domestic assault and brandishing a deadly weapon. Williams, who was released from jail after posting $3000 bond, is next due in Jackson County Magistrate Court on February 16.
If this nasty woman had actually managed to hurt someone this might not have been funny, but as it is I find it hilarious. Please, let’s not have any whining about “sexual assault not being funny just because a woman does it to a man”; Mr. Watson was perfectly happy to submit to her demand until prevented from doing so by her improper feminine hygiene, and considering the drunkenness of all involved parties and the fact that she put the knife down before the cops arrived (and who called them, anyway?), I hardly think she ever constituted a credible threat except to the men’s olfactory health.
Another Column on Sex-Worker Rights
This commentary on the introduction of sex-worker rights to the recent UN Human Rights Council is another example of the turning tide of public opinion; though it’s easy to read between the lines and see that Michelle Chen is personally uncomfortable with the idea of sex work, she still recognizes that whores have human rights and deserve protection from the abuses inherent in prohibition. She may wish our trade would vanish, but she has the intellectual sense to recognize it won’t and the moral sense to recognize that “The work itself may represent realities that people find immoral or disturbing. But the people doing the work are more than mere proxies in a culture war; they’re human, and that alone entitles them to equality before the law.” Even more heartening are the replies, which (except for a few token cranks) are overwhelmingly anti-prohibitionist.
I’m curious about how women in the anti-prostitution movement think about sex. The standard answer for how women feel about sex (generally speaking, of course) is that they like it and tend to prefer an emotional attachment to the other party, etc, etc.
What I can’t understand is how the introduction of money immediately makes the experience, not only unenjoyable, but makes the woman a victim of exploitation or even rape.
What the fuck is it about money that gives it that power? Is it the idea that selling sex necessarily means doing it with someone they don’t know?
The more I think about it, the more I’m starting to think that these crusaders against prostitution are really repulsed by sex. I would tend to think that having sex with someone you don’t know would be something you get used to before long, and the most common downside to the work would be boredom.
There is some attitude that anti-prostitution crusaders have in common that makes tolerance toward prostitution impossible. It’s like they haven’t quite made the transition out of the era where women were commonly presumed to dislike sex. So was that attitude back then pretended or is the current attitude that they do like sex pretended?
You’ll notice I don’t even consider the idea that anti-prostitution crusaders are out to save children.
Women in the prohibitionist movement clearly dislike sex, at least with men; many of them are probably closet lesbians and the rest are among the 20% of American women who consider sex a “necessary ordeal”. I would bet that their “almost all prostitutes were sexually abused as children” statistic is actually a case of projection, and that almost all prohibitionists were sexually abused as children; it would account for their hatred of men and sex.
Of course most women like sex, but because we can only get pregnant once a year Nature has designed us to be far more selective about our partners while males are designed to spread their seed far and wide. The upshot of this is that most women will not have sex just to have sex; there’s nearly always some other factor like love, money, social pressure, friendship, self-esteem, pity, gratitude, etc. And because the female drive to copulate isn’t as strong as the male, it’s easier for sexual trauma (or social brainwashing) to destroy it completely, whereas in men trauma or brainwashing tends to warp the drive rather than destroying it.
The radical ones clearly state, repeatedly, that heterosexual sex is violence against women. The less-radical ones take that statement to mean that all PAID heterosexual sex is blanket violence against women.
I’m not sure how any of them think they arrived on this planet.
XX
I’ve often wondered that myself. 🙁
An interesting take. The real “trafficked sex slave” won’t act like the latest tabloid darling. It’s difficult to know what a trafficked sex slave really acts like, though, because they are so hard to find. With all the hundreds of thousands that we are assured are out there, you’d think we’d find more of them.
Some time early next year the GF and I will be watching Born Into Brothels, and that will be interesting. I’ve already seen the episode of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit! dealing with prostitution, and that I recommend.
OK, I just read the “If They Only Knew” thing. I can certainly see that, if I’m number six today, I’m probably not going to rock her world. Seeing as I’m not actually her boyfriend, I probably won’t rock her world even if I’m the first and only of the day.
I was a little put off by this: “~…But surprisingly, Yes! I DO want you to cum all over my (fill in the blank). Just get it over with already.
~You really want to know how you can please me? Get on top of me, finish really fast, give me a big tip, and leave 40 minutes before your time is up. Wow, that would be amazing.”
Excuse me, but what the hell am I paying $300 for? AND the $150 for the hotel room? I don’t believe that the fact that I’m paying money should mean that I can do any damned thing I like to you, no matter how unpleasant. I’m not a jerk, really I’m not. And yes, I understand that “one hour” means I need to be out the door in sixty minutes or less. If I need more than an hour, I should say so up front and pay for the extra time. That’s only fair; that’s only right.
But please understand that money doesn’t grow on trees, and forgive a man if wants to get $300 worth (and maybe he’ll expect the other $150 worth from the hotel, in stunning views or something).
Well I did say she was excessively hostile, but I must admit that whenever a guy would ask “What do you want?” I did think of something very like that, but not nearly as mean. I think it’s just impossible to explain to a man how annoying that question really is; as she said in her restaurant analogy, it’s like the customer taking the waitress’ apron and note pad, making her sit down and then trying to take her order. The question can’t be answered honestly, so why ask it in the first place?
As for the hotel, though, that writer is a touring escort; she sees clients in her own hotel room.
I read that page a few years ago and agreed with everything. Most clients do not elicit the same response from me as her, but yes, when a guy continues to pester me about what I want and how much he wants to “pleasure” me, I really just want to take his money and leave. It’s the world’s biggest turn-off and takes away any and all genuine, spontaneous pleasure I might actually have.
Or guys who say this are impotent and what I really want is to be fucked into the mattress. What exactly should I say in THAT situation??? The truth won’t fly but I don’t feel like getting my clit chewed on either. It’s really a question clients should never, ever ask. Much better to ask her to do something FOR you — like more head or a massage or dirty jokes.
XX
Yes, exactly! It’s such a conflict of interest that it removes the pleasure I get from doing my job. Even in unpaid sex I’m a “pleaser” and care much more about my partner’s pleasure than my own, so if the guy says the same thing it has the potential to turn into a “Goofy Gophers” thing:
“You go first.”
“Oh, no, you go first!”
“No, no, I insist!”
“Oh no no no, please, you go!”
Ick. 🙁
OK, my bad on hotel then. And, it explains something I forgot to ask about: the whole she only keeps 50% thing. I was wondering what the hell agency she works for, since I’ve learned (from you) that the agency typically keeps something closer to 34% and not half. Well, if the agency keeps 34% and she pays for the hotel room, she’s lucky to have 50% left, which would be enough to make anybody cranky.
As for taking the waitress’ order… she doesn’t eat with me. If I’m going to some restaurant where she brings me my meal and then eats it with me, it’s pretty natural to ask her “so do you like arugula?” If the menu has been designed so that there’s nothing on it she hates, or if she genuinely doesn’t have any strong likes or dislikes, or she anesthetizes her taste buds so that she’s fine with liver and hominy puree, well hopefully I’ll learn that after the third or fourth time dining there.
But the first couple of times, I’m not an old hand at this, and I’m not trying to be an asshole, I’m trying to be considerate. So please, Miss Waitress-Who-Dines-With-Me, cut me some slack for not knowing your business as well as you do.
That’s not directed at you, Maggie. Your blog here is teaching me how this restaurant works, and you’re managing to keep the bitchiness to a minimum. It’s possible that I’ll be able to afford this meal some day, and I’ll be glad to have gotten the information.
A third was typical for New Orleans, but of course I don’t know the norm elsewhere. I seem to remember hearing that the agency involved in the Spitzer scandal charged 50%, and agencies which arrange travel probably do as well.
Well, the analogy isn’t perfect. But as I tried to explain to clients who would listen, “What’s the point of hiring a girl if you just have to go through the same bullshit as you do on a standard date?” I’m there to serve his needs, to give him his fantasy. As Amanda pointed out, there’s a very good chance he won’t even be able to give me what I like, so when he asks “What do you want?” it forces me to lie and if I give in to “But I want to please you!” it wastes valuable time that would be better spent in my satisfying him. The latter statement also has submissive undertones, and I’ve already said how I feel about submissive men. 🙁
Agencies across the country regularly take 40-75%. I’ve never heard of a 30% agency!!! Guess maybe I should explore NoLA more.
Some agencies pay for the hotel room for touring escorts (I’ve asked), some do not. If an indie is touring, she is DEFINITELY paying for the room.
XX
75%! No wonder some people conflate agencies with pimps! I can’t speak for present-day NOLA, but in my day the going rate there was $300 and the agency got $100. I’ve heard of some midwestern agencies that take only $50 in a town where the girl gets $200, but those were anomalous.
Okay, my actual comment on this piece: I was howling with laughter all the way up to your last sub-heading. So very, very right on. Discussion board escorts especially never seem to have gotten past high school. They make strippers look boring.
“Kabuki theatre” LOVE it!
Have you read “Coats for Cunts”? Same thing.
http://caseydancer.livejournal.com/63787.html
XX
LOL! And the same for “Coats for Cunts”! 😀
I guess I’m not a “real professional” since I also strive for my own pleasure as an escort. I also think it’d be quite different if I had more than one client each day, but as I charge about 300 per hour and keep it all, I have the luxury of only seeing a few clients a week, and thus always enjoying the meeting and still earning quite well. Also, it depends if someone is pestering me the whole time about “what do you like” even after I have suggested something or if we then simply let it flow.
I wouldn’t say that, Sina; there’s nothing wrong with striving for your own pleasure as long as it doesn’t actually interfere with that of your client! The important thing is that you do what works for you and keeps the clients happy, and if that’s the same thing I would say you have the best job in the world! 🙂
Ms McNeill, like Barsoom above I’m a little nonplussed at the idea that clients’ attempts at actually pleasuring prostitutes would be so poorly received. And here is why. (I hasten to add that, since I’ve never worked as, or hired, a prostitute, my thoughts are hypothetical. I’ll accept your judgment as someone with experience that I don’t have.)
It seems to me that some (many?) of the ‘but-I-want-to-pleasure-you!’ clients (leaving aside those who are sexually submissive — they’re a different brand) may actually be men who would like to have a more traditional girlfriend but for some reason are not good at that. Maybe they’re too ugly, or too poor in social skills. But they may still have feelings and actually want some kind of human contact with their paid sexual services… something they may not be able to get elsewhere.
In such cases, I wondered: why not simply lie? Instead of being annoyed by the question, why not have a quick answer — say you like something that is fairly easy to do, so even an unexperienced, socially challenged client wouldn’t find it hard to do — and then fake it? You would, after all, be taking care of HIS needs (which you said was the point of the transaction) — specifically, his need to see himself as capable of pleasuring a woman. Would this really be much worse than giving him the traditional blowjob or penetrative experience that one usually expects from a prostitute?
I’m honestly curious.
Most of us do have such a stock answer, and are capable of delivering it convincingly (mine was “I love having my tits sucked on”). But it doesn’t change the fact that prostitutes are human beings as well, and there is a tiny bit of resentment at being forced into such a lie. Such resentments may never be visible to the customer, yet subtly affect the lady’s performance. Also, if the customer doesn’t like whatever it is the girl claims to want, for him to engage in that activity distracts him from the ultimate goal of achieving orgasm and may even turn him off. That’s why mine was tit-sucking; it’s pretty universally safe and won’t usually hurt even if done badly.
What you men don’t understand is that we see the problems such role-reversals cause every week, several times a week, and therefore dread them just as you might dread the arrival of a beloved relative who always asks embarrassing questions, gives your kids candy before meals and overstays her welcome. 🙁
I understand (now) why working girls would rather guys not ask the “how can I give you pleasure?” question, and even why they get tired of it. If I ever have the opportunity to enjoy the services of a prostitute, I won’t ask it.
I’m still taken aback by the way this question seems to be not just inconvenient, or even annoying, but genuinely offensive. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve managed to offend a woman and couldn’t quite understand how or why. Still, once I’ve figured out what I did wrong (the fact that I don’t magically know seems to also be offensive), even if I don’t quite get it, I try to avoid doing it again (I only offend on purpose in special circumstances).
I wouldn’t go so far as to say “offensive”, Sailor; just very annoying. In the psyche as on the body, rubbing repeatedly against a sensitive spot eventually starts to hurt.
Well, I guess I can see that too. I’m reminded of Papa Smurf leading the other Smurfs on a long journey. The first six Smurfs who ask, “Is it much farther, Papa Smurf?” are each assured, “No, it’s not far now.” The seventh is told, “YES, IT IS!!”
That smurf was probably wondering, “What the smurf did I do?”
Now, on the topic of submissive men… you said in another post (or comment, I can’t remember) that you are OK with domming a submissive guy even though it does nothing for you (‘money is money’), but you’d never let him penetrate you afterwards. That aroused my curiosity: why not? I mean, suppose a submissive guy did ask for both things: money is still money, and if you’d be OK with penetration and domming as separate acts, why would combining them be unthinkable?
Just curious, again. You have a great blog, by the way. I’m glad I found it.
Thank you! 🙂
It’s because as I said in my reply above, whores have feelings, too. It is simply too psychologically uncomfortable for me to allow a submissive man on top of me; I find it humiliating and degrading, and despite what prohibitionists claim I have no desire to feel degraded by clients. Being “topped” by a sub is way outside of my comfort zone.
You must understand that I have nothing against submissive men socially, just as heterosexual men have nothing against other men socially; in my later career (when I stopped doing domination at all) I simply referred such requests to other girls and if pressed said “I’m not really good at that,” so as to indicate that it was my issue and not his. But domination is so far outside my own sexual desires that doing such a session is a total act, with nothing at all of me in it, and as I said in my column of July 24th I prefer to be as honest as possible with my customers.
“Ms McNeill, like Barsoom above I’m a little nonplussed at the idea that clients’ attempts at actually pleasuring prostitutes would be so poorly received. And here is why. (I hasten to add that, since I’ve never worked as, or hired, a prostitute, my thoughts are hypothetical. I’ll accept your judgment as someone with experience that I don’t have.)”
Color me nonplussed as well. I have hired many prostitutes and I like to think that I am very aware of their humanity. If I can do something, anything so they are more comfortable I will.
If I am doing something, anything that causes them discomfort and they tell me, I will stop. I usually begin telling them exactly that.
The irony is that I have managed to do the exact opposite of what I intended.
Maybe I do need a girlfriend.
No, no, dear; saying “If I do anything that bothers you, please stop me” is vastly different from “I want to please you”. Vastly different.
Thank you. You are so kind.
But I still like to please.
And that’s fine when the transaction is mutual. But a whore is there to provide you with service, and guessing games complicate her job unnecessarily.
What survival advantage is given by having sex on the basis of pity? Obviously this behavior *exists*, but unless there is some serious benefit derived by it (like calming down marginal males on the periphery, lest they unite and war against the tribe),,, it would just be weakening the gene pool.
As for reversals, it does sound very strange to me, trying to change a professional service into amateur hour. This seems to be less common in countries where prostitution is treated as a normal job.
>I’m a little nonplussed at the idea that clients’ attempts at actually pleasuring prostitutes would be so poorly received.
Lord have mercy, Asehpe, I pity your girlfriends! Even non-prostitutes get tired of men fretting constantly about whether they are enjoying themselves. How can a woman enjoy herself if she is being made to feel so self-conscious? It’s some pesky waiter hovering over you and constantly wanting to know if there’s anything he can do to make your meal more enjoyable. It’s the worst sort of selfish egotism, selfishness disguised as concern for the other person.