There’s a sucker born every minute. – P.T. Barnum
I understand the desire to believe in fantasies; I really do. I’m 44 years old and I still occasionally daydream about finding a djinni in a bottle; I enjoy science fiction and fantasy stories and movies and even comic books, for goodness’ sake. But if someone offered to sell me a djinni, a future-predicting device or a power ring, I’d make damned sure it worked (under test conditions of my own choosing) before I even considered talking about the possibility of negotiating the transfer of one red cent. Most people, alas, are far less skeptical, and some are so hopelessly credulous that con games, work-from-home offers, pyramid schemes, emails from African bankers and many other scams find enough pigeons to make them worthwhile. Because prostitution is illegal in this country and on the fringes of legality in many others, it has its share of scams; extortionists and practitioners of cash and dash (described in my column of one year ago today) are con artists posing as prostitutes, and whores themselves are often the targets of advertising scams (such as the one discussed in my column of last October 3rd) or attempts to set them up for robbery, rape or abduction. For example, a particularly vile con artist in Florida has been preying on escorts for at least a year now with emails like this one:
Hello, my name is Paul Geary. I’m a partner in A G P (Azoff Geary Paul) we are a management firm that represents various musical artists. One of the bands we rep is Godsmack. The drummer of that band is Shanon Larkin. Shannon has a break coming up from the current tour that the band is on. He will have about two weeks off and is going to S. Florida, to deal w/ a house and a few cars that he recently purchased there. He has been extremely busy and going very hard for the last few months and is looking to take some time to decompress. He actually had wanted me to try and contact you when he was in Houston recently, however there just wasn’t time for that to happen while he was there. Apparently he had saved your info and now has asked me again, to try and contact you to see if you are available, to travel immediately to Florida to spend a few days w/ him there. I cant at this time really tell you exactly how long you would be w/him there, however I can and will guarantee to you, a minimum of two days, w/a very strong possibility of it extending for a longer period of time. That of course will depend on how well the two of you get along. I have to be honest w/ you, and tell you that I do think its a little ridiculous for him to want to fly anyone, (nothing specifically aimed at you personally) across the country for something such as this. As you can imagine there are a bounty of beautiful women in S Florida that I could, (and much more easily for everyone i might add) have make his acquaintance. However he has made it clear that he in fact doesn’t wish to do it this way. He wants to see you, so, since that is his wish, that is what I’ll attempt to do. That is the reason for this very long E mail. I simply wanted to try and give you as much Info on me and my firm so you can do your due diligence and check that this is a real and legitimate offer. So you know we do have a full in house travel dept. that will take care of all your travel arrangements by booking you ROUND TRIP flight, your hotel, as well as your rental car. This will all be booked pre -paid and you will have E Mail confirmations sent to you to. You will then be able check in on line, as well as print out all your itineraries before leaving to go see him. If you are interested and available to see Shannon A.S,A,P, please give me a call @ 561-866-9420 or simply E mail me at this Addy. and let me know. Thanks Paul
The scam attempts to prey on both the girl’s greed and any tendency toward celebrity worship she may have; girls who accept the offer (and I’ve heard of a few) are robbed of money and credit cards and stranded in Florida. Due to criminalization, whores in the United States who fall for such tricks have no recourse, but in Spain prostitution is legal so the victims of this one (as reported in the Telegraph on August 12th) were able to go to the police:
The gang of six based in Fuengirola on Spain’s Costa del Sol made at least €50,000…after persuading some 180 men to pay a joining fee to register as gigolos. The elaborate scam lured men in with advertisements in the national media promising vast returns for wining and dining lonely women. Men…were then asked to pay joining fees of between €200 and €1,000… to be put on the books of “reputable agencies”. But the online agencies were hoaxes and the clients never materialised. Police said the masterminds behind the scam were a husband and wife and her older brother. Three others were arrested for opening bank accounts used to transfer money from the victims for five per cent of the profits. None of those arrested nor those that fell for the scam have been named. Police said they uncovered the network after receiving complaints from different men who said they had never received any work as a result of signing up with the agencies.
As regular readers know there simply aren’t enough women willing to pay for sex with men to keep such an agency in business, but the myth persists (encouraged by Hollywood fantasies like Hung and Gigolos) and when I had my agency I regularly received calls from men who honestly believed there was a market for male prostitutes catering solely to women. And as with every unrealistic fantasy, it was only a matter of time before some sleazy person found a way to take advantage of it.
You know … some scams are pretty clever … and designed to make money.
Other scams are not so clever, fairly tedious to execute … and seem to be designed more for “sadism” than making money.
That Florida scam sounds like the latter … because, it’s just a lot of work for no real guarantee the gal will have much in her purse at all. So this sounds more like pervos getting off on cheating a hooker.
But … you know it does happen the other way Maggie! Can’t tell you how many stories I’ve heard from guys who say … “Yeah, she looked great in the photos in her ad – but she didn’t look anything like that in person. What was I going to do? Tell her she was ugly and she needed to leave? No, like a schmuck – I closed my eyes and paid her!”
No … that never happened to me – really.
Take a look at the linked post, “Bad Girls”.
I had this happen – just picked the wrong one. I salved my conscience by paying a “cancellation fee” of $50, and walked. Always be willing to walk.
I got a similar email a year ago when I was still actively advertising under my work name (in transition now). Between the grammatical errors and the lack of most of the information I requested so I could screen made me: 1) laugh heartily; 2) wonder what poor girl will fall for it; 3) delete. Beyond this scam aimed toward escorts, I’m sure there will be more sophisticated scams appearing in inboxes as a lot of people are hurting financially and are desperate for relief.
I’ve heard that out in Nevada, a male prostitute wasn’t able to make a living as a heterosexual prostitute in a legal brothel. Most male prostitutes are homosexual prostitutes. Of the male prostitutes who engage in heterosexual sex with females, most probably have to engage in homosexual sex with men too which would make the majority of male prostitutes homosexual, the second largest contingent bisexual, with almost no male heterosexual prostitutes. Even for homosexual and bisexual male prostitutes, there is no where near the demand as there is for heterosexual and bisexual female prostitutes. Of these male prostitutes, I reckon most are the “CATCHER” and not the “PITCHER”.
.The truth as you stated before is most women never need to pay money for sex. Women need to be realistic about their prospects because they can not not get every man they want even for SPORT SEX. Women can also get a better man or at least a much more physically attractive man than themselves for SPORT SEX easily without paying money, but that doesn’t mean they can get these higher ranked men for COMMITMENT or a LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP or even GENUINE ROMANTIC LOVE from such said men; yet, many women never understand this in this day and age which is your true worth to men is not determined by how many men or what quality of men want to have sex with the woman, but how many men are willing to have a long term romantic committed relationship with a woman. To be honest there are no where near as many male strippers as female strippers too. The market be it legal or illegal says it all, and all you need to know.
You are also correct that too many men think they could be sex workers when the reality is they are simply not handsome enough. The threshhold for what women consider a physically attractive man is simply and astoundingly higher than what men consider is a physically attractive or pretty woman. I remember reading a study of the internet in which both university aged men and women were shown pictures of university students of the opposite sex. Men found 80% of the women physically attractive, and women found only 25% of the men physically attractive. Noone knew who the people in the pictures were before they saw the picture. Five percent of the Men were viewed as extremely physically handsome, 10% as moderately handsome, and 15% as mildly hansome by the women. Twenty percent of the women were viewed as extremely pretty by the men.This is with young adults where they are at their most physically attractive be they men or women, and people don’t get any prettier physically speaking as they get older. I hope I remembered this article correctly because I don’t know where to find it now, but it’s still giving one a more or less accurate picture of how men and women think.
Most men also don’t understand that they don’t have enough seduction skills or “GAME” to successfully seduce most women for sex in which no money is exchanged. It’s even much more difficult to seduce the woman if she is going to pay the man money for sex. The corrallary is it’s much easier for a woman to convince a man on average to pay money for sex. There’s a reason why most sex workers be they prostitutes, strippers, hostess”Juicy girls” etc. are females and not males. It’s much more difficult for a man to seduce a women after initially meeting here than for a woman to seduce a man for sex. The Corrallary is that the threshhold for a man doing something percieved as wrong or stupid by the women in the initial seduction for sex is lower than vice versa. The reason for this is based on evo psych in which eggs are expensive and sperm is cheap. I’m sure you can think of some of the reasons why.
OOPS! I meant that only 10% of the men were viewed as mildly physically handsome by the women
Personally, I miss that “Gigolos” show…I watched it and found it to be HILARIOUS. So stupid. In every way.
But I do like “Hung”. It’s very silly, but it also never claims to represent reality.
And I totally want a power ring. And for the record…Alan Scott is the one true Green Lantern. Although I doubt I can get a geek fight going on this board…it is always fun to try.
No, it’s Hal Jordan. Really.
It all depends on the geekdom in question. Anything about Superman (and Smallville by extension), Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Torchwood, or A Song of Ice and Fire, I’m all for it!
You mean that rich male prostitute from Nigeria who offered to sell me that power ring might not be on the up-and-up? Damn, wish I hadn’t given him my credit card number. 🙁
And I thought Nigerians were implicitly trustworthy.