…light doth seize my brain with frantic pain. – William Blake, “Mad Song”
Truth is like light; it illuminates dark corners and reveals that which would otherwise be invisible. But when one is used to the darkness, bright light can be painful and so some would rather shut out that light (or at least close their eyes to it) than make the adjustment and see things as they really are. What’s worse, some of these confused souls actually cry out for light, but when they are dissatisfied with what it reveals they claim that something must be wrong with the lamp rather than accept the reality it has revealed.
A young man whom I met in my first semester at UNO provides the perfect example of what I’m talking about. He was one of the most singularly unattractive people it’s ever been my misfortune to meet; he had odd, asymmetrical features, a serious case of acne, greasy hair, terrible posture, a high, shrill voice, pungent body odor and irritating mannerisms. As if that weren’t enough, he wore ill-fitting and unfashionable clothes and was wont to show off his high mathematical intelligence. But he was very nice to me and struck up conversations every day when I walked into calculus, and since I was the polite sort of girl who was reluctant to rebuff overtures of friendship he soon attached himself to me, hailing me if he saw me on campus and tagging along after class. He didn’t stalk me or anything (except for one uncomfortable episode where I found him waiting for me in the dorm lobby when I came down in the morning), and he never tried to touch me or ask me for a date or anything like that; he knew I had a boyfriend and just seemed to enjoy being friends with an attractive girl who didn’t tell him to get lost. All my friends got to know him, and though some of them teased me about him they seemed to understand that I didn’t feel it an imposition to be nice to someone who clearly needed my kindness so badly.
Well, one day Ralph (as I shall call him) seemed very moody and pensive as he walked with me back to the dorm, so I asked what was bothering him and he said he needed some advice. We sat down on a bench near the cafeteria where we wouldn’t easily be overheard, and he told me that he was upset because he was still a virgin. I realized that he had lured me into a minefield, but retained my composure and pointed out that as he was only 17 this wasn’t exactly unusual; he replied by saying that he had never even been on a date and girls obviously didn’t like him. I could see two possible directions in which this conversation might be headed and I didn’t like either of them, but he didn’t keep me in suspense long: he asked, “how can I get girls to like me?” I was quite relieved that he had not tried to recruit me to remedy the situation; however, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and neither did I want to lie, so I asked if he wanted an honest answer and when he replied in the affirmative I gave him one, as gently as possible. To my amazement, he didn’t seem hurt or offended by anything I said; he simply countered my constructive criticisms as though they were arguments to be refuted! Finally, I got exasperated and said, “Ralph, if you already know more about female psychology than I do, why the hell did you ask me for advice?”
Unfortunately, Ralph wasn’t really all that unusual; there are a lot of men who admit they don’t understand how women think, yet angrily deny any explanation a woman tries to give them. When the light is turned on in response to their requests and they don’t like what it shows, they denounce the lamp rather than accept what they see, and that brings us to the point of this column. A lot of escorts have “NBA policies”, which means that they won’t see black clients; this is understandably frustrating to black men, and “Why do so many providers refuse to see black men?” is one of the most common thread topics on escort message boards. Virtually every single day at least one person (usually more) finds his way to this site via a Google search on the subject; this is because one year ago today I published a column examining the reasons as they have been explained to me by girls with NBA policies, in conjunction with my own observations. A number of black men have written thanking me for the essay; they wisely realized that the first step to dealing with a problem is understanding it. But others react as Ralph did, angrily denying my statements and insisting that the real reason is “racism”, despite the fact that a large percentage of escorts with such policies are themselves black! A few months ago, I was even forced to take the unprecedented step of closing the comments on that particular column because several black men (who had undoubtedly discovered it by posing the perennial question to a search engine) refused to accept the answer when it was given and decided to get ugly about it. So to them I ask, as I did Ralph, “If you already know more about escort psychology than I do, why the hell did you ask me to explain it?”
I never had a no blacks policy during my hooking career, although it was pretty common among other escorts.
The percentage of my clients that was African American was small, but even so, I did have a higher percentage of bad experiences with them. The one truly frightening experience I had with a client was with a black man. But I found out later, that was the result of a set up by another escort. (Sad story there, she was totally crazy, and ended up a tragedy).
On the other hand, I had some wonderful experiences with black men. So how does one draw the line?
I’m wondering if different working styles affect one’s approach. I didn’t see men under age 25. I did somewhat specialize in rougher sex, “forced” fellatio and the like.
I guess I just never got to the point where I could see clearly the need to extend a policy to an entire race.
Of the three most horrible experiences I ever had with clients, one was white, one black and one Hispanic. So like you, I never reached the point where I felt it necessary to exclude any racial group, though I certainly understood why some girls might choose that.
Hello Maggie,
I would like to say that as a black man, I have seen several white escorts (none black), and though I can’t speak for all black men, and certainly won’t try to, but I think that the reason I choose white is not so much the forbidden fruit theory, but because my circle of friends and opportunity to meet women outside of “escort” interaction is slanted towards meeting black women more. In other words, I find that when I seek a woman for companionship in which I am paying for that companionship, I want to seek out someone that I would not ordinarily come across in a club, bar, or cafe. That said, I do admit that I have always been more attracted to white women, but I also understand that this is a sociological factor in that I was raised in a prodominately white environment growing up, and it wasn’t until I got into my twenties that I surrounded myself with more African Americans on a daily basis. I have dated women of all nationalities and cultures, and I have always felt most comfortable with white women, and again, I think that this is because of where I grew up, and the learned or conditioned expectations of “attractiveness” concerning how I engaged the opposite sex during my adolescent years.
I am very thankful that you wrote the article concerning why some escorts have a NBA policy. It had been something that perplexed me, and while I expected your explanation to be the case, I had no way of really proving it myself. And yes, I have noticed that many African American women in the profession have this policy, and from my experience, more so than white women in the business. I think of it as a business decision, and nothing more. When you work with people in an emotionally and physically intimate setting–whether sex is involved in the exchange or not–then you have to keep yourself healthy emotionally and physically, and not put yourself in situations that will cause harm to your own ability to provide the services offered. While I, as a black man, would like to be given the opportunity to see those that exclude based on color, I cannot call someone that does exclude a racist or even prejudice. It’s just business…and yes, business does hurt and it is personal.
Additionally, while I know escorting is something that is often associated with sex, I think that the very notion of sexual expectation in America, no matter what color, but especially concerning what you describe as the the Supermasculine self-imposed identity that many African American men attempt to live up t–perhaps due to what can be labeled an institutionalized, racist attitude towards themselves, hints at a power struggle whether it is an escort involved or whether it is the first, second or third date. In short, I think all of American society, men and women, are immature sexually, and we use it for the wrong reasons. When I desire to be with an escort, it isn’t because I want sex, it is because I want to be in the company of a woman. Whatever happens after that…well, just happens. I suspect that most men would not share my opinion in this regard concerning escorts, but it is always how I have viewed the service.
In any event, thank you for your article, and your insight into this matter.
You’re welcome, Onyx,and thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts on the subject. 🙂
All kinds of ouchiness with this post, but, it all makes sense.
It is indeed difficult for a man to accept the basic truths unless you become open to the fact that you didn’t design the universe, so how would you know how it’s supposed to work? And how was it working before *you* showed up? So, indeed, I have struggled with some of the truths that I have learned here, but as I have applied them in my life, it’s changed everything. So very painful education, but worth the diploma.
With the black man thing, just ouch. I’m not a woman nor an escort, so I wouldn’t know any of that, but, that’s really a shame. Especially if black escorts themselves have an NBA policy. Wow.
Maybe Maggie answered this in the original column, I probably need to reread it, but I wonder what the source of this bad behavior is for black men…if it’s innate, or learned, or particular to American black men…
Definitely reread the original. It’s clearly learned behavior, peculiar to American blacks; a European escort even commented she’s never seen any such behavior in European black men.
I will, and yeah, one of my best friends is a black guy from London, and he breaks all the stereotypes as well.
Maybe not in “European” Black Men (European Black men are quite a different case from American Black men) – but …
Many European escorts have an “NBA” policy nevertheless. Sometimes that “NBA” policy also applies to Arabs and others from middle eastern countries. German FKK’s are often accused of exclusionary practices against darker skinned races.
But, from all of the hookers I’ve spoken with – no matter where in the world they are – they all pretty much cite your reasoning for the exclusionary policy, Maggie.
As I said in the original column last year, what other reason could there be? Most whores don’t care how old, ugly, fat or whatever a client is, so why should race be an issue? It’s behavior, and nothing else; that’s good news for honest and sensible black men, and only bad news for those with a chip on their shoulders and an overwhelming persecution complex.
TheHumanScorch wrote: “I wonder what the source of this bad behavior is for black men…if it’s innate, or learned, or particular to American black men…”
I have socially met many men in America who are either from Africa or first generation Americans with African parents, and the only ones who display signs of that hyper-macho, misogynistic mentality are the ones who both grew up in Black American impoverished ghettos, and do not have college education. It is culturally learned behavior peculiar to the Black American uneducated lower class male. I should add that almost all of the African men I’ve interacted with are Northern/Eastern Africans, and it may be different with Western/Southern Africans, the groups from whom Black Americans are descended.
Maggie, please do not leave us hanging in suspense: What did you tell this dweeby, mis-shapened, reedy-voiced nerdling he should have done in order to make hot young women want to have sex with him? Or even to tolerate his presence, for that matter. I mean, you already told us why you let him hang around – and it was not because you craved his company.
Sure, he should have learned to use soap and borrowed some fashion sense. But I doubt that is what he disgreed with.
Oh no, that’s exactly what he disagreed with! When I suggested he use deodorant, he insisted he already did; I proposed that the one he was using perhaps disagreed with his body chemistry and he had some excuse for that, too. His response to my suggestion that he wear nice jeans and polo shirts was that he thought his double-knit pants and button-up shirts were more practical. He greeted my suggestion that he see a dermatologist about his skin with the complaint that he had tried everything and nothing worked. If I recall correctly, the only thing I said which he accepted was that he needed a shampoo formulated specifically for oily hair.
He was definitely a piece of work, and actually his story only gets stranger; though it’s not directly hooker-related, it touches on a number of topics I’ve addressed before so I think my readers would be interested. I promise I’ll tell the rest of it in a few weeks. 🙂
PS: I just keep LOLing at “dweeby, mis-shapened, reedy-voiced nerdling!” 😀
That you were kind to a “dweeby, mis-shapened, reedy-voiced nerdling” speaks well of you. Just as there are a distressing number of men who won’t give the time of day to a woman they don’t find boink-worthy, there are far too many women who won’t deign to look at a man who isn’t either Hot Stuff or obviously a Good Provider.
One thing that’s particularly annoying about some of the responses to that original post is that YOU were being accused of racism, when YOU didn’t have an NBA policy!
Yeah, you noticed that too, eh? Telling the truth is enough to get one declared a “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobe”, “blasphemer” or whatever in the minds of those with an axe to grind.
If you do not mind my commenting on something that happened years ago, to people I’ve never met, I think there may have been more at play here than his simply “If you don’t want to know the answer, why did you ask the question?”
By your description of him, in appearance and manners, I’d say there was a pretty good chance that there was more at work in his mind… (Particularly the asymmetrical features suggests there might have been some congenital conditions which you, or even he, were not aware of given when it happened.) His reactions also seem reminiscent of someone on the autistic spectrum; if so, he’s already going to have problems relating to people and your advice might not have made any intuitive sense.
Think of it like this… Say you’re having car troubles, and you ask a friend who seems, based on whatever snippets of conversation you might have heard from them, to know something about cars… And they say, “Well, first you have to circle it three times and sprinkle it with fairy dust.” You’d probably be incredulous, too. The suggestion is so far out of whatever you expected (you might not even know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t that!) that it suggests to you that they’re not being serious. After that, the way you react depends on what kind of person you are, and all the things that go into it. If my suspicions are correct and he was on the spectrum, the most natural reaction might have been to attack this as a logical problem (which he did).
Not saying that’s the best way to approach it (obviously, to us, it’s not. I suspect you know that intuitively; I know it by observation… I can remember a point in my life when my reactions might have been not far removed from his.), just saying that there might have been more going on than you think.
Oh, I’m sure you’re right; as I said to Rum, I’ll do a follow-up on this in a few weeks and you’ll see even more evidence of your theory.
Maggie
Sounds like you gave him fair advice, as far as it went. I was partly making the melancholic point that even if this (type of) guy fixed his hair, smell, posture, and cloths style he still would not be in shouting distance of his real goal. I was never anything like this guy, so I am relying on hear say…, but the rumor is that good, accurate advice on how womens sexual instincts operate is hard to come by – even for the non-Aspergies at that age. Right when they need it the most.
This reminds me somehow of the great scene at the end of “Lost in Translation” where Bill Murray says something to Scarlott Johanson that makes her all happy about never seeing him again (he is going back to wifey) even though they appear to have fallen in Love. But a passing train drowns it out for the audience.
Maybe, just maybe, it was a cosmically cruel joke.
I mean, having some formula of words and expressions that could inspire mutual happiness at moments like that would be very worthwhile. That sort of problem has a way of coming up over and over again in a normal life. And B. Murray appeared to have found the hidden formula. The pretty girl was left beaming as they walked away from each other forever. He had mere words that convert the pain of loss into contentment.
But we were not allowed to hear them
Rum, I believe Sophia Coppola, who wrote and directed Lost in Translation, has no idea what words convert the pain of loss into contentment, which is why she didn’t let us hear the words. The point being, there isn’t really any easy way to overcome the pain of losing someone you love.
As someone who was alone until an embarrassingly late age, I wish I’d had someone be as blunt (nicely) with me as you were with this guy. I wasn’t THAT bad, but looking back, there were a few things I could have done that might have helped my game. Maybe not enough — I was painfully shy. But it couldn’t have hurt. The few times people gave me advice, it was a huge help.
What you said to him was a kindess. Way better than the “you just haven’t met the right girl; there are zillions who’d want to go out with you” bullshit that so many lonely guys hear and unfortunately believe.
Dear Maggie,
I think you are a wonderfully kind person. Not everyone is willing to befriend a man so many find repulsive.
Women are hard to understand. It’s even harder to understand yourself, especially if you never look. I follow Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth lving.
Well, I’ve always had a soft spot for strays and broken dolls. Sometimes it proved rewarding but alas, more often a source of heartache.
I’ve had a similar experience. When in nursing school the students from Ghana and Nigeria, male and female, had dignity and weren’t cynical.
Racial relations here were poisoned by racism. It’s not just the limited (and fiercely opposed) gains AA made after the Civil War, it was the failure of the Reconstruction and then the painful legacy of Jim Crow.
Prior to the 60’s AA prized a good education. In the 6o’s radicals like the Black Panthers wanted action now, education later. I don’t know how it started but AA boys grew up anti-intellectual and stubbornly refused to read books. I live in a section of Boston with about 70,000 people. It covers a lot of ground. It’s predominantly AA. There is not a single bookstore here.
Then there’s the lead paint poisoning AA suffered more than any other group, (sub-lethal lead poisoning causes aberrant behavior , ADD, hostility and more) and the chronic malnutrition many suffered as infants and children. In addition to this many AA don’t want to lose their culture. They’ve already lost it, but never mind, there are scraps worth hanging on to. Since they resist assimilation, they will always be on the outside looking in as newer immigrant groups bound ahead of them, even groups from Africa. Outside the hot spots in Africa the crime rate is very low. The people I met from Ghana and Cameroon and Nigeria were easy going, very friendly, and serious about their lives.
It’s hard to assimilate, even if you want to, when you look different. Take the Irish: as soon as Sean O’Grady learns to drop that Lucky Charms accent, changes his name to John Grade, and never again wishes anybody the top of the morning, why you can’t tell that he’s Irish anymore. And now, everybody wants to be Irish (sort of).
A black guy can talk like Dr. Dre or Dr. Welby, Sean Combs or Sean Connery, and he’s still black and everybody knows it. He can be named George Smith or Barack Obama or, for that matter, Cheng-Gong Lee. A lot of people would think, “that’s a funny name for a black guy,” but nobody would doubt that he is a black guy as soon as they lay eyes on him. I think that assimilation, the way immigrants from Europe do it, is flat out.
Anti-intellectualism is distressingly popular with a distressingly large number of whites. I never thought I’d see the day when candidates for president brag about their bad grades.
“Unfortunately, Ralph wasn’t really all that unusual; there are a lot of men who admit they don’t understand how women think, yet angrily deny any explanation a woman tries to give them.”
The problem with western women now Maggie is that when a man like me makes genuine efforts to understand them so as to have better relationships with them (as I did for 32 years) we are lied to by ALL women to make us better and more compliant slaves.
Now that I know how women REALLY “think” my “relaxionships” with then are FAR better than my marriage EVER was.
I have graduated to “alpha” and I just be my alpha self. Women line up. Its really quite amazing.
I would NEVER ask advice from a woman as to what makes women tick ever again. After 32 years of lies? Why would I do that?
You’re not lied to by “all” women, Peter; many, perhaps, but not all. The idea that all women are in one big monolithic conspiracy against men is just as absurd as the neofeminist dogma that all men are in one big monolithic conspiracy against women (the “Patriarchy”).
Plus alot of those women and their mothers grew up being told that what they really wanted was wrong and given a social message about the things they should want. When social programing is at odds with biological realities advice that bridges the gap is nothing but crap,
Objectivly they may have been lies Pete, but subjectivly the women probably beileved they were telling you the truth about what they wanted and what to do
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ui/use_the_try_harder_luke/
NBA = no Blacks accepted? no Black action? something else??
None of the A-words that come to mind really seem to fit well.