I often receive emails from readers asking for answers or advice, and I try to answer every one of them as thoroughly and promptly as possible. Many of them have found their way into Q & A columns, and some have inspired full columns on their own; this particular example was, I think, interesting enough to deserve such a treatment. I’ve condensed the reader’s letter and removed some facts in order to protect his privacy, but my response is essentially the same as the one I sent him personally.
Hi Maggie, I wandered into your blog because I was researching if being a working girl has a negative effect in your psychological make-up. I have read in multiple articles that it gives you post-traumatic stress syndrome. Here’s my situation: I am a young guy who lives in a particularly conservative country and I don’t have much experience with women; in fact I’ve only ever had sex with working girls. Recently, I met a very pretty 19 year-old girl and after our “date” I spent more time with her just drinking, so I got to learn a little more about her. She shared some intimate details of her life with me, and it seems that prostitution was not a desperate or coerced decision for her; she enjoys the economic freedom of being able to buy anything she wants. The next time I saw her she seemed more vulnerable; she drank more, revealed her real name and told me that one of the reasons she got into prostitution was looking for love and attention that she never got from her parents. She kept saying that if her father ever accepted her back that she would leave this lifestyle, but didn’t say the reason for the rift. I think she has a lot of “whore guilt” and is trying to drink it away. So I have four questions:
1) How do I convince her to walk away from this life? I believe it really does have a traumatic effect on 99% of the women who engage in it. It is like forcibly going against your programming which would definitely cause some undesirable effect with your psychology, especially at such a young age.
2) Should I even try to convince her? After engaging in this type of work for a significant amount of time, would she be able to walk away from it, knowing that it would lead to a more difficult life?
3) If I shouldn’t convince her, what can I do to help her protect her psyche?
4) Should I just walk away? Is my line of thinking just too naïve? Am I sticking my nose into something I shouldn’t? Is it possible that she is just playing me? I want to help her but I am afraid that maybe I can’t.
The idea that prostitution causes PTSD was developed by anti-prostitute neofeminists like Melissa Farley and has absolutely no basis in reality; in fact Farley’s claim to be able to diagnose PTSD via questionaire is one of many gross ethical violations named in a recent complaint to the APA filed by a psychologist in New Zealand, which petitions for her membership to be revoked for her dishonest, unprofessional and bigoted behavior.
Prostitution is a job like any other; some women love it, some only like it, some merely tolerate it and others dislike or even hate it…but the same could be said of teaching, housewifery, nursing, office work or anything else. But even in the cases where a whore hates what she’s doing, it isn’t the fault of the work but rather the fact that she is not suited to it. Women with strong guilt complexes over sex, those with weak personalities, those who have low emotional barriers or those who have listened to far too much anti-whore propaganda should not be doing this kind of work, because they aren’t right for it and it isn’t right for them. In fact, a lot of the “horror stories” you read are spread by women who should never have entered hooking but did (for whatever reason) and had a bad experience which they then exaggerated in their minds as people are wont to do.
With all that in mind, let’s look at your questions:
1) Prostitution is not “going against programming” for any woman; it’s the most natural thing in the world. Take a look at my column “How Old is Oldest?” and make sure you read the links as well. While as I said above, formal prostitution is wrong for some women, it’s not because of biological programming but rather cultural programming (or just personality type). It’s definitely not bad for most women who choose it freely; as explained in my column “Out of Context”:
A 2005 study…[reported] that 97% of California escorts surveyed reported an increase in self-esteem after they entered harlotry, compared with 50% of Nevada brothel workers and 8% of streetwalkers (Prince, 1986: 454). That study (page 497) also reported that the escorts saw their work positively, while the brothel girls were merely satisfied and streetwalkers were largely dissatisfied. Another study of low-end escorts in the U.S. found that 75% of them felt that their lives had improved since becoming escorts, 25% reported no change and 0% said their lives were worse. (Decker, 1979: 166, 174). A Dutch study (Dalder, 2004: 34) gave the same results, and all of the escorts studied by Foltz (1979: 128) took pride in their work and viewed themselves as more sensible than amateurs; “they consider women who are not ‘in the life’ to be throwing away woman’s major source of power and control [sexual capital], while they as prostitutes are using it to their own advantage as well as for the benefit of society.” And an Australian study found that half of all prostitutes surveyed ranked their work as a “major source of satisfaction” in their lives, and 70% said they would definitely choose prostitution again if they had their lives to live over (Woodward et al., 2004: 39)…[another study]…reports that 72% of escorts feel their self-esteem is higher because of their work…
2) You most definitely should NOT try to convince her of anything. Suggesting that a sex worker needs to be rescued is highly presumptuous, because it is based on the premise that she is incompetent to make decisions for herself or to take care of herself. As I explained in “The Rescuers”, lots of people want to “rescue” us, and most working girls are mightily sick of it; even when the intentions of the would-be “saviors” are sincere, they never have any actual, feasible plan for supporting these “poor victims” after they’re “rescued” in anything like the style the girls can support themselves. And when the “rescuers” abduct women by force in the name of “saving” them from their own choices, the results are highly predictable. Since you recognize that quitting prostitution would make your lady friend’s life more difficult, why on Earth would you want her to do it?
3) You can’t do that, either, except by offering her a sympathetic ear if she wants it. Based on what you’ve told me it seems that her emotional problems have nothing to do with prostitution, but rather a poor family life (and obvious Daddy issues). In other words, she’d probably be drinking, looking for male attention via promiscuity and burdening herself with guilt no matter which job she did…only she’d be making a great deal less money. Surely you don’t want to add poverty to her other problems?
4) Your thinking is indeed very naïve, but you are the only person who can decide whether you should walk away. All relationships involve risk; allowing oneself to care for someone else exposes one to emotional injury, but that doesn’t mean one should avoid opening up to others. There’s nothing wrong with a client becoming friendly with a whore, though I would advise caution in allowing his feelings to go beyond friendship unless he is an excellent judge of character and honestly comes to believe he might have a chance with her. As my marriage proves, it’s possible for a client/hooker relationship to develop into a truly intimate one, but that is rare and takes two mature, well-balanced individuals. If you feel a genuine sense of friendship for this lady as a person and not merely a fascination with her as a prop for a white-knight fantasy, you might be able to help her work through some of her issues by listening, caring and supporting whatever decision she makes even if you don’t like it. But yes, it’s also possible that she’s playing you to keep you coming back, and even more likely that there’s nothing you can do for her; in either case you may get hurt, perhaps seriously.
One Year Ago Today
“Not So Different” reports a case of a rapist using a sugar daddy website to lure a victim, and the interesting way in which the story was covered in the media.
To the writer of the letter,
Unlike Maggie, I have no direct experience of the “hobby” lifestyle, nor have I paid for sex – yet. Who knows about the future. In truth I’ve debated finding a working girl and hanging out with her (paying for it) for research purposes for work I’m planning: it seems incredibly naive of me to be able to work through a project on prostitution and prohibition (film) without ever having experienced the male end of the industry. I should probably sleep with a prostitute at least once, if not more than once, on specifically paying terms, to get some understanding of the dynamic. I’m currently running on hearsay. It’s going to show when I get to documenting it.
However, I do have some possibly unusual experience indirectly. I dated a whore while living in Asia. She was a self-described “whore” – she called herself an entertainer, but regularly used more direct and descriptive terms when with me or in private or during sex; she never minced words and made sure I both understood what she did and was comfortable with it. She never let me pretend she wasn’t a whore. She was not “slutty” : men paid her for sex or companionship, but she very carefully and selectively chose men she spent time with voluntarily.
However: This educated me. Working girls have boyfriends and husbands, often. They often have boyfriends they admire, love and respect, too, and to whom they’re very devoted. She certainly treated me as an official “BF”; I was unable to reciprocate due to my cavalier attitude and my opinion about her work. At the age of 23, she was at the height of her “sexual capital” – still doing pretty well, but it’s a few years on, and even at 28 it’s a harder call for her – and
I ended up dating her through circumstance; she surely didn’t need me for sex, or money, for that matter, as she was better-off than I was, but she needed companionship, like all people, and we got along famously. So: Whores need emotional support, good times, comfort, and conversation. IE, Whores are Human.
That said.
Now: She had a number of negative experiences. She was raped (more than once) by two Japanese customers on a double-call; it was violent and terrifying. She never served a Japanese customer again. She also said Japanese men were somewhat disturbing more regularly than Korean or Western men. She honestly thought she was going to die on that call. She needed treatment. She also had a few negative experiences at other times, but she said this to me:
– Her work was no more dangerous than being a cop, probably a lot less.
– She did it wholly voluntarily. She didn’t want to do a call, she didn’t do it.
– She did it for the money. She owned 2 apartments by the age of 25. She had one when I was seeing her, owned outright; she’d been working in the industry for 2.5 years (from 20).
– She had a cover day-job. It was, ironically, most useful for getting contacts and clients: She did co-ordination for an events marketing company, which meant she arranged big business events and parties and little events for companies. An occasional wedding.
She made more on the weekends or on calls (though I suspect the industry is different in Korea) than she made in her normal job, about 5x as much.
She hated her job, some of the time. But she liked sex, as much as any woman, maybe more than some; she liked people, and was very social; she disliked some clients, really liked some others, genuinely enjoyed seeing a few (often surprising – one older man who was apparently not a crazy maniac in bed but was hopelessly funny and gave her occasional monetarily inexpensive but sentimentally valuable gifts – weird things he picked up in his travels).
So it was like a social-outreach job like all others, with high points and low points.
Part of our “getting to know each other” was her explaining to me over the course of 6 months that her job wasn’t the road to self-immolation other people thought it was.
She’s marrying an Australian and emigrating. She’s going to have his children and is currently taking charge of managing part of his business (Construction industry). They’ve been together for a while and they met, I presume, with him as a customer. She has massive, huge respect for him and is utterly devoted to him and their lives together.
Sound like a normal woman?
And before you say this isn’t representative, she says most working girls she knew – and she knew a lot – were so utterly banal and normal they were positively uninteresting. The sum total of what differentiated them from other women was their “dates” often involved the exchange of money for time and sex. Otherwise, they were identical to other women she knew.
There were troubles whores, she told me, but maybe in only slightly larger proportions compared to the general population.
So before you go all Farley on this woman you met, maybe you shoudl try to understand her.
bear in mind that dating a whore is difficult and complicated. I broke up with my ex because I couldn’t handle the ambiguity and the situation; I was not mature enough. I did, however, respect her.
So perhaps befriending her *WITHOUT* becoming her “SAVIOR” is the key.
Support her; maybe even pay her; befriend her.
Keep it professional, in that you’re not her prop. But just because you’re paying her for sex doesn’t mean you can’t be civil, and moreso even friendly to her.
She’s a human being ,She makes money from sex: Don’t try to get out of paying for sex. If you do ever have sex without money, offer her some because YOU FEEL BAD about it. You know this is her *job*, and you don’t want her to feel slighted.
If she refuses, then maybe explore the relationship.
But bear in mind: You both need to be extremely mature. The moment you start white-knighting her, which I did on occasion, she’ll recoil, as she should, or you’ll get sucked down into some emotional maelstrom from which you might not easily escape.
Bear this in mind.
You’re still allowed to like her, and if she’s hot, you’re definitely allowed to enjoy having sex with her.
But make sure you do this on *her* terms. Let *her* push the envelope if she feels like it; just make it obvious that she can do this if she wants to. Never push.
My other question: Say you rescue her. You want to be in a permanent relationship with her? This is a bigger question.
My ex wanted to do that with me, it’s clear. We did have a genuine (human) connection, which was well and above sex; who knows. In other ways, totally inappropriate (even if she wasn’t a whore). But I was incapable of seeing it as anything but friends liking each other and having sex.
She was also 23 and very attractive and, stereotype aside, extremely good in bed: BE VERY CAREFUL that this doesn’t cloud your mind. At the time, I was in a rutting phase and was making my way through the female population of the city I was in. I later acquired a GF and settled into more regular life. So her fine features and prime-of-life sexual form had *less* effect on my instincts than it might otherwise have had.
Maggie may disagree, but here’s my thought, as a guy:
I would suggest you go out and get laid with some women *not* for money, and enjoy it.
As men, we tend to get washed up in a haze of self-indulgent miasma when it comes to sex, especially when the woman is young and attractive; it’s almost impossible for a man to resist getting protective, jealous, possessive and concerned. Don’t be ashamed of this. No matter what some ideologues say, this is natural for all men and we all feel it.
I have a SO and I am extremely protective of her; she appreciates it and relies on it. It’s so natural as to be almost a hard-wired program.
BUT THIS PROGRAM CAN LEAD YOU ASTRAY. As a man, you need to know that your instincts are there to ensure the passing on of your genes, not your own personal best interests beyond your genes.
DEFEND YOURSELF emotionally. You need more experience of sex, no matter what anyone says, before you let your gonads start making decisions for you.
Getting involved with a working girl can be fraught with amazing complications. For you and her. I advise extreme caution.
But you can certainly be her friend. And you should enjoy the time you spend with her: Sex is supposed to be fun. I know, for us men, it’s often more of a compulsion, but try to enjoy it and enjoy the absurdity of it at the same time.
I’m more concerned about the writer of this letter than I am with the whore.
We need to smash the delusions out of men (especially where it concerns women) for their own benefit. You need to look after yourself first, and always keep this in mind. If you don’t, ultimately, you will betray anyone you try to look after. Self-sacrifice is meaningless on a greater level unless you understand its true cost, and mindless focus on the other without deeply understanding the other serves neither you nor the other person.
Maggie may object, but:
Trust me on this. People are valuable, but for most men, pussy is fungible: You can have great experiences with lots and lots of women. If not this one, then another. Appreciate this whore as a person, maybe; that level of honesty (deep honesty) and genuine support / distanced concern might lead to something more.
Avoid anything else. This is not for her sake, though it will help her. It’s for *your* sake.
Trust me on this.
So are there any organisations that actually help sex workers?
I can totally identify with this guy because sadly – I have had to fight this instinct my entire life. You wrote this in your “Rescuers” post …
Where does this male “drive” come from?
I don’t think all males have it, unless they are capable of hiding it from me – or I’m just not that perceptive?
I have to confess that I have felt this same desire to “save-a-hooker” as the guy who wrote you. In my younger days, it was difficult to resist it. Some of the first hookers I ever had sex with were in the Philippines and I wanted to save every one of them. Once, a long time ago – I saw a man slap a woman on the street in New London, CT – and I just lit into him physically without even thinking. A cop pulled me off him eventually and then I found out the woman had hit him with a glass bottle in the head – so she threw the first blow. The cop realized I was a Sailor – and he talked to the guy, which saved me from an assault charge.
Even my wife – she was a single parent when I met her, so I suppose a certain part of me was “saving” her? WTF is this? I mean – I was raised to do this by my parents but they trained me to do a lot of things I just discarded – like church and stuff.
I think it is some kind of deep seated inferiority complex that some men have, like me and your reader here. I’m thinking it’s not instinctive at all, and that we just act this way to make ourselves feel better after we ride in on a white horse and save a girl. In submarines, I must have been psychoanalyzed a bazillion times … I’ve taken that Myers-Briggs test many times, and they always come back and say that I make most of my decisions based on “intuition and feeling” rather than logic. This doesn’t seem healthy to me but, whatever – I am who I am, though I’d like to understand better exactly why.
What are your honest thoughts on this seeing as you obviously will know a lot more about men than most men like me do?
Krulac,
You’ve diagnosed yourself accurately. No one else will do it better.
Well …
So, I read up on this a bit and found one interesting thing that may be “it”. That is, the tendency in each sex to attempt to emulate those characteristics that they believe will make them a more desirable mate – and this often works on a subconscious level. For instance, women think (correctly) that men place a high value on beauty and looks – and so women tend to pay more attention to their looks than men do – they use makeup and other means to make them beautiful … and dress in a manner that they believe is appealing to men. And – this is where men are pretty unified in sending the signal to women that this is what they want – because whether a man is looking for a one night stand, or someone to marry – he’s going to trend toward the best looking female he can find. This is an easy message for women to pick up on.
Conversely, some men think (correctly) that women place more value in behavior, status, and stability so they attempt to mimick positive aspects of those traits (i.e. “protectorship”). Now, this is where men may be clueless – because not all of us have the same idea of what women are looking for in those characteristics. And – that may be the fault of women … who change their ideas on those characteristics to suit their situation. For instance, when I was a young single man I don’t know how many women told me “Ohhh … you’re such a nice guy, the kind of guy a girl would want to marry.” Translation: “Beat it dude, because I’m not interested in you at this point in my life – I’ll give you a call after I’ve had my fill of bad boys.”
So men become “bad boys” or “good boys” according to which they believe makes them more attractive to women? Sounds reasonable. The question is – WHERE do we get the ideas that turn us into one or the other? I’m thinking you get that from your family upbringing and the dynamic you see between your parents. “Hey look, Dad made supper and now Mom is hugging and kissing him” – cha … ching!
But if you don’t have a Mom and a Dad, or the dynamic between them sucks – then maybe you get a different view of what women want?
I don’t know – my floppin’ head hurts but … maybe the “protector” thing isn’t totally an inferiority complex.
As my marriage proves, it’s possible for a client/hooker relationship to develop into a truly intimate one, but that is rare and takes two mature, well-balanced individuals.
I wonder how many marriages in general are “truly intimate”. Many couples sort of coexist without much else. On the other hand, sometimes a prostitute might know more about a man – his deepest thoughts and fears – than his own wife does.
Also on the PTSD thing, in the South African case S v Jordan Farley’s studies were submitted as testimony for the state. The head of Forensic Psychiatry at the hospital attached to Pretoria University submitted an affidavit in reply, completely rubbishing the idea that Farley’s questionnaire was in any way an accurate or appropriate method to diagnose PTSD.
Here’s a question- Rescue her to what? Do you really have something better to offer? Most rescuers don’t have anywhere near an accurate picture of a hooker’s real life, and have little vision of what’s possible beyond the immediate goal of getting her out of sex work. (I wonder, do the lovers of gay male prostitutes try to “rescue them”?)
Sure, if the woman is forced, or is clearly unsuited to prostitution, almost anything, a menial job might be better. But if that’s not the case, what can you offer that’s got more freedom, and money?
If one truly wants to protect a whore, work for decriminalization.
I would say be careful of what kind of help you offer or you might end up regretting it. Not all sex workers are bad people be they hostess women(juicy girls) found in South Korea for example or escortsin the USA for example or strippers or prostitutes. However, at least a large enough minority are as Maggie McNeill would tell you. I can not say I ever knew prostitutes who have dated or married men I knew. I have known juicy girls, strippers and escorts who have either dated or married men I knew. Some ended up in happy relationships and others did not. I’ve seen some of these men end up missing a lot of money which means thousands of dollars in some cases to help the juicy girl or stripper out or to buy fancy dinners, baubles such as jewlery etc. These juicy girls or strippers often disappeared with the money or refused to continue the relationship if the man or former customer wasn’t paying anymore. These men were often left heartbroken, angry and confused. If you do give anything to include money, your heart etc. consider that it may get stepped on and taken advantage of and you must be alright with that before it possibly happens for the rest of your life. If the bad things never happen then great, but if they do then it will be difficult for you. Be prepared to lose whatever you have given and then lose more than you origionally thought.
Especially listen to what Maggie McNeill and Comixchik are telling you because they written exceptionally well for this article and commentary as usual, but this is one of the best days for their writing. Why are you trying to rescue here first of all and do you really think it’s a good idea? It usually isn’t in my humble opinion. Do you really think the two of you can make a relationship work.. If you have a relationship with her afterwards both of you will need incredible maturity, discipline and strength more than if she were ever an amatuer or non-sex worker. Most men are fools to first think they have what it takes to have a successful relationship inside themselves with a sex worker or former sex worker, and second are fools to think that she has what it takes to make a successful relationship with you, the man in my humble opinion.
I would like an update on the complaint filed against Farley.
I’ll see if I can’t get in contact with Dr. Bennachie for an update.
I was in contact with him a couple weeks ago and I asked him about this. He said that the APA told him he might never learn the outcome. But it would have more chance of success if others filed similar complaints.
To the Letter Writer (LW):
If you really want to help this prostitute, encourage her to go into therapy for her serious emotional problems, and, if she drinks very heavily, encourage her to join Alcoholics Anonymous. She has problems that were caused by her relationships with her parents, and these problems would exist with or without her career in prostitution, and if she quits prostitution, she is still going to have these problems. She needs help – help that you can’t give her. She needs a qualified mental health professional who has no relationship with her outside of the treatment, and if she’s an alcoholic then she needs the fellowship and moral support of other alcoholics.
Your desire to help this woman is commendable, but she needs help from other people, not you. All you can do is give her friendship.
I remember once working with a woman who seemed to have a serious drug problem. The times I “worked” with her she showed up too messed up to even work. One time, we just put her in the corner and changed the scene to work around her. I wondered how she kept getting work. She didn’t, for long. after a few months, she just sort of disappeared.
Later, in mentioning that to a non-sex worker, I got the response: “Of course, well, look, she was doing porn, she was probably miserable and took the drugs to escape.”
So, we’re to assume this woman became a serious drug addict in a few months time, because of a few porn scenes? I think not. I suspect she already had some deep problems, probably a heavy drug addiction, and thought porn would be an easy way to make money. (Surprise, it’s not. It requires work, and attention, and focus just like other jobs.) Sure, the sex work world is very tolerant of personality issues. But you will not keep getting porn work, or sent out for jobs by an escort agency, if you’re undependable or incapable. It’s a business.
While people are always quick to blame sex work for a particular person’s problems, I think it’s usually the other way around- The problems are there before the sex work. Also, how do you explain all the alcoholic or drug addicted non-sex workers?
I think this is a major flaw in the understanding of most “rescuers”. They think that if they remove the girl from sex work, she’ll be just fine. Not so. If she has problems while a sex-worker, she’ll have those same problems in any other line of work. As the rescuer, are you capable and willing to deal with those long term?
I just had dinner with my ex, three of her friends and the ex’s fiance, who bailed early to go to some appointment. I’m doing interviews of her two friends (the point of the dinner). I’m workign up background research material for a documentary on paid sex in Asia, specifically Korea at this point. Not necessarily prostitution; I’ve found vast avenues of paying for sex that bear little external resemblance to prostitution as it’s usually characterized. I can’t distinguish some of it from dating. So I need guides, and I’ve acquired some.
I thought I’d be paying them for their time. In fact, they assumed they were volunteering – they’re chomping at the bit to talk to someone about what they do. They’re positively ebullient to share details. Not only do they see no shame in it, they find it fascinating themselves. What shocked them was my utter lack of judgment: but I had an in, of course. My ex has cleared all this for me. How nice for me.
I’ll get to part of their stories later.
Three items of note.
– The ex is still working in the business. This shocked me. I presumed when she hooked up with fiance and they arranged their lives together – he’s marrying her within a few months, though they’re technically married now, I’ve learned – but she apparently does event organizing for a big agency that even I’ve heard of, and had no idea did this sort of thing (um, I’m sure up to… seven people were surprised to learn they arrange for girls to meet guys in a fancy environment when business is being done).
She co-ordinates the business meetings, at the age of 28, that other guys do when they’re 45. She arranges all of the entertainment and the timing and the resorts and the details: She’s the fix-it girl. She gets paid the equivalent of 10 k a month to basically make it seamless and smooth, on a part-time basis. I was astonished at the sum, and her friend said: Well, it’s not all phone calls and paperwork.
Meaning: She entertains one or two clients from time to time. For major, major money. She’s the queen bee. She is, in effect, a temporary madam working for the bigwigs at SK and Samsung and Daewoo and the rest. If this could be published in Korea (it can’t – absolutely not), it would be major embarrassment time for all husbands.
Her fiance was there. He not only didn’t care, he seemed positively uninterested. He’s 5’9″, wiry and has a huge tattoo on his arm; is even better spoken than I remember him being and could charm an angry kangaroo. He wears modest clothes but, I discovered, has turned a tiny company making custom houses into a huge construction affair. I thought it was big, but even with the downturn in the Australian housing market, he’s now cleaning up in exports and in retrofitting older homes. I’d guess from what he says he’s now worth maybe 10m, at least, personally, and the company a lot more, maybe 50m. I assume there’s a lot of debt in there, too.
– My ex is running an export business for him. He now exports a zillion board feet of treated flooring and prefab homes and HVAC equipment to Korea from Australia. I’ll bet she’s funneling him massive business through contacts she makes in “event management”, because I know one of the companies her agency works for is Samsung construction. Her agency also does big concerts, too, so I presume it’s an open secret that she does other types of events.
Would this use of private contacts gained through prostitution be a sign of a corrupt industry climate or is it good business sense?
And can this guy drink. I’ve never seen anyone drink as much as he does without showing the slightest sign of inebriation.
– Whatever they’re doing, there’s so much sexual chemistry between them it’s intoxicating to everyone within thirty feet. So, obviously, her servicing some occasional bigwig or corporate client doesn’t bother him.
The world is big.
Third, the two friends and our talk.
One was 29, the other 24; both were attractive, but the younger one almost seemed model-hot and I wondered why she was doing this work. The younger one has been working as a call girl (outcalls only, apparently) while going to university, from the age of 18 (it’s illegal to have sex with anyone under 20 in Korea). She has a “manager”, who is female: there’s no agency involved and the manager’s job is to make sure she’s safe. When I probed her, she said she loves her work and really loves men, everything about them, and doesn’t mind having sex at all: while we sat she explained the precise routine, how she coaxes nervous men into relaxing and having a good time. At 24, she knows more about the psychology of men and sex than any married housewife I’ve ever encountered. I have no idea how housewives are expected to compete.
The older one was reserved and had a very sharp tongue. She had the thickest Pusan accent I’ve ever heard, almost a drawl, which was infectiously disarming. She had that southern directness that makes you think you know her (very informal). She was obviously well-educated. She mentioned that she has a master’s degree, but I don’t know what in. I’m meeting her again this week for more discussion.
She did a complete breakdown of the sex industry in Korea for me: Pimps, agencies, outcalls, brothels (very dangerous, apparently, because the authorities have women centralized for maximum abuse: she says the cops and politicians are the worst; Maggie will find this no surprise), Noraebangs and suljibs (can be very low-end: you need to be in a good area, like Apgujong and Gangnam and pick the high-end places, but for these you need maximum beauty and youth; she implied she was out of this market). And then there was the “companion” market.
This encompasses paid dating (not just sex), involving often groups of people and posing as a GF or lover (even if the client has a wife, this is apparently common). Most of these are repeat customers and it resembles having a paying BF, or two or three. Sometimes it graduates into becoming a kept woman. This is considered ideal, but the financial end is always very clear: Money must change hands.
Then there’s the paid dating or compensated dating of the young. The young one said basically huge numbers of teenage girls and 20-somethings are more or less whores: Dating for LV bags or expensive gifts is pretty much the norm. They do it on a huge scale with mid-30’s and 40’s guys.
Her non-whore friends will date a guy and measure his investment in her in terms of gifts, money, time spent and goods given. She said the more honest admit that if a guy shells out huge right away, they go to bed more or less immediately. The veneer of slut-shame avoidance is paper thin. it means that most girls are, in actual practice, whores.
On a positive note, the older one, with whom I spent 4 hours chatting, two of which were after everyone else left, as I presume younger girl had work to do and my ex had a life to return to and a fiance to meet up with, suggested that we meet next week for more talk. I asked if she would appear on film, anonymized, of course, and she said yes.
When I suggested I’d like to interview men, she said the chances of me interviewing men she knew were less than zero. However, were I to desire some sort of exposure, she could arrange it: she thought it an absurdity that I knew nothing of the industry or the dynamics of paying for female company and I was presuming to document anything about it.
When I jokingly suggested she arrange it for me, she said it might be interesting, and suggested me meet specifically to do this (I presume separately because were I do get her to arrange anything, that’s not volunteer work). And I think she meant with her: accompany her to some event. I did mention that I was uncomfortable with the whole scenario on some level, and she said not to worry – she knew men better than any psychologist. I’m not sure, but I think I just arranged a “meeting” with her specifically in principal. Anyway, there’s some thing going on next week and she’s going to see if she can bring me.
If anything interesting happens – any sociological notes of worth – I’ll pass them along.
This is about as far away from street prostitution as it gets.
Other avenues I heard described:
Old women who service old men in a park near the center of Seoul, often in exchange for various forms of labor. Hand-jobs, mostly.
Kiss-bangs (rooms), which actually sound kind of disgusting. But a lot of young girls work in these. Almost all of them move on to actual sex in short order.
Talk bars, where you sit and talk to a bartender who serves you alcohol. If she likes you, after you’ve spent maybe $250 on alcohol, she’s alllowed to accompany one of the group elsewhere, where you pay for a hotel room (Associated with the bar) and she is paid by the establishment to get it on.
Suljibs (alcohol-houses), where the girls pay a small fee for hanging out in the bar and compete for attention from the men. These literally litter the streets here: There are so many it’s hard to count them. Every single subway station has complexes of such places. They’re exactly right beside family establishments. You can see the girls hanging out.
Nightclubs: About 20% of the women, according to the older one, let’s call her Hyemin for convenience, are there and are paid about $50 a night to come. They’re all super hot and dressed to the nines, in a classy but very hot manner; they can take their $50 and run or hang out with men for whatever purpose they want. Apparently, there are clues to let men know that they’re women of negotiable affection, rather than tarty girls out to get laid.
They play it up so that the men don’t feel like they’re paying for whores, but picking up girls. She says it’s a standing routine, and it’s understood.
Talent Bars: So-called model agencies that hook up the seemingly endless number of hot chicks, more and more every day, with men with money. It’s basically non-marriage-goal dating: The men pay the agency some stupid some of money, like 5k for a month, and they get to date. The girls get hooked up with rich or otherwise influential guys who do nice things for them. The bouncers at these places make out like gangbusters and flirt with the girls, who apparently love the bouncers and the guys with authority here; one bouncer told Hyemin that he has a stable of women he sees all the time. I’ve seen one of these places, and the people assembled; I believe it.
The girls “date” the guys who go to these places. Ahem.
All of this is pretty murky. You get the clear-cut cases, like Hyemin who seems to organize little parties for men (“Departments”) whose members are local workers, often bored office drones. She services them sometimes and she arranges for happy girls to be available. She gets paid by the men or by the Boss Guy (the one in charge). Everyone has “leaders” over here – moms in groups, guys golfing, etc. Someone who has personality and organizes.
She was completely mum about what she actually gets up to: the bedroom specifics were off the talking menu. I’m curious about that, too, how the dynamics go down, when things get talked about, how problems are overcome, etc.
She’s the local Chingis Khan prostitute, I guess: Party organizer. She’s going to be a fantastic informant.
She’s also personable and perfectly likeable and apparently not stupid, and human in every respect.
I thought this was going to be difficult.
It turns out all I have to do is get people talking.
Is is genuinely a fascinating world.
I am more and more convinced that feminists are literally screaming into a gale-force wind if they think they’re going to convince the world that sex is not transactional by its very nature.
This whole society seems to view it in a transactional manner, on some level. How is it they’re able to delude themselves?
I have no idea.
I’m going to make sure the working thesis of this doc project will be enough to make abolitionists and sex-as-sacred-expression feminists weep.
If my 500+ posts can be boiled down to one statement, it’s this: prostitution cannot be reliably distinguished from other heterosexual female behavior. And the sooner governments admit that, the happier everyone other than the anti-sex control freaks will be.
Comixchik,
How did you eventually leave this business? And why?
My ex apparently never did – I presumed she had, I was wrong, I guess money does it – but I’m curious how people leave this whole arrangement, and what motivates them.
What I really want to do is interview people who have sex with older clients, as a kind of physical therapy or outreach or mercy. That must be psychologically fascinating.
But I have no contacts or ins to that world; and if it’s hard to get young people to talk sometimes, it’ll be near next to impossible to get old ones to talk.
I left for three reasons:
1. I was getting older, in my 40’s.
2. When I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with Juvenile Arthritis, and was told it would probably cripple me by my thirties. It didn’t, because I remained very physically active, and because I wouldn’t let it. By my mid 40’s, however, it was taking it’s toll.
3. I met a partner, who wanted me to quit.
The oldest client I saw was 78. Most of my clients were a good bit younger.
Not much for me to add, but I’m catching up, and here I am with this one.