I want to start an escort agency and would appreciate advice. Basically I want to make a lot of money and I want to create an agency that is a great place to work for the employees. I need as much detail as possible.
I don’t think it’s a good idea for an inexperienced outsider to even consider starting an escort service in the United States right now; there’s a very real possibility you could lose both your shirt and your freedom now that the political climate has shifted from largely ignoring agencies to actively persecuting them. However, if you are bound and determined to go ahead with it anyhow, the best advice I could possibly give you would be to find an experienced agency escort who wants to start an agency and bankroll her. The majority of successful agencies I’ve known were either started by experienced escorts or had such in a consulting role, and that’s even more true now that most escorts are independent and both local cops and the FBI are breathing down the necks of anything even resembling sex worker management. If you really want to get into the adult business, I’d suggest seeking investment opportunities in more civilized countries; in the US even strip clubs are now being actively persecuted, and it’s liable to get worse before it gets better.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
I’m sure with Maggie on this. In fact I think tagging the post ‘fantasy’ was probably being diplomatic. The tarot card is a bit more frank.
Starting any small business from scratch to “make a lot of money” and provide “a great place to work for the employees” is pretty optimistic. If it’s in a mature market and a sector in which you lack experience it’s fantasy alright. And if you add the wildcard of illegality to the mix it’s a recipe for disaster.
Is the questioner genuine? Or is there more to it than this?
Either wholly genuine, or a master of leg-pulling.
Yes, that was my first thought also. There are really people that think this way. Still no reason to give bad advice and the advice given is excellent.
On a completely unrelated note, I am shocked and outraged that starting an escort agency is not a way to get rich quick!
I’m convinced that the closest thing to a get-rich-quick scheme that actually works is to sell your own get-rich-quick-scheme to suckers before most people get wise or you get cop by the cops.
Indeed. And I bet even that fails for most that try it.
I was thinking more on the lines of a fishing expedition against you.
Is the questioner in the US?
It’s impossible to tell from email addresses, but presumably so. I’m not too worried about the kind of “fishing” you mean; they don’t have to work that hard any more. If they wanted to “get” me I commit numerous felonies every week, just as every American does; universal criminality is well-established here.
And if you think Maggie is exaggerating, the crime for which Julian Assange is hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy to Sweden is having sex with a woman with a torn condom.
When I was a prison abolition activist one of my favorite studies was an early 90s one from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showing that around 80% of males and 60% of females had committed an imprisonable offence by the time they finished high school.
But if I was going to put a paranoid interpretation on the question I wouldn’t think it was to land you in jail but that it was fishing for a quote to prove you are a paid up member of The World Wide Conspiracy of Pimps.
I’m glad to hear you say this. I agree. Its more dangerous and risky than ever to do any kind of group business.
in the old days, we worked in massage parlors and all felt safe. there was a many there “a manager” and we all could keep each other safe. Now we have lost that option all together. Due to “trafficking”, “money laundering” and “participating in an illegal enterprise.” Prostitution charge is nothing. Its the others that are problems.
For the first time i’ve been discouraging people from doing any kind of touching for money in any kind of group at all. Its so sad. But i aways feel like such a party pooper and nay sayer. So i’m glad to hear someone else with this kind of opinion.
annie
I owned an escort service, yet I’m suggesting newbie sex workers work for themselves and clients seek out independents. The agency model was good while it lasted, but it’s too dangerous now; the “authorities” will never eradicate whoring, but they can make specific forms of it too dangerous to be viable.
Dear Annie Sprinkle,
There is something very peaceful about your description of people banding together for mutual support, safety, and the pursuit of happiness as well as commerce. Is it your request to return to a time when a group of people could band together around many kinds of touching as a pleasurable service in exchange for money and be embraced and supported by the surrounding very diverse greater community? Is what is missing now a place within community that you can be and provide for yourself and others that brings you well-being and life supporting sustenance; food, money, shelter?
Good answer, Maggie.
I’m in Amsterdam at the moment, and the thought dawned in me: have you ever blogged about the movie ‘Pretty Woman’? Part of me really likes the Hollywood fantasy of meeting an attractive wealthy partner and leaving all the drudgery behind. But does it send another less realistic or desirable message? Or am I thinking too much? John Carbone (Cary NC)
Sent from my iPhone
>
Take a look at my Filmography page. 🙂
I have been still reading this blog, but not commenting in a long time. I agree with the previous commenters Cabrogal, Korhomme, and Annie Sprinlkle above who are the only 3 comments I’ve seen to now. I also agree with Maggie McNeil, the author, of this article.
I will take that the Questioner is real, and try to add to what the others have said. Right now the people in power, the police, the courts, the agitators, FEMINIST SUPREMICISTS, religious nutbags legislators, government officials, lobby groups etc. have decided to clamp down hard in imposing PROSTITUTION PROHIBITION.They are more powerful than the PROSTITUTION TOLERATION people right now and into the forseeable future You need to be very careful about engaging in prostitution, be you customer, prostitute or in any way associated with it for example being a taxi driver, banker, ageny owner etc. for these people It might be best to avoid it in the USA altogether except for the licensed prostitutes on duty in the licensed brothels of Nevada. I only say this because you don’t need to be a registered sex offender the rest of your life. Although being a registered sex offender may not happen or be unlikely to happen, why risk it? I hope someone better than I can tell you how to reduce your risks in being a customer, prostitute, agency owner or anyone else(taxi driver, banker etc.) associated with the prostitution industry here on this blog especially in the commenting section of this article because I am out of my expertise and advice on this one.
Next, consider why the police are wasting the tax payers money by going after something, prostitution between consenting adults, when even narcotics use is generally speaking by far more harmful. Why don’t they do after real crimes like murder, rape robbery etc? I heard grand theft auto is almost never solved for example. The reason is that it is relatively easy to catch and arrest people involved with prostitution and book them, and it is more difficult to do so with most other crimes to include but not limited to narcotics use, murder, robbery, rape, theft, grand theft auto etc. The police make themselves look good by saying look at how many crimes and what percentage of crimes we have solved to the public. Never mind if this particular thing such as narcotics use and by even far more so engaging in prostitution should be a crime or not. For the record I am against narcotics prohibition and even more against prostitution prohibition. I have said it before even on this very blog that although I love my country, USA, even to the point of formerly being in the U.S. Army and serving in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, my country are filled with a higher percentage of idiots when it come to sex and prostitution than certainly any modern 1st world country on Earth and arguably most other countries irregardless of whether they are 1st world and modern or not. I also said that PROSTITUTION PROHIBITION should have fallen away faster than NARCOTICS PROHIBITION especially MARIJUANA PROHIBITION, but the trend for now is that marijuana prohibition is falling away faster than prostitution prohibition; and, I predicted here on this blog in previous commenting on other articles as well as elsewhere. I stated that this is a sad commentary on American culture because PROSTITUTION PROHIBITION should have fallen away faster and more thoroughly than MARIJUANA PROHIBITION and to a lesser extent NARCOTIC PROHIBITION. . .
I forgot that places like Sweden, Norway and Ireland are just as bad as the USA in 1st world modern countries although in some ways worse and in some ways better.
Yep, Im with u, Maggie. This business is TOO RISKY for an outsider. Its prosecuted in many countries, I dont know how it works in the States but here in Spain altough prostitution is not criminalized itself all kinds of “pimping” (we call it “proxenetismo”) are. So, in theory, no business are allowed. But, as u can see, there are many brothels and some are even pretty big (http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/04/06/world/europe/20120407-SPAIN.html?_r=0). Why can this happen? Easy, Law is not intended to prosecute prostitution business BUT to keep it in a position of weakness in front of our authorities. So any place that is running right now in this country must pay an “undreground tax” (if u want, we can call it an extortion) so our public administrations are making a big business here.
Recently, past February, a sentence condemned a owner of a business (Club Riviera) who went to a tribunal to complain that he was being extorted… by THREE different institutions. First, he had to pay local authorities, as its usual here (If u dont know, this kind of corruption scandals are fairly common here, in fact now the former president of the government of Catalonia Jordi Pujol has been discovered to evade millions in taxes and that money was from extortions to any kind of business there and in adjudications of public works, I leave u a link here: http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/28/inenglish/1406541514_394359.html). Then he had also the UCRIF from the National Police, a unit that was prosecuting “trafficking”. They are basically an extorting unit and there are hundrends of reports of sex workers about the violence, abuses and robberies of those policemen. They work in the whole country, they may be roughly the equivalent to your federal police. But finally he had also to pay the Guardia Civil, other police unit, and that was more he could handle. Its impossible to run a business with so many taxes, u simply dont earn enough to pay ’em. So he decided to go to the tribunals… heh, bad move, man. U are not an extorted businessman. U are a pimp. U have no rights. Ur only right is to obey, u must pay and shut up sucker. So well, if anyone wants to open a club or an agency here must be prepared to be DEVOURED by unofficial taxes knowing that, in any moment, he or she can end up in jail if our authorities want. Yeeeeh I think that is a kinda foll idea. Btw several clubs are ran by ex police agents, being one of them seems to be the only way to avoid being arrested and extorted.
I hate Escort Agencies… I came pretty close to a few “owners” and know intimately how they work and what it takes to run one…. STAY AWAY!.. Drama, Drama, Drama (said like Marsha Marsha Marsha)… The taxes involved and in some states it requires not only the business to have an SOB (Sexual Oriented Business License).. but each of your girls need one too. Trust me… it is more headache than it is worth.