Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. – William Shakespeare, Othello (II,iii)
Every so often I go to put an item in one of my news columns, only to realize there’s no appropriate heading because I’ve never actually written about the subject. And every once in a blue moon, I find myself asking, “How the hell did I manage never to have written about that?” This is one of those times; though I’ve mentioned it often in passing, I’ve never actually devoted a column to the subject. “It” in this case being escort reviews. For those who have never been involved in a modern escort transaction on either side of the deal, and who haven’t paid much attention to the subject before starting to read this blog, an escort review is a lot like a Yelp review for pretty much any other commercial service; it’s a way for a satisfied customer to let others know that a service provider is a good one, and for a dissatisfied customer to warn others of scams, hidden problems, etc. The best reviews are practically love letters; the worst ones can be downright abusive. And given the nature of the service, they can often be, well, pornographic.
That last is a sticking point with a lot of escorts; though some review boards discourage or disallow graphic details, others encourage them. And even when the narratives are tucked away in a “members only” section, access to that section can either be gained by paying or by…wait for it…writing reviews. So clients who are heavily invested in review board culture are strongly incentivized to write more reviews, and to make them as juicy as possible, even if that means embellishing the facts of the encounter or simply lying. I know I’ve read reviews of myself which caused me to say, “Were we even in the same room? Because I don’t remember half of this.” Yeah, I have reviews, and they’re available out there on the internet; I’m sure the more internet-savvy among you can find them pretty easily. But I don’t encourage them because I don’t really like them; besides the fact that I find them rather crude, there’s also the problem of cops and prosecutors using them as “evidence” in prostitution trials, either against the lady or against the client/review author.
There’s one review board, however, which I absolutely refuse to allow myself to be reviewed on, and that’s probably the biggest one, The Erotic Review (better known as TER). In actuality, there’s nothing I could do to stop someone from reviewing me there if he wanted to, because provider profiles on TER are user-generated rather than provider-generated; however, as far as I know, my clients have so far respected my wish not to be reviewed there {knocks wood}. What have I got against TER, you ask? Well, there are several things. The first is the site’s blatantly “bros before hos” philosophy, as exemplified by the fact that it’s extremely difficult to get a false review removed from the site; one of my friends was able to provide evidence that she was in another part of the country at the time a false reviewer claimed she had been in his city, and that still wasn’t enough. Besides the fact that this allows enemies to plant bad reviews to hurt a provider’s business, it also allows cops to create false profiles for infiltration purposes. The second problem is that TER uses a numerical rating system in which the numbers are tied to specific acts; an escort might be the most beautiful, engaging, charismatic, enchanting creature on the planet, but if she doesn’t do Greek she can’t be a “10” on TER no matter how many reviews praise her to high heaven.
I’m not the only whore who hates TER, not by a long shot; in a recent article, Tracy Clark-Flory wrote:
…An ad that ran in 2008 in the Village Voice’s Backpage section read, “DID YOU GET RIPPED OFF AGAIN? Didn’t read her reviews, did you? Don’t let them get away with it…By submitting a review you are not only warning thousands of guys in your area, you hitting them where it hurts…HER WALLET.” It’s a tone set early by the site’s now-estranged founder David Elms…many sex workers…say the site harbors a culture of misogyny and objectification, and exposes them to extortion, legal risks and pressure to perform unwanted acts. Some are categorically against reviews, given the intimate nature of the services being provided…Some argue that [TER] encourages the writing of fake reviews as well, a problem that plagues even sites like Yelp where there aren’t direct financial incentives for contributing. As “Alexis,” a sex worker, put it, “When you’re talking about ‘super users,’ when I see people like that, I see ‘super bullshitters.’”
Many sex workers say the site also threatens to change the nature of their work by pressuring them into acts they don’t want to perform [by threatening them with bad reviews]…A common complaint Katherine Koster, communications director at the Sex Workers Outreach Project, has heard is that TER pressures “sex workers to provide the same service across clients, rather than adapting it to individual clients.” TER reviews are structured around a hierarchy of acts: The site asks reviewers to reserve 8, 9 and 10 performance rankings for
“situations where out of the ordinary services are provided,” including blow jobs without condoms, kissing with tongue and anal sex. Koster says the site also rejects reviews without explicit sexual details…
The article also discusses David Elms’ sordid history of extortion, assault and worse; you can read about it there, because I honestly don’t think it’s necessary to know about it to judge TER on its own record. Even if Elms had never done anything immoral, I think the ickiness of his creation speaks for itself.
Reviews are a valuable part of the free market, whether Consumer Reports, Yelp, eBay seller feedback, or even escort reviews.
The publishing of pornographic details is rude and unhelpful. I use escort reviews to locate escorts in cities I am visiting. I don’t have paid or privileged member access to any review sites, and don’t need it. I use review sites to determine:
Is she legitimate? Pigs almost never take the time to develop a full fake persona.
Is she a professional? All I need to see is multiple reviews, most of them positive. That lets me know that she is a good businesswoman. The salacious details are irrelevant. The occasional negative review happens to anyone selling goods or services.
Some escorts will use my history of reviews and board handle as part of their screening process. Some prefer initial contact to be via a review board PM.
I’ll write a review only if the lady specifically requests it, and include only enough detail to have it accepted.
I stopped using TER years ago when I became aware of their loathsome point system. Luckily there are many viable alternatives.
The article by Tracy Clark-Flory was accurate but not fair. She focused exclusively on the top 100 reviewers at TER, thereby selecting for the kind of unsavory character who is most likely to abuse the process and the escorts he reviews. The vast majority of reviews, even at TER, are written by more decent men. Are there jerks? Certainly, But as Maggie points out, the best reviews resemble love letters. A history of highly complementary reviews, without the porn details, is much more likely to attract my attention.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think an extortion racket is ever a legitimate ‘free market’ activity – and that’s exactly what is observed with Yelp, eBay, and escort reviews.
Pigs have gotten into every review site and use them for busts – this isn’t news and hasn’t been for over a decade.
Discretion is still part of the professionalism of being an escort.
Seriously, grow up. Your use of escort reviews, and that of every other guy who claims that they are remotely benign or useful, simply enables sexual predators. Decent men do not shirk moral responsibility.
Free market does not mean nice market. However, the major problems stem from the climate of criminalization, not from the free-market aspect itself.
In a legal market the government can make regulations to avoid some abuse from either consumers or providers and even then there is often a lot of unpleasantness in any business.
For sex-workers, reviews is just an unavoidable fact of life. You can’t prevent clients from communicating with each other any more than you can prevent them from buying sex. Even on well-moderated review boards, a lot of info goes through back channels such as private messages between members.
Yes, in a perfect world, a whore would be able to ensure that any coercive rapist on a review board gets intimately acquainted with Bubba while paying his debt to society.
I am review free. I do not see sexual predators or those who materially aid and abet them with their participation in a sexual extortion racket.
Reviews per se are certainly not an extortion racket. eBay, Amazon, Yelp, Consumer Reports, restaurant critics, Angie’s List, Rotten Tomatoes, the list of perfectly legitimate businesses that use and promote reviews is long and distinguished. Successful businesses take great care to cultivate good reviews and attempt to rectify problems identified in bad reviews.
Sex work is just work. There’s nothing inherently wrong or extortionate in reviewing sex workers, doctors, auto mechanics, or plumbers.
The claim that using reviews “enables sexual predators” is not supported by evidence or logic. That reasoning would brand subscribers to Consumer Reports as “appliance predators” and readers of restaurant critics as “food predators” or something equally silly.
The criminalization of sex work is what enables sexual predators, in uniform and otherwise. Reviews of establishments, services, and individual sex workers are common in countries were sex work is decriminalized.
The free market cuts both ways. I found the TER numbering system and the antics of its founder disgusting, so I no longer patronize them. There are boors and rude people on every site that is open to public comment, but the majority of men and women posting on escort review sites are decent people using those spaces to advertise and make informed choices.
If you don’t like reviews that is your choice, but your anger and insults are unbecoming a professional. My use of review sites is honest and moral, and I don’t need your permission or approval to do so while remaining a decent man.
The more I read about TER, the happier I am to not have to use it as I have a friendly local review board to rely on.
I do have a question about the excerpted column. Is DFK and BBBJ really above and beyond? I receive BBBJ about half the time without asking and if there is no DFK is it really a GFE?
1) No, but kissing used to be before the advent of review boards. They drove its becoming popular.
2) GFE is a style, not a checklist. There is no activity that can make a session GFE, and none that can prevent it from being one. I even have a domination client who considers my treatment to be GFE.
Anything BB should be OFF the grid completely- heath risks GALORE no thank you. My clientele appreciate that I am a safety girl. Reviews are disgusting and I refuse to allow them…life is good away from review boards.
Great discussion. I agree with you, that ter definitely encourages pornography and dangerous invention. On the other hand: I’ve found some really lovely ladies on there. Some of these are not on BP, nor on usasexguide, cafreviews, etc. There are women on p411 etc who really can’t be found except by ter. Used to be that TNR provided really good reviews but that seems dead now.
I agree that the numerical rating stinks. My own practice: I only write reviews if I really enjoyed the experience, I always ask the woman’s permission before writing, and show her the review before I post it. I’ve been told that my reviews have brought more and better clients to at least a few of those I have reviewed.
Love your blog. It’s like a glass of clean water in a dirty world.
Very good points about the issues with TER. However these review boards aren’t going anywhere, do you have any suggestions or examples of how one might work well for both sides?
A song of Neil Diamond’s that reminds me of many of the courtesans and escorts – professional and otherwise – who I’ve been fortunate enough to have known:
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw in a German newspaper many years ago.
The upper part shows a headline that reads “Whores rate their clients”. In the lower part, a missus sitting at the computer calls out “Hans-Jürgen, there’s something about you on the internet…”
I see nothing wrong with reviews that make service providers feel “pressured” into offering more services — that’s the free-market way, and calling it extortion shows a lack of understanding of what the word means.
But I would not see a site where specific rating numbers require specific services as useful to me, unless their list of services wanted was exactly the same as mine, which is unlikely. For what it’s worth, I’d prefer reviews of providers to be like good restaurant reviews, which tell the reader (at least in a general sense) what’s available at each place, thus helping the consumer shop around. This includes even unsafe services, which would serve as a red flag to customers who care at all about their own safety.
I wonder if such a Guide Michelin exists in countries where sex work is legal.
In places where sex work is decriminalized, both the ads and the review boards tend to be much more explicit. Price lists are common, kinks and riskier behavior are always extra, often quite a bit extra. Both parties enter the transaction with useful information and expectations.
Since the workers can call the police if a client becomes abusive or dangerous, the entire industry is far safer. I saw a drunk ejected from a brothel in Switzerland, later collected from the sidewalk by the police, who did not attempt to enter, just talked with the madam.
As you point out, a provider offering services that I consider unsafe is still useful information – I’ll go to someone else.
Reviews are such a tricky subject. I think I agree with a few of the comments above – there’s nothing inherently exploitative about a platform for reviewing and discussing services provided. It seems to me that the problems start when these things happen:
– Attempts to “standardize” ratings by providing an ostensibly “objective” rating system (for an experience that is almost entirely subjective – this puts an artificial pressure on the market)
– Incentivizing/rewarding fake reviews with no real way to remove them
– Allowing clients to review providers, but not the other way around
Any one of these things makes for an exploitative system. And, as Maggie mentioned, TER has them all. Ugh.
I find several of the comments by reviewers here funny in a sad, misguided, uneducated and incredibly telling way.
*The claim that using reviews enables sexual predators is not supported by evidence or logic*
You see, only a reviewer who is trying to justify his use of reviews instead of admitting to his helping the objectification of women would state that. As another commenter stated, a provider, (and I am a provider as well) yes it does, But you see, as providers who are reviewed we really don’t have a platform where we can be honest and state what really does happen behind closed doors. 1) We would be heavily flamed within the hobbying community by these predators who are amongst the most “popular” on these boards and labeled man haters. 2) We would be admitting to participation in an illegal activity.
And to further my point in objectification *That reasoning would brand subscribers to Consumers report appliance predators* etc.*
We are not appliances, food, or cars. We are living, breathing human beings who provide the most intimate and vulnerable services there are. An appliance nor a restaurant or a car can be extorted, abused, or blackmailed as we can and are. Yes, someone can threaten a company who manufactures toasters, but when they threaten a company with a bad review the company has legal recourse, and those threats aren’t often accompanied with outing, LE, hurting families etc as what often times, more than most realize, happens to providers.
Reviewers of appliances, food etc are asked by the online sites to provide substantitive evidence to prove things that could be considered slanderous, such as there were bugs or the appliance burned me, where a reviewer of a provider only has to utter something like “I saw track marks” “She had warts” “Someone is watching her place” etc to completely ruin a ladies reputation without having to provide proof and most often, even if the lady has documented proof that the reviewer never saw her or is lying, it is nearly impossible to get the review down, and even if it is removed, once that review is up for even a few hours, her reputation is destroyed.
I also find it sadly amusing how reviewers and posters on boards seem to enter what they believe is a “golden zone” when posting as though they are untouchable by LE. The boards are overrun by LE and those who are busted are often not permitted to state so and oftentimes convinced to turn over their board handles.
And from my experience as a former top 10 lady, it’s the most prolific
I just got two GOOD but fake reviews within days of each other. I dont get it! Now clients will think I provide certain services that I dont provide.
Report them; they could be pigs trying to manufacture a history so they can entrap other ladies.
yes its possible. Its also possible that its some dudes writing phony positive reviews just to gain vip access. Ofcourse, ter doesnt care. I already emailed them as well as the authors of the reviews 2 days ago. No response. Now I will have to endure the consequences when some wanker reads them, books me, and then has a fit because I dont swallow or do bbbj. Then Ill get a negative review. SMH😝