The Honest Courtesan

I’m a 24 year old man who grew up in a very conservative, sex negative atmosphere; the most I’ve ever done is kiss a woman, and that was several years ago.  I’ve had pretty extensive health issues that largely keep me homebound, and porn just makes me feel lonely.  I’ve engaged in cybersex with women I met online, but I always lose contact with them because the only time I want to talk is when my horniness overpowers my embarrassment; I’m very uncomfortable seeking this stuff out even online, and I’ve had a few women that I cut off because they wanted to move much too fast, and expected me to just ignore all my boundaries.  For the same reason I’m not comfortable with sex-related online communities.  On top of that, the women I talk with don’t get much from the situation; the most I’m comfortable with is voice chat and I need to be eased into that.  Paying is not a financial possibility for me right now, and TBH I don’t really have any desire to do sexual stuff with a woman who only is there because I pay her.

I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have no advice to give you.  Surely you understand that nobody is going to give you something for nothing?  You simply can’t expect random strangers to give you free sexual interaction, completely on your terms, without expecting anything in return.  That simply isn’t the way human dynamics work.  What you are looking for, whether you like it or not, is a sex worker.  You want someone to fulfill your desires on demand while staying completely within the boundaries you set, but who won’t ask anything for herself or expect romance or whatever.  That is about as good a description of a sex worker/client relationship as one could wish for; a sex worker is only looking for her fee, nothing else, and as a professional she will proceed at your pace and leave you alone when you aren’t paying for her to do otherwise.  I’m perfectly willing to provide the service if you like, and there are phone sex services, cam girls, etc available on the internet.  But if you are willing to provide your phone partner with nothing, I’m afraid nothing is all you can expect in return.

Back From the Dead

When I was 21 I fell in love with a beautiful 25-year-old escort; I became her regular and after five months we started unpaid dating.  We fell in love with each other and planned to marry; I had no objection to her work, and she appreciated my support.  But not very long after we moved in together, she was diagnosed with a virulent cancer and died nine hard months later.  As you can imagine, I was emotionally devastated and started to see a psychiatrist who helped me a lot.  Seven years later, I’m successful in my business but don’t feel anything for any of the women I’ve tried to date.  When one of them questioned my emotional distance I told her about my dead girlfriend; she mocked me and then left me.  So eventually I decided to start seeing escorts again; for the last six months I’ve regularly seen a wonderful girl.  I’m so comfortable with her; we can talk about anything, and she’s the first woman I’ve been able to actually have sex with since my girlfriend died.  I have very strong feelings for her, but I don’t know if she feels the same.  I don’t want to lose her; can you give me any advice?

Humans are creatures of habit, and sometimes we fall into destructive patterns of behavior without realizing that we’re doing it.  For example, a woman may get out of an abusive relationship, only to find she keeps unconsciously attracting or seeking other abusive men.  Or a man may keep dating women who all look eerily like his high school sweetheart.  It’s a well-known observation that people often marry partners who resemble (physically or behaviorally) their opposite-sex parent, and so on.  What it looks like to me is that you are unconsciously trying to bring your lost love back from the dead.  The two of you were so much in love and then she was suddenly snatched from you at a tragically-young age, so you haven’t really been able to accept that despite years of therapy; because of that and the bad experiences with amateurs, you seem to have convinced yourself that you can only be in love with another escort.  But while it may be true that escorts are easier to talk to than amateur women, and for most men we’re certainly less sexually intimidating, it is actually much harder for most men to have romantic relationships with us due to jealousy, stigma, cultural baggage and everything else.  Most escorts won’t even consider dating men they meet as clients, and though there are occasional exceptions your good luck in finding one in your first love may have blinded you to just how uncommon a situation it actually is.

It’s OK to keep seeing escorts for your sexual needs, but you mustn’t expect lightning to strike twice; it’s very unlikely that you’ll easily find another one to replace your lost love.  Do date amateur women, but do not under any circumstance tell them you even see sex workers, much less that you were emotionally involved with one; most amateurs are utterly clueless on this subject and will react like that one girl you tried to date, or maybe even worse.  And most of all, you need to return to therapy so you can get help in finally letting go of your beloved, so you’ll stop trying to replace her with someone who may share nothing in common with her except a profession.

Teamwork

I like to consider myself a level-headed, rational person; someone who isn’t easily swept up into fervor or misled by the charismatic.  Being on a major college campus has certainly put these traits to the test.  Massive emotional appeals rock the campus constantly, and appeals to donate to many organizations are commonplace; my lack of unconditional support of every such endeavor has damaged some of my relationships.  However weak the premise, I can never effectively reveal the falsity of the claims; to even try is to be ostracized.  Lately “sex trafficking” hysteria has become more and more prevalent here, and speakers are coming to ply their trade.  How I should try to educate my peers?  I loathe misinformation in all its forms, but I am not so charming a person as to be able to sway the opinions of the passionate.

Many beside yourself have commented on the sad fact that the modern university campus is not only inhospitable, but actively hostile to free speech and rational thought.  A whole organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, exists to fight the top-down abuses, but unfortunately they can’t do much about peer-to-peer behavior.  You didn’t mention your course of study, but even if you’re in the sciences that doesn’t protect you from the irrational belief-systems of everyone else; even science students and some full-fledged scientists can be incredibly irrational about subjects other than their own (during my time at UNO there was a tenured chemistry professor who was a well-known creationist).

Don’t feel bad because you aren’t able to fight disinformation single-handedly; though there are a few people who can do that, they are driven in a way that most of us simply aren’t.  Even the most dedicated and skilled campaigners need a support network, others who see things in at least a similar way and will fight alongside them.  A lot of people view me as larger than life, but in truth I need that support just like everyone else does; if it weren’t for the readers who praise my work and the fellow-activists who brace me up in areas where I’m weak, I might have quit long ago.  So in order to effectively oppose “sex trafficking”, other moral panics and the host of other ridiculous beliefs which infest modern Western culture, you need a group of like-minded others.  I’ll bet there are a lot more students (and faculty) who feel the same way as you do than you might imagine; the reason you don’t know about them is that like you, they don’t want to be ostracized.  Human beings have a powerful need for the approval of peers, and fanatics take advantage of that to silence their critics; what you therefore need is your own group of peers who will “have your back” when you’re attacked.  Does your campus have a skeptic’s society or the like?  If so, you might consider joining it, and if not, why not start one?  You may still have to fight “sex trafficking” beliefs even within such a club, but at least there you’ll have the advantage of dealing with people who can be reasoned with, and who can be swayed by presenting facts from the many academics, activists and other writers who oppose the panic (there are many good articles in my books, The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I and Volume II).  If your group is large enough, you can probably come up with the means to print flyers or posters to counter prohibitionist claims, and perhaps even get your own speakers to counter the hysterics’ “trafficking” porn.  I’m not telling you it will be easy, but with enough help and support it will at least be possible.  And though you won’t win overnight, time is on your side:  moral panics have a limited life span, and as time goes on you’ll find increasing numbers are listening to the truth rather than wallowing in hysteria.

Quack, Quack

So, I was talking with my therapist, and one of the things he asked me is if I had paid for sex.  I said no, I want to have a connection with my lover.  But what he said next shocked me:  he claimed that all prostitutes are either sex slaves or owned by a pimp of some sort.  Not some, not many, all.  How can I show him he’s wrong?

I am not exaggerating when I suggest you should find another therapist.  Anyone who could believe such a thing when there is overwhelming proof to the contrary (in the form of not only studies but personal accounts) is so irrational that it qualifies as a full-blown delusion; a person who could believe that can believe literally anything, including psychological fads like “sex addiction” with no basis in valid psychological theory or study.  He obviously has no idea of how the female mind works, or is in deep denial; furthermore, he has an extremely low opinion of women’s agency and capacity for self-determination, which will affect everything he tells you about women.  And though he’s not an economist, even the most rudimentary understanding of rational choice theory or the basics of undergraduate-level sociology would make it impossible for any sane mind to believe in such utter foolishness.

There is a mountain of information which disproves this absurd myth, much of it linked on the Resources page of my blog and much more easily discovered by a quick Google search.  If he believes all this information is wrong, he’s a megalomaniac or a religious fanatic; if he believes it to be deliberately falsified he’s paranoid, and if he doesn’t know it exists he’s woefully ignorant.  In any case, he isn’t the kind of person who should be responsible for anyone else’s mental health, and in fact could benefit from a great deal of therapy himself.  His belief is as irrational as the contention that an anthropomorphic god created the universe in six calendar days 6000 years ago, or that large numbers of extraterrestrials have abducted humans for experiment, or that vast Satanic cults enslave thousands of teenage runaways to breed babies for sacrifice; you should avoid him just as you would avoid a “therapist” who believed in such ideas.

Finally,  There’s also one more possibility:  He could know very well what he’s saying is a lie, and is just trying to scare you away from seeing sex workers.  That would make him an amoral manipulator, which is just as bad as the other possibilities unless you actually want to develop False Memory Syndrome (see “Imagination Pinned Down” in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I).

Bed Death

I’m a successful professional woman who has been married for 20 years, but over the last few years I’ve been growing more bisexual.  So I hired an escort, and later we started dating.  I’m not her “sugar mama”, although I do try and help her out a little bit here and there.  I suppose when a relationship starts out as escort/client, there are hurdles to overcome on both sides; being that you previously married a client, I figure you might understand what I mean.  Obviously, by hiring escorts, I was not looking for a serious relationship, and it’s been kind of intense; any advice (or words of caution) you have on this situation would be appreciated!

You’re right about the hurdles; sometimes they can be overcome, and sometimes not.  In my case, the marriage eventually broke down for reasons only tangentially related to my work, but 14 years isn’t a bad run for any marriage nowadays.  From the information you’ve given me, I don’t think your girlfriend being an escort will really matter one way or another (though it usually does with men; see “Fraught With Complications” in Ask Maggie, Volume I), unless you become jealous of her clients, but since this is (I assume) your first lesbian relationship there are a couple of things you may appreciate my mentioning.  In lesbian relationships, sexual interest tends to ramp up quickly (“What does a lesbian bring along on the second date? A U-haul”) as you discovered firsthand, but often dies within a year (the dreaded “lesbian bed death”), and you’re already past four months.  Of course, this isn’t always the case, and even when it is lesbian relationships can go on for years or decades after that due to shared intimacy & deep emotional bonding; for some lesbians that’s enough.  But if you were the kind of woman who can be satisfied with a relationship devoid of lesbian sex, I don’t think you’d have been intentionally seeking out an escort in the first place (regardless of what actually happened when you met one you “clicked” with).  So while it’s true that there are special difficulties in any relationship with a sex worker, what I’d be more mindful about in your specific case is how you’ll feel when the sex dries up.

Fair Trade

I know a handful of people who have seen sex workers for trade.  I have no issue with the idea that sex can be exchanged for money or (as in “traditional marriage”) other benefits, and I’m not at all bugged by, say, a photographer exchanging website photos for a domme session; however, I get a little nervous when I hear about a lawyer or a doctor trading for some sexual pay-off.  I guess legal and medical coverage hint at a greater power differential; they are so expensive and so very important, and so many people need them who don’t easily have access to them, that my mind wonders when consent ends and coercion begins if one is charged with a crime or needs an appendectomy.  I certainly don’t think that just because a sex worker wouldn’t have sex with someone in their personal lives, it’s somehow automatically coercion when they are doing it to pay their bills/survive.   So when is one right to feel squicked out?  Is a for-trade situation ever just totally inappropriate?  Or is this some ghastly Puritanical reflex that I need to consider unlearning?

Though you may find it an interesting exercise in introspection to try to figure out why you’re squicked out by the exchange of sex for what we might call “high level” professional services, I don’t think you should feel compelled to do so because there isn’t anything “wrong” with your feeling that way.  Now, I suspect that the reason is some sort of entanglement with the idea of a powerful person demanding sexual services as payment for a favor; I think we can agree that a cop saying, “Give me sex or I’ll arrest you”, or a company boss saying, “Give me sex or I’ll fire you and destroy your career”, are forms of rape.  And though I don’t agree that for a professional who does not have actual power over a person to offer valuable and/or expensive services in exchange for sex is morally wrong, I can imagine circumstances in which the line would be mighty thin; for example, the only doctor in a remote village demanding sex and refusing any other form of payment from an extremely ill woman in dire poverty without means of travel to find a different doctor.  So it’s not at all surprising that the one type of interaction could “cross-contaminate” the other in your psyche.

However, it doesn’t actually matter why you feel squicked out by that particular interaction, as long as you respect the right of others not to feel that way.  As I wrote in “Out of the Dark” (in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I), “The human brain is not rational, and we don’t get to choose what turns us on….sexual likes, dislikes, kinks and fetishes emerge by mysterious paths from the murky swamp we carry deep in our brains, and there’s no known way to reroute those pathways once they’re established.”  Lots of people are squicked out by the fact that I have sex for money with strange men, some of whom may be extremely physically unattractive; others are uncomfortable with my bisexuality, or with the fact that I’m extremely turned on by some kinds of BDSM.  At the same time, I’m unmoved or even turned off by other kinds of BDSM, and also by some vanilla sex acts that millions of people enjoy.  And that’s all perfectly OK, as long as everyone respects everyone else’s right to have different feelings and refrains from inflicting violence on them or otherwise trying to persecute them, such as by lobbying for laws (enforced by violent thugs) to criminalize behaviors not because they objectively harm others, but merely because they don’t like them.  The most important thing to remember is that aversions and squickouts are properties of individual psyches, not of the things those individuals are squicked out by; they are personal idiosyncrasies, and therefore harmless and not really a cause for concern unless they cause one distress or drive him to act in a way that abrogates the rights of others.

Stolen Trust

I’m trying to join a site that requires a reference; could you provide that for me?

Unless you’re someone I’ve actually met in person and know to be a sex worker, the answer is “absolutely not”.  Ditto if you’re a client I haven’t actually had a full-rate appointment with.  The reason should be obvious: the entire point of references for joining sex worker sites is to provide some measure of trust.  If I’m a trusted member of a site and I give a reference for a lady or gent I’ve met and feel reasonably good about, that says something about that person.  But if I just give references for people who haven’t actually done anything to earn that vouch, I’m deliberately cutting at the webwork of trust such sites rely upon and sabotaging the system; that’s an ethical nightmare which could allow any number of awful and even dangerous people behind the walls.

Now, it’s absolutely true that all a cop needs to do to infiltrate an escort board is to talk somebody into seeing him, then using her as a reference to see someone else, and after he does that a few times getting them to vouch for him (maybe even writing a few reviews for good measure).  That’s morally reprehensible behavior; it’s serial consent violation for the purpose of destroying a community, ruining lives and wrecking careers, which puts it on the same moral level as rape even if the individual women who were tricked don’t realize it.  Of course, cops (being moral imbeciles) have no aversion to rape and other vile, thoroughly loathsome violations of the most basic human decency; they are, however, subject to limitations imposed by time, money and their own stupidity, and therefore tend to prefer low-hanging fruit to that which can only be harvested via years of sleazy spying and exploitation.  With a few notable exceptions like the violation of Seattle’s “The Review Board” in January 2016, cops prefer to capture and parade the largest number of victims possible in front of the reporters’ cameras for the least possible effort, and that means when they bother trying to infiltrate sites at all they generally do it in the quickest, easiest way possible.  And you’ve got to admit that if it worked, getting a fake vouch from a well-respected escort would be a helluva lot quicker than the months-long process of actually behaving like a decent paying customer for long enough to worm his way in.  Of course, most well-respected escorts are going to answer this question in exactly the same way as I did back in the first sentence, though without the explanation.  Don’t get me wrong; I think it’s very likely that the person who asked me this question is a real sex worker, but I don’t know that for a fact.  And the stakes are much too high for me to gamble them on a guess.

Mixed Signals

I met a woman through a mutual friend and though I was very attracted to her, she had a boyfriend so I respectfully didn’t pursue anything.  Then we became friends via Facebook and began texting each other; I began flirting with her and she responded positively.  We started kissing and began to have lunches together, and though my feelings for her began to grow she told me that we could only be friends.  I broke off our relationship several times and asked her to not to contact me anymore, but she still contacted me after a week or two and the cycle began would begin again.  Eventually I decided to break it off permanently, and she said goodbye and got married to the man she was with.  But since then I’ve often wondered what she really wanted from me.

I think she wanted exactly what she got from you until you broke it off:  a guy who would pay attention to her and make her feel attractive, but who could still be kept in the “friend zone”.  Now, a lot of women strongly dislike that concept, and for the most part I agree with them; the idea that friendship is somehow incomplete in comparison with a sexual relationship is really rather odious.  But given that she was actively pursuing you and doling out just enough sex (the kissing) to keep you interested, I think the “friend zone” concept applies.  I used to know a girl like that; she actively pursued a mutual male friend, used sex to keep him interested, and then refused him the closer connection he obviously craved.  If he hadn’t broken it off she would’ve kept monopolizing his affections for as long as it suited her.  I think your friend was much the same:  if you hadn’t broken it off she just would’ve kept stringing you along, possibly even after she was married.  There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a woman wanting a friendship with a man rather than a sexual relationship, but sending mixed signals isn’t fair to anyone.

Surprise!

I recently went to get a body rub, and was only looking for the typical “happy ending” because I’m married and worried about STDs; however, when the hour was almost up she unexpectedly got on top of me — bareback.  I came in about 10 seconds.  Does she do that for everyone and just doesn’t advertise it, or did she actually like me?  Is it possible for her to have used some device to make me think I was entering her when it was something else?  I usually last longer than 10 seconds, but after almost an hour of incredible touching I couldn’t help myself; does she think I’m inadequate?  I realize that this was a commercial transaction and I’m behaving as if it was something more, but I can’t help it.

First of all, if I were you I’d get checked right away.  The chances are that she actually slipped a condom on you without your noticing (because some of us are extremely good at that), but since you don’t know for sure you need to be careful for your wife’s sake if not your own.  If she honestly and truly did take you in bareback (not just between her thighs, which [again] some girls are extremely good at), there’s a very good chance she does it for lots of people, and that’s how diseases get spread.  As I’ve explained many times, professionals are nearly always scrupulous about protection; however, the internet has made it very easy for inexperienced amateurs to get into the business without any opportunity to learn from more experienced ladies, and you have no way of knowing if your masseuse was one of them.

Yes, it’s possible that she liked you, but for most women (especially most pros) that’s simply insufficient reason to get up on top of somebody and give him a freebie.  The chances are, if she did it for you she does it for lots of people (even if it isn’t “everyone”), and since you can’t be sure she protected herself somehow (though it’s likely she did) you can’t afford not to get checked.  Don’t panic; the chances are highly against your getting anything really scary, but chlamydia and the like are bad enough and I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes if your wife gets infected.

And no, she doesn’t think you’re inadequate; the word you’re looking for is “normal”.  Personally, I’m always a bit concerned (though obviously I don’t let him see it) if a client takes more than a few minutes once he’s inside; it makes me worry that I’m losing my touch!

Convolution
Your Move
Yet Here We Are
Immune to the Stuff
Still Taboo
Lopsided Deal
Nobody Asked
Sincerely Seeking
Genteel Indolence
Realistic Expectations

Convolution

There’s a woman who often comes into my workplace.  She has let me know she’s very interested and I think she’s gorgeous.  However, I know she’s hesitant to do anything with me because I’m married, and it wouldn’t be right for me just to “nail her” and leave her hanging because she really needs a man.  She’s a single mom who just lost her job a few months ago, so she’s having some financial problems.  So what if I approach her and offer her some compensation?  I’d pay her just like any other escort (and I pay well); all she’d really have to do is spend 3 or 4 hours with me at dinner and her place and I know she already would like to do that.  She’s definitely no prude; she always talks and jokes very candidly.  So I don’t think she’ll be offended if I make the offer – but I’m not too sure.  Is a good idea?

In a word: no.  Most amateur women are so brainwashed into seeing sex work as “dirty” and “bad” that they will instantly and stupidly perceive the offer of money as an insult, even if they see the request that they give it up for free as a reasonable one.  “Halfway whores” such as sugar babies and trophy wives often perform impressive mental gymnastics in order to avoid admitting the truth; Cirque du Soleil has nothing on these gals.  Nor is it ever a good idea for a married man to become involved with an amateur, especially not one who’s attracted to him and “needs” a man, because those are exactly the characteristics that will drive her to cause trouble.  I’m sure it’s a great boost to your ego for a hot chick to come on to you, but emotional involvement is inevitably a spanner in the spokes of extramarital activity unless you actually want a divorce.  Women who only want small amounts of money in exchange for small amounts of sex are safe partners for a married man; those who want love, fun, companionship or a lifetime of support are disasters waiting to happen.

The only way this could possibly work is if she turns pro.  You could try bringing up the subject half-jokingly, telling her that she really ought to consider escorting in order to make ends meet; if she seems offended just blow it off as an idle suggestion, ending with something like “I don’t see anything wrong with a woman using her natural abilities to prosper.”  Then never bring it up again, and give up on the whole idea of boinking her.  If, on the other hand, she seems intrigued, point her to my website; there are plenty of mentoring posts there she can read to help her decide.  You absolutely do not want her to think that you’re offering to be her pimp or anything like that, and if she gets that idea anyway and seems open to it, you need to insist that she do it on her own (see the last sentence of the preceding paragraph).  If she takes up sex work on her own and then offers you a compensated date without any hinting on your part, it’s a horse of a different color from your offering her money outright; though you still need to be extremely careful since you know she’s attracted to you, the fact that she’s doing sex work will show you she at least has the ability to view the situation pragmatically, and the money will provide a buffer.  Furthermore, if she’s hooking and you know it, you have a secret to counterbalance her knowledge of your infidelity.  You may call that calculus cold-blooded if you like; I prefer the word “realistic”.

Your Move

I have a follow-up question to “Convolution”.  It’s kind of the flip-side: how do I get an interested man to pay for sex?  I am fine with it being labeled as prostitution, but I think a lot of men aren’t comfortable with the idea of direct payment.  However, I’m done giving it away; I have invested a lot into my appearance and intelligence, and loans and hair don’t pay for themselves!

When I was in my thirties and a strange man started flirting with me in some public place, I just gave him a card.  My cards were very simple, with just the name of my service, its website address and the phone number.  They were, however, obviously not cut-rate cards; they were glossy black with purple text, and plasticized on the front side.  So though they didn’t actually say much in text, their subtext was obviously THIS WOMAN IS NOT CHEAP.  The tactic rarely yielded a completed appointment; few of them called, and most of those who did couldn’t afford it.  But despite the low success rate from a financial point of view, it was worthwhile to me because it got them to stop wasting my time with a quiet but unmistakable “put up or shut up.”  Or expressed more politely, “your move.”

Now, I have many fine qualities, but sexual subtlety is not among them.  When describing my looks people often use adjectives like “stunning” or “striking”, and with good reason:  my sex appeal is about as gentle and understated as a brick to the face, and some men have even described me as “intimidating”.  So while handing a man a business card and responding to his “Is this what I think it is?” with a straightforward “yep” worked well for me, it might not fit your style at all.  Furthermore, since I gather from your question that you are new to this, you’d probably be pretty uncomfortable with the brazenness of my strategy, which (as explained above) is much better at getting rid of would-be Casanovas than it is at turning them into clients.  I’ve never had the patience to cultivate individual men; I’ve always preferred to just spin my web and wait for the guests to arrive.  So though I’d love to be able to give you a strategy for letting a flirter know that there’s a charge for what he’s seeking without scaring him off, I’m afraid you’ll have to figure this one out for yourself.

Yet Here We Are

I’m a sex worker in love with a wonderful, kind, but very weak man who, after years and several children with an abusive, mentally ill wife is financially fucked and legally cornered by a Kafkaesque divorce court system.  Jail might be in his future, if not suicide, and in the meantime court-ordered child support and other payments have left him literally unable to afford rent so he’s now homeless.  I feel like I will have to decide to leave him because he can’t emotionally or financially survive the abuse by his ex and the court, and I can’t be in relationship with a broken person who feels entitled to a reality that will not come.  Any advice would be appreciated. 

Since he has allowed this to go on for far too long, whatever chance he might have had at the beginning has long since gone down the toilet; the only way he’s going to carve out even the most basic protection is to hire a top-notch divorce lawyer who will fight his ex’s no-holds-barred assaults with even more ruthless assaults.  What could such a lawyer win for him?  I have no idea, but at this point, he will be doing well to be left with some money to live on and protection from further spurious accusations.  Of course, if he doesn’t even have enough money to pay rent, he can’t afford a lawyer.  And that means you need to decide – I’m sorry, but there’s no nice way to say this – if this relationship is worth your emotional and financial investment.  I believe you when you say that he’s a wonderful man, and that you love him.  But I also agree with you that he’s weak, and has not fought this to win but to “roll over”.  From what you describe in your very detailed letter, he made a long succession of mistakes in every single interaction with his ex from the very beginning, starting with his decision to fuck her in the first place.  Does that mean he “deserves” (see “Undeserving” in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume II) what has happened to him?  Absolutely fucking not.  And yet, here we are.  And you need to make decisions based in current reality, not romantic fantasies or might-have-beens or “if I won the lottery”.  If you stay with this man you will be supporting him until his youngest child is out of university, and maybe even longer than that.  Any legal fees will need to come from you.  His housing and support will come from you.  Whatever malicious fees the court levies on him?  You.  And he’ll expect you to provide all the usual emotional and practical labor as well, because beside being a man he’s too devastated to provide emotional support even to himself, much less you.  I hear that you love him and he’s wonderful, but is whatever he gives you enough to justify that cost?  He is already draining you like a vampire, emotionally, financially, sexually and even physically, and that will not stop unless you stop it.

I’m sorry, honey, I know this is incredibly painful, and I wish I had some good news or happy thoughts for you.  The legal system of this country is designed to grind people into pulp, and your boyfriend obediently jumped into that machine on the orders of a dangerously unhinged woman.  So now the only thing left for you to decide is whether to risk getting sucked in yourself by reaching into the gears in the probably-vain hope of pulling him out; to just stand there and be splattered by blood and gore as the machine does its horrifying work; or to wash your hands of the whole thing.

Immune to the Stuff

I’m a mostly straight, young but not too young, sexually active adult woman.  I don’t intend to get married, but I very much value emotional connections and intimacy.  I can have sex for the sake of sex without needing it to mean more, but I appreciate more when it’s there.  Well, about two years ago I met a much older man who claimed his was an open marriage; we didn’t actually have sex for a couple of months, and I was intrigued by the idea of a close but not fully committed lover who would not be seeking a wife.  Eventually I found out that while his wife didn’t much mind his having no-strings extramarital sex, she would not at all have accepted his being emotionally involved with a mistress.  I was pissed because I had expressed early on that I didn’t want to get involved in keeping secrets, but he talked me back into his arms and thus ensued another year of amazing sex, moments of transcendent friendship, and also plenty of moments of being ignored or even fully disregarded despite his expectation that I would be responsive to him and his texts and his emails.  He could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment, but that’s not what he did.  So I ended it because being told I am amazing while simultaneously being ignored might be as damaging as anything I have experienced.  Still, I have a lot of self-doubt over this; is something wonderful about him that I am overlooking?  Did my desires and wants cross the line into immature self-centered behavior?  Am I overlooking a point of view, or am I just overlooking an asshole’s asshole nature?

It’s hard for people who are sexually experienced, savvy, wise in the ways of the world and generally free of belief in romantic bullshit to recognize that we, too, can be deceived in relationships.  No matter how much we may like to think that we’re “immune to the stuff”, as Robert Palmer put it, the fact of the matter is that the right dose in the right combination delivered in the right medium will still intoxicate us just as if we were starry-eyed ingenues.  And unfortunately, there is no way to be sure that the mixologist isn’t up to pure no good when he or she slips you that mickey; every time you imbibe you run the risk that the cocktail will be stronger than you bargained for, especially when it’s so delicious you just keep knocking ‘em down without keeping a very close count.  From what you’ve told me here, your lover was quite the skillful alchemist; he read what you wanted, told you what you wanted to hear and expertly smoothed over your valid concerns.  This doesn’t mean you’re gullible; it means you’re a real and complex person with needs of your own, and you fell in with someone who both knew how to manipulate that and had no moral scruples against doing it.  Lest you think I’m being unnecessarily harsh in my judgment of him, consider your own statement that “he could have gotten the sex without having to make false promises of emotional attachment”; he wanted the advantages of a regular sex worker without having to pay for one.  You didn’t say what he does for a living, but he’d have made a great politician; the combination of charm, promise making-and-breaking and casual dishonesty is typical in that career.  Politicians are usually very popular, too, which is how they keep getting elected no matter what they do; that doesn’t make them good people, it makes them good manipulators.  So I think you made the right decision: treasure the good memories, let go of as much of the pain as you can, and walk away before he talks you into wasting another year on someone who seems unable to play by the rules of ethical non-monagamy.

Still Taboo

My single adult daughter (age 26) has recently discussed becoming my mistress.  Though this taboo in our society, she is 100% consensual, high class and very attractive; she has needs that I can fulfill and I have needs that she can fulfill.  What do we look out for in order to make this work?

As you know, I firmly believe that what consenting adults do in private is nobody’s business but theirs.  Since you’ve asked my advice, however, I feel it isn’t out of place for me to tell you that I don’t think this is the best of ideas for either of you.  Even if the biological reasons for the taboo are removed by birth control, that won’t change the way other people (not to mention the “authorities”) feel; furthermore, how certain can you be that both of you can totally shed the social norms you’ve internalized?  If you were equals in the eyes of the law and society that wouldn’t matter; many relationships involve complex and conflicting emotions, and getting hurt by such relationships is simply part of the experience of living.  But despite what you may think, you are not equals under modern law; if the relationship were to be exposed you would be cast as the villain, all the more so if you’re supporting her in exchange for sex, and an ambitious prosecutor could turn that into prison time (especially while “sex trafficking” hysteria is still going full steam ahead).

What it all boils down to is this:  you can’t be sure exactly what is going on in your daughter’s head, and if she has a strong internal conflict about it (which wouldn’t be surprising), it might bubble to the surface at some future time (such as during a heated argument), resulting in disaster for you if she tells someone else about it.  Even if she regretted the confession five minutes later, neither of you could control the actions of the confidant…actions that might set a legal juggernaut in motion.  My advice to you is that you help your daughter financially until she can find an independent income or sugar daddy of her own, and satisfy your own needs with escorts or sugar babies to whom you are not related.  If you decide to go ahead with the incestuous relationship, though, please make a thorough study of the applicable laws in your country, state or province and city so that you’ll know exactly what the potential hazards might be, and tell absolutely no one else about the arrangement no matter how trustworthy you may think he is.

Lopsided Deal

What if a woman was offered a lucrative, plum position in a particular field – let’s say engineering – for which she was required and expected to perform said tasks and critiqued accordingly.  To finalize the mix, her supervisor expected an ongoing sexual relationship.  But the woman employee would be expected to perform the job requirement tasks and subjected to the same performance reviews as any other employee.  So, is this prostitution or is its removal from the direct exchange of sex for money take it out of that category?  The situation has a very murky feel to it IMO.

Yeah, it’s murky all right.  If the employee initiated the deal, it would certainly be a form of prostitution (though kind of a dumb one for reasons we’ll go over in a minute).  But if the employer initiated it – which is what I assume you’re proposing due to the phrase “expected an ongoing sexual relationship” – it would be sexual harassment in the purest form.  Such arrangements were at one time not at all uncommon; I’m sure you’ve heard of the Hollywood “casting couch”.  In the days when men pretty much ran everything and women were hard-pressed to break into decent jobs, many women felt as though they had little choice but to accept such lopsided deals when they were offered; it wasn’t until women as a group had gained enough clout in the marketplace that individual women felt secure enough to call attention to this kind of extortion when it happened.  But since the language you use seems to indicate that you don’t see the fundamentally coercive nature of these work conditions, let me spell it out for you:  the employee would be expected to perform two jobs for one paycheck, and as you describe it she wouldn’t be getting any kind of slack in the “official” job.  So not only would she have to put out for her sleazy boss without any guarantee of job security, she’d also have to labor under the Damoclean sword of the Coolidge Effect (see “Familiarity Does Its Thing” in Ask Maggie, Volume I).  Sooner or later he’d get tired of her, and then what?  Would he let her keep the job and stop pestering her for sex, or (as seems much more likely) would he begin to find fault with her, sabotage her efforts so she gets bad performance reviews, write her up for bullshit infractions, and the like so he could fire her and bring in a new honey in her place?  Only a desperate woman would accept such a crappy arrangement, and because Western society now recognizes just how exploitative sex-for-job deals are, any man who would still propose one would have to be a total fool who deserved everything he got.

Nobody Asked

I’m passionately against sex-trafficking, and on the whole I do not support sex work.  If the existence of the sex industry hides trafficked victims, which it does, then I’d rather there’s no sex industry at all, because while the willing sex worker is able to do other work, the trafficked victim has no such choice.  I was an advocate of the Swedish model until a Swedish friend of mine sent me a blog post that explained how it’s making life worse for sex workers (even coerced ones), contrary to what the Swedes and well-meaning Christian community might have us believe.  I’ve also keenly noticed that in all the sex trafficking discussions and films I’ve seen, nobody – absolutely NOBODY – asked the prostitutes, the very people who know what it is they need, and what the situation is really like on the ground.  So I’m interested knowing what, in your opinion, do sex workers need?  What kind of system, law, or facility should be in place to better protect and help sex workers?  Is it possible to help and rescue trafficked victims, whilst not interfering with willing sex workers?  What would actually help rescuers identify and free trafficked victims in the sex trade?  Finally, why have YOU chosen to be a sex worker?  I’m asking not to judge you or to preach or change your mind.  I just want to hear the other side.

You may not like everything I’m going to say, but you seem like someone who’s genuinely trying to understand so I hope you won’t reject uncomfortable truths out of hand merely because they do indeed make you uncomfortable.

The first question you need to ask yourself is, what is it about sex work you don’t “support”?  If you merely mean that you can’t envision yourself as ever being in a position to either sell or buy sex, the statement makes perfect sense; I could say that “I don’t support the rap industry” because I don’t like rap and therefore contribute no money to that segment of the music business.  However, my powerful dislike for rap does not give me the right to deny that it undoubtedly gives pleasure to those who do like it, and provides a creative outlet for people who nonetheless could do “other work” under far less satisfying conditions and for vastly less money.  Nor would it be right for me to demonize rap and blame it for things that derive from the nastier portions of human nature; these problems would still exist even if rap could somehow be eliminated by establishing a totalitarian state whose police had the power to violate people’s rights at will in order to further the War on Rap.  It is never right, moral, justifiable or even possible to stop people from pursuing peaceful, consensual, private activity, whether that activity involves music, books, sex or drugs.  You mention the prohibitionist myth that the sex industry “hides” the existence of coerced workers, but this is no more true than saying the agricultural industry “hides” the existence of coerced farm workers or the domestic service industry “hides” the existence of coerced domestics.  The sad fact is that some human beings are willing to directly subject their fellow creatures to coercion, and most human beings are willing to allow others with fancy titles and interesting costumes to inflict coercion as long as that violence achieves results they like, whether those results be enlarging their country’s territory, filling the state’s coffers, inflicting their moral agenda on strangers or producing cheap food and consumer electronics.  Most people who position themselves as enemies of “sex trafficking”, yet seem relatively unconcerned with other forms of coerced labor, do so for two reasons: first, that they do not themselves buy or sell sexual services; and second, that they wish to stop others whom they do not even know from doing so.  If these same people were constantly calling for the abolition of other industries in which some degree of coercion occurs (such as agriculture, domestic service, textiles, electronics and the prison industry), their position would at least be logically consistent (if naively Utopian).  But that is not the case:  they are perfectly willing to accept exploitative and coercive, even quasi-slave-like, treatment of agricultural laborers, domestics, sweatshop workers and those arrested under prohibitionist laws; it is somehow only sexual exchange, coerced or otherwise, which inflames their ire.

I am really pleased that you recognize the necessity of listening to sex workers; that is the major point of my essay “Let Me Help” (in Ask Maggie, Volume I), which I think would answer most of your questions.  It contains references to other essays of mine (and to other resources) which will help you to understand not only that very few sex workers are coerced in any meaningful sense of the word, but that most of the people “authorities” label “trafficked” are not the helpless victims in need of “rescue” that they are painted as being in exploitation films and prohibitionist propaganda.  These people themselves say this over and over again, but as you pointed out nobody wants to listen because the truth conflicts with the narrative they prefer to impose upon it.  And one thing upon which virtually all sex workers agree is that decriminalization – the removal of all laws which treat sex work as somehow magically different from all other forms of work – is absolutely the best way of dramatically reducing the harms which plague the industry under criminalized, semi-criminalized or quasi-criminalized regimes.  My essay “Treating Sex Work As Work” in Cato Unbound, December 2013) sets out the case in exhaustive and thoroughly-cited detail, explaining how every attempt to control sex work by criminal law results in causing far more harm than it prevents.

As for your last question, I chose sex work for the same reason about 98.5% of all sex workers do:  it was the best fit for my needs at the time.  Sex work is both more lucrative and more flexible than any other kind of work available to most people; in its most basic form it requires no special equipment, starting capital, intensive training, licenses or tests.  And though those characteristics are attractive to many people, they are especially attractive to members of certain marginalized populations – including, ironically, women with prior prostitution arrest records – who find it difficult or impossible to secure or maintain conventional employment.  In other words, the more laws, rules and regulations a society allows government to inflict upon it, the larger the fraction of people who will be driven into underground economies by their inability to get other work.  The more a government tries to control people’s work, movement and lives – including their sex lives – the larger the sex industry will become; prohibitionists are therefore their own worst enemies, because the more they crack down, the more people they push into conditions under which sex work is the best available means of support.

Sincerely Seeking

This is a set of questions the writer of the previous question sent me after publication of my answer. 

A friend of mine belongs to an anti-trafficking ministry which gives out gift bags to ladies in brothels and tries to build friendships with them.  The gift bag includes shampoo and sometimes cookies and earrings, and also a packet of tissues, inside which they have slipped a hotline for getting out of prostitution.  Would you personally find such a message with a hotline number insulting?

Most sex workers would probably consider that more funny than insulting, because the idea outsiders have that we’re all “trapped” or “victims” or “slaves” is very amusing when it isn’t backed up by uniformed thugs.  But once the cops start smashing down doors, beating, raping and robbing sex workers before caging them and giving them criminal records that will follow them for life, it goes far beyond mere insult.  The idea that we’re “victims” is a symptom of what you mentioned in your first letter:  the refusal to listen.  It’s kind of like the way gay people are treated in some churches:  “I can’t understand how a man could be attracted to another man, so there must be something wrong with them.”  The old narrative was that sex workers were “bad” women, but over the past 800 years Christianity has slowly shifted toward viewing us as “fallen” creatures to be redeemed, and that became the dominant social discourse in English-speaking countries from the 1880s on (largely due to the influence of the Salvation Army and other groups promoting the “white slavery” hysteria).  After criminalization became the norm in the US (from 1910-1914), people naturally started seeing prostitutes as “criminals”, and that view persisted until the beginning of the present moral panic in 2004 (though several years earlier in Sweden).

I have seen sites that quoted (at least they claim) comments from clients about prostitutes, 95% of which were horrendous.  So why do clients come to you?  Is it really that men who are willing to buy women are often aggressive and do not respect women in general? 

Those “client quotes” are totally cherry-picked.  The idea that men pay good money to spend time with women they hate is about as absurd as anything I can think of; it’s related to the radical feminist notion that all intercourse is rape.  The fact is, I am often treated better by the men who pay me than by guys who dated me in my younger days, and that’s a very typical experience.  The majority of sex workers’ clients are either horny or lonely, and that’s it.  They’re not looking for women to “objectify” or “abuse”, and the only people who can believe otherwise without being lied to are people who believe the Marxist foolishness that all economic transactions are innately exploitative, or those who believe that all sex not sanctified by marriage (or all heterosexual sex, period) is bad.  The only reason they pick on sex work is that when they try to apply those ideas more universally, most normal people mock, shun or ignore them.  Sex workers have been turned into a pariah caste against whom rhetoric that wouldn’t last five minutes when directed against anyone else, suddenly becomes palatable.  The most common form of prostitution these days is probably GFE escorting, where GFE stands for “girl friend experience”.  In other words, the majority of clients want a girl who is nice and friendly and chatty and sweet, just like a regular date.  Yes, there are bad clients…but that’s true of every business in the world, as anyone with experience in retail or waitressing can tell you.

Do you not mind when a man comes to you only for your body, with no interest in your personality, your soul, your mind, your history?  Although if I must think of sex work as normal work, I suppose it would be as ridiculous as if I asked an office worker, do you not mind that your boss has no interest in your personality etc and that you are reduced as just a working cog in a corporation.  In an office, ideally you’d find a caring manager who does care about your well-being – and I guess there are clients who are similar?

As I explained above, most clients are.  If you talk to sex workers who have had “straight” jobs, you’ll find they usually felt far more objectified in those than in sex work.  People who talk about “bodies to be used” must have a very low opinion of men, to believe that that’s how men see sex.  In fact, one of the most annoying client behaviors is when they go on about “I want to give you pleasure” and “what would you like to do?” and that sort of thing, which many of them do.  We hate it because it makes it much harder to satisfy a customer who won’t say what he wants, but as you can see it’s exactly the opposite of that “objectification” jazz.  I used to advertise myself as “the thinking man’s companion” because I have a hard time “dumbing down” my conversation and want to attract men who like that…and there are plenty.  You were talking about reviews earlier; you know who gets the worst reviews?  Girls who just lie there like a “body to be used”.  What prohibitionists claim men are looking for, is actually the thing which will probably kill a sex worker’s business faster than anything else.

My anti-trafficking friend never says “prostitute”, but rather “ladies in the sex industry”; she also never gives out their names “in order to protect their confidentiality”.  But if sex work is just work, what difference does the word make?  And why wouldn’t prostitutes want people to know their names?

If sex work were completely accepted, normal and legally protected, I would agree with you that there would be no need for aliases.  But that isn’t the way it is, and it won’t be in our lifetimes.  Your friend is wise to be discreet.  As for the term “prostitute”, it’s a very legalistic word that has acquired  considerable negative baggage.  So while I myself use it because many outsiders with whom I discuss it (especially lawyers & politicians) see it as a neutral term, it is in fact pejorative and should be avoided.  “Sex worker” is considered the most polite term; “prostituted woman” is the most insulting and demeaning because it casts us as passive, inert victims without intellect, will or agency.

I’m uncomfortable saying that sex work should be okay and treated as any other job, but I’m also uncomfortable with criminalization because everyone has the right to choose what they will do and how they want to live their lives.  How do I resolve this conflict?

Now we’re getting into the philosophy of harm reduction, which is quite complicated but here’s the nutshell version.  I personally hate cocaine; I hate the way people act when they use it, I hate the way it makes their noses run and their mouths get crusty, I hate the weird fantasies they have when they’re on it.  After my first few years in the business I started refusing clients I knew were using it because I didn’t want to deal with it.  However, the harms that result from cocaine aren’t nearly as bad as those that result from attempting to suppress it, such as the establishment of a surveillance state, empowerment of police to violate civil rights on a massive scale, bloody cartel wars, bad (even fatal) reactions to tainted drugs, the attraction of criminals to the business, the vast waste of money and the highest incarceration rates in history.  I don’t have to like cocaine or approve of its use to recognize that its prohibition is a horrible thing and the wellspring of myriad evils, and you don’t have to like or approve of sex work to have the same view about its prohibition.  And considering that it is the prohibition of sex work that is the chief enabler of coercion, I would think that every moral person who is truly concerned about that would join with the UN, the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and many others in calling for the decriminalization of sex work.

Genteel Indolence

I agree with you that “a whore is a whore is a whore”, but it’s one thing to say that and quite another to practice it personally.  I have nothing against women who advertise on sites like Backpage and its successors – two of my best friends fall in that category – but the prospect of doing it myself results in a special kind of revulsion.  How would you propose that a whore more accustomed to the “high class call girl” route get over that kind of internalized whorephobia?  It’s not morality, and it’s not even logic; my mentor has suggested that my earnings would improve considerably if I’d get off my damn high horse, work in the big cities at the market rate taking callers on short notice, and quit waiting on men to book long sessions well in advance.  I just can’t stomach the idea of myself as “that kind” of whore, even though I was once previously successful working like that and could use the money.

Don’t be too hard on yourself.  None of us can help what squicks us out, and sometimes the squick factor is stronger than the desire for money.  There’s also the simple fact that we’re all good at different things; “high-end” GFE is so natural and easy for me I can practically do it in my sleep, but domination takes effort and PSE is so hard it’s practically impossible.  But I have friends for whom the order of difficulty is different, and some tell me GFE is so difficult for them they prefer to avoid it entirely.  I don’t think preferring to stick to what one is good at and avoiding what’s difficult or revolting is necessarily a sign of whorephobia; it could just be that you prefer to take a little pay cut to make your life easier (a sin against commerce of which I, too, am guilty).  If it doesn’t bother you that your friends do mid-range touring, and you don’t look back on your own past with disgust, and you don’t treat other sex workers any differently or talk down to them, your problem may not be whorephobia but rather the kind of genteel indolence which causes many of us to pick sex work over our other options in the first place.  If a woman prefers to do sex work because it gives her a higher return for less effort than “straight” jobs, it’s certainly no surprise if she chooses to do a form of sex work she personally finds easier and more palatable over one she finds less so.

Realistic Expectations

I’m over 70 and no longer able to get an erection even with the meds available.  I’m in good shape, not bad looking and can afford it, but am reluctant to engage a girl.  What do you think?

One thing that I (and nearly nearly every sex worker I talk to) wish men understood is that we really don’t care about most of the things men think women care about, and that includes most of the things some amateur women do care about.  We really don’t care about clients’ looks, age, relative levels of physical fitness, penis size, ability to perform tricks they saw in porn movies, or anything like that; what we do care about is that our clients are polite, generous, clean, respectful, prompt, appreciative, gentlemanly, and realistic about their expectations.  What I mean by that last is, it’s not a problem if a gentleman is unable to get an erection, understands that, and asks for activities that don’t require one (of which there are many); the problem only arises (no pun intended) if he believes a whore can perform the sexual equivalent of a resurrection, and gets angry at her if she can’t.  In my career I’ve had plenty of men, including many younger than yourself, who were suffering from temporary or permanent erectile dysfunction, and as long as they understood and accepted that we were still able to have a good time cuddling, kissing, playing with toys, engaging in kink and other such activities that don’t involve erections.  But when such a man expected some kind of high-level sexual witchcraft beyond even my considerable skills, it rarely turned out well.  My advice to you, then, is to find a mature lady whose company you think you’ll enjoy regardless of what happens in the bedroom; go into the date knowing your limitations and clearly communicate those limitations to her; and enjoy the journey rather than being hell-bent on reaching some kind of destination to which there may no longer exist a bridge.

Take It Easy
Triple Negative
Leave Well Enough Alone
False Compromise
Suspicious Minds
Horns
Sex and Drugs
Not Your Place
Upside Down
Not With a Ruler

Take It Easy

I’m dating a Catholic virgin (both of us are professional adults).  We’re going to have sex soon, and I want to make it good for her, but I’m not very experienced myself and I’m both long and thick; I have to buy custom condoms because nothing store-bought fits.  Worse, I have a pronounced downward bend; it caused problems with my first-ever girlfriend, and that left a lasting impression on me.  I really don’t want to ruin this for her; do you have any advice?

The most important advice I can give you about this is, DON’T RUSH.  If she’s a virgin your size may scare her at first, so you need to be ready for that possibility.  If it happens, you need to sincerely tell her that it’s not a rush, and you have to mean it so she sees it in your eyes and believes you.  Start with fingers and oral, to get her ready before you even try; if she has an aversion to fingers, try gently explaining that you’re concerned about hurting her so you want to take it slow & get her ready.  The vagina can take a LOT more than any human man has; lesbians often fist each other (which even though women’s hands are smaller than men’s, are still MUCH thicker than penises).  Plus, babies, right?  But that’s after warmup and relaxation.  So anything you can do to help her relax is a bonus; a few cocktails (you don’t want her drunk, just relaxed) or some good cannabis are time-tested methods.  When you do start the actual penetration process, don’t be in a rush; a little at a time, with kissing and touching, will help her to stay calm and relaxed.  And make sure you have plenty of water-based lube on hand; women vary in the amount they lubricate naturally, and if she’s nervous she may be drier than under optimal conditions.  Plus, condoms require more lube than bareback sex; the latex produces more friction than bare skin.  If she does get scared and changes her mind, don’t get angry; that isn’t uncommon.  Just gently withdraw and assure her that it’s OK, and that y’all can try again another time (again, you need to mean it because she’ll know if you’re just saying it).

Just because she’s a virgin does not mean she’ll be super-tight; women’s genitalia come in all sizes just as men’s do, so once she gets over the nervousness you may fit quite well.  And it’s a myth that a lot of sex loosens a woman; after four decades of sex I’m still extremely tight.  What some guys mistake for loosening is just the woman learning to relax, which of course increases with experience (childbirth can also damage the muscles, but that’s a subject for another day).  It’s possible that your angle may cause an issue, especially if it’s pronounced; you may need to try a couple of different positions to see which one works best for her.  Reverse cowgirl (woman on top, facing the man’s feet) can be good for penises with a pronounced downward bend, and that has the bonus of letting her control the rate and depth; of course, that also results in deeper penetration, which is not so good for a long cock.  So you’ll probably need to experiment to see what’s best.  Incidentally, I believe there has been some progress in the treatment of Peyronie’s Syndrome (that’s what the pronounced bend is called), so you may want to talk to your doctor for referral to a specialist for consultation.

Finally, and VERY importantly, do not worry about your skill level.  Really, honestly, that is of little to no consequence to most women.  What’s important is that you be loving, gentle and patient; that you listen to what she says and watch her nonverbal cues about what feels good and what doesn’t; that you make her feel beautiful, desirable and loved, and not pressured or inadequate; and that you help her understand that more than anything else you want intimacy with her, specifically, and not just any attractive woman.  And that because of that last, you’re willing to take your time and do whatever it takes to make her happy and comfortable.

Triple Negative

I’m an 18 year old virgin, barely making ends meet at my dishwashing job; I’m interested in making money with my body.  I’ve thought about stripping but I don’t think I have the body for it and I have self harm scars on my thighs; maybe porn or escorting might be another avenue to explore.  Would it be a good selling point that I’m a virgin?  How would I go about advertising that?

Since stripping and porn performing are more visual than escorting, you may be right about the latter being a better path for you than the former two.  I wouldn’t worry too much about the scars if I were you; I have some fairly noticeable scarring on my left arm, and I know a lady with pronounced Cesarean section scars, and both of us are quite popular escorts.  There are three things in your letter, however, which do concern me, and you should consider them deeply before attempting to pursue sex work.

The first is your youth:  while 18 is of legal age and I’ve known some ladies (including me) who did sell sex at that age, the ongoing hysteria over “child sex trafficking” has made being so young a liability rather than an asset.  Advertising sites are going to subject you to extra scrutiny, webcrawling programs run by the government and its prohibitionist cronies will flag you for increased surveillance, and your local cops and/or the FBI may even target you for “rescue” (i.e. arrest and use as a propaganda subject) in one of their pogroms if they decide you might be underage or vulnerable.

The second is your use of the phrase “make money with my body”, which to me indicates you’ve absorbed some harmful myths about sex work.  What you’re doing now is making money with your body; unless commercial dishwashing is very different from the home variety, it doesn’t exactly require a lot of mental work.  Escorting, on the other hand, requires considerable emotional labor; creating ads, screening clients and building a brand also require a great deal of head work.  It may be that you’re up to the challenge; since I know nothing about you I can’t say.  But even some very bright people don’t really like expending the kind of mental and emotional energy necessary to succeed as an escort, especially in these times of vanishing advertising sites and increased screening difficulty.

The third is your virginity.  You didn’t say where you live, but your spelling and word use seem American to me.  So unless you’re planning to go abroad, the only way to openly sell your virginity without bringing down hordes of authoritarians attempting to “save” you from a sensible decision (because you’re supposed to give your virginity for free to some stupid, penniless boy who may inflict an STI or worse, a pregnancy, on you) is to make a deal with a Nevada brothel to market that, and they’ll take 50%.  Furthermore, none of the high-profile virginity sales of the past decade have gone well, which rather makes skeptical of the whole concept in the 21^st century (though it worked well in the 19^th and early 20^th).  Furthermore, I don’t think it’s an especially good idea for a young woman who doesn’t even know how she’s going to feel about sex with men to try to make a living at it from square one.

My advice to you is this:  get a bit of sexual experience under your belt (no pun intended) before considering any kind of in-person sex work.  Try doing phone sex (there are some services such as Niteflirt which are quite popular) and see if you like that, then maybe move onto camming.  Do some research and talk to sex workers, and then after you’ve been doing the not-in-person stuff for a while you can try dipping into escorting if you still want to.

Leave Well Enough Alone

I’m a 27 year old virgin who was raised in a Puritanical family to believe that sex was dirty, evil and wrong; I masturbated when alone, watched porn when I could, but never tried to touch a woman for real because I believed that there was some pure virgin woman out there, waiting for someone exactly like me who, when we got married, would satisfy every sexual desire I had.  But when I got to college I started to realize that both good girls and bad girls have sex, and the mysterious, untouched, pristine virginal woman who would wait for years until marriage to have sex, basically didn’t exist.  I’ve tried dating, but every woman seemed to view me as “friend zone” material until I recently found one on an online dating app who is perfect in every possible way.  In two months of online interaction I’ve fallen head over heels for her, and next month I’ll be flying to her state to meet her in person and spend a week with her.  However, she is not a virgin; in fact, she’s quite experienced and can’t wait to “have all kinds of naughty fun” with me.  But I haven’t the slightest idea of how to please her!  I told her I was a virgin, and she told me that’s okay.  But, I don’t know how to do cunnilingus, I don’t know how to move from one activity to another, and I’m not sure if my penis is big enough to satisfy her.  And my fear is, I will lose her if I don’t satisfy her on this trip.  What should I do?  Should I visit an escort so I can practice?  Any advice you can give me is greatly appreciated!

This might seem weird coming from me, but DO NOT see a sex worker or otherwise make any attempt to lose your virginity before meeting up with your lady.  You told her you’re a virgin, and she said that’s OK; it’s entirely possible that it’s even more than OK, and in fact may be something she specifically finds desirable in you.  Some women like breaking virgins in; sometimes it’s a turn-on in and of itself, and sometimes it may be that they enjoy “training” a guy to do things the way they want them done.  Now, it may be that your lady isn’t specifically interested in your virginity, and that she doesn’t care one way or the other.  But it’s also possible she might feel kind of cheated if she was looking forward to that and you went and screwed it up without good reason on the eve of your meeting.  Note:  I am not saying that anyone “owes” a new partner virginity, or that sexual experience is a bad thing (and I am not going to be a pot describing the color of kettles).  All I’m saying is that I see no valid reason for you to make a liar out of yourself when you may be fulfilling a fantasy of hers (which I think you’ll agree would be pretty awesome).

Don’t worry about not knowing what to do; trust me, she already expects that.  Lots of men who think they know what they’re doing in bed actually don’t know shit, and since she’s quite experienced I’m sure she’s been with more than a few of those (incredibly annoying) guys.  Believe me, sugar, she’ll be a lot happier in bed with a guy who admits he doesn’t know anything than a blowhard who pretends he does, but doesn’t.  You say you don’t know how to give oral sex?  Well, you’re in company with at least 80% of the male population there.  Ditto not knowing how to guide the dance; that usually ends up being the woman’s job.  And unless you have an actual micropenis, don’t worry about being big enough to satisfy her; if she were a size queen she’d already have asked you about that.  Though your fears are understandable due to the garbage you’ve taken in from both your upbringing and the popular culture, it is a virtual certainty that they are baseless:  you aren’t going to lose her because you aren’t Superstud with a magic penis (especially because there ain’t no such organ).  That would be true even if you had a typical level of experience for your age, and it’s even more so since you were upfront about your lack thereof.  Relax, have fun, and let me know how it goes.

False Compromise

I was wondering if it might be to big a jump for Americans to go from fearing sex to seeing it as a normal human activity; might not the Swedish model be a shorter step?  Decriminalization is best of course, but is it to much of a shift from criminalization to make all at once?

Proponents of the Swedish model want you to see it as a sort of compromise position; that’s how it was sold in Canada, where the Middle of the Road is practically the national symbol.  But it’s actually nothing of the kind.  First of all, the Swedish model has never been adopted any place where sex work was already criminalized; it always results in the criminalization of behavior that was not previously criminalized.  Even if it were to be adopted in some US jurisdiction, the oft-heard claim that the model “decriminalizes the seller” is a blatant lie.  Because prostitution is a misdemeanor, arrested sex workers are usually charged with whatever the cops and DAs can think of to get a more serious crime, such as “promotion of prostitution” (ie pimping) or even “sex trafficking” if the cops’ victim was working with another whore; these laws are still in place under the Swedish model (described therein as “going after the pimps and traffickers”), and because there is no lesser prostitution charge the impetus for cops to level such serious charges against ordinary sex workers is actually increased.  But there’s another, more insidious and dangerous effect of the model: it establishes the legal precedent that adult women who behave in a way of which the state disapproves are not merely criminal, but incompetent.  As I explained in my essay, “Treating Sex Work as Work”:

[The Swedish model] is solidly rooted in an archaic and sexist view of women as particularly fragile and vulnerable, and…posits that paying for sex is a form of male violence against women.  This is why only the act of payment is de jure prohibited: the woman is legally defined as being unable to give valid consent, just as an adolescent girl is in the crime of statutory rape.  The man is thus defined as morally superior to the woman; he is criminally culpable for his decisions, but she is not…the law has been demonstrated to increase both violence and stigma against sex workers, to make it more difficult for public health workers to contact them, to subject them to increased police harassment and surveillance, to shut them out of the country’s much-vaunted social welfare system, and to dramatically decrease the number of clients willing to report suspected exploitation to the police (due to informants’ justified fear of prosecution).  Furthermore, these laws don’t even do what they were supposed to do; neither the incidence of sex work (voluntary or coerced) nor the attitude of the public toward it has changed measurably in any country…where they have been enacted…a Norwegian study found that banning the purchase of sex had actually resulted in an increase in coercion)…and…despite the hype, the truth is that even operations framed as “john stings” or “child sex slave rescues” end up with the arrest and conviction of huge numbers of women; for example, 97% of prostitution-related felony convictions in Chicago are of women, and 93% of women arrested in the FBI’s “Innocence Lost” initiatives are consensual adult sex workers rather than the coerced underage ones the program pretends to target…

And we haven’t even touched on things like Norway’s “Operation Homeless” (in which the cops sent letters to sex workers’ landlords, telling them they could be prosecuted as “pimps”, so as to get the women evicted); the forcible collection of “evidence” from the “crime scene” (i.e. sex workers’ vaginas); and the expulsion of student sex workers who refuse to pretend that they’re “victims”.

Tl;dr version of the preceding: “No”.

Suspicious Minds

I’m a widow who’s been in a relationship with a widower for two years; he has a successful business and is very well-off and very good to me, and though neither of us had a very good sex life with our deceased spouses we have really made magic together.  But for the past few months, things have cooled between us; the sex is still really good but somewhat less frequent, and his behavior has become odd.  Due to his business he’s gone for about half of every week; this never used to bother me, but while I was unpacking his case from his last trip I found a bottle of Viagra, and some of them had been used.  When I have sex with him now, he never wants anything but anal; he can’t come any other way.  He gets a lot of junk texts on his phone from gay dating websites; he just deletes them and says he doesn’t know why they’re being sent to him.  All this started after he hired a gay male friend of mine, and I have come to believe the two of them are having an affair.  I sometimes find the two of them talking in whispers, and they stop when I come into the room; one night recently I went to bed during one of the friend’s visits and awoke about three in the morning to find the two of them sitting close together in the garden, talking in hushed voices.  The next day he came by work and avoided me, rushing out without saying hello; we used to be close friends, but now he avoids making eye contact.  I want to trust my boyfriend, but it’s difficult given the circumstances.

I wish I could tell you that you’re only being paranoid, but I really don’t believe that you are.  If I were in your place, I would be just as suspicious as you are; all of these things do seem to point toward your boyfriend having an affair with your friend.  His sexual difficulties, his evasiveness, the way he and the friend seem to be sharing a secret, the fact that the friend is now uncomfortable around you, and the gay solicitations…together, they add up to something that doesn’t look good.  Despite the social gains made by gay people in recent years, there is still a great deal of stigma attached to homosexuality among older people, and even younger ones in many countries; it would therefore be no surprise for your boyfriend to be in denial about his attraction to other men.

Obviously, you’re going to have to talk to him about it somehow, but I think we both know he’s going to deny it because that’s what most men do when they’re caught.  I suggest you really think about how to confront him before actually doing it; try to plan this so you are as calm and rational as possible.  It’s almost certainly going to turn into an argument, so you need to prepare for that, but try not to let it degenerate into a screaming match; let him know how you feel, and watch how he reacts.  You will probably be able to tell by his reactions and what he says whether your suspicions are correct, even if he keeps denying it.  After that, you’ll have to make a decision based on what he says and what you discover; I can’t tell you what the “right” decision is, because you have to decide that for yourself, but one way or another this has to be resolved.  As the old song goes, “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds”; either you have to deal with the suspicion, accept the situation or move on from the relationship, because it isn’t fair to either of you for things to continue like this.

Horns

My new boyfriend is into cuckolding.  Some previous boyfriends have expressed interest in seeing me with other men, but not to this degree.  Also, I’ve thought about being in this sort of sexual situation, but never really felt as though the others were truly OK with it.  But this guy has detailed fantasy scenarios, such as my going on dates with other guys then coming home and telling him about it; he even fantasizes about my becoming pregnant for another man.  I’ve told him I am willing to have sex with other men, but it must be with protection.  He says he’s thought about this for over 5 years but never fully acted on it, except for watching one of his exes perform oral sex on another man.  I’m not afraid to participate, but I just don’t know how to go about doing it so as to make it really good for him; how should I act and what should I say during the scenes?

Since you haven’t been with this guy for a long time yet, it’s important that you feel him out so you can get a good sense of how seriously he’s committed to living this fantasy.  What I mean is, some men have desires that excite them very much when they’re horny, but then once they climax they feel very ashamed and guilty.  Does he talk about the fantasy even when he’s not really aroused, like after sex?  Because if he does, that’s a good sign it’s not something he’s ambivalent about.  The reason that’s important is that you don’t want to get involved with this kind of thing if he’s going to be excited by it at first, but then use it to attack you whenever you have an argument.  I suggest taking it slowly; talk about the fantasy and find out exactly what he wants, then go in gradually.  I think it’s very important that the first few times y’all do it should be 3-way situations, with him present; if he seems to really enjoy it and he’s glad that it happened once your “date” leaves, then you can move on to the more adventurous things like seeing guys on your own and telling him about it.  I think you’re very wise to insist on protection for the other men; guys often don’t consider practical things like that when they’re all excited by a fantasy.  And that’s exponentially more true with the idea of getting pregnant for someone else:  in these days of DNA testing, that would be a spectacularly bad idea for reasons I’m sure you don’t need me to explain.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the mechanics of the role-playing if I were you; he’ll probably make it clear what he likes, and I’m confident you’ll pick it up as you go along.  Just take it slow, enjoy the experiences, don’t let him push you into doing things you feel are unsafe or that you aren’t quite ready for yet, and make sure you reserve the right to turn down any specific person he might suggest that you don’t want to go to bed with for whatever reason.  That way, this will be fun and exciting for you as well, and will minimize the chances of building up resentments (in either of you) that could harm your relationship in the long run.

Sex and Drugs

I am absolutely wild about my husband, but we have a problem:  he likes to do cocaine, and whenever he does he hires escorts.  I want to be all that he needs and wants and desires, just like he is for me, so I recently let him have an escort come over while we did coke together (even though it does nothing for me) because I thought it would allow him to bury these fantasies and eliminate them from his mind.  But it didn’t work out and I asked her to leave, then the rest of the day was ruined because I was hurt.  Should I try again, or leave him, or what?

Most men are attracted to a lot of different women, and fantasize about many of them even when they’re in committed relationships.  It has nothing to do with you, or love, or any of that; it’s just the way they’re put together.  Some men are good at resisting it, while others just don’t have the will power, but either way the fantasy isn’t going to go away just because he hired an escort a few times (whether in your presence or otherwise).  And cocaine makes it even worse:  it seems to invariably make men think about sex, and inspires wild fantasies (often involving multiple women and such).  Though it removes their ability to perform, they never see it that way; many a man will call for a hooker as soon as he gets high on coke.  You say you want him to “bury his fantasies” and “eliminate them from his mind”, but fantasies simply don’t work like that, and as long as he’s snorting he won’t even try to resist the urge.  You can certainly work to fulfill his fantasies if he’ll share them with you, but you have to understand that he isn’t going to stop wanting other women even if he doesn’t actually act on it.  And he’s already given you ample proof that he cannot be trusted once the white powder goes up his nose.  Only you can decide whether to stay with him, but you need to be realistic about how he’s likely to behave in the future in order to have a sound basis for that decision.

Not Your Place

I am worried that my ex girlfriend has turned to sex work.  Should I do something about it?  She was once raped by a previous boyfriend, and her flashbacks and panic attacks seemed to be getting worse after she gave up on therapy.  Also while we were dating I cheated on her with several escorts and only told her several months into the relationship.  I am worried that there is a possibility that she may be doing this for the wrong reasons and harming herself.  I care and would like to help, however I feel like it is not my place to do something.

You’re right; it’s not your place.  Even if she weren’t your ex-girlfriend, what would you “do about it”?  Turn her in to the cops?  Because certainly, burdening her with a criminal record (and possibly getting her raped again in the process) would be a huge help, I’m sure.  Just curious; would you be this “worried” if she were, say, joining the military or the Peace Corps or something like that?  Given that you didn’t even say what makes you believe she might have taken this particular job (as 1% of Western women do at some point in our lives), I’m inclined to believe that you aren’t worried for her safety or mental health at all, but rather just offended that she might become a dirty whore.  What I see is that you don’t have a problem with my profession, as long as it’s practiced by other, lesser women you can pay; you’re just upset because a woman you clearly still have proprietary feelings about might want to make a career of fucking other men beside you.

Perhaps you think I’m being overly hard on you, and your concern is based in facts you didn’t include in your letter; fair enough.  If you think that’s the case, I call your attention to my essay “Sucked In” (see page xx):

Like practically everything else in the world, escorting is not right for everyone; some women thrive in the trade, and others view it as a job no better and no worse than others, but for some women it is a really bad idea.  Generally, these are women with negative, moralistic or overly-romanticized views of sex, because they feel degraded by the work…[even if] your lady has [none] of those issues…[it doesn’t necessarily mean] she’ll like the work; it’s entirely possible the reality will be nothing like her fantasy and she’ll quit in under a week (a young friend of mine had a similar reaction to the realities of stripping).  But it’s also possible she may find it very satisfying and it may even help her to overcome her [sexual issues].  The only way for her to find out if she likes it or not is to try it, so you’re wise not to obstruct her…it’s normal for a man to feel protective of a woman he loves.  But at the same time, it’s possible you might be infantilizing her a bit.  You say she’s had a troubled past…but that could be said of many people (including me)…The popular wisdom is that damaged people should wallow in their pain forever, but that’s self-destructive nonsense; the only hope of escaping the past is to live in the present and look toward the future.  Even if she’s as fragile as you think, the only way to get stronger is to go out into the world, face its challenges and either overcome them or fail and learn.  The only cure for innocence is experience, and a sheltered child never grows up.  Furthermore, she’s in no more [emotional] danger…as an escort than she is in many another high-paying field that nobody would think twice about her entering (such as modeling or sales); sex work is a lot more mundane than people think, and there really aren’t any mysterious tentacles waiting to drag unwary ingénues down into the abyss…

I’m not saying you shouldn’t say anything; people who care about each other have the right to express their feelings.  But that doesn’t mean she has to listen, and if she doesn’t you need to let her alone.  And if you can’t handle seeing her do something that causes you emotional discomfort, it’s time to wish her the best, steel yourself and walk away from her.  That probably won’t be easy, and this is really a case of “Do as I say, not as I do”; I’ve never been any good at walking away from relationships that have become painful to me, and I probably never will be.  But if she won’t heed your words, and you can’t handle the way she conducts her life, it’s really your only option.  And I pray Aphrodite that unlike me, you can actually do it.

Upside Down

I am 27 years old and still a virgin; I don’t think I know much about sex, except in theory.  I have a crush on a former Facebook friend’s boyfriend; he flirts with me sometimes, calling me “darling” and saying I’m “sexy” and “pretty”.  We have not met in person yet, because he’s Canadian and I’m a Hindustani living in South Africa, but he recently sent me a picture of his penis and told me he’s about 19 cm long, and that scares me.  Is sex painful the first time?  I kind of dread ever having to have it in real life; I’d much rather just fantasize about it.  However, I really love this boy; I dream about him all the time, and I wish he would bring me to Canada, marry me and give me a baby so we can live happily ever after.  He’s younger than me (only 21) but very mature for his age; he really is my dream man!  But I don’t know where I really stand with him; it seems like he only talks to me when he’s bored, and he punishes me by ignoring me when I make him upset.  I’d really like to know what you think about online relationships; I value your opinion very much since you’re so sexually experienced.

I wish I could tell you that sex isn’t painful the first time, but it very often is and every factor you’ve mentioned – his size, his (much too young) age, your (advanced for a virgin) age, your inexperience and your fear – will tend to exacerbate that.  So will the fact that he is not, despite what you think, mature for his age; punishing love-interests by ignoring them or just using them to alleviate boredom are not the marks of a mature or caring man, and frankly neither is sending out dick pics to women he isn’t actually involved with.  I know that you won’t believe me when I tell you that you aren’t in love with him; you’re infatuated with him, which is a horse of a different color.  You aren’t especially drawn to this man for his personality or self, but because he pays attention to you, and for a woman who hasn’t had that kind of attention often enough, it can be extremely intoxicating and judgment-eroding.  I’m not saying relationships that start on the internet can’t work because I know some that have, but I am saying that such relationships involve many difficulties that you, inexperienced as you are, are unlikely to handle well.  My suggestion is that you open yourself to meeting men locally in whatever way is acceptable in your culture; you still might fall in love too quickly and end up with a man who treats you badly, but if that happens you’ll at least be close to friends and family rather than stranded on another continent with a man you’re completely dependent upon.  Ironically, you’re afraid of the part – the physical sex act – that is really no big deal, yet ready to rush pell-mell into the part – marriage and childbirth – which can really get you badly hurt or even killed.  Sure, first-time sex can hurt; in fact, ten-thousandth time sex can hurt, and since my vagina is quite small I experience pain nearly every time I have sex with an unusually large or rough partner.  Sometimes it’s even a lot of pain.  But physical pain is transitory and, unless severe and chronic, doesn’t really have much effect on one’s life.  Emotional pain, by contrast, can be both devastating and have long-lasting and far-reaching effects.  I suggest you re-examine your priorities, try not to dwell on fear or simple physical pain, and instead think long and hard about the real and profound danger of severe emotional and spiritual (and sometimes physical) pain that accompanies a bad, hastily-made marriage to a poorly-chosen man.

Not With a Ruler

I have a micropenis, described by a urologist as “infantile” in size.  In your essay “All Shapes and Sizes” you stated:  “…even a man like that could be compatible with a woman who loves cunnilingus above all else.”  That’s true in theory, but my experience has been that women who are spontaneously aroused and who have strong sexual appetites, even if they prefer pleasures other than vaginal intercourse, will eventually find that element to be missing and pursue it elsewhere.  Would the probability of meeting a woman who really doesn’t care about penis size really be higher than of finding a woman who is only two inches deep when she’s aroused?  Or one who is willing and who can enjoy sex, but who is also not all that interested in sex to begin with, or who is highly responsive rather than spontaneous in her desire?  

I think you’re reading far too much into that particular bit of advice.  It was not intended to be the only situation I could think of in which a woman might be happy with a man lacking in the size department; another might be a very dominant woman seeking a man for the sort of kink play that doesn’t require him to be well-endowed, and still another a sex worker or polyamorous woman who doesn’t equate sex with exclusive partnership.  I can tell you from firsthand experience that the situations you describe would not be solutions for the monogamous, because I fit both of those categories.  I have an exceptionally small, tight vagina…and a two-inch penis would still have no effect on me.  And though my sex drive is entirely reactive, that doesn’t mean a tiny cock would do anything for me once I am aroused.  Stated more generally, I doubt there’s an adult vagina small enough that a micropenis would fit it snugly, and how a woman gets aroused has nothing to do with what it takes for her to be satisfied once she is.  I therefore feel your best bet is not to try to find a woman who wants nothing other than a very small penis (which seems to be the track you’re on), but rather one whose feelings of commitment for you cannot be measured with a ruler.

Favor
Outnumbered
Cutting Remarks
Fireworks
Illicit Affairs
Out of Bounds
Faithless
Sugar, Sugar
Questing for Unicorns
Upscale

Favor

I’ve been seeing the same sex worker for almost three years now, and I’m in love with her.  She wants us to continue as client and escort, yet she has extended me more trust than seems usual; she told me her real name, has seen me in her own house, and has stopped using protection when we’re together (her idea, not mine).  To me, all this seems to suggest something beyond the client-escort relationship, but I have never seen any other sex workers beside her.  I absolutely respect her decision not to pursue anything more right now, but is it foolish of me to keep hoping?  She is an amazing person and very dear to me.

Before anything else, you ought to read “A Living Thing” in Ask Maggie, Volume I, which covers some of the same ground; the gist of it is, if you treasure your relationship with this lady, please refrain from indulging yourself in the urge to try to make it something “more” (which in most cases actually means “less”) than it is.  The fact of the matter is that most romantic relationships are of short duration, and only survive by turning into something else (see page Fossil).  Relationships in which both people know exactly what to expect from each other, on the other hand, can go on for years.  In your case, it’s pretty clear that you’re a very favored client; it’s not unusual for escorts to see clients in their homes (I do, as do several of my friends), and it’s unusual but by no means unique for favored clients to know a sex worker’s real name (a few of mine do).  However, her eschewing protection with you is highly unusual, and frankly I find it rather alarming; I can’t even imagine what she might be thinking, and she’s putting at least one of you in danger (possibly both).  Beside the danger of STIs (it’s obvious her preventative procedures are less than scrupulous, since she has no idea where you’re sticking your cock when you aren’t with her), there’s the very real danger of pregnancy; how are you going to feel if she tells you that she’s pregnant, doesn’t believe in abortion and you’re on the hook for 18 years or more?  As I said, I can’t imagine what she’s thinking; even if she is “amazing” as you say and harbors no intentional ill-will toward you, that doesn’t mean her judgment isn’t total crap.  To put it in D&D terms, a high charisma is no guarantee of a high wisdom.  Just because she doesn’t mean to harm you or herself, doesn’t mean one or both of you aren’t going to get hurt.  And if you plan to keep barebacking her (which you probably will because you’re male and y’all just can’t seem to grasp how dangerous an activity that is), I’d invest in a vasectomy and at least quarterly STI testing if I were you.

Outnumbered

What are your views on group sex when it is all male and you are the only female?  I’m not sure how to handle the situation or what the best way to go about it would be.

My feelings about group sex where I’m the only woman are a lot like my feelings about being whipped: I’m really excited about it beforehand and get very turned on thinking about it after it’s over, but while it’s going on I’m mostly concentrating on getting through it.  I know that may seem paradoxical, but sex is strange that way; sometimes the fantasy is a lot better than the reality.  So don’t be disappointed if it falls short of your expectations; it’s still an amazing experience and fun to talk about later.  When it’s one guy and multiple women things are a lot easier, because most women don’t mind a little kissing and touching or rubbing against other women even if they’re not really bisexual; they get caught up in the moment so (as the expression goes) “it’s all good”.  But when it’s one woman dealing with a group of men she’ll be the focus of the whole thing, and while that can be exciting and exhilirating it’s also exhausting!  Obviously that’s much less so if some of the guys involved are bisexual, but that’s really a different situation so for purposes of simplicity let’s just assume these are all strictly hetero guys we’re talking about.

Experience has taught me that even two at the same time is a handful, and three is about the practical maximum a skilled girl can work on at once.  Yes, four is theoretically possible because you’ve got two hands, but you’d be surprised how much more difficult it is than three unless you have no gag reflex at all and the guys don’t mind pressing awfully close to one another.  If you’re dealing with more than three guys it’s probably best to do it “train” or gang-bang style, with men taking turns rather than coming at you simultaneously from all directions.  In a situation like that the action should occupy the center of the area, so the others can watch from the sidelines.

However, if you’re actually going to interact with more than one man simultaneously (i.e. true group sex rather than a “train”) it is absolutely imperative that you can trust at least one of them to protect your safety; it’s very easy for the one entering you vaginally or anally to slip off the condom while your attention is elsewhere, but if at least one of the men really cares about you he will also be watching to make sure that doesn’t happen.  Men can be incredibly foolish when it comes to condoms; roughly a third of them will happily enter a whore or other promiscuous woman without any protection whatsoever, and since HIV and several other serious diseases are much more easily transmitted from man to woman than vice-versa, you have a lot more to lose than a would-be condom sneaker does.  Even if you’re taking them on only one at a time, I would still advise you to have at least one out of four you can totally trust; even nice, normal guys can get caught up in the heat of the moment and turn into a pack, and you need to have a couple there who can be counted on to keep their heads just in case some of the others get carried away.

Cutting Remarks

A large majority of the sex workers I have seen have been the “lower tier” type.  I have always acted right, but often come across those who somehow get into it with me and then try to “demean” me and talk about how “pathetic” I am and how I have to “pay for pussy”.  Growing up I heard from experienced men that if you give a woman your money, in her eyes you instantly lose her respect like it is a biological thing.  Is that true, or is it just the level of providers and would the more upscale type of provider would be any different?  These comments make me worry that they would clown me behind my back (after being nice around me) with girlfriends about how easy it is to play “these guys”.

Though I have certainly heard some sex workers say stupid things like that about men behind their backs (though more so in strip clubs than among escorts), I’m utterly flabbergasted that any of them ever said this to your face, much less a large enough number for you to consider it a trend!  If you’ve mostly hired semi-professional types it’s no surprise that you haven’t received the kind of polished professional service you would expect from those who treat their business like a business, but what is a surprise is that any woman could be so clueless as to destroy any chance of repeat business by blatantly insulting her customers.  In fact, this strikes me as so weird that I wonder if you’re not somehow contributing to it.  You said they “get into it with you”; do you mean they get into arguments with you, and the abuse then follows as part of the argument?  Because if that’s the case, I think it’s less a hooker-client thing and more just an argument thing; lots of women will throw the most cutting insult they can think of at a man, and if that man is a stranger her options are limited to physical characteristics and the situation at hand.  Furthermore, what in the world are y’all arguing about?  Though every working girl runs into clients who annoy her, most try to avoid actually fighting with them for reasons that should be obvious; if you’re getting into insult-slinging-level disagreements with “a large majority” of your escorts, I can’t help but think you’re either doing or saying something to mightily piss them off.  If that’s the case, hiring a more expensive girl isn’t likely to really solve the problem; she may cover her anger better or respond more specifically to the insult, but the issue itself will remain unchanged.

From what I can see, the only thing these arguments all have in common is you.  I therefore suggest that some introspection is in order; mentally play back your interactions with these women and try to figure out if there’s anything else that the incidents have in common, such as something you said or did that seemed to set them off.  Remember that it doesn’t have to be anything you considered hurtful; how something is intended isn’t always how it is perceived.  My intuition tells me it’s somehow related to the rather backward idea that giving a woman money causes her to lose respect for you; in truth, most women will lose respect for you if you’re stingy with your money, not vice-versa.

Fireworks

I’m looking for a way my wife can learn the ways of seduction.  We married at 19, had our first child at 23 and have been married for 27 years.  When we were young she did not have to do anything special to keep my attention, but as I’ve aged I’ve grown to desire sexually confident women.  In recent years I’ve been living and working in a developing country and had an affair with a much younger woman; it isn’t that the sex with her is dramatically better, but rather her confidence in her beauty and sexuality, and all of the little subtle seductive things which I long for.  My wife is a good woman who is kind, thoughtful, and caring, but we have very different love languages and have grown apart over the years.  I confessed the affair to her and we’re talking very openly about the situation; we both want things to work, but I need the things I mentioned, which do not come naturally to her.  How can my wife learn such things so we can connect?  Or am I just being a selfish ass?

Talents of any kind, from music to leadership to skill at a sport, start out as natural aptitudes and are then shaped by a person’s environment and education; such skills grow if encouraged and atrophy if discouraged, and if pursued diligently can be developed to a professional level.  And yes, that includes the talent you’re calling “seduction”, but which I would call “sensuality” or “lovemaking”.  People in the modern West like to pretend that sexual interaction is like some kind of magical energy field which arises instantly, spontaneously and mutually when two people are “in love”; romantic stories and Hollywood movies pretend that all two people under the influence of the temporary neurochemical derangement we incorrectly label with the exalted word “love” need do is get naked together and POOF! Fireworks.  The “abstinence only” form of sex miseducation even teaches this idiocy as fact, lying to young people that suppressing their natural sexual urges and denying all sexual expression for the better part of a decade (or more) will magically result in the best sex imaginable when the two of them clumsily grope each other in the dark without either of them having the faintest notion of what they’re doing.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking I mean mere technical proficiency, though; there’s a school of thought diametrically opposed to the spontaneous-generation dogma which is equally absurd and ignorant.  You might call it “Cosmo sex tricks” thinking: the idea that the human body is a machine not dissimilar to a power tool or electronic gadget, and that if one just turns the right knobs and sets the dials correctly, POOF!  Fireworks.  And I’m here to give you a big ol’ NOOOOOOOPE on that idea.  The art of sensuality starts with a natural aptitude which is then shaped by environment, education and practice; lots and lots and LOTS of practice.  It doesn’t magically appear after a lifetime of repression because a preacher says “I now pronounce you…”, and it can no more be learned from a book, magazine or video than “Learn Guitar in Ten Easy Lessons” will turn you into the next Jimi Hendrix.  Given equal aptitude, a woman with a better formative environment and more practice will still excel over one with worse and less; given the same environment and amount of practice, a man with higher aptitude will still surpass one with lower.  We can’t all be master chefs, basketball stars, or prima ballerinas.

But here’s the good news:  We Don’t All Have To Be.  Your wife doesn’t have to be Maggie McNeill; she just has to demonstrate love and affection as you need it.  And though we only have your side of the story, your very first line is “WE married at 19…”  We.  She and you.  I suspect that neither your natural aptitude for sensuality nor your early experience was very different from hers, or else neither of y’all would’ve done anything as foolish as getting married at 19 (no offense; I got engaged for the first time at 20, and I’m supposed to be the wise one here).  You say, “we have very different love languages”; I certainly believe that, but why is she the one who needs to learn a new language on the near side of 50?  It seems to me that both of you could stand to acquire some new skills in that department.  You both need to try to demonstrate love and sensuality in a way the other can respond to, and you both need to try to appreciate what the other is trying to demonstrate.  It’s not going to be easy; nothing worthwhile ever is.  But there are counselors and workshops and the like who may be able to assist you; you’re going to have to find them in your area, and you may have to try a few before you find the right one.  You say y’all both want this to work, and after investing 27 years in each other that sounds like a good idea to me.  There is no Royal Road to proficiency in anything, but a burden shared is a burden halved, right?  If you work toward being her ideal lover as hard as she works toward being yours, y’all may be within hailing distance of each other sooner than you think.

Illicit Affairs

I’m a retired escort who, like you, married her favorite client.  From the beginning I made it clear that sleeping with other women was okay, but secrecy, lies, and emotional entanglements were not; I also requested that any sex outside of our relationship be with professionals rather than amateurs.  We have a very active sex life, and every few months I’ve reminded him that he could see escorts if he wished as long as he told me about it (just the fact that he did, not the details).  He’s always said that he hasn’t, but recently I accidentally stumbled across evidence that he’s had many appointments since we’ve been together; I also found email exchanges with his ex including plans to get together.  I feel terrible for bringing this all on, but I also feel betrayed, hurt, and upset that he would lie to me.  Am I wrong for feeling this way when I gave him permission to see escorts? Is it worth talking to him about?  Am I being naive or silly? 

First of all, feelings are never “wrong” or “silly”.  Humans are emotional creatures, and can’t help what we feel; we can only control how we act upon those feelings.  Nor do I think you were being naive; in fact, quite the opposite.  As a sex worker yourself you know how men are, and you did everything you could to circumvent the possibility that he would hurt you by deception; not only did you give him permission to see others, you were even careful to re-iterate that permission a number of times.  The fact that he completely ignored your very simple and reasonable requirement – that he let you know whenever he did see another lady – is, I think, more than adequate reason to feel betrayed and hurt.  You gave him an outlet to be physical with other women, but instead he chose to act in a way that feels to you like emotional infidelity; I’m sure I would feel just as betrayed and hurt if I were in your situation.

There are several reasons why a man might cheat on his wife, and only some of them can be prevented by things the wife might do (such as taking care of him at home and allowing him “strange” in controlled circumstances).  If it’s the illicit nature of trysts with pros which turns him on, that’s going to present a problem; if he craves sneaking around behind his wife’s back, he’s not likely to be satisfied with activities she attends, arranges or even simply condones.  Think back to when he was your client; did it seem that “sneaking around” to see you turned him on?  Because that’s what his behavior seems to point to.  Only he can say whether he has emotional feelings for anyone he’s seen (like his ex), but secrecy?  Check.  Lies?  Check.  Amateurs?  Check.  It’s as though he was purposefully breaking as many of the rules you set as possible; perhaps that in itself gives him a thrill.

I definitely think you need to talk to him about this; try to remain as calm and reasonable as you can manage, and explain to him how you found out and why you’re hurt.  Don’t let him derail you by accusing you of spying on him; you were acting in good faith and even if it what you did were wrong, his sins are far greater.  Also, don’t let him pretend he really believed his behavior was OK; unless he’s remarkably stupid I think it’s pretty clear that he knew he was breaking the rules.  Unfortunately, I can’t give you any advice about what happens next; there’s no way to know how he will react, what he will say, and how you will feel about his reactions.  I also can’t tell you whether it would be “right” to stay with a man who behaved like this, or whether you “should” leave him.  But I will say this:  I can virtually guarantee that this will happen again, probably repeatedly, no matter what he tells you.  So your decision about the future of the relationship needs to take that into account.

Out of Bounds

For the past couple of years I’ve seen an amazing escort about once a month, and early this year she let me start contacting her via text.  This past summer, I developed deep feelings for her and began to text her frequently just to see how she was doing; I also expressed my affection via emails, cards and gifts.  Two weeks ago she cancelled a session for a reason which sounded good at the time, but I couldn’t get in touch with her for the next four days; we rescheduled, then she cancelled again five minutes before our appointment time.  We rescheduled again, and again she cancelled and has been impossible to reach since then.  I have a feeling she doesn’t want to see me anymore, but why not just tell me?  I’m hurt and angry, and I realize now that I can never have anything serious with her, but is there anything I can do to regain her trust?

It’s not at all unusual for a client to fall in love with a whore; sometimes, as in my case, that can actually go somewhere.  But there were a lot of men who fell in love with me before the one I married, and every one of my sex-working friends has had clients fall for her; it’s a natural outgrowth of a situation in which a lonely man spends a lot of time in the company of a beautiful, alluring woman who only shows him her best side.  Sometimes she’s able to manage the situation so he can continue enjoying her company and she can continue enjoying the income, but at other times the situation spins out of control; he may become obsessive and begin to stalk or harass her, and might even become violently jealous.  On rare occasions, an unstable client’s infatuation with a professional can even lead to murder.  Now, I’m sure you’re protesting that you would never hurt a woman, and maybe that’s true; however, it’s equally true that most of the whores who wind up dead didn’t think their murderers would go that far, else they wouldn’t have been caught alone with them in the first place.  The fact of the matter is, all any woman has to go on when deciding whether to be alone with a man is her gut.  And though the instincts of most sex workers eventually become far more finely-tuned than those of our less-experienced amateur sisters, there is no such thing as an infallible cognitive process.  When you started straying out of bounds, wasting the lady’s time with non-appointment-related texting and violating her professional boundaries with excessive courtship displays, her alarm bells started to go off; it’s even possible that the first couple of cancellations were tests to see how you’d react.  And how did you react?  By repeatedly calling her and trying to reschedule multiple times in a very short period of time (your email to me was dated only 16 days after the date of your first cancelled appointment).  And given that you openly admit to being “hurt and angry”, I can imagine what some of your (probably dozens of) texts or voicemails to her during that 16 days sounded like.

You ask if there’s anything you can do to regain her trust, but there’s no way I can answer that because I’m not in her confidence and I don’t know how badly you’ve broken it.  It may be that if you let her alone for a few months before sincerely apologizing and asking for an appointment, she’ll give you another chance; most of the sex workers I know have “fired” clients before, and sometimes they’ve taken them back later.  Before you could violate her trust she had to grant it, and she let you overrun her boundaries for months before doing anything about it; that tells me she was reluctant to end your arrangement, and perhaps that will play in your favor.  But I’ve lived in the demimonde far too long to believe that your repeated attempts to reschedule were anything other than highly alarming, or that you’re as contrite as you represent yourself to be; it’s possible that she will never even speak to you again (much less agree to be alone with you).  Your only chance is to back off and thereby show her that you’re not a deranged stalker; that may not return you to her good graces, but it may at least keep her from adding your name to a blacklist.

Faithless

My girlfriend and I have been together for almost 5 years and I want to marry her, but I can’t shake off suspicions that she may be an escort.  She claims not to be one, but there are just too many odd coincidences.  Do you know of any non-invasive ways to find out whether she is one or not?  Signs I should look out for?  I hate having this fear and I’m definitely not the type of guy who would want to “rescue” her from her situation.  I would much rather step out of the way if need be…but I’m actually afraid my life may be in danger…My anxiety is so bad it’s interfering with my ability to work.  Have you heard of any situations where escorts were used to distract men that were some kind of socio-political target?

If you’ve read a lot of my advice columns, you know that I don’t usually give unequivocal recommendations, but I’m going to make an exception in this case.  You say that you’d rather step out of the way if need be; I would say you do indeed need to do just that.  For whatever reason, you have absolutely no trust in your girlfriend, and if you feel this way after knowing her for five years, I’m afraid you will never be able to build the trust that’s absolutely vital to making a marriage work.  Your anxiety has reached a level that, frankly, seems clinically paranoid to me; I’m not a psychologist and I don’t know what kind of work you do that would make you a “target”, but if you don’t feel safe in a sexual relationship for any reason it is time to end it for both of your good.  If you’re wrong, your concerns about her have no cause and would therefore almost certainly haunt you from now on, no matter what she does; if you’re right, she’s been lying to you for five years and that’s no basis to build a marriage on.  Either way, this relationship is not going to work, and the sooner you both move on to partners in whom you can have more trust, the better for all involved.

Sugar, Sugar

I’m a highly-educated girl from a well-to-do background, with a blossoming artistic and academic career.  I have absolutely no real economic need, but I have a fierce desire for financial independence and a sugar arrangement seems to me the best option.  I’m not ashamed of it, but I am deeply concerned about possible repercussions.  On the one hand, I don’t care if people are shocked, but on the other I don’t want my loved ones hurt by gossip and slander, and I’m worried that I’d be denying myself a chance in highly public careers, lest my youthful “activities” be outed.  Worse still, I live in Asia – where norms governing sexuality are even more stifling than in the West.  How did you deal with the judgment from family and peers, and how do you explain your job to people?  On the practical side, would you advise against juggling more than one sugar daddy at a time?  Are there terms and conditions I must look out for?  How do I ensure that transactions are processed, that I’m legally protected, and that there are medical precautions beside testing, condoms & pills?  Finally, the few friends I’ve talked to strongly advise me against being a sugar baby, and I’m concerned that I’ll lose my self-respect; do many sex workers face this inner conflict all the time?  How do they resolve it?  Can sex and love be completely divorced – even for a sex worker? 

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I don’t know anyone else to ask; I sincerely believe that your advice immensely helps a hidden generation of young workers like me.

I don’t mind a lot of questions, but since there are so many please forgive me if I fail to cover any of your concerns!  Let’s start with one caveat:  I’ve never been a sugar baby per se; though I have had two sugar mamas and two husbands who supported me, it isn’t really the same thing because of the stigma against sugar arrangements.  So the only advice I can give on the subject is via comparison with professionalized harlotry, or by what I’ve heard from friends.

Your first concern is a very real one: if you think you might want some sort of public career in the future, sex work of any kind presents a considerable risk to that plan.  Even totally legal forms of sex work such as compensated dating carry a social stigma, which as you rightly observe can be powerful enough to derail a reputation even decades down the road.  If you sugar-date under your own legal name, it is an absolute certainty that the arrangement will come back to haunt you; even if you use a carefully-guarded alias and post no face-showing pictures on the internet there is a chance of later exposure.  In my case, I’ve never been deeply concerned about what strangers thought because I had no plans to ever return to a “straight” career; furthermore, I was estranged from my family, and prepared to lose the goodwill of any friend who could not accept my choices.  So in my case, I could simply be honest about my career with friends, and before I was totally “out” I had a plausible cover story for neighbors and casual acquaintances.  But if you’re not prepared to risk that (and I certainly don’t blame you if you aren’t), maintaining a strictly-segregated double life is probably the only way…though of course that carries its own costs and risks.  I suggest you read my essay “Coming Out” in Ask Maggie, Volume I, which discusses the pros and cons at some length.

In answer to your second question, I don’t think it’s ever wise to bite off more than one can chew.  Were I you I would start with only one patron at a time, get used to that, and then when and if you feel ready to juggle a second gentleman you can do so then rather than rushing into it now.  I would be very clear with the patron on how many hours a week you’re willing to give him; that way if he later tries to overstep his bounds you can remind him that this was discussed at the outset.  Other issues will certainly arise just as they do in other types of relationships, and just as in those cases you’ll have to deal with them as they appear and learn from your mistakes.  As for the rest, I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking; in the absence of an ironclad written contract there is always “wriggle room” for both parties, so any legal issues, like time allotment, should be clearly discussed at the beginning.  It might be a good idea to insist on payment in cash until you learn to trust your patron, but medical concerns are a different matter:  those are present even in monogamous romantic relationships, so I would advise never letting your guard down on that front.  Always use condoms, stay on the pill (or get an IUD) and discreetly check him for signs of disease every time you’re with him.

Finally, there’s the self-esteem issue, which I’m afraid nobody can answer for you.  Some women never have any conflict about it; others feel so conflicted and “dirty” that they develop considerable guilt issues which can indeed create problems for them.  If you start to feel that way, it’s best for everyone that you stop immediately no matter how much you’ll miss the extra money; it’s not worth damage to your psyche, and unhappy former sex workers are some of the worst menaces to the cause of sex worker rights (see “Not for Everybody” in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I).  The vast majority of women are between those two extremes:  because we’re all exposed to stupid, unhealthy social attitudes about sex it’s not always easy to shake them off, so some situations do lead to guilt or other bad feelings while others may be exactly the opposite.  But that’s like anything else in life; considering that most women can manage to feel guilty about any number of things (food, personal choices, perceived selfishness, etc) it’s hardly realistic to expect that sex – whether romantic, recreational or commercial – would be wholly exempt.  I can answer your last question very definitely, though:  yes, love and sex can certainly be divorced.  One simply has to recognize that sex is not a magical, sacred thing which is taboo outside of a sacrament, but rather an ordinary human activity which, like any other activity, can be used for whatever purpose one requires.

Questing for Unicorns

I am only sexually interested in women that I have some sort of emotional connection to.  I am attracted to women who are intelligent and competent adults; it turns me on more to watch a woman do an integral than to watch porn (this may have something to do with my autism).  I’m 21, and there are hardly any women who seem interested in long term relationships, and virtually none who are skilled at something.  So my sexual preferences seem ill-suited to my environment; I’d almost rather have a fetish for unicorns, because then I could at least paste a horn on a horse and pretend.

But if I can’t get any sort of meaningful relationship, I would at least like to be able to get sex.  Though I often have trouble getting an erection with women I don’t know very well, I don’t have any trouble if I’m masturbating, or getting a blowjob or a handjob; the only difficulty is with intercourse.  I find PUA works, but I find it unfulfilling, and my experience with it has made me distrustful of women.  So I thought maybe I should hire an escort, because at least that way she’s honest about what she is willing to do and what I have to do to get it.

You will probably not be able to get the kind of relationship you’re looking for from escorts, but satisfying your sex drive will make you less tense around women (which is a good thing).  Given your strict preferences you’ll need to do more research than the average guy to find a lady that’s right for you, but with a little perseverance you should be able to.  Pick-up Artistry is exactly the wrong approach for a man like you; though it does indeed work, it only works on the sort of shallow airhead that you find frustrating and unsatisfing, and that in turn will reinforce your negative perceptions of women (which you definitely don’t need).  The fact that you have no erection issues during blow jobs or hand jobs tells me it’s probably tied to performance anxiety, which would also explain why it goes away once you know a woman well.  But that’s OK if you’re hiring an escort; just go ahead and enjoy a blow job, and don’t worry about intercourse.  Once you get used to a particular lady, you can move on to intercourse at your own pace with no pressure from her.

In the bigger picture, I’ve got good news for you:  your main problem is just that you’re just too young, and things will almost certainly get better for you in the next ten years.  I realize that may frustrate you, but it should really give you hope because your problem isn’t actually a permanent one.  You seem more interested in mature women, so naturally you will run into more of those as you age.  Furthermore, as you yourself age, become more successful in your career, etc you will be more attractive to the kind of women you like; also, the number of men decreases more quickly over time than the number of women, so men in their 30s have noticeably less competition than men of 21.  Concentrate on your other (non-relationship) goals, pay for the sex you need to avoid frustration and do all the other things you enjoy alone and with your friends, and over time you will very likely attract a relationship naturally without planning for it or working toward it at all.

Upscale

What is meant when girls say “upscale”?  Does it have some meaning outside of the donation rates?

When the word is used to describe an incall, it’s basically intended to assure prospective clients that they aren’t going to a squalid apartment in a seedy neighborhood.  But when words like “upscale”, “high-end”, “luxury”, “sophisticated” and “VIP” are used by escorts to describe themselves, they don’t really mean anything specific or quantifiable; they’re just branding words, used to convey an image and attract the kind of clientele the user believes such words attract:  wealthy, generous, and unlikely to haggle.  Of course, they’re just as likely to attract solidly middle-class guys out to treat themselves to a luxurious experience, which is why soap is described as having “luxurious lather” and chocolates are described as “decadent”.  Personally, I try to avoid empty words like that in my marketing; as a writer I prefer words that actually mean specific things, and distrust emotive words with little semantic weight (especially those that seem a bit snobby to my ears).  In reality, most sex workers will see whichever men can pass screening, pay our rates and treat us properly, “upscale” or not; I doubt very many really care whether a good client is a neurosurgeon or a bricklayer as long as he behaves like a gentleman.  Mind you, I’m not criticizing the ladies who use that kind of ad copy; if it works for them and brings in money, good for them and long may they prosper.  The fact is, some guys respond to “puttin’ on the Ritz” kind of words, just like many of the guys who call me are responding to my perceived intelligence and sophistication.  Or my huge tits.  And we all use the branding that keeps the money coming in.

Drinking on the Job
Respect
The Law of Attraction
Perfectly Ordinary
Approaching Infinity
Late Bloomer
Dating Game
Sandwich
Capricious Lusts
Not At All Unusual

Drinking on the Job

I’ve been seeing a well-reviewed independent for the past three months, but on our sixth visit she was very chatty and started drinking.  Six hours into our three-hour appointment she offered an overnight at no extra charge, but wanted to eat at a nearby bar; there she drank even more and ended up very drunk.  When we returned to her incall she tried to go through the motions, but she was so far gone I decided it was better not to do anything with her.  Over the next couple of hours she texted her boyfriend “I love you…” in my sight, played music on her phone, repeatedly fell out of bed and did other crazy things while still trying to engage me in activity.  Finally she fell asleep, and I left; I later sent her an email detailing all the drunken behavior and assuring her I hadn’t done anything inappropriate.  She responded that nothing like this had ever happened before; she’s embarrassed and won’t see me again.  I knew describing all the drunken behavior could upset her, but felt I should tell her because I was the only witness and for an escort, getting drunk with a client is unwise and dangerous.  I think she’s had other substance abuse problems in the past, because though her body looks young for her age her face looks much older.  Do you think I acted correctly?

I think you acted in the best way possible given the circumstances.  Life might be easier if everyone closely minded his or her role in a relationship and never stepped outside of its bounds, but because we’re human such professionalism is rare and can tend to feel a bit odd and off-putting.  And that’s only considering “ordinary” Western-style business relationships; in Asian cultures, for example, one is expected to socialize with one’s co-workers, and even in the West some business relationships seem to invite line-blurring by their resemblance to intimate ones (doctor-patient, teacher-student and sex worker-client are a few examples).  Usually it’s the client who gets confused about the boundaries of his relationship with a sex worker (see page Out of Bounds); since he’s paying for an illusion it isn’t too surprising that he sometimes loses himself in that illusion (see “Quicker Than the Eye” in Ask Maggie, Volume I) and mistakes the performance for sincere romance, sexual attraction or friendship.  It’s very important for whores to maintain boundaries, so we usually get quite good at it; there are some circumstances, however, in which that ability is eroded, and biochemical impairment is probably the most dangerous one.  I am firmly of the opinion that a professional should absolutely never indulge in alcohol or any other drug while on the job, but I’m a bit square in that respect; most escorts can handle a glass of wine or two without impairing their judgment.  Your lady, however, is clearly not among them; anyone who can’t understand that it’s inappropriate to get drunk while at work (compare a doctor drinking at the hospital, a teacher drinking at school or a driver drinking in his truck) definitely has a drinking problem.

In short, she acted in a way that was stupid, unprofessional and (as you pointed out) dangerous, and that isn’t your fault.  Could you have recognized that something was wrong after her she had her third (or fourth, or seventh) drink and let three hours lapse into six?  Sure.  Should your alarm bells have sounded when she offered an overnight freebie?  Absolutely.  But as I said above, keeping control of the situation isn’t actually your job, it’s hers; it is, in fact, part of what you’re paying her for.  You shouldn’t have to check up on the side effects of a medicine your doctor prescribes, or make sure that your lawyer stays awake in court; it is their responsibility to exercise due diligence, and that is no less true of a paid companion.  I think you were wise not to have sex with her; after all, if your cab driver were drunk you’d be wise to ask him to pull over so you could get out.  Furthermore, telling her what she did was the right thing to do; I think it’s safe to say she’s in denial and that this isn’t actually the first time something like this has happened (which is why she won’t see you again).  There’s nothing else you can do; she’s an adult and has the right to mess up her own business and life if she chooses.  It doesn’t mean you have to like it, or that you shouldn’t feel sorry for her, but in telling her what she did and ensuring that no harm came to her while you were present, you have done all that is required of you as a moral person and all that you can do as a stranger.  If she asked you for help the situation might be different, but she hasn’t so it isn’t.  And if she contacts you later and offers to make up for the session you didn’t get, I think it would be best for you to politely decline.

Respect

How do you get deposits for appointments?  I don’t mean the physical logistics like PayPal or whatever, but rather the larger question of actually getting men to pay them (say, if they want you to get a hotel room or travel a great distance to see them).  Then, there’s the vastly larger question: how do escorts command more respect from clients in general?

Generally, the way anyone commands respect from anyone else in any sexual transaction is, paradoxically, by not needing them.  Let’s start with a couple of extreme examples.  Think about how you feel about men who are very emotionally needy; even if their deep neediness doesn’t induce you to run as fast as you can in the other direction, it’s not exactly going to endear them to you or inspire you to treat them with more respect.  If anything, it’s going to discourage respect because A) it’s annoying, and B) respect isn’t necessary to ensure their devotion, so why bother?  By the same token, one of the classic forms of abuse is to convince the victim that she’s unattractive in some way: she’s fat, she’s ugly, she has bad teeth and/or breath, she talks too much, her pussy smells, her sexual desires are repulsive and/or she’s no good in bed, etc, so nobody else but the abuser would want her.  When a person has no options, they don’t feel they can command respect, because most humans reserve respect for equals or superiors (which is why people react so strongly when someone “above” them gives them respect).

So the answer to both of your questions is the same: the more well-known, well-reviewed and in-demand you are, the more respect you’ll command from clients and the more hoops (including deposits) you can demand they jump through.  The more clients you have, the more you can turn away; the more you can turn away, the more guys who want to see you will be willing to do to keep your attention & goodwill.  Some ladies are fairly good at creating the illusion of being very sought-after, but no matter how much you call yourself “VIP” and “exclusive” there’s no substitute for the obvious confidence that naturally comes from knowing you can tell anyone who annoys you to take a hike without it affecting your bottom line.

The Law of Attraction

My boyfriend and I have been together for 6 years, but after a couple of years together I went on the pill and it completely killed my previously-high sex drive; during the 3 years I was on it I could probably count the number of times we had sex.  Once I realized the cause of the problem I stopped taking the pill and our sex life improved dramatically.  The problem is that my boyfriend become afraid to initiate sex with me during those years, so he always waits for me to initiate it; however, I’m sexually submissive and really want him to lead.  How can I boost his confidence after three years of making it worse?

Since it seems to me that you and your boyfriend are very honest with one another, I think the direct approach is called for here.  Explain to him that now you’re off the pill, you’ve returned to normal…and that “normal” for you means enjoying being the submissive partner.  Promise him that you won’t turn him down unless you’re really sick or something, and encourage him to be the aggressor.  Also, it won’t hurt if you play up how excited you get when he takes the initiative; yes, it’s a bit dishonest but think of it as a “white lie” which will help to make him more confident and thereby result in better sex for both of you.  I’m sure you’ll eventually be able to dispense with it once he realizes that you really, truly do want him to be the sexually dominant one, because once he gets the hang of it he’ll see the results in your natural responses.  And I suspect it won’t take all that long for him to learn.

Perfectly Ordinary

I’m a journalist preparing a report about the increasing use of AirBNB by prostitutes.  Do you know if this is something common ?

I’m not sure why people are surprised that sex workers use AirBnB.  See, sex workers are people, so any time something becomes more common for people in general, you can bet it will also become more common for sex workers.  As smartphones became more popular, they also became more popular for whores.  As Uber became more popular, we used it more, too.  And since AirBnB has become increasingly popular, Surprise! We’re using it more as well.  I don’t see any stories headlined “Medical Professionals Increasingly Use Computers for Research”, or “Small Businesses Turn To Square for Credit Card Processing”, but for some reason when perfectly ordinary sex workers (and yeah, we’re pretty ordinary; there’s no city in the world where we can’t be found) use a perfectly ordinary technology or product, it becomes a story.  If sex workers are using AirBnB to a disproportionate degree than other people who rent hotel rooms (and that’s a mighty big “if”), it’s probably because cops and other professional busybodies are lying to hotel owners, managers and employees about imaginary “sex trafficking” in an effort to get them to spy on sex workers and report them to said cops, so the cops can then arrest the workers, steal everything they own as “proceeds of crime” and then plaster their names and faces all over the news.  If you want a real story instead of a ridiculous excuse to titillate the bourgeois, try investigating how the War on Whores (see my documentary film of the same name) is becoming the replacement for the increasingly-unpopular War on Drugs.

Approaching Infinity

I have an incurable, fatal disease: my doctors advise me to expect to live another 30-70 months.  I’m not afraid of dying and in examining my life the only thing that really bothers me is the state of my spiritual life.  While I was born and raised Catholic, I left organized religion as my mind matured and my path to access spirituality became intimate times with my lovers.  I haven’t experienced that connection with something greater than ourselves since my wife left me on the mountaintop (see the essay of that name in in Ask Maggie, Volume I) 10 years ago.  Regular, long sessions with professionals have immeasurably improved and enriched my life but don’t reach that level.  Tantra specialists offer a kind of enhanced FBSM but none seem to seek that connection to the infinite.  Meditation, yoga, chanting, all are relaxing and enjoyable, but just don’t get me to that higher plane.  Small doses of some recreational drugs have been useful in the past, but only in the context of the intimacy that comes with great sex.  It’s my one and only spiritual life and it’s not what it ought to be.   I’m not sure how to fix it, and don’t want to find myself on my deathbed with this deficit.

I’ve been mulling over how to best answer your question, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m not sure I can give you a good answer.  The problem is that spirituality is so damned hard to pin down and define; religions have been trying for at least 5000 years and probably longer, and yet they all disagree on what exactly it is.  Even the words we use to describe the spiritual dimension are maddeningly vague; we speak of “the ineffable”, “the supernatural”, “the unknown”, “the beyond” and the like.  Since you were raised Catholic you may remember what the religious phenomena associated with the life of Jesus are called (in the context of praying the rosary): mysteries.  And that term predates Catholicism; the “mystery religions” were a group of cults that flourished in the time roughly between the Golden Age of Greece and the fall of Rome, a time when the old functions of religion (social control and explanation of natural phenomena) were being replaced by newer institutions (non-religious legal codes and science).  Classical civilization produced societies far more stable than any which had gone before, and the privileged classes were secure enough in their physical existence that they began to have the luxury of asking questions like, “Is this all there is?” and “What is the meaning of life?”

The mystery religions, more mystical outgrowths of traditional pagan religions, promised to answer these questions.  Hinduism grew out of the old Vedic religion and Buddhism grew from Hinduism; in the West, cults arose around the Egyptian Isis, the Anatolian Cybele, the Persian Mithra and many others.  All of these religions had various circles of initiation which the devout had to work to rise through; Christianity’s innovation (which caused it to rapidly supplant all others in Europe) was that there was only one circle, and every convert had access to all the mysteries right away.  We all know them:  transsubstantiation, the Trinity, the virgin birth, etc, logical impossibilities that could not be explained rationally and were supposed to be meditated upon in order to obtain salvation.  The fall of Rome plunged Europe back into a precarious state, and religion once again assumed its old roles until the Age of Reason gave the privileged classes back the freedom of not having to worry about where their next meal was coming from.  The modern industrial age took that a step further, giving virtually everyone in developed nations that freedom to wonder, “What else is there?”, and of course the result has been the return of old mystery religions (such as evangelical Christianity) and the creation of new ones (such as Mormonism and Scientology), each with its mysteries, circles of initiation, transcendent experiences (such as speaking in tongues), etc.  They all promise to answer The Question, and of course none of them do; oh, they provide the devout with explanations sufficient for many of their adherents, but if any of them could really provide a better answer to the ultimate question than “forty-two”, everyone in the world would’ve converted to that religion long ago and the Millennium would’ve arrived.

By now you may be beginning to get the idea that I don’t actually have an answer to your question, and on one level you’d be right; the truth, however, is that no priest, yogi, guru, prophet or adept in the world does either.  And the reason they don’t is that there is no one answer; the point of The Great Question is not to be answered, but to be asked in the first place.  In other words, the seeking of truth is the point in itself; it’s a limit approaching infinity, but as you and I both know any point along that journey is equally far from its infinitely-distant end.  The observable universe is an infinitesimal particle of all that there is; it’s turtles all the way down and all the way up, and all the way in every direction you can conceive of and an infinity of directions that you can’t, except for “turtles” read “math”.  It is, by definition, utterly incomprehensible to finite beings such as ourselves; the only meaning in existence is the meaning we as conscious beings give it.  So, while sex, drugs, religion, music and other temporal lobe phenomena may give one a sense or feeling of connection to the Divine, the truth is that we’re always connected; we’re just not always aware of it, because if we were we’d be unable to carry out the functions of mundane existence, and would instead merely lie physically inert while contemplating higher dimensions.

I said at the beginning of the previous paragraph that the point of the question is the process of answering it, and that’s not just inscrutable bullshit intended to cover the fact that I have no idea what I’m talking about; I meant it exactly as stated.  Imagine yourself a passenger in a vehicle, travelling a road or railway around a majestic mountain; as the vehicle moves, you need to change your position within it to keep looking at the mountain.  And life is like that, too.  In your youth, sex provided the proper angle to see the mountain, but now it no longer does; you’re still looking out of the same window, and though you’ve tried others none of them have yet given you that which you seek.  Perhaps the answer is larger doses of recreational drugs, or trying others you haven’t yet tried; perhaps you should try doing so in a ritualized setting, like a peyote or ayahuasca journey.  I myself have achieved remarkable results with edible cannabis, listening to instrumental music.  Perhaps you might try visiting sacred places, or exploring your own psychosexual landscape through kink, painting or writing.  And here’s the good news:  you can’t get this wrong.  You needn’t worry about a deficit; I can’t promise you won’t feel a sense of disappointment or regret on your deathbed, because we all leave this world in the same way we enter it: in blood and pain, wholly ignorant of what comes next.  But I can assure you that on a spiritual level, no one seeking as earnestly as you are can be considered to have any kind of spiritual deficit.  The point of the question is to be asked, and you’re certainly asking.  The point of the journey is the journey itself.  And when the end of your biological life comes, and you move on to a different plane of existence, you will be able to do so knowing that you succeeded with flying colors in your mission on this one: to never cease asking questions and searching diligently for an ultimate answer neither you nor I nor any other sentient being can ever find.

Late Bloomer

I grew up in a conservative Christian family, didn’t start dating until my twenties and married in my early thirties to a beautiful woman with whom I have great kids; my family life is wonderful, but my sex life is not.  Though I’ve used pornography off and on since I was a teenager, I was quite naive about sex and was a virgin when I married.  My wife doesn’t really enjoy sex and sometimes is averse to it, so sex has become very mechanical.  Two years ago I started going to strip clubs to find some relief from my sexual frustration, and I met a beautiful dancer who is a very intelligent college student.  I enjoyed talking with her and often would tip her $100 just to talk for 30 minutes, then last month she told me she had started escorting for a few clients she had met in the clubs.  It was awkward with her the first time, but by the third I was fully relaxed and uninhibited, and I felt like a huge knot inside me was untied.

I discovered your blog around the same time as I started seeing my lady friend in private, and it has been a great encouragement to me; I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.  First, my wife and I are in counseling for our sexual problem, but do you think she can potentially grow sexually and be freed from her inhibitions?  Should we be seeing a sex therapist rather than a regular marriage counselor?  With regard to my companion, I would like to know if you have any general advice (since I’m such a late bloomer), and also if there are things I can do besides being a good client (clean, on time, respectful of boundaries, courteous, and donation upfront), to show her that I really appreciate her. 

Most of all, I thank you for showing care to clients like myself.  It is meaningful to learn from your experiences and benefit from them.  It seems unfair that I haven’t even paid you for your advice! 

From what you’ve said, you have a good marriage in every way except for sex, and you don’t want to ruin that; so you need to be careful and discreet so neither your wife nor any neighbors or church members find out.  Since you’ve been reading my blog you understand that sex workers are caring professionals who help men (including many like yourself) to deal with sexual urges you couldn’t otherwise explore, but your wife and others probably wouldn’t understand and there would be major unpleasantness.  I’m very glad to see that you didn’t mention any sense of shame or guilt with your escort; if anything, it looks exactly the opposite to me (“I felt like a huge knot inside me was untied.”)  But it’s also important that you not let yourself get carried away; when a person has been sexually repressed for years as you were, the feeling of sexual release can be intoxicating, and can interfere with your judgment.  So keep seeing your escort (who sounds really perfect for you), but if you start getting feelings as though you’re falling in love with her you need to step back mentally and recognize that it’s the hormones talking.

A sex therapist might indeed help more than a general counselor if your problem is due to culturally-inflicted hang-ups rather than other issues merely reflected into the bedroom.  However, it’s important that A) you find the right one; B) you are very patient; and C) your wife really and truly wants to get over her hang-ups.  It won’t be easy, and she will probably never be as uninhibited as your escort; after all, you yourself know the kind of brainwashing she got, and it’s much worse for women than for men.  I’m assuming she is in her thirties, and it’s not unusual for a woman to mature sexually during that period; however, if she’s much past 35 and you don’t see any signs that she really wants to loosen up, I’m afraid the prognosis isn’t very good.  I’m not saying it’s hopeless because human nature is a complex thing, but in order to correct a sexual problem one has to recognize it as a problem in the first place, and some sexually repressed people simply refuse to admit that it is.

You may find “Advice for Clients” (in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I) helpful, plus my answers to reader questions in this and the previous volume of Ask Maggie; however, it seems to me that you already know a lot of that.  It’s not necessary for you to compensate me in any tangible way, but if you really want to you could buy my other books (you can find them on Amazon) or send me something from my Amazon wish list.

Dating Game

I recently went on a civilian date, and after some thought decided to tell the guy that I’m a sex worker.  He seemed OK with it, but when we parted he said he had to ask his primary girlfriend how she felt before deciding whether to go out with me again.  I told him I didn’t think it was cool for him to out me to his girlfriend; since they’re polyamorous anyway, she’s already agreed to his seeing other people and I can’t see how my profession should make any difference.

I personally have never dated men socially while actively whoring; the one exception was my wasband, and he started as a client.  So my answer is drawn from my sense of ethics rather than from my personal experience.  In general, it seems to me that the proper schedule for telling a new relationship about anything controversial or potentially problematic would be the third date.  I think the first date is just a bit too soon; if there’s no chemistry you probably won’t make it to the third date, and then there was no point in telling him about it.  But if you wait much longer than the third date, it could be much more uncomfortable or even painful for both of you if the outcome isn’t good.  I do realize that most people ask, “What do you do for a living?” within the first ten minutes of the first date (if not earlier), but I think you’re justified in bending the truth a bit so as to avoid the subject until a better time.

Regarding the second part of your situation, though, I think your judgment is exactly correct.  If his girlfriend is all right with his dating amateurs, there’s no reason it should matter if he dates a professional; as we both know, the chance of STI exposure is far less with a whore, and I think it’s not too far a stretch to say that we are also more likely than even most polyamorists to treat the issue of multiple partners with good sense and maturity.  Simply put, it’s none of his other girlfriend’s business what you do for a living, and if he insists on telling her despite your request to the contrary it could be an excuse to refuse a second date without having to admit his own anti-whore bigotry, a sign that he isn’t nearly as polyamorous as he pretends, or both.

Sandwich

I recently contacted a young lady advertising her services in an internet forum dedicated to a certain fetish to make a custom video for me, and gave her what I thought was a detailed list of instructions for what I wanted in the video.  She said that one of my requests was outside of her comfort zone; I told her that was OK, that I still wanted to hire her, and offered a substitute for the offending request instead, which she found acceptable and agreed to.  But the resultant video then wound up having just that one substitution, and none of the other elements we’d previously discussed.  I feel unhappy that I didn’t get what I was looking for; she’s already been paid of course, but has asked me how I liked the video, and I’m unsure what to say.  What’s the proper and appropriate way for a client to express dissatisfaction with the service they’re getting?

I think this is one of those cases where a “compliment sandwich” is the right approach:  compliment her, then express your criticism clearly and without rancor (and putting the blame on yourself), followed by another compliment.  Something like this might work:  “You’re very beautiful and the video you sent was very sexy!  I’m afraid I didn’t explain myself well, though; the substitute request was only for that one element you weren’t comfortable with, and I still wanted the other elements we had discussed that you were OK with.  Next time I’ll be sure to explain better, so the results will be even sexier.”  It’s possible she may reply with an offer to redo the video, or to give you a discount on the next; however, even if she doesn’t, you’ve at least expressed your feelings and learned that in future, it’s probably best to spell things out clearly & double-check after making a change.  “So we’re going to change that one element and leave the other ones as I first expressed them, OK?”  Something like that.  And with any luck, this will also teach her to pay a bit more attention to the details of requests, which in fetish work are often very specific and can ruin the fantasy if left out.

Capricious Lusts

I’m in late middle age, but when I was in my twenties I was what some people would call “creepy”.  If there was anything wrong with me, nobody would tell me; they just found “polite” reasons to always want to be somewhere else.  If prostitution had been legal, it would have made both my life and theirs easier; I would simply go there, and get what I needed.  Lacking that, I had to carry on as a “creeper”, hoping that some woman would decide to have a heart.  I would never have forced anyone, but I think I would have taken advantage of someone who’d had a little too much to drink had the situation arisen.  But why can’t women understand that most “creeps” are just frustrated, not dangerous?

There are several reasons most women don’t understand the relationship between male creepiness and lack of sex:  inattention to detail is the most important one (it’s obvious if one simply pays attention to male behavior), but another is ignorance about evolution and the biological reasons for the existence of the sex drive.  Oh, I’m sure nearly everyone over the age of ten knows that sex makes babies (even in our prudish, hide-the-truth culture), but society, religion and feminism pile so many layers of romanticism on top of that (especially for girls) that people lose sight of it, and the lies that sex is only a want rather than a need, and that men and women are exactly the same, convince naïve girls that the raging male sex drive is as easily thwarted as their own mellower version (see “On a Mountaintop” in Ask Maggie, Volume I).  When a person is starving or eating only poor food he suffers from malnutrition, and when a man’s only sexual release is his own hand he begins to sink into a kind of sexual malnutrition that results first in increasingly extreme fantasies, then really off-the-wall and even grotesque fantasies, then creepiness, and finally (in some cases) proto-rapist behavior or actual rape.  I’ve seen this time and again both in personal life and work; a man who hasn’t had any in a while might talk about or even suggest all kinds of weird stuff, but the moment he achieves release it evaporates.  That’s why some men want to kick a whore out as soon as they’re finished; in the mind of such a man, hiring her in the first place was something “weird” and perverted, and as soon as the pressure is gone and hormone levels have returned to normal he is repulsed by what he did and wants her out the door as soon as possible.

Sex workers of all kinds perform a vital service to the community by allowing men to “blow off steam” before they get to the “creepy” stage; even men with less money can avail themselves of lower-priced services such as massage parlors, so that only the truly destitute will have no recourse (and that’s no different from them lacking food or shelter, anyway).  So, though most men won’t commit forcible rape no matter how frustrated they are, many men will (if frustrated enough) begin to suffer a kind of cloudiness in their moral vision (just as you did) that allows them to rationalize that taking advantage of drunk, incapacitated or even sleeping women is “not really” rape, just as a desperately-hungry man will steal to fill his belly.  It still doesn’t make it right by any stretch, but it doesn’t make such a man an incorrigible monster who deserves imprisonment for decades, either.

I am deeply committed to the principle of harm reduction, which holds that it’s futile and even destructive for society to forbid the various things people do to feel good, and that the proper response of government is to take measures to reduce the harm which results from these things.  Nearly everyone who espouses harm reduction considers prostitution a subject for the philosophy (in other words, they want to reduce the problems associated with the sex trade by eliminating criminalization, providing shelters for teen runaways, helping survival workers to exit if they wish, etc), but many of them don’t recognize it as part of the solution for the social problems which result from the disparity in the sex drives of men and women (see “Harm Reduction” in The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume II), such as marital infidelity, rape and the kind of sexual exploitation which feminists insist is rape, MRAs insist isn’t and governments tend to go back and forth about.

For some taboo behaviors, the only harm (or at least the overwhelming bulk of it) results from criminalization; simply put, if the thing were not illegal, little if any harm could be attributed to it (marijuana and many sexual behaviors fall into this category).  For others, the majority of the harm comes from criminalization, and harm-reduction laws and/or free-market solutions would take care of the rest (IV drug use spreads disease, but that can be mitigated by needle exchanges; gamblers can become obsessive and ruin themselves, but this happens far less in legal casinos than in gangster-run backroom gambling).  Activities which involve unwilling participants must obviously remain criminal (in fact, they are the only things which should be), but common sense and harm reduction principles demand that the government should stop obstructing businesses which have been shown to reduce their prevalence.  A number of studies have demonstrated that availability of sexually explicit materials reduces rape, and others uphold the millennia-old wisdom that ready availability of prostitutes does the same thing.

If prostitution were decriminalized everywhere, the stigma surrounding it would eventually begin to fade in those whose minds are not warped by anti-sex belief systems, and more men would feel comfortable availing themselves of the services of sex workers before they started to get “creepy”; freed of the frustration and desperation which distorted their personalities they would probably be far more able to attract girlfriends, and the legal system would see far fewer cases of men who had stepped across blurry lines because their mental states had caused them to misread cues or to allow their own compelling needs to obscure the rights of others.  This would not entirely solve the problem of “he said-she said” situations (which will exist as long as the human race does):  young women also need to be taught to behave sensibly and to reject the foolish, infantilizing dogma that sex regretted later is equivalent to gun-to-the-head aggravated rape by a stranger.  The law must return to the presumption of innocence, and society needs to stop preaching the ridiculous, childish, patronizing dogmas that sex is magical, that women are fragile little flowers who must be protected from our own decisions, and that any rape, no matter how iffy or nonviolent, is a fate worse than death.

Not At All Unusual

Has any of your past clients ever fallen in love with you and you didn’t reciprocate those feelings?  I ask because the last escort I saw was different from all the other ones I’ve met; she’s very smart, strong, confident, beautiful and she even told me I was cute.  She seems to be the kind of person I could be in a relationship with and I would like to get to know her off the clock, but I’ve had so many bad experiences with women in the past that I’m afraid to try anything.  What should I do?

As I wrote in “Out of Bounds” (page xx), “It’s not at all unusual for a client to fall in love with a whore; sometimes, as in my case, that can actually go somewhere.  But there were a lot of men who fell in love with me before the one I married, and every one of my sex-working friends has had clients fall for her; it’s a natural outgrowth of a situation in which a lonely man spends a lot of time in the company of a beautiful, alluring woman who only shows him her best side.”  But it isn’t common that the whore returns the feeling; I’ve answered a number of similar questions over the years from men in similar situations to yours (see “Fadeaway” in Ask Maggie, Volume I).  And even in the very unlikely event that she does reciprocate and a romantic relationship develops (remember, I was married to a former client for 14 years), such relationships have the same kind of problems as others do (see “Sauce for the Goose” and “Neither Here nor There” in Ask Maggie, Volume I), plus a host of special difficulties born of stigma and jealousy (see “Fraught with Complications” in Ask Maggie, Volume I and “The Pimp in the Mirror” on page xx).

I’m not telling you that you should run away, nor that a relationship with a sex worker is doomed; I’m telling you that A) it’s very unlikely she feels the same way about you as you do about her; and B) if she is in fact interesting in seeing you “off the clock”, you need to be aware that the relationship isn’t likely to be easier, simpler or more idyllic than any other sexual relationship between two flawed human beings, which is to say “not at all”.  My advice to you is the same as it was to the two gentlemen I answered in “Favor” (see page xx) and “A Living Thing” (in Ask Maggie, Volume I ), which is:  Enjoy what you have with her and don’t try to turn it into something it isn’t.  And if she begins to clearly and directly express romantic interest in you, and it actually does turn into a romantic relationship rather than a strictly professional one, don’t go into it expecting it to be all sunshine and fairy dust, because I can absolutely guarantee you it won’t be no matter what you think right now.

Siren
Not Last Night
More Therapy Than Etiology
The Boonies
Made To Be Broken
Bareback
The Pimp in the Mirror
Because It Is
Only Time
Indecent Exposure

Siren

I’ve been a hobbyist since 2007 and have been with many ladies, but a year ago I started seeing a young woman less than half my age and became utterly intoxicated with her.  I see her about twice a week now, always paying more than her full posted rate; despite this she never stays longer than the time we agreed on, even though she sees other people at a lower rate.  She does, however, text with me every day, though most of them are rather short.  I take her shopping, bring her many presents, and loaned her a lot of money; I have also told her I love her and even proposed.  She has never said she loves me, but she says she has more feelings for me than she does other clients; she gets a little angry if I push her to explain her feelings, and says she’s not in the same place I am.  Last autumn I was in alcohol rehab for a while, and she was very annoyed that I did not keep in contact while I was in the facility (because I couldn’t use my cell phone there).  After that I started getting very obsessed with her and have figured out her real name, where she lives and other personal information.  She won’t commit to a relationship, but says anything is possible.  It’s beginning to get around the local escort/client community that I’m infatuated with her, and the other providers I know tell me I’m not the only one, and that she’s known for using people.  One of my hobbyist friends tells me I should stop seeing her for at least six months, and see other providers instead; I’ve tried that, but no other woman makes me feel like she does.  Help!

I’m afraid I have to echo what everyone else is telling you:  you need to walk away from this if at all possible.  You are completely infatuated with her, and though I won’t say she’s using you because she isn’t lying to you, that doesn’t make this a healthy relationship.  There’s absolutely nothing morally wrong with her refusing to overstay her time, or insisting on full rate; though I do think it’s a bit strange that she gives other people a cheaper rate than her most regular client, on the other hand she also gives you a lot of “off the clock” interaction via texting and the like.  What makes it unhealthy is your level of emotional investment in something that isn’t going to go where it’s obvious you desperately want it to go.

We like to believe that we have complete free will, but the truth is that chemicals dramatically affect our thinking and emotions.  People with mental illnesses caused by chemical imbalances can find their whole lives thrown into turmoil for no apparent reason, and the right medication can make them feel dramatically better.  Recreational drugs can profoundly affect the way we feel or view the world, and can even lead to powerful insights or religious experiences.  And given that you have suffered from alcoholism yourself, I don’t think I need to remind you of the powerful effect that chemical has on the brain.  Well, the feeling of being in love is also caused by chemicals, though they’re ones which originate within the body rather than outside of it; the primary culprit is dopamine, but norepinephrine and phenylethylamine are also important, not to mention the “love hormone” oxytocin (which is released during skin-to-skin contact, including cuddling, even in situations where no sex or erotic attraction is involved).  So while it’s not possible to be addicted to sex (see “Incurable” in Ask Maggie, Volume I), it is indeed possible to be addicted (sort of) to the feeling of being in love.  And just as the compelling need for alcohol or other drugs can cause erratic or even dangerous behavior in the addict, so can the compelling need for the “fix” provided by that potent neurochemical mixture one’s brain releases during interaction with the subject of one’s infatuation.  The good news is that, as with any other addiction, the hold of love can be broken; the bad news is that I don’t know of any way to do it other than cold turkey withdrawal.  I would strongly counsel you to take your friends’ advice:  stop seeing your siren and try to distract yourself with other ladies and other pastimes, before you go broke and/or get yourself arrested for doing something you will regret, which I fear is a very strong possibility in this situation.

Not Last Night

As most of my regular readers know, I get a lot of questions; this is the second of two volumes full of answers to such questions, and that doesn’t even count the interviews requests from journalists, academics, students and others.  I try to make time for as many of these as possible, and usually I succeed even if it takes a while (and even if the answer is just a link to a previous column in which I’ve already covered the topic).  But while I can justify answering reader questions in print because, after all, I get a column out of it, I haven’t been able to do unpaid email interviews for sveral years now.  The problem is this:  while I’m sure it’s very convenient for the reader to have my answers all neatly typed out for them to cut-and-paste as needed, it takes much longer for me to type all that out than it would to just speak it aloud.  Furthermore, typing an answer requires my undivided attention, while talking on the phone does not; I’ve given interviews while driving cross-country, sitting on a train, lying in bed naked or walking around in the grocery store.  And given the paucity of free time I have and the vehemence with which my friends insist I make more of it, I think you can understand why I restrict myself to the easy voice interviews rather than the time-and-labor-intensive email variety.

There is one certain kind of email interview, however, which I’m going to single out for attention.  Fom time to time, I get an interview request from a high school student which is clearly nothing more than the questions received as part of an assignment, which are sent to me under the misapprehension that I can be fooled into answering them.  So I wrote this essay to have something I could use to reply to such “requests” with a minimum of effort.  So if you’re one of them, this is for you:  Listen, kiddo, I didn’t just fall off of the fucking turnip truck.  Don’t let my spectacular bod fool you; I’m old enough to be your grandmother, and I was probably outwitting teachers before your parents were born.  I’ve been around the block more times than you’ve masturbated, and if you think you can trick me into doing your homework, you need to be slapped harder than I’m willing to give you for what you can afford.  It’s bad enough when adult reporters try to get me to do their work for them, but it reaches a higher level of impudence when the person who thinks he can outwit me isn’t even as old as the last bottle of wine I drank.  So cut that shit out; if you want to interview me come up with some proper questions, record it, then write the damned paper yourself.  The practice will do you good, and one day you’ll thank me when you become an actual writer rather than a fucking stenographer whose “craft” consists of parroting whatever moronic propaganda the cops are shoveling out at press conferences in the late 2020s.

More Therapy Than Etiology

I’m in love with an escort who has some very severe mental health issues; is it true that most escorts have such issues?

There’s no good evidence that sex workers (escort or otherwise) are any more likely to have mental health issues (and yes, that includes substance abuse issues or a history of childhood sexual molestation) than women in the general population.  That having been said, some women with mental health issues find sex work a good fit for the simple and practical reason that it’s both flexible and lucrative.  The high hourly rate means that even a woman going through a bad spell with her mental health can usually keep going for long enough to see a gent, make a few hundred bucks, and then do self-care the rest of the day.  No boss breathing down her neck, no arbitrarily-limited number of sick days, no busybodies micromanaging her time, no having to stay in one place for eight hours straight or else, and no production quotas except what’s necessary to get the bills paid.  So while prohibitionists want you to believe that sex work is a symptom or product of mental illness, the actual truth is that it can in some cases be a tool for managing it.  In other words, it’s a lot more like therapy than it is etiology; we don’t look at therapy as a “symptom” of mental health issues, and sex work isn’t one either.