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Archive for the ‘Q & A’ Category

Tripod

Posted in Call types, Perception, Q & A, tagged , , on January 30, 2020| 4 Comments »

Recently I commented on Twitter that the chance of an all-amateur threesome being awful is approximately 100%, and that if you want a good threesome you really need to hire a professional (or even two).  Naturally, I got some blowback from this, because amateurs – especially a certain subset of female amateurs – are very intimidated by the fact (yes, I said “fact”) that professionals are better at sex than they are.  As I wrote in “Don’t Try This At Home“, “ Part of the reason is that we get a lot more practice, and part is necessity…we have to be better at it because our livelihoods depend on it.”  How many different partners does the average amateur have vs the average pro?  How many times does the average amateur practice per week, and in how many different ways?  How many different skills does the average amateur take time to learn, and how much practice does she get in setting boundaries, resolving conflicts, etc?  But the most important question of all is,  Why is this so controversial?  In every other field of human endeavor, the idea that professionals are generally better at whatever-it-is than amateurs is a given; it’s why the term “amateur” can be used in a pejorative manner.  Except when the subject is sex, “You should probably hire a pro to do that” is usually considered good and wholly uncontroversial advice for any compex task that requires greater skill and experience than the average amateur is likely to have.  And believe me, threesomes are complicated; even some professionals don’t like to do them because of the possibility of couple drama:

The first thing I always establish…[is] that the wife [is] in control…since she might become jealous by seeing another woman touching her husband, she [has] the right to speak up if…something…[makes] her uncomfortable.  Sitting close to both of them, I…point out that they…called me to help them experience something novel and exciting, but that it wasn’t for everyone so if the wife [feels] overwhelmed or freaked out she need[s] to say something immediately…

You think even experienced amateurs (except, perhaps, experienced kinksters) go to that trouble?  It is to laugh.  They just dive in without any discussion of what the session should even look like, and then are surprised when all the various disasters one reads about in amateurs’ silly articles happen.  The Daily Beast declared “Threesomes are Actually a Terrible Idea“; the Daily Mail presented “10 Reasons Why Having a Threesome is a Bad Idea” (SCIENCE!), and the anti-sex-despite-its-name Vice helpfully shared “People Explain Why Threesomes Are Boring and Evil“.  As you might expect, all of these are deeply stupid and woefully ignorant, and only the Beast article even mentions the word “professional” (and even there, it’s bizarrely referring to the male as being the one in need of professional skills).  Even when jealousy isn’t a factor (and believe me, it can sometimes pop up even in situations that at first seem safe), motivation and direction are.  Amateurs aren’t getting paid, so they want to have “fun” and get sulky when they feel left out or lose steam before the others do.  And if all three are equally incompetent, who’s going to manage things?  Because, dear reader, somebody has to.  See, the title of this essay is ironic; a threesome isn’t evenly-balanced like a tripod, though that’s what amateurs believe and expect; it’s more like a parent taking two overexcited kids to the zoo for the first time.  Or, in the case of a duo, two parents taking one kid.  That’s why most pros generally prefer to work with a specific duo partner (for me it’s Lorelei Rivers); it’s much easier to provide a good experience with a partner one knows well than to try to wing it with someone who can’t read one’s non-verbal cues as reliably.  And as any parent can tell you, things always go more smoothly when the people running the show are on the same page.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Being Maggie

Posted in Perception, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , on January 23, 2020| 2 Comments »

Lately, I’ve received several requests from escorts, especially mature ones, asking how they can move toward the business model I’ve built, namely eschewing formal advertising altogether and just relying on guys who contact me because of my blogging, Twitter, articles, books, video interviews, podcast appearances, etc.  And I’m always hesitant to even try to answer such questions because, though I often play at being terribly conceited and full of myself, it’s always done with enough of a smile and a wink that most people know it’s a tease (at least, I hope they know).  In reality, it took a very long time for me to accept that I was even attractive, much less a bona fide sex symbol, and I’m still not really comfortable with discussing that status as a factual thing; as a result, I find it difficult to answer the question “How can I market myself as you do?” by stating the true and factual answer: “Be Maggie McNeill”.  No, I’m not being facetious; that really is the truth.  By the time I started escorting full-time at the age of 33, my personality was already pretty firmly established in all of its unconventional, intense, neuroatypical, compulsive, fiery glory, and trying to hide or disguise that personality would’ve been almost as difficult as trying to get a new head.  From the time I was a stripper I’ve never made any effort to “round my shoulders” as my old friend Dr. Helena put it, in other words to soften my edges and cool my fire so as to be less threatening to men.  Some men love my strength and fury, but a larger number are intimidated by them; that’s just something I’ve had to accept as the price of being who I am.  As I’ve explained before, aside from the occasional nude selfie or the like, I’ve never really done anything solely for marketing purposes; astute readers may have noticed that my ads on various escort ad sites are always plagiarized from one another, because I find it much too difficult to find new ways to praise myself.  I didn’t start this blog to market myself as an escort; remember, for the first five years I pretended to be retired!  No, I started it to educate people about sex work and speak about what I believe in, and I started Twitter to promote the blog.  Then the interviews, speaking gigs, books, etc, all followed as natural consequences of that, and eventually I realized there was no point in hiding my identity from potential customers when it was pretty clear that, in our current surveillance state, the “authorities” already knew who I was anyhow.  In other words, I didn’t go looking for fame; it just sort of happened to me, and business (plus the likely attention of evildoers) followed close behind.  Simply put, I can’t possibly tell you or anybody how to get to where I’ve found myself because it wasn’t the result of any kind of brilliant and well-considered plan; it just kinda happened as a result of the choices I made, and those in turn were just outgrowths of who I am.  I realize “Be Maggie McNeill” is useless as career advice to anyone who isn’t already Maggie McNeill, but I’m afraid it’s all I’ve got.

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No Protection, No Service

Posted in Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , on December 5, 2019| 11 Comments »

You often say “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever”, but what’s the alternative when I’ve been burgled, robbed, or assaulted?  Vigilantism?  I’m sincerely asking.

The cops do not exist to “help” you.  That is not their purpose, and the great majority of crimes are never “solved”; most of the time the cops don’t even investigate them.  On top of that, there are thousands and thousands of cases of cops showing up and either inflicting violence on the caller or their family, or accusing THEM of a crime, or both.  We hear a lot about how rape cases often result in the victim being treated like a criminal, but in reality that’s true for all crimes.  If a cop takes a dislike to a complainant, he may decide that it would be both easier and better for him to accuse the complainant of a “crime” (usually a criminalized consensual act) instead.  In the US, most prostitution charges result not from “stings”, but from cops charging victims of some crime (rape, robbery, assault, etc) with “prostitution”; in this recent example, cops ignored a violent serial killer to try to charge his intended victim.  Examples of cops hurling drug or DV charges at crime victims abound.  You honestly think it’s worth it to risk all that so you can have the faint hope that the state will inflict vicarious revenge on the one who harmed you?  “Closure” is bullshit; people who expect to gain it by seeing the one who harmed them imprisoned often fall into depression when they realize it does nothing of the kind.  Nor is it a valid argument to claim that in seeking vicarious vengeance through state-sponsored violence, you are helping other potential victims; cops generally charge whoever is handy and pressure the victim to agree with their choice instead of actually seeking the true malefactor.  More simply put, when cops act to “solve” a crime at all, they generally do so by picking someone to frame for it and torturing the “evidence” to support their choice; your misfortune may be used to feed an innocent person into the carceral machine.  In short, there are very few good possible outcomes to calling the cops, and lots of extremely bad, even life-destroying, ones; before dialing “9-1-1” or its equivalent, you might at least consider asking yourself whether you’re feeling lucky that day.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Safer Alternatives

Posted in Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , on October 17, 2019| 2 Comments »

Maggie, where are you advertising these days?

As I wrote a few months ago, I plan to soon eliminate formal escort advertising; I have a comfortable number of regular clients and I get a lot of business from Twitter, this blog, my videos and books, etc.  But I haven’t quite reached that point yet, and I dropped Eros a few months ago because the flood of idiocy from both Eros management and unschooled would-be clients had become just too much for me to deal with.  Plus there’s this passage in their “Advertiser agreement”:

…Advertiser fully and knowingly expressly consents to the Company’s receipt and handling of…Business Data…notwithstanding when or under what agreement it was provided to the Company…Company has Advertiser’s express permission (without any additional consent) to use and maintain the Business Data however it sees fit, and provide any or all of it to any law enforcement authority, or in response to subpoena or other administrative, regulatory, or legal process or obligation including, without limitation, to a third party…the Company will not be responsible or liable in any way to the Advertiser for [this]…

Which, given what seems increasingly clear about both the company’s relationship to swine and recent US government statements about Eros, feels far beyond the ordinary indemnification boilerplate; accordingly, I’m advising all escorts who can afford to risk a temporary drop in business to desert Eros immediately if not sooner.  I think those of us who are financially-stable enough to lead the way to currently-less-frequented sites such as Slixa, Tryst and Have We Met? are ethically bound to do so now, before the government intentionally destroys Eros and leaves tens of millions of our sisters worldwide stranded as they were when Backpage was destroyed.  I myself am advertising on Slixa and Tryst, and plan to add Have We Met? soon.  As the number of us advertising on those sites increases, more clients will follow us there, so that when the inevitable disaster happens those sites will be popular enough with the gents to provide a comfortable income for those fleeing from the doomed Eros.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Why Fake?

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , , , , on October 10, 2019| 4 Comments »

I understand why professionals fake orgasm, but why do women in committed relationships do it?  Isn’t that kind of counterproductive?  Wouldn’t it be better to be truthful and tell the partner what would get them off?

Sometimes I wish the myth that men don’t give a shit whether their partners climax or not were true.  Maybe it was at some time in the past, but in the present day most men I’ve been with (and that’s a very large number, as you can probably guess) care very much about it.  Now, that may be because many men feel they have “failed” at sex if they can’t get a woman to climax, due to copious messaging that men are “selfish” or incompetent or both in that department.  In other words, for some (many? most?) men it may not be about whether a woman is actually enjoying the experience, but rather about coddling his insecurities (such as worrying that she’ll run off with some other dude who can “do it better” or whatever); in other words, for these men (however common or rare they may be) a woman not orgasming during sex may poke the same emotional vulnerabilities as having a penis he believes (correctly or otherwise) is “too small”.  However, even men who are genuinely concerned for their partner’s satisfaction for reasons that couldn’t be called “selfish” without considerable logical contortion, generally labor under the delusion (cultivated by popular media) that most women are able to climax dependably if only their partner does everything “right”, as though a woman’s body were a video game which spits out the prize called “orgasm” once the player reaches a high enough total of points.  I once explained it this way:

The competitive, result-oriented male mind sees female orgasm as the target, the goal, the finish line of the “game” of sex, so his sexual pleasure is greatly enhanced if he can “score” it.  However…it isn’t that simple.  For many women orgasm is more like hunting than it is like football; it’s not just a matter of aiming a shot with proper force and accuracy into a static area, but rather of hitting a moving target which may or may not elect to show itself on that occasion…But…the average man…just can’t comprehend that the right combination of moves and techniques could through no fault of his own somehow fail to achieve what it was intended to achieve…

Because of this, men will annoyingly delay their own climax or even pepper a woman with questions about what they “did wrong”; a fake therefore acts as permission to the man to orgasm himself (rather than forcing his partner to endure tens of minutes of pistoning because he thinks that’s what women want and won’t listen if told otherwise), and fends off pointless questions and the need to perform emotional labor by explaining that it isn’t his fault and he’s not a caricature.  But before my lesbian readers get too smug (as so many do every time some report says lesbians climax more frequently than straight women do):  female partners can be just as annoying for women like me who A) simply aren’t very orgasmic; and B) dislike whatever it is that the female partner wants to do to her (often cunnilingus).  In other words, a lot (though by no means all) of fake orgasms (outside of work) are motivated by a desire to spare the partner’s feelings and circumvent the common but erroneous perception that a woman not orgasming is always due to some failure on the part of her partner, when often that may have little or nothing to do with it.
(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Memory Hole

Posted in Philosophy, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on October 3, 2019| 2 Comments »

I think regular readers already understand my views on government, and I don’t believe anyone who has read more than a few scattered columns would be so foolish as to attempt to get me to do something by vomiting “It’s the law!” all over my mailbox.  Alas, not everyone is a regular reader of this blog, and many who aren’t are such hopeless moral imbeciles that they truly believe some agreement made between fascists whom I neither know nor respect establishes some kind of “legitimate” authority over me that I’m bound to obey, even if it runs contrary to my own moral precepts.  And so three times already this year I’ve been emailed by people requesting, arguing for or even demanding the censorship of their names from some news item on this blog, due to the European Union’s imaginary “right to be forgotten“.  One of these individuals was such a complete arsehole, removing his name would’ve constituted collaboration with evil; one I had no opinion about, and the most recent I was actually sympathetic to.  But when I cover a news story, I already make a decision whether the names should be shared or not, and “it’s the law” is, if anything, an argument against complying with a demand for censorship.  But it’s more than just that; years ago in “A Look at the Works” I wrote…

…I take an extremely dim view of websites who shove posts down the memory hole just because some readers didn’t like them; I have the philosophy that “you can’t unring a bell”, so once a post is up I will not remove it no matter who finds it offensive.  Besides the ethical problem that would create, removing the index entries and hyperlinks would be like pulling one gear out of a clock…and if you think I’m going to leave an ugly and conspicuous hole in a four-year-long perfect record just because it hurt your feelings, I respectfully suggest you reconsider your place in the universe…

Since then I’ve made exactly one exception to that rule (about which the less said, the better) at the request of a person I love very much, because for me loyalty trumps everything else.  But if you aren’t such a person I suggest you reread the above block quote while remembering that “four-year-long perfect record” has since grown to ten, then ask yourself whether you really think I’ll make an exception for you because some especially-pompous politicians a third of the way around the planet ordered me to.

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The Rest is Silence

Posted in Current Events, Perception, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , on September 19, 2019| 2 Comments »

Why are you trying to avoid talking about Jeffrey Epstein?

What would you have me say?  Perhaps you missed “Overripe“, in which I wrote…

…when a powerful, wealthy, well-connected person is accused of a crime (especially a complex one), the result is invariably dueling volcanos of accusation & defense vomiting megatons of obfuscation into the atmosphere.  Moreover, when the crime “just happens” to fit into a moral panic in full eruption, the result is a firestorm that makes it very difficult to separate truth, lies, prevarications, opportunism, excuse-making, police-statery, and outright bullshit from one another…

Epstein, like many men, was attracted to women younger than the law allowed him to have.  And unlike most men, he had the means to get what he wanted and no moral compunctions against it.  Do you want my thoughts on why the government suddenly revisited the case a decade after it was over, even though Liz Brown’s analysis (synopsized and linked in the above-referenced column) covered it better than I could?  Perhaps you want me to explain the obvious, why a well-connected billionaire who hobnobbed with at least two US presidents and who-knows-how-many other powerful people, got a slap on the wrist for crimes a poor man would’ve been crucified for?  It’s possible you might want me to titillate you with pointless and lurid speculation about whether Bill Clinton or Donald Trump or whoever shared in Epstein’s predilections, in which case I would point you to my “Elephant in the Parlor” tag, tell you that I don’t write porn, and remind you that even if I did I wouldn’t do it for free.  Or maybe you’re asking me to virtue-signal about age of consent laws and infantilize young women, pretending that they are equivalent to six-year-olds because they haven’t yet reached Magic 18 and shouted “Shazam!”?  If so, you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree.  Of course, you could be asking for my speculation on whether Epstein really killed himself or was “suicided”; if that’s it I would observe that while his “friends” had both the means and the motivation to silence him, he also had extremely good reason to spare himself the ordeal and show-trial to come, and the US prison system has a long history of letting people die in cages, sometimes at the hands of sadistic cretins and sometimes by monumental incompetence.  At the end of the day, the one person who could’ve answered all of these questions is dead, and everyone else who could answer any of them is highly motivated to keep his mouth shut.  So even if you’re just dying to know the answers, I’m afraid you’re going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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The Tricky Part

Posted in Perception, Q & A, tagged , , , on August 29, 2019| 1 Comment »

As a sex-positive professional offering accounting, financial planning, business services or the like, what is the best way to communicate with and obtain SW clients?  I’m a regular client myself and I’m in the process of building a website, but how can I attract sex workers to that site?

Well, I’m going to be honest with you:  providing professional services like accounting for sex workers when you’re male is an uphill climb.  Unfortunately, too many professional guys will try to turn a sex worker client into a trade situation when that isn’t what she wants, or in some cases even use the info for soft extortion; even when they don’t do that they sometimes make pervy comments & creepy innuendoes, so a lot of sex workers are understandably wary.  I think the best way to begin would be to start a Twitter account with your business name (make sure it’s clear what kind of services you offer) and put the link to your website in the bio.  Then follow as many sex workers as possible and keep retweeting a lot of sex-work-positive stuff from them; eventually a few sex workers are bound to approach you, and you can be sure to give great and discreet service and avoid the no-go behaviors I mentioned above.  Once you have some satisfied customers, they will undoubtedly recommend you to their friends, and then you’ll be on your way; it’s getting your foot in the door in the first place that’s the tricky part.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Suppressing Sexuality

Posted in Perception, Q & A, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , on August 15, 2019| 3 Comments »

I recently heard you speak, but was unclear on your point that the criminalization of prostitution suppresses the sexuality of women in general, not just the sexuality of sex workers.  Could you please make this connection clearer?

The criminalization of sex work is nothing less than the criminalization of thought.  Sex outside of committed relationships, even with total strangers, is perfectly legal for motives such as fun, excitement, relief of boredom, experimentation, gratitude, friendship or whatever; it’s only when the woman has a “bad” motive, ie profit, that the act becomes illegal.  Criminalization of sex work therefore gives cops the “right” to guess what a woman’s motive for sex might be, and if they decide (correctly or incorrectly, with or without proof) that her motive is a pragmatic one, to brutalize, rob, abduct and cage her, and in most places even to rape her to “collect evidence”.  Prostitution laws therefore suppress all women’s sexuality, because women who dare to be sexual outside of committed relationships, especially women of color, are always in danger of cops deciding to harass or violate them under the premise of “investigating the crime of prostitution”.  And in the aftermath of FOSTA, we are even beginning to see an erosion of women’s right to go unescorted in a public place without being discriminated against or even accused of “prostitution” or being a “sex trafficking victim”.

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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Inflexible

Posted in Perception, Q & A, The Dark Side, Tyranny, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2019| 2 Comments »

Last week, I mentioned that I had done a lecture at the University of Michigan via video link.  Unfortunately, our connection was poor, so I had to keep restating points that were lost when the signal dropped; this ate up the time we had for questions, so I asked the teacher to collect student questions and I would answer them via email.  Most of the questions were ones I’ve answered in other places, and though that’s also mostly true of this one, I don’t recall ever directly answering it in one go:  How does violence against women change with different regulatory regimes?

When the demand for anything is inflexible, as in the case of sex and drugs, prohibition does nothing to curtail that demand; what happens instead is a black market develops to supply the commodity.  And because black markets are illegal, there is no way for those involved in them to call upon courts, lawyers, etc to settle trade disputes.  That means violence, and such markets also tend to draw people who aren’t afraid of breaking the law (which of course includes career criminals).  Alcohol prohibition is a fine example: in the 1920s, if one wanted some booze one had to deal directly or indirectly with bootleggers or smugglers, and turf wars became very bloody indeed.  But after Prohibition ended in December 1933, that all ended practically overnight; when was the last time you heard of a turf war between bars or liquor stores?  Similarly, sex workers who are raped, robbed, or otherwise harmed by violent men cannot go to the police at all under criminalization because they will be arrested for prostitution.  Under most forms of legalization they usually don’t dare, because even though selling sex isn’t illegal the cops may spy on them afterward to catch them in some prohibited behavior such as working together for safety or having dependents.  That’s also true under the Swedish model, and in addition the cops use sex workers as non-consenting bait to catch clients; that in itself increases violence against street workers in particular because the clients are afraid of busy, well-lit areas so they need to move to darker, quieter ones.  All these factors also draw rapists, robbers and serial killers, because they know it’s less likely they will be caught if they prey upon women the law defines as “criminals”.  Only under decriminalization, in which sex work is treated as work, are sex workers free to take whatever precautions they feel necessary without violating some law, and can call on the police if they wish (though I personally advise against that course of action).

(Have a question of your own?  Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)

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