Overly analytical guide to escorting

https://knowingless.com/2021/10/19/becoming-a-whorelord-the-overly-analytical-guide-to-escorting/

by exolymph • 5 years ago

826 417 5 years ago

knowingless.com

secondaryacct• 5 years ago

I dont know if prospective escorts should expect the same 1200$/hr as this person, this sounds very high.

exolymph2• 5 years ago

That's addressed in the piece.

pcbro141• 5 years ago

Prices are inflated in the US, I guess because it's illegal. In the UK you can bang a really hot clean looking escort for like $200.

s5300• 5 years ago

Hmmm... this seems quite close to SWE salary differences as well.

Good SWE in Europe - $40k-$60k

Good SWE in US. . . . - $250k-$350k

ArtWomb• 5 years ago

Almost none of the digital issues seem to be around transacting of cash. That part seems solved (via Cashapp or BTC). All pain points stem around one party wanting to hide their identity. While simultaneously verifying their clients' identify in great detail, down to a psych profile! An interesting non-zero sum game ;)

exolymph2• 5 years ago

Pretty sure johns pay with literal cash, not any digital variant.

koolba• 5 years ago

Indeed, I’d wager that most transactions conclude well before six Bitcoin blocks are mined.

trhway• 5 years ago

some prefer structured/smurfed bank transfers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliot_Spitzer_prostitution_sca...

anonu• 5 years ago

Some use Venmo: https://www.thedailybeast.com/gaetz-paid-accused-sex-traffic...

jrochkind1• 5 years ago

The OP did mention using crypto currency, although implied that it was an unusual thing for sure (in general, and not usual for them either).

I required deposits of 20% for long appointments (6+ hours), because I had a lot of time booked up that would be a painful loss if they cancelled. Deposits are hard to do because everybody wants anonymity and payment processers are cruel; I typically accepted amazon gift cards or crypto.

bluecalm4• 5 years ago

Yeah, I am amazed johns are ok with it. Not only paying multiple hundreds of dollars but also disclosing your identity and personal information to someone who won't? I can imagine myself taking many strange deals but this one just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

1970-01-01• 5 years ago

Excellent opsec

telotortium• 5 years ago

The article's by https://twitter.com/Aella_Girl (i.e., high on the leaderboard of OnlyFans) - not exactly obscure.

humpday69• 5 years ago

"You operate a little bit like a therapist and confidante, most men do not want to f*k just a body, they want to f*k a soul."

1cvmask• 5 years ago

It's like the old adage in Hollywood that you had to sell your soul to the devil. Clearly the predators in Hollywood were the devils.

qPM9l3XJrF4• 5 years ago

That part was weird given that women on dating subreddits complain about how guys only want them for sex.

im3w1l• 5 years ago

A guy who wants a relationship may only have sex with a handful of women. While a guy who just wants sex can get into the hundreds. That's hundreds of experiences reinforcing that men only want sex compared to just a few saying the opposite. Samppling bias you could say.

micromacrofoot7• 5 years ago

It would be nice if we could just regulate this industry to protect the people in it and start the work of reducing the stigma. Similar to abortion, people are going to do it whether or not it's legal. It will never have an "end". It's one of the oldest professions in human history. I do not understand why people fight this battle.

The number of hoops these people jump through only to be eventually assaulted and robbed anyway are ridiculous. It's a very dangerous job and it doesn't really have to be!

The ongoing stigma around sex is ridiculous... censoring female nippes (not necessarily even related to sex!), bans on "suggestiveness," etc... I've heard of people who run OnlyFans accounts (not escorts) essentially get run out of town if they live in conservative areas... and they really only get found out because the men in the area are patrons!

The tech industry supports these stigmas in huge ways by automating it (often unsuccessfully I might add! at one point I was suspended from Facebook for sharing a sculpture). Push back against this nonsense if you can.

ParoxysmalVigor2• 5 years ago

Assassination. Burglary. Similar to abortion, people are going to do it whether or not it's legal. It will never have an "end". It's one of the oldest professions in human history.

habeebtc• 5 years ago

Some might argue that assassination and burglary have a victim where prostitution does not.

There are arguments against prostitution as a victimless crime, but it is not straightforward in any argument to demonstrate victim and perpetrator like it is with assassination, burglary, assault, etc.

micromacrofoot7• 5 years ago

You're seriously out here comparing consensual sex between two consenting adults to murder for hire? You can at least try to make a point in good faith first.

loxias6• 5 years ago

It would be nice if we could just regulate this industry to protect the people in it.

Amen to that. As an ignorant outsider looking in, the first thing that comes to mind is the possible huge safety benefits gained by collective bargaining. Even if it's not certified and recognized by the NLRB, there's gotta be something.

Aella12• 5 years ago

Decriminalization, that's mostly what sex workers want. I'm pretty wary of regulation, which often is done in misguided ways by people out of touch with sex workers' actual needs.

iammisc11• 5 years ago

Legalizing for protection of those involved is one thing, but it is completely orthogonal to 'reducing the stigma'. Frankly this is where these movements lose people, including the abortion movement.

collegeburner4• 5 years ago

Youre downvoted but have a good point. I agree its a victimless crime and so the govt has no business regulating it, but pushing for destigmitization is a different kind of social change. Why is that important?

micromacrofoot7• 5 years ago

It's much harder to fight the stigma around anything that's illegal because it instantly gets equated with crime. It's hard to talk about an experience that will get you branded a criminal...

Decriminalization of marijuana in many places is getting people talking about it more openly, for example. It's not everything but it's a start.

14• 5 years ago

It is also dangerous for a man as well. Some report being robbed or have their picture take upon arrival and blackmailed. It would be beneficial to both sides if people didn’t have to hide what they do.

Aella12• 5 years ago

Out of my 415 clients from the survey, 6 reported being arrested, 7 physically assaulted, 26 got a STI, and 92 were stolen from.

analog31• 5 years ago

There's a recent HN thread on truck driving, which is legal and regulated, and has relatively less stigma. Yet the industry has apparently also figured out every possible way to skirt the regulations and abuse drivers physically and financially if possible. Granted, that's not a statistical assessment, but it at least suggests to me that legalization and regulation are not enough by themselves to make an occupation safe and wholesome.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28916771

throwaway0a5e8• 5 years ago

Very few people (as a fraction of the population, spare me the wall of text about the edge cases) are negatively effected by trucking.

If every dude who wanted to get laid could do so as easily as arranging an LTL shipment that would negatively effect a far larger subset of the population.

micromacrofoot7• 5 years ago

Of course it's not enough by itself, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Right now a lot of sex workers are afraid to even report crimes committed against them... hard to get much worse than that. Even a slight improvement is improvement.

akudha2• 5 years ago

1,200 an hour!

Jeez, that is insane! good for them.

Once in a while, I come across something like this and wonder, what is it like to be that rich to casually drop 1,200 an hour, for anything, let alone on escorts.

dustintrex• 5 years ago

The same stats also note that the median income for an escort is $5000 per month, or $60k/year.

And for what it's worth, flying to many places with a family of four can cost $1200/hour even in economy class.

refurb• 5 years ago

There was an article about prostitution in Germany (legal) where Eastern European women will offer services for as low as 10 EUR.

Race to the bottom?

loxias6• 5 years ago

1,200 an hour!

I've always been mildly curious, my first thoughts were "Less than I thought!".

Hear me out (criticism of my thinking on this is very welcome):

In LA's Ktown, a Domi (a job I had no idea existed just a few years ago... google if curious) charges a base rate of $100/hr, plus tips. For the client, there is no guarantee of nudity or any physical contact, though it's of course up to each individual what they're willing to do (and for how much).

From the perspective of the client, $100/hr buys you in-person company in a public setting with someone young, conventionally attractive, dressed skimpily. The person will (pretend to) politely listen to you as you talk, (pretend to) smile, (pretend to) laugh at your jokes, pour drinks for you, (pretend to) agree with your opinions, and, if they choose to, drink with you.

The market supports that price ($100/hr!) for work that does not require ANY sex as requisite. I imagined "entry level" sex work would be priced ~10x (min 7x) over work done (skimpily) clothed and in public, and that, like many other goods and services, "luxury" would have a multiplier over "entry level brand" between 5x and the stratosphere. (I guess with cars it's ~3x.)

These assumptions yield a price of $5k/hr for "luxury brand sex work", ~4x the empirical data. If we assume that "luxury" has a multiplier of just 3x (but I bet it's more!), then the ratio of the market price of sex work over somewhat similar (companionship, paid to be pretty and objectified) work done clothed and in a public venue, in the same city,... can be at most 4x.

Only 4x?

This is what shocks me! :)

akudha2• 5 years ago

I have no experience with this industry, I don't know what Domi is. I was simply looking at the numbers from my very limited (zero) understanding of the economics of sex work and economics in general. $1,200 is two months of my food budget, when I eat well, lol.

Somebody reading this comment (probably making minimum wage) might be thinking 20$ (1200/60) per day food budget is a luxury.

Anyway, all I was wondering is - a super tiny percentage of the population can afford to spend 1200 an hour, on anything. Must be nice to be that rich, lol.

siva74• 5 years ago

I doubt it is more than a fetish or urban myth. If the market would be there, lots of people would be doing this. But there is no essential market for this.

LurkingPenguin7• 5 years ago

And also:

8% reported legal trouble
8% reported being arrested
16% reported physical assault
17% reported contracting a STD
29% reported being stolen from
41% reported sexual assault

So no doubt the rates are in part a reflection of the risks providers take in the course of offering their services.

_z6tl3• 5 years ago

And no doubt the risks decrease as the hourly rate increases.

system23• 5 years ago

17% reported contracting a STD

I wonder if any money is worth having an extreme risk of getting a deadly virus.

iudqnolq3• 5 years ago

Once in a while, I come across something like this and wonder, what is it like to be that rich to casually drop 1,200 an hour, for anything, let alone on escorts.

Median income is $100,000/yr. My impression (from HN) is this isn't abnormal for non-entry-level tech workers in the US.

Edit: It's just about the median software engineer salary in the US. https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/software-develope...

Edit2: This previous read "100,000/hr". A transcription mistake.

otterley• 5 years ago

I think you're off by a factor of about 2,000 (work hours per year).

Hnrobert422• 5 years ago

$100k per HOUR?

Do you mean per year?

Aella12• 5 years ago

Keep in mind my rate was 1200, but $100k was the median reported income for all clients who responded to my survey. I suspect the median income for clients who saw me would be much higher!

tennisflyi• 5 years ago

I saw a very popular pornstar for $1,600. No regrets.

another_why14• 5 years ago

Who was she? Asking for a friend

spoonjim6• 5 years ago

Well many people spend $12,000 a year on a hobby like travel, skiing, whatever. One escort a month is similar. Very few consume it hourly at the same volume as say Netflix.

bluecalm4• 5 years ago

Well, you get hundreds of hours of skiing or travelling for that 12k. Not fair to compare to once a month an hour long date.

tomc1985• 5 years ago

It strikes me somewhat oddly that one might pay so much for something that literally half the people on this planet is equipped to provide

You're paying for looks, ease, simplicity, no strings, and so on... I get it. But idunno, that is a lot of money for one nut.

Also suprised the San Diego price is so high, when there is a red light district literally on the border in Tijuana, and those girls charge $60-$100/hr US to gringos (and less to spanish-speakers, locals, and people who pay in pesos)

kkjjkgjjgg• 5 years ago

Equipped to provide does not imply willing to provide.

csomar2• 5 years ago

This is the high-end price. It's not for every man and definitively not for every woman. While some intelligence is required to charge these high prices, some genetics lottery luck is also required.

It strikes me somewhat oddly that one might pay so much for something that literally half the people on this planet is equipped to provide

High-end is basically differentiating yourself from average.

You're paying for looks, ease, simplicity, no strings, and so on... I get it. But idunno, that is a lot of money for one nut.

It's cheap if you are rich and worried about lawsuits, law enforcement, blackmailing, your reputation, etc... Suddenly, $1200/h is quite cheap.

jiggawatts• 5 years ago

This is a fascinating topic!

There's depths to it like you can't even imagine.

Sex is a market, and like any market, it has theories that can explain it.

For example: in most places, most of the time, prostitutes charge the same "rate" as wives do, because they're suppliers in competition, and the market sets the price.

Oh, you think your wife doesn't "charge" you for sex? How quaint and romantic! Of course she does. You're paying more rent. You're paying for more food. You're paying with expensive gifts, trips, and most importantly, you're paying to raise one or more kids. In many countries it's literally a crime for men not to pay child support.

If you step outside of your world for a second and look at it from the outside like an anthropologist might, you'll note that $1200/hour is about right for the "market price" in an nicer part of the world for affluent men. Most men have sex once or twice a week with their spouse, and more than half of their disposable income goes towards their partner and their kids.

iamben• 5 years ago

You can buy a phone with the same spec as an iPhone for an eighth of the price. You can buy a car that goes from A-B for a fraction of the price of your Porsche. Those selvedge RRL jeans you like for 269 - Uniqlo do a version for 35. Is that Michelin star really better than Domino's? That is a lot to spend on just a phone, something to get you from A-B, something to cover your legs, something to fill you up, etc etc.

She sort of addresses it in the sentence that ends: "...and might be more likely to attract higher power men who are looking to “unlock” something they feel few other people have seen – your nudity."

I guess it's like anything. Things with a higher price feel more exclusive and we desire the things we can't have. If you can afford it, why would you skimp? If it's less affordable - maybe you'd prefer it to feel like an experience (at least in your own head) rather than 'one nut'?!

killtimeatwork2• 5 years ago

It strikes me somewhat oddly that one might pay so much for something that literally half the people on this planet is equipped to provide

This is a luxury high-end part of the market. Ruled by the same dynamics as $200 steaks or $2000 bottles of champagne.

throwaway0a5e8• 5 years ago

It strikes me somewhat oddly that one might pay so much for something that literally half the people on this planet is equipped to provide

People will pay for convenience.

Also, if you are the higher paid earner in stable relationship I invite you to tally up the monthly cost sometime.

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

It strikes me somewhat oddly that one might pay so much

$1200 an hour, with a minimum 1.5 hours, so $1800. In addition to a 20-minute roll in the hay, you get an attractive, intelligent person for company, who is skillful at flattering men.

So these "half the people on the planet": if they're not prostitutes, then you will have to date them. You are not going to cop if you take your date out to KFC. Even taking them to a posh restaurant won't guarantee you'll get your end away.

So let's say you manage to get a date 6 nights a week, and you shell-out for a meal and a show ($350 each?). Let's say half of them are people that interest you. Let's say half of those would consider bonking someone on the first date.

So you're out-of-pocket $2100, you've spent three evenings chatting to someone that didn't interest you, and two of the others want more meals and shows (but how many?)

I think my guesses are wild overestimates. I have no idea how one might ever get 6 dates a week. Most women won't bonk you on the first date. Far less than 50% of women are "interesting" (FSVO interesting).

If your time is scarce and valuable, your standards are high, and you have enough money to e.g. take holidays in nice places, then spending a couple of grand on a classy girl for the evening, with a guaranteed payoff, doesn't look insane.

kwertyoowiyop• 5 years ago

That could be much cheaper than getting married and divorced.

akomtu• 5 years ago

This is indeed cheap. The alternative is marriage that's gonna last 5 years and cost 1 million. That's 4k or 4 hours (discount for large order) per week - more than enough for most men who are able to marry such women. Sorry for my cynical view.

emerged• 5 years ago

I actually read the entire thing. It was worth it imo. Some stand outs were her kind words about her clients (almost strange to see men as a class described with such positive words). She is clearly a very rational and intelligent person and this is a business to her like any other. Yeah I really don’t get why this stuff is illegal, even though I have no interest myself.

3grdlurker• 5 years ago

I don’t think the author intended to talk about men as a class and all the politics that comes with it, and as a man I would hate for discussions about my gender’s politics to be based specifically on sexual transactions. I mean, she had to talk a lot about her own safety and boundaries here. Not a very good sign for me.

lazide2• 5 years ago

Safety and boundaries also come up with taxi drivers, day laborers, pizza delivery folks, and many others - and objectively they end up dead more often near as I can tell.

Most folks here live pretty safe and cushy lives that the majority of humanity doesn’t get to enjoy. Real life for most people requires understanding and defending these things and making conscious decisions to protect them. it doesn’t require someone be doing sex work for it to be that way.

manquer13• 5 years ago

Her experience is not a good indicator or whether it should be legal or not . She is an exception even as an escort, and also high end escort work she describes here is very very different from the run on the mill prostitution.

Her strategy of avoiding trouble by keeping price higher even if lower frequency engagements may not be feasible for many, they may be unable to get clients at higher price points and like any biz pressure to generate revenue is immense.

2muchcoffeeman• 5 years ago

One of the arguments of legalisation/decriminalisation/whatever you want to call it is that it brings it out from being underground and anyone can call law enforcement. However given the relationship with law enforcement in the US I’m not sure how well that would work.

c21h30o28• 5 years ago

The question of whether it's good and wholesome is orthogonal to the question of whether society should punish those who do it.

Scenario A: Resourceful, successful, happy. Should she be forced to accept dangerous working conditions and live under the constant threat of eviction, imprisonment, harassment and stigma? Why? What's the argument in favor of making her life difficult?

Scenario B: Physical or mental disability, unattractive, can't afford to refuse clients even though they make her unsafe, doesn't have any other way to pay for rent, food, meds and diapers. Should she be prevented from going to the police when someone beats, rapes or robs her? Should she be prevented from organizing with her friends for mutual protection? Should she be prevented from advertising online and instead forced onto the streets? Again, why? What's the argument in favor of making her life even more difficult?

danuker• 5 years ago

like any biz pressure to generate revenue is immense.

Whenever I think about consumer electronics, I think they are turning into status symbols more than tools providing utility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

MillenialMan• 5 years ago

Treating men who hire prostitutes with respect is kind, but not necessarily honest. More or less a requirement is that they not care if the person they're having sex with hates it. They're a distinct class of people and not reflective of all men.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it. I don't like the weird denial about that aspect of the transaction. It makes it difficult to trust the rest of her writing.

amcsi4• 5 years ago

Although as a male I highly support that sex work be legal, and acknowledge it as legitimate work, I do not tend to honestly respect this type of work (besides the courage to do it and such). I find it quite unfair be able to make so much money for relatively low effort (at least it feels that way despite the downsides/dangers).

But I must say that this escort is super smart and has a really good sense of business. This article also gave me some newfound respect for escorts for the fact that although on the surface they seem to mostly just use their bodies, they do put in a lot of effort on the business and strategy side which people don't talk about.

hn_throwaway_99• 5 years ago

I find it quite unfair be able to make so much money for relatively low effort

I hope you hate capitalism then. It's all about supply and demand. As a gay man with some friends who escort, their rates are much lower, both for obvious reasons (it is ridiculously easy for most gay men to find other men to have sex with) and less obvious ones (IMO there is much less of a stigma among gay men for escorting, and at least friends I knew who did it expressed little shame at doing it).

amcsi4• 5 years ago

It is absolutely supply and demand. I meant girl escorts when I wrote what I wrote. I find it unfair that it you're born a girl and are pretty, you have this option.

bananamerica5• 5 years ago

Did you read the article? There's absolutely nothing low effort about it...

amcsi4• 5 years ago

I read the entire article. By making a lot of relatively low effort I mean selling something for a lot that's not a expensive items or valueable experienced labor. And like I said, before I thought this was all low effort work, and through this article I got to see the high effort business side.

Asparagirl• 5 years ago

This is a fantastic article: informative, well-written, thoughtful, human, and funny. And it’s especially interesting to see it posted here at HN, because while reading it I kept thinking there are some solid lessons here about entrepreneurship, sales, and product pricing that could certainly be applied to your average start-up SaaS.

I mean, anchoring your price high, to better capture the businessman/enterprise market? And that this market also happens to be less likely to be time-suck jerks about little issues, or constantly asking for product changes/features? Literally better b̶a̶n̶g̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶buck for your bang.

And it’s right out of the classic @patio11 essays, too. Charge more, indeed.

KaiserPro4• 5 years ago

This is a brilliant article, it answers a lot of questions that I had no opportunity to ask.

reidjs• 5 years ago

Incredibly touching too:

"I’ve had many clients that I remember fondly and who mean a lot to me. One client I would regularly hold in close skin-to-skin contact as he cried, and I cried with him; another was young and vibrant and too big for the small world around him. Another was a quadriplegic, and yet another was a talented writer who valued rarely seen things in me and encouraged me to do great things without ever once implying escorting was beneath me. Another whose wife had recently died and found me as his first foray into being with another woman, because he couldn’t bear to fully date another person yet. I’ve had clients figure out who I am and show up asking me to tripsit them on psychedelics, wildly successful CEOs who treated me as an intellectual equal, or people who were dying of cancer and didn’t want to go out without another bang (I recently looked up one of my favorite clients and instead found his obituary)."

coolandsmartrr• 5 years ago

Interesting that the author does porn too. Typically, escorting is frowned upon in the porn industry. There are concerns over STDs, and porn performers prefer to co-star with those having sex exclusively with porn stars.

loxias6• 5 years ago

This is a fantastic article, echoing what others have said "informative, well-written, thoughtful, human, and funny".

After being shocked at how low the price is, considering how the market prices a related job (see my other comment for details), the second thought I had is that there might be some interesting low MRR startupish product opportunities.

collegeburner4• 5 years ago

$1200/hour

Holy shit, why do ppl pay this? Honestly wondering. Cant most people just go hook up at a bar or smth if they're that desperate?

SixDouble5321• 5 years ago

I think the problem is your idea of the patrons and their reasons for hiring escorts. Maybe it's just me, but "go find someone in a bar" isn't even in the same ballparks.

collegeburner4• 5 years ago

Right thats what I'm trying to figure out, what are their reasons for doing that?

Hnrobert422• 5 years ago

As the author mentions, some clients are busy and just want a sure thing. Others are cheating on their partner and don’t want to involve a civilian who might blow up their spot.

I’d say that most important is that she was SUPER thoughtful about the experience she provided to her clients. Things like identifying non-latex condoms to avoid allergies, wearing a short necklace so it won’t slap him in the face.

Whenever I pay more for something and am glad I did, it’s almost always because I am impressed by the attention to detail. Then again, maybe that’s because I, too, pay attention to detail.

c21h30o28• 5 years ago

Sex/conversation/whatever with a person you really like and feel that you click with, who focuses all her skill attention on giving you the time of your life, is completely different than with some random person you would rather not wake up next to in the morning. There are lots of men with that kind of money to spend but only one Aella.

baobabKoodaa2• 5 years ago

Cant most people just go hook up at a bar or smth if they're that desperate?

Most people can "just go hook up" at a bar or whatever, but then again, most people don't pay for escorts. Some people can't "just go hook up", though, and I would assume those people form a significant part of escorts' client base (the author described these as inexperienced young people). The author also described other motivations, like busy rich people, and people wanting to cheat on their partners.

nexus2045• 5 years ago

This price is on the high end. But many people like myself don't have the courage, confidence, looks, or complex social skills required to succeed by going to a bar and trying to pick up a girl. Then when you look at how much time and disappointment you'd have to go through to do the same through something like Tinder, then suddenly paying a few hundred starts to make sense. And quote from somewhere, "you're not paying for the sex, you're paying her to leave after".

correct_horse• 5 years ago

The funniest part of this article (in the context of being posted on HN) is that the author separately mentions engineer and software engineer in her list of client professions. That settles it - normal people think they're different.

gizmo6862• 5 years ago

I say this as a software engineer, does anyone honestly believe that software engineers are engineers?

dopidopHN• 5 years ago

I’m pretty sure that they are on to us.

psyc2• 5 years ago

This comes up often enough here. The number of people who do argue that “software engineer” is a kind of engineer, alongside “mechanical”, “civil”, etc, is always dismaying to me. I’ve always maintained that it’s merely a common title within the software industry, based on a loose analogy. Similar to “software architect”, it’s evocative, not literal.

fastball2• 5 years ago

I have a (non-software) engineering degree but write software, do I get to be called a Software Engineer?

manquer13• 5 years ago

A lot of other engineering stream grads don't do engineering work either even when working in their industry, do management /procurement or sales etc.

There is no certifing body (in most countries) on who can call themselves engineers unlike doctors or lawyers.

So it is really up to you , whether you see what you do as engineering (not only with software) or not

CydeWeys3• 5 years ago

What does it even matter? It's just a job title. The job is what it is regardless of what some people prefer (or don't prefer) to call it.

hulitu4• 5 years ago

Some are. ( HW engineer here). But most of them are artists.

bananamerica5• 5 years ago

Of course they are. Does anyone think otherwise?

tenaciousDaniel• 5 years ago

I recommend following Aella on Twitter. She does some really interesting (and some very controversial) twitter polls: https://twitter.com/aella_girl

tim333• 5 years ago

There's also some youtube stuff. Here an interview on similar questions to the article: https://youtu.be/bkiPNMbeOH0

ThrowawayR2• 5 years ago

The author has a similar analysis article on working as a camgirl that is also very engaging and was reposted to HN recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28783418

yedava2• 5 years ago

41% reported sexual assault

This is from a group of sex workers who appear to be screening their clientele. I wonder how high the number would be among sex workers who don't have the same amount of financial safety net that someone who can pick and chose their clients has.

I also wonder how those assaults could be brought down, if that is even possible in the first place. I always hear how sex work just needs to be regulated and everything would be fine, but how does one prosecute something that happens in a private setting, behind closed doors?

Aella12• 5 years ago

It should be decriminalized, not regulated. I would have liked to have been able to go to the police about the client who assaulted me, but unfortunately this didn't cross my mind as an option.

kfprt8• 5 years ago

There are lots of bad things that arguably shouldn't be illegal but suppressed. Smoking, abortion, prostitution, drugs, etc. I think for society to fully embrace decriminalization there needs to be a diversion mechanism. Cigarettes have taxes and programs to quit. What would the prostitution equivalent be?

"Something is either morally wrong or it isn't, it can't be slightly morally wrong" Therein lies the difficulty. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIYfiRyPi3o

yedava2• 5 years ago

Yes, you're right. I had decriminalization in mind, but maybe chose the incorrect word.

And to elaborate on the prosecution part, in the wake of #MeToo, a lot of people came out with their stories, but not many of them pursued a legal route. I got the feeling that proving many of those allegations would be difficult in a legal system and whatever cases that did go through the legal system had a preponderance of evidence - along with immense social pressure - backing them up (think Bill Cosby/Harvery Weinstein). This is what made me wonder how much of a deterrent decriminalization/regulation would be on sexual assaults. Do we have to use public shaming, like in #MeToo, as a deterrent mechanism?

slothtrop3• 5 years ago

That's the Nordic model which has been a collosal failure. The workers get harassed by both police and clients alike, they are no better off. Actual legitimacy would allow workers to better organize and protect themselves, and would also better mitigate human trafficking by leveraging regulation. Germany is working on improving its laws to this end.

gizmo6862• 5 years ago

Its not clear that those a different sets of people. Just because they screen their clients now, doesn't mean that they always have. Unfortunately, getting personally assaulted might be the reason they now screen their clients so well.

I also wonder how those assaults could be brought down, if that is even possible in the first place.

I doubt we would ever get it down to the background rate, but having a high base rate means there is a lot of room for improvement.

Just legalizing it would probably help. Having an above ground would likely improve the quality the background check network, and would increase the accessibility of information on how to be a sex worker with relative safety.

Beyond that, the potential to have a good relationship with police would probably be a big help. I doubt it would see much actual use (who wants to risk a reputation of getting their clients arrested), however at least some people would be more careful if they thought there was a chance that the sex worker could report them.

There is also the option of proper brothels, with panic buttons and bouncers listening in for screams.

bananamerica5• 5 years ago

how does one prosecute something that happens in a private setting, behind closed doors?

We prosecute tons of things that happen between closed doors, already... Including sexual assault.

keithnz• 5 years ago

I'm wondering what the safety stats are here in New Zealand where it is legal (and basically when we legalized it, the sky didn't fall).

eyelidlessness• 5 years ago

Before determining how you should police sex work or customers thereof, you might want to contextualize it with an understanding of both reports and estimates of unreported sexual assaults of women in the general population.

slibhb• 5 years ago

The article reads like an advertisement. She claims to have had many intimate, beautiful experiences with johns but she's charging $1200/hr. How beautiful can a purchased experience be? Plus, the whole thing reenforces regressive stereotypes wherein men are valued for their money and women for their bodies.

Regardless of whether prostitution should be legalized on liberal grounds, it is not prosocial behavior and it is unfortunate that the taboo against it seems to be decaying.

elzbardico• 5 years ago

Why should we keep being controlled by the regressive moral taboos of puritan America? Is it a law of physics? What is the problem with bodies? Are smart people superior to beautiful people?

cronodas• 5 years ago

"How beautiful can a purchased experience be?"

Live theater, concerts, and therapy are all purchased experiences, too, and they can all be pretty powerful experiences on either side of the transaction. I don't see why escorting that includes conversation would be any different.

SavantIdiot• 5 years ago

This is a fantastic article. I hope this goes viral. Sex work should be legalized, regulated, and protected. Escorts should be able to call the police without fear of being arrested if they are abused.

I have several female friends who are escorts, or rather "providers", and the term most frequently used for the men (as OP said) is "hobbyists". However, they don't really see "hobbyist" as derogatory as OP claims. Which is interesting.

I'm saddened that she describes such a solo experience. There is (was before COVID) a weekly meetup at a local restaurant where the providers got to know each other and swap stories. There was a back channel network where they could blacklist individuals. It was a cohesive group that looked out for each other. They even had presentations on how to launder money through Etsy. As OP said, the IRS will notice!

In addition, some women jumped in for a short period, but some stick around. One friend have been at it for over 15 years: there long-term relationships are pretty amazing to hear about. We dated and I would sometimes get de-identified summaries of fetishes.

There are "old timers" in this profession just like programming. This OP is like a ReactJS dev talking to CGI-BIN devs. I use this analogy becuase one of my friends worked mostly with programmers and went by "RubyGetsRailed" online.

EDIT: I hope I'm not mansplaining, but it is a diverse community that exists everywhere and I wanted to share the variations I've encountered.

Un-stigmatize sex work.

bananamerica5• 5 years ago

Males can explain things about women without mansplanning :P

This felt informative, thanks

throwawayswc213• 5 years ago

Throwaway because I'm drawing on firsthand experience from illegal activity.

I think it's important to highlight the diversity of sex work. This one passage caught my attention:

SeekingArrangement – This website, unlike the above, professes to definitely not allow escorts, and makes it difficult to be explicit about it. Most men connecting through the website anticipate paying around 50-70% less, as women tend to be willing to accept less money if you give them a veneer of not being a real sex worker. You can still attempt to do clear sex work here though – “PPM”, or pay-per-meet, indicates that you want to be paid per meeting, and this is the way to start out the discussion. Seeking Arrangement also had the lowest correlation with arrests,

Nearly all of my experience with sex work (as a client) is off Seeking Arrangment. For those unfamiliar it's a site for people to engage in "sugar dating", where a "sugar daddy" compensates a "sugar baby" to spend time with him, ostensibly unconnected to any expectations of sex. I find these terms cringeworthy, I'll call it compensated dating. In practice there's almost always expectations of sex. There's definitely a sizeable overlap between SA and traditional escorting sites, browse both and you'll come across the same profiles with moderate frequency. But in general, "sugar dating" involves a sizeable chunk of activities beyond having sex. It's expected to take dates out to dinner, movies, and other activities one would normally do on dates.

I think Aella is being a bit snide when she calls this "the veneer of not being a real sex worker". Almost all of the people I met considered it sex work and weren't under any illusion about the fact that money was changing hands in exchange for sex. When I asked why they preferred compensated dating rather than escorting the reasons were primarily twofold:

* Safety. It's not uncommon for people to meet in person once or twice before agreeing to meet for sex. These initial meetings are almost always in public or semi-public places (restaurants, bars, parks, malls). Most people give each other real names after meeting in person. I suppose this could also reduce safety, but there's a M.A.D. element of this that seems to work.

* Sense of connection, quality of experience. Many of the women on SA that I met spoke negatively of instances where men only saw them for an hour to have sex and didn't want to spend time together outside of the bedroom. Do they really just care about "the veneer of not being a sex worker"? Maybe, but I get the sense that many genuinely have a more enjoyable experience - or at least more tolerable experience - meeting someone few times platonically before having sex.

Speaking from the male perspective here, I'm really not sure why someone would prefer escorting over compensated dating. Aella is right that it's 50-70% less expensive. Maybe a bit less if one factors in cost of meals and activities. But $/hr of time spent together is easily 4-5x less than escorting. Personally I'm the type that sees the expectation of spending time together outside of the bedroom as a positive rather than a negative, so it's a win on both counts. Between $1200 for 90 minutes with someone and $400-700 in exchange for having dinner with someone, sex, taking a bath together and talking, and spending the night together the latter is way preferable.

The only potential negative is possibly the overlap of sugar dating and real relationships. I know both men and women who have moved in with, and in one instance gotten married to, people they met off SA. The one negative experience I had was with someone who wanted to have a real relationship and I did not, leading to a falling out and stuff being said about me - fortunately nothing that actual led to significant repercussions.

Aella12• 5 years ago

My impression that sugar babies don't think of it as sex work is based off reading sugar baby forums, but it's possible that there's different subclusters of sugar babies with different attitudes!

IG_Semmelweiss• 5 years ago

I was squarely on the decriminalize camp but as with everything, life tends to give you more perspectives.

The ethical calculus appears to be more complicated than the straightforward 2 consenting adults engaged in a victimless crime.

Consider the current rates of single mothers, the increasing trends of broken homes and higher divorce rates, one is forced to really examine what is under the belly of this beast.

Is there causality, or not?

Do kids pay the price from easier access to family breakups? Do these side deals even lead to breakups at all, or were they just serve to speed up the inevitable ?

I would like to understand if there is a way to estimate the impact of any broad change in policy.

Thing do bode well in one respect: AFAIK, decriminalizing marijuana in portugal led to less drug abuse.

pjc50• 5 years ago

Considering that prostitution has been around forever, and divorce has been long-term falling since the initial transition when it became legal and socially acceptable, I think you should examine some of your assumptions.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-us-divorce-rate-has-hit-a-50-...

spoonjim6• 5 years ago

As a fan of Aella’s Twitter persona I wish I had known about the escorting before it stopped!

fastball2• 5 years ago

This strikes me as a weird things to say tbh, but in the spirit of the article I decided to try to look at it a bit more rationally and not sure this is wrong to say, but I still don't like it and I'm not exactly sure why.

spoonjim6• 5 years ago

Well the article should give you some glimpse into the mindset behind transactional sex. I see Tweets I like, and photos of a woman with a good body. Her rate was $1,200, I am willing to pay. Consenting adults, consenting exchange, it might not be for you, and it might make you feel gross, that’s OK as you don’t try to deny us the right to make the exchange. Of course not relevant since she is not escorting now.

throwaway098567• 5 years ago

Many escorts promote themselves via Twitter. I’ve seen a few escorts after following them on Twitter. It’s not just about sex. Some people have a tough time connecting to people and this is a good option to see what the person is about and then making a booking.

Aella12• 5 years ago

I likely will never be able to advertise escorting as Aella due to legal risks and due to Onlyfans removing anyone who reveals they're an active escort.

spoonjim6• 5 years ago

Ah, but I think I could recognize you if you used similar photos.

excalibur• 5 years ago

Just send for my new book, entitled "I Wanna Be a Ho"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTmLd5PTyc

throwaway75999• 5 years ago

This was a fantastic read; thank you for sharing.

I saw escorts for a couple of years. It was often weird, when I just didn’t click with the woman, but I met a few really awesome people.

There are other down sides to escorting. One of the women I had seen a couple of times, was later murdered. They ended up catching the killer- another escort, I don’t know why. It was hard to grieve; we were not real close; her family probably didn’t want clients showing up at the funeral or any other reminder like flowers.

I ended up falling in love with one of the women I met and we dated for a while. It was a serious emotional roller coaster being in love with someone who was having sex with other men until she was ready to “go exclusive”. But in the end we got married after she retired.

Now it’s ten years later. We have a son and are still happy as can be.

If you’re thinking about seeing escorts, remember that since intimacy with other people is involved, there are often strong emotions as well.

boppo1• 5 years ago

Out of curiosity, about how much do you make/ did you when you started seeing escorts?

mlang23• 5 years ago

This is so weird. In some US states, you can buy weed legally but hiring a prostitute is illegal. Where I come from, its the other way round. Go figure.

JaggerFoo• 5 years ago

She forgot to follow up on the buttcrack hair comment as promised. "(more on buttcrack hairs later)."

I imagined a graph of number of missed buttcrack hairs to the amount of light allowed in a session.

shapefrog2• 5 years ago

Given that light falls off at an inverse square rate do you plot the lumnes at source of light, centre of the bed or the observed light at the buttcrack?

If the later, how do you account for different distances from the light source durring a given session?

kenkaniff• 5 years ago

Only on HN

RotANobot• 5 years ago

Clearly there is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to fill this market niche with a lidar smart dimmer light that accounts for the distance of said buttcrack.

qPM9l3XJrF4• 5 years ago

Lol I was wondering if flaunting buttcrack hairs was gonna be a way to get rid of troublesome clients

Aella12• 5 years ago

ty for the reminder I added it in!

durnygbur4• 5 years ago

That's quite impressing with its sophistication. I'm from post-Communist country and talking with my former (female, heterosexual) dates from the same country, guys from Anglosphere countries get sex with them relatively easy and free of charge - because of curiosity and cultural inferiority well preserved by your show business. These are regular attractive girls and women which later on have families, children, and unaware partners. Meantime I probably wouldn't even go through the screening process of an escort in an Anglosphere country... not to mention the ridiculous prices... sad. Rare matches with American ladies on OLD which aren't some form of scam just don't stick at all. Even the dating over here was taken over by an American media group, you guys just want an absolute monopoly on sex. All that remains for us is your porn.

Chris20482• 5 years ago

you guys just want an absolute monopoly on sex

because your fellow (female) nationals choose to have sex with Americans? Is America responsible for these choices?

Are "unaware partners" getting just porn? Should women not get to choose who they have sex with before marriage?

durnygbur4• 5 years ago

There exist dominating languages in western culture - English, Spanish, French, German, and native speakers are getting comparatively easy pass. English has the magnifying factor of mostly American movie and music industries. I mean more the ruthless evolutional and statistical factors - no American, Spanish, French, German lady comes over here looking for romance, marriage, or sex. I might relocate there but starting my life from scratch, I will not be attractive in comparison with more established guys. For a lady starting from the scratch is not much a hinderance, she will find a patron of some kind. So there is natural migration of people and people are free to make their romantic choices, but this migration is very unidirectional and causing significant frustrations among a spectrum of demographics.

hzay4• 5 years ago

I felt very sorry when she said it's difficult to take deposits because payment processors are cruel, that she can't report a horrible client to police, that the govt refuses to acknowledge the work but takes the taxes, and all the precautions escorts have to take against cops. This work should be legal.

pizza2342• 5 years ago

The legality is addressed in the article:

You can in fact get issued an escort license in some cities (e.g., San Francisco or Grand Chute, or Jefferson County, WA). I don’t know if this is a good idea, neither I nor anybody I know has applied for this, though I seriously considered. It’s possible it might grant you some legal protection, but also possible it might give you some legal issues, as it puts a lot of information about you in a government file that clearly states you are in fact an escort.

Based on that, from an escort viewpoint, the legal protections are not a worthy tradeoff for privacy.

Ultimately, in the context of the country/culture, legal protection is a progressive position, but it's not sufficient, unless complemented by a degree of anonymity. Not sure how that could work, though!

hzay4• 5 years ago

Ultimately, in the context of the country/culture, legal protection is a progressive position, but it's not sufficient, unless complemented by a degree of anonymity. Not sure how that could work, though!

Legal, non-anonymous and socially respectable escort services used to exist, you know. It existed in south india as a practice for hundreds of years before the british came.

lazide2• 5 years ago

That’s quite misleading though?

It seems clear to me anyway that what she was referring to is a similar trap marijuana growers have here in CA and other legal states. Namely that just because SF gives you a permit doesn’t make it legal (in that everyone who could come arrest you would not), and it may actually make it worse by putting you in a database of ‘known offenders’ for the next higher level of law enforcement to come after you. The state of California doesn’t recognize any permit in SF, and neither do the Feds, and if she crosses state lines in her work, the feds could go after her for it.

Would they do that right now? Probably not. Would some future different administration? Possibly.

And, since it’s required to use legal names and the like, and these records are permanent, it could be a decade or whatever in the future when politics have changed, or there could be a records leak and now your real legal name and occupation and home address or whatever is all over the Internet, and who knows when or if something weird happens.

Gun owners recently started having their records shared with various universities for instance, which include home addresses, names, and what they own - and have no legal recourse near as I can tell.

KaiserPro4• 5 years ago

the legal protections are not a worthy tradeoff for privacy.

I don't think it really conveys any meaningful legal protections. I suspect it allows you to operate, but it won't mean that you will be treated with the same respect that a non escort would have got.

They are still not allowed to use normal payment providers, they cannot form companies, they cannot operate their own premises, with security (as that would border on prostitution, which is a stupid distinction)

Think of it as the police allowing pot dealers, even though it was still illegal to posses.

bjourne3• 5 years ago

She describes in the article how she was essentially raped. Can you explain how legalized prostitution would have helped her in that situation? Because it seems to me that there is no way the guy would have been convicted of rape. Furthermore, future johns would avoid her if they knew that she had filed charges against a previous customer. Having sex with men for money is inherently dangerous and I don't think legalization really makes it much safer.

jonathanstrange3• 5 years ago

Why would the guy not have been convicted of rape if he raped her? You're making lots of assumptions to "show" how legalizing prostitution would not make it "much safer", but common-sense tells us that legalization is a good first step to making it a bit safer. In the Netherlands police and social workers sometimes protect the outdoor areas in which prostitutes work (e.g. car parks). Why would that not make their workplace safer?

future johns would avoid her if they knew that she had filed charges against a previous customer

So maybe she wouldn't tell them. Obviously, legalization should also imply a certain protection of their identities (e.g. if they are witnesses in a trial).

ClumsyPilot3• 5 years ago

"Furthermore, future johns would avoid her if they knew that she had filed charges against a previous customer."

That's the point, you don't want rapey Johns as your customers.

tcskeptic• 5 years ago

Legalization would make it much easier for escorts to coordinate on john screening. See for example the research done by Cunningham/Deangelo/Tripp on the effect of Craigslist shutting down their Erotic Services section. And that paper wasn't even on legalization, just a small piece of normalization that allowed coordination. There is also a paper by Cunningham on the accidental legalization of indoor prostitution in Rhode Island and its effect on crime and violence. Fascinating stuff.

playcache• 5 years ago

$1200 an hour, crazy.

Yoric7• 5 years ago

Very interesting article.

Do I understand correctly that sex work is still illegal in the US? If so, what's the rationale? Why can't consenting adults do what they want with their body?

eevilspock6• 5 years ago

If a woman is poor, struggling to survive or trying to give a child a decent life in a society and economic system that is very sink or swim, do you consider it "consent" if she agrees to have sex with you so she can pay the rent, or have a decent meal, or buy the drugs she got hooked on dealing with depression and alienation, sold to her by a predatory drug dealer?

devoutsalsa2• 5 years ago

We all do stuff we'd rather not do for money.

rockbruno• 5 years ago

This is not a good take, what you described applies to every single person in the world with a job. The correct reason sex work is a complex subject is because it involves human trafficking.

strken4• 5 years ago

Seems a bit inconsistent to throw desperate addicts/single mothers in jail if they steal car stereos for meth money/baby food, but blame their johns if they turn to sex work instead. Which is it?

npteljes• 5 years ago

How does prostitution being illegal improve this situation?

mikevm5• 5 years ago

At least a woman can take the easy way out and become a prostitute. A man has no such "luxury". Society does not pity weak men the way it pities weak women.

rndgermandude8• 5 years ago

Short answer: yes.

Longer answer: assuming there is no direct coercion, like a trafficker ring/pimp involved, I fail to see how this kind of struggle is any different than the single parent working night shifts at WalMart who still needs food stamps to feed the family. Or the low wage worker going to a factory each day ripping chickens apart so you can have your chicken breast and chicken nuggets.

If your theoretical mom can make a living that does not require her to work 14h days in two jobs and never really see her kids, good for her, regardless of whether that involves sex work.

Predatory drug dealers are not exclusive to sex work either. What's the alternative for your drug addicted hooker anyway? A "steady" job is probably out of the question at this point. So... burglary and robbery? I am empathetic to drug addicts and am all in favor of helping them, also at a regulatory level. Things like decriminalizing possession and easy access to a reasonably funded support system (with social workers, etc) and treatment for those willing to take that step. Driving drug addicts, who we as a society do not help enough or who refused our help, into a life of hard crime, taking away their livelihood and/or making them even more vulnerable to abuse (if you're a "lawless" prostitute, then you won't go to the police when you've been beaten up, raped and/or robbed for fear of being arrested yourself) is not a solution to me.

All the resources spent right now punishing prostitutes and their clients could be redirected at fighting the actual criminals (the predatory drug dealers, human traffickers and pimps), and to help and support people struggling with drug addiction or mental illness as well as victims of human trafficking.

I don't get how with prostitution a lot of people always proclaim "but we should ban it entirely because trafficking and pimps and drug dealers!". All the while we do not ban all factory jobs because "there are some sweat shops with defacto forced labor!".

Yoric7• 5 years ago

I personally don't feel that sex work is worse than any other work, unless we (society) make it so. I could be entirely wrong, but would a poor, struggling woman trying to do three non-sex jobs to feed that same child be in a particularly better position?

mbrodersen• 5 years ago

Yes of course. She has the option to do it or not. A male in the same situation might not even have the option.

lelandfe2• 5 years ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_the_United_S...

It’s illegal everywhere but certain parts of Nevada. When you walk around the streets of Las Vegas you’ll therefore see hundreds and hundreds of fliers for girls.

As for the history… it’s a sordid one. Read e.g https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamberlain–Kahn_Act. The US imprisoned women with venereal diseases found near military bases. Things sort of went from there, and also involves the “morality” of the American Christian and fears of the Progressives. Some more good reading: https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/10512...

Today it is a partisan issue and one worked on at a state level. Manhattan’s DA vowed to “no longer prosecute prostitution and unlicensed massage” as of this April.[0] …meanwhile the Texas governor in August made buying sex a felony in August, the first state to ever do so.[1]

I don’t expect any significant national progress on this in my lifetime. But there has been a sea change in blue states over the past generation.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/nyregion/manhattan-to-sto... [1] https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/567760...

denton-scratch8• 5 years ago

“no longer prosecute prostitution and unlicensed massage”

You can be prosecuted for giving an massage without a licence? I lived for a short while in the US, and regularly gave my female partner massages.

dandare• 5 years ago

Are you sure it is a partisan issue? From what I know many progressives see any kind of sex work as exploitation of women.

zozbot2342• 5 years ago

Unfortunately, legal sex work is often exploited as a safe haven for human trafficking. High end escorting is actually likely to be at the lower end of risk, but is ultimately too tiny of a niche for policymakers to care about preserving.

miracle2k• 5 years ago

The reality is that despite being spun to a willing press as "human trafficking raids", these raids extremely rarely involve any human trafficking, and 99% of the woman being arrested, having their money confiscated, given criminal records, have their photos and names published online, lose their children etc. are in fact those same marginalized women who the state purports to want to help/save.

siva74• 5 years ago

This is not true but one of those arguments to mask morality and religious reasons with.

mst2• 5 years ago

You misspelled 'illegal' - people being unable to go to the police is traffickers' preferred situation.

Legalisation, thereby making the same worker protections available as to everybody else, is precisely how to screw them over.

The messaging saying otherwise is largely from conservative and/or radfem organisations who're trying to get people to conflate prostitution and trafficking because they want to wipe out all prostitution, not just the coerced stuff.

There's a strong parallel to the war on drugs here - criminalisation largely benefits the criminals.

birder3312• 5 years ago

So let's crack down harder on trafficking if the traffickers are doing illegal things. Your argument is like "online fraud is rampant" let's make purchasing items online illegal because we can't stop the fraud.

siva74• 5 years ago

Moral and religious reasons. Countries and Governments that do not inflict moral from top-down usually have relaxed rules.

blunte• 5 years ago

Old white men wanting to control everything, including women. Especially women.

Religion is used as an excuse, but that's also just old white men wanting to control people.

OneTimePetes• 5 years ago

Actually, as someone growing up in a cult, the old white men, are quite bigot about this. They are pro prostitution.

Its their female partners that push this agenda, to prevent sex from devaluation as currency.

trabant00• 5 years ago

You might carry away feelings of disgust, shame, or hatred. Not everyone feels like this, but if you do, I would not recommend escorting

Just like mental fatigue (term meant as a catch all) is an integral and non separable part of IT work, the feelings described in the quote are not optional for sex workers! You WILL get burned by all the downsides of escorting, it WILL change how you perceive yourself, it WILL affect your dating life, relationships, etc.

Some are more resilient than others, you can deal with it better or worse and preparation surely helps. But don't think you can have your cake and eat it too.

I've started very open minded about the profession as a young man. Looking back on it I now think it was justification so I can allow myself to date sex workers as they are on average quite attractive, go figure. And while individuals differ and you can find the same issues outside of sex workers, the job guarantees some problems of which I personally I grew tired of. I am currently avoiding the profession for romantic interests and would not recommend anybody I care about to go into it. Discrimination sometime has objective serious motivation, the motives are just lost to some.

jychang• 5 years ago

Yes and no.

Sex work usually is tied to more Cluster B personality disorders, from my experience. But then, plenty of people I've dated (who hadn't ever done sex work) have the same issues.

I'm aware that the demographics that I have experience dating tend to skew high towards mental issues (I'm interested in more drug positive people, among other confounding factors which tend to attract people with preexisting mental issues). A lot of the factors aren't exclusive towards sex work, though- simply having an instagram account with 10K+ followers tend to signal a big difference in behavior, for example.

_chendo_• 5 years ago

Great article, and as one of the engineers behind Tryst.link, it's great to hear that we're her personal favourite directory to list on!

hdjjhhvvhga• 5 years ago

if your options for romance are with men who don’t like sex work

Well, that's a very positive way of formulating this. This could be put more accurately as: "If you decide to enter a long-term relationship, you will have to either find a partner who wouldn't mind sex work (might be difficult!) or lie to them (ouch!)"

tablespoon• 5 years ago

Once you start seeing clients, expect to get used as a reference and to start getting emails from other providers asking about clients you’ve seen. It’s considered extremely good form to respond; this is a collective safety system we all use to help each other, you rely on their information and they rely on yours.

I wonder if the police could exploit this practice to make arrests. Arrest an escort, get access to their email as evidence, then start going after the people who made reference requests. I suppose the email address could even be used to fake a reference for a sting, but I doubt that would be legal in the US. Probably the only reason this system works is the police don't care enough to exploit it.

dmurray2• 5 years ago

Arrest an escort, get access to their email as evidence, then start going after the people who made reference requests.

But you already know who the people to "go after" are: they're advertising on the websites.

slyall• 5 years ago

I posted a similar article by the same author a couple of years ago called "An Overly Analytical Guide to Camgirling" but it got flagged to death

https://knowingless.com/2018/11/19/maximizing-your-slut-impa...

shapefrog2• 5 years ago

That was before onlyfans became the next hot tech unicorn.

uyt• 5 years ago

I even remember seeing her stuff linked to before in the other OnlyFans-related discussions on HN. It was this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fay6parYkrw

(this post is way better though)

ipsum22• 5 years ago

HN is a fickle beast. My guess is that this post was marked by moderators manually to ignore flags.

pc86• 5 years ago

That's a pretty big assumption, what makes you think that?

Liriel• 5 years ago

I’ve been sexually assaulted on the job (which was sort of my mistake; this was the one guy who I thought I’d screened but actually hadn’t, and if I’d screened him I would have not met him)

No it wasn't your mistake. It hurts me to see that people who have been through trauma blame themselves for it.

bluecalm4• 5 years ago

There is a difference between exposing yourself to too much risk and being responsible for what happens to you. She made a mistake and blames herself for that. It was her mistake. She doesn't blame herself for the assault itself just for putting herself in a dangerous situation. I mean, if you don't realize it's your fault to mess up the screening process you will never correct it. It's healthy to realize your mistake.

enimodas• 5 years ago

Kinda baffling, when she gets assaulted she never even let the guy know he was doing something wrong, and later in the article she admits to raping a guy who had clearly stated he didn't want to have sex with her, while conspiring with her friend about it. And she barely even registers she did something wrong. It was "awkward".

baobabKoodaa2• 5 years ago

later in the article she admits to raping a guy

No she doesn't. You shouldn't label other peoples' experiences as "rape" willy-nilly like that.

Aella12• 5 years ago

I appreciate the care here! I do think he very clearly should not have assaulted me, and I also think I made a mistake by not screening him. Both are true! I have no sense of guilt or self-blame around this, I mostly have "Oh, I failed to do a thing that would have protected me, I'll make sure to do that next time, good to know."

bluecalm4• 5 years ago

It's very interesting to me that escorts are able to charge that much (possible to make a median wage in the area in a few hours of work) and still have as much space for demands (detailed screenings, choosing clients etc.). It seems to me that if men had that option, that is having sex with even not very attractive women (most male escorts do gay sex work) the prices would be 1/10 of what they are for women and only the most attractive guys would get any action nevertheless. Meanwhile even not exceptionally attractive women (by their own admission) can easily make a few hundred per hour and choose to meet with only reasonably attractive men!

I guess I am mainly surprised there aren't more takers. Sex work may be degrading and hard to swallow for many but then again working long hours in a minimum wage job often isn't much more appealing either.

Maybe it's about lack of information, maybe about fear or maybe I don't understand human nature as well as I think I do. It just seems to me there should be many more takers than there seemingly are.

harambae• 5 years ago

but then again working long hours in a minimum wage job often isn't much more appealing either

I can't speak for other nations, but realistically the US unemployment/welfare system is game-able to the extent that many people can choose to just get by this way instead.

I'm leaving out my own moral judgements here, because it's not relevant, but I know enough individuals firsthand who survive on government support to say that it's possible.

qPM9l3XJrF4• 5 years ago

I wonder what her motivation is in writing these guides. Also why does she still work as an escort if she's already made so much money? (Also from camming and OnlyFans)

DantesKite• 5 years ago

I wonder if Aella ever feels bad about providing information that’ll (for the most part) make a persons life worse. Emotionally, physically, and existentially.

jwally• 5 years ago

I’ve always wondered why nobody’s ever set up a porn-for-hire business (maybe they have) to hide a prostitution business behind whatever laws make pornography legal.

It’d essentially be an escort service where the “John” finances the “shoot” renting your room, equipment, and the girl’s time. They could then take their film and destroy it or distribute it.

qwerty456127• 5 years ago

I knew of a brothel where you could have sex for free if you allowed them to videotape that.

csomar2• 5 years ago

There is already a site for that (seeking arrangement).

killtimeatwork2• 5 years ago

As a customer, I'd be extremely worried about the video recording not being destroyed after all.

e1g• 5 years ago

"We are a small business with a limited budget - please bring your own recording equipment and find your own venue. Our success depends on releasing only the best material, so please send us only those recordings that you are most proud of to publish". And if the equipment they bring is an iPhone that falls over, well dammit this session was a waste of money.

Jabbles• 5 years ago

It's not that simple: https://www.popehat.com/2016/11/06/private-porn-shoots-brill...

silexia• 5 years ago

This is the best answer and the article is extremely well written.

ClumsyPilot3• 5 years ago

"Her website implies that booking her will make you superior to every other man, that you will become enlightened by plowing her platonic ideal of a pussy. I only slightly exaggerate.

Why does this give me "think different" vibes?

CSSer• 5 years ago

I’m not sure in exactly what sense you mean, but I’d say it’s because it’s the same target demographic/business segment. No, really! I mean, all advertising is bullshit[0], after all. We want novelty but also familiarity. It validates our intuition and gives us the sense that we’ve noticed something someone else hasn’t even if that’s not true. If you pay close enough attention you start to see common denominators in branding, design, and yes, even copy like you’ve noted here. Our basic job as advertisers is to be aware of the landscape of these things, preserve and deliver the important elements, and successfully convey the client’s message. The standouts among us, whether by luck or virtue, deliver something just radical enough along the way. But I don’t think that bit is as important as some might think, if not in kind then, at least in degree.

Sorry if your question was mostly rhetorical or generally just tongue in cheek. I promise I don’t intend to patronize. I guess you inspired me.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit

mdrzn• 5 years ago

Wow, what an unexpected and amazing article, incredibly well put and detailed.

mensetmanusman2• 5 years ago

I wonder if crypto will enable future crimes like blackmail as a service.

E.g. > Escort moves to country B from country A.

Acquires list of clients and determines their local contacts
Leaves country B
Informs previous clients that they need to submit monthly BTC payments or else contacts will receive secretly recorded videos

Continue to jump between countries and create larger baseline of blackmail dividends.

bradleyjg2• 5 years ago

What does Bitcoin add here?

mensetmanusman2• 5 years ago

Money transfers that can’t be stopped by international organizations.

onemoresoop• 5 years ago

This reminds me of my friend's story. He started dating this girl, she was intelligent and hot. He's a good looking guy and seemed like a match. They went out for a while and my friend sensed something wrong, it's something he just couldn't put his finger on. After a while he managed to get her to open up and talk about her past. She admitted to being an escort for a period of time and that is very weird, she was coming from a good family, had Ivy League education, great job and all, she basically didn't need to do this. And it wasn't for the money according to her.

I asked him what was the big deal after all, at the end of the day aren't we all making some bad decisions? Aside from being a good date, that thing he couldn't really put his finger on was around intimacy: she seemed to be, as he described, dead inside, the sex felt fake, somewhat mechanical or acted out.

guhsnamih• 5 years ago

have long-term, sustainable arrangements with only one or two clients, and they don’t run ads or accept any new clients. This can be the holy grail!

Great writing and plenty of consulting advice in the article. Thanks for sharing.

country_g• 5 years ago

I wonder how many of these listing sites will experience the HN effect...

everybodyknows• 5 years ago

a handful of memorable experiences with talented men

Talent is generally understood to mean an innate ability, but for any practical advice in this direction that can be put into words, well, some readers would be very grateful to know it.

Overly analytical guide to escorting

Related Stories