A few times over the past 12 months and again last night I’ve found out that people I know have or are working as escorts. Be it either by chance or for financial reasons and some starting at quite a young (legal) age.
Each and every time my first response is still, even though I like to think of myself as a liberally minded individual, that it’s wrong. Then I sit and give it some rational thought and realise it’s only because we are brought up to think of things like porn, stripping and escorting as a bad decision that must be made out of very negative circumstances.
When I think about it even more, my reaction is probably borne out of jealousy more than anything. I have developed insecurities and hangups over the last few years around sex that I am envious of the freedom. My lack of confidence means I’m occasionally nervous about shagging people I find genuinely attractive for free, let alone people I don’t just because there’s money involved.
A couple of my friends did some ‘escorting’ in their younger days out of a sense of adventure and of course for financial reasons. Our negative response to it is not only cultural but the negativity that activity sometimes bring like exploitation, syndicates preying on the naive and forcible induction and later blackmailing. If it is just kept as a personal choice and free of any other ulterior motives, I guess there is nothing wrong with ‘escorting’.
I would work as an escort… if they hired fat and ugly… but they don’t. Damn.. why is that?
To me the idea of escorting looks wrong because it is like faking (one of) the purest joy in our life; it is like paying someone to smile to you, but on a much bigger scale – I can only pity such people. and i certainly wouldn’t equalize escorting to sexual freedom: if you were free, why would you need to pay/get money for sex?
Krill – the complexities of escorting are much more diverse and deep. I worked with sex workers in the health industry for many years.
This is an issue that deserves far more than a superficial analysis.
I recall being sat beside a young man at a dinner party years ago when I was new to London. Afterwards he came over to me and told me that he didnt only work for BT. He said he was an escort. I was such a naif I asked what he escorted. He then went on to explain to me what he did. My reactions were all those listed above. He told me that he did it for money. And yes there had been several occassions where he had been beaten up by clients. One resulting him being alone in his flat for two days until a neighbour came to check why she had not seen him for a while. But all in all he enjoyed it. Yes even when he had customers he did not find attractive. He changed my views of his profession. Whilst I could never do it, I fully accept his rights to do it.
I just wanted to say that I thought the way you addressed the matter was right on the spot as you went from initial reaction to your conclusions. I feel that alot of us from here in the US would probably initially have the same reaction you did but I’m not sure how many of us would move beyond that and do some inner reflecting about those reactions. I did appreciate your openness and honesty in the conclusions you drew on this matter and felt like I lined up with several of them as well.
Being able to question/weigh up the reasons behind a self held belief is a valuable quality.
I wonder if those that unhesitatingly judge escorting as wrong, with no further thought, actually know that so often the interaction is more than a physical act of sex. Escorts will talk of clients that spend a lot of time just talking about life and temporarily escaping some loneliness. Many clients are attractive as opposed to the view that they would be expected to be unattractive.
At the end of the day, do we have the right to judge/ostracise/socialy exclude someone that escorts? If we really dig deep we may find that the reasons for some of our prejudices are born out of the same value systems that would judge us for our sexuality. I know that sounds controversial…but dig deep before reacting.
Hello Brenton –
Here is twist on your recent entry. Morality and initial reactions aside, would you (or your readers) date someone who was previously an escort? If so, my follow up question would be if you would date someone who was currently an escort?
I suppose the purpose for asking is not to hear the answer but to listen to the reader’s reasoning.
Cheers from chilly Boston,
BosGuy
I am an escort, I choose to be an escort because I enjoy it. I don’t feel like I am being taken advantage of at all…. if I choose NOT to have sex with someone that is MY choice, if I choose to and they want to pay for my time I am happy to accept the benefits of the situation.
It isn’t for everyone, but if you can handle the good and bad parts of the job it can be a lot of fun!
Not trying to promote my site here, but I do have a blog where I detail my adventures if anyone is interested.