Do you ever have female clients?

Tags

couples, disability, escort, fantasy, female clients, feminism, money, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, sexuality, south australia, stigma

This post is part of the Sex Work 101 series, along with other popular questions and answers such as what was my most interesting booking? What do you tell your kids? And various other questions to be answered in the future such as, do you pay tax and what’s the worst booking you’ve had. But this post will answer the ever popular question about whether I see female clients.

Yes. I have had female clients. But not many. The majority of my clients, by far are men. And I am fairly confident in saying the majority of most sex workers clients are men.

Most of the women I have seen were part of a male/female couple, who had booked me to join them. I have done many many bookings with couples over the years and have always really enjoyed them. When I take a booking for a couple I generally ask to speak to both of them to make sure everyone is equally as enthusiastic. The last thing I want is to get caught in the middle of an awkward relationship drama.

More often than not I am told that it was the womans idea to hire a hooker because she was wanting to experiment. Obviously there would be times when she just wanted to please her fella, but that was definitely not the case for most. There was one couple i used to see a lot, she was about 10 yrs older than her boyfriend. The second time I visited her she waited for her boyfriend to leave the room and whispered that she used to be a sex worker as well. I saw them lots after that.

These couple bookings are probably different to how you are picturing. Again they are heavily negotiated. I know what they want from me, what their rules are, what they don’t want. I am careful to respect both people and their relationship and nearly always focus most of my attention on the woman. Rather than being some kind of porn scenario acted out for the males pleasure, I often use these sessions to encourage the male to help me pamper the woman. It is very nice massaging a woman after massaging so many men.

I have seen some women clients by themselves as well. But in all honestly, I can count them on one hand. I know other sex workers have had more female clients than I have had, and there are even agencies and brothels that specialise in catering to female clients in the eastern states. But I have seen only a few. 3 of them were women experimenting, 1 of them was a lesbian, and one was a closeted married woman in her 50’s.

Even the male sex workers I know mainly see male clients. Although one of my friends has a number of female clients who have disabilities. They are women who have been very assertive about their sexual desires and pushed hard to get access to a sex worker. Often women’s sexuality is not considered and way too often a woman with a disability is considered asexual.

It also seems, anecdotally, that a lot of female clients are or have been sex workers themselves. I have stories from other workers about female clients who are or used to be a sex worker. They either wanted to see how it was on the other side or they just felt like laying back and being pampered. I even know a sex worker who hired another female worker when she was visiting Adelaide from interstate.  I have to admit, it does sound appealing, but I’m too cheap to hire a hooker 😉

Why so few female clients? Well, we can only speculate. Depends on what lenses you use to look at the world through I guess. Some will say, men need or want more sex and women can get it for free. Some say men are given access to women’s bodies due to patriarchy, and I say:

A little from column A) and a little from column B)

Men are often encouraged to embrace and promote their sexual urges. Men often have more access to a disposable income. Women are often discouraged from acknowledging their sexuality at all. Women often have less access to disposable income.

Combine that with an entrepreneurial instinct and a desire for independence and you have yourself supply and demand.

The sex industry is a reflection of society, warts and all (lol – see what i did there?). The sex industry is not the cause of societies problems but it is affected by them. But as society changes, so is the sex industry. There are many male sex workers catering to men who have sex with men, and the number of female clients is slowly increasing too. We know that the number of women viewing porn on the internet is huge, there are female only strip clubs and porn producers.

I look forward to a day when I can confidently tell you that 50% of my clients are women.

Who am I?

Tags

discrimination, laws, money, nursing, nursing homes, personal stories, rants, sex industry, Sex Work, single mothers, south australia, stigma

I work the night shift and I hate it. I get to work at 8pm and work right through till the early hours of the morning. I drive home when it’s still dark and the streets are empty. On the way home I entertain myself by looking at the people in the other cars on the empty roads and imagine what their lives are like, why are they driving around at this time of night? I get home just before the kids wake up. I scrub myself in the shower to get the smell off me. A mix of sweat and bodily secretions, disinfectant and room deodoriser. It gets ingrained in my skin, in my hair and in my clothes no matter how hard I wash and scrub.

In the shower I reflect on my night at work. I have good and bad nights, but im always exhausted! Last night was not one of the good nights. I looked at my body, it had bite marks and scratches, and I knew there would soon be bruises too. They don’t get violent or hurt me very often, but when they do, there isn’t much I can do, I just have to keep going, and do my job. My back aches too. Sometimes I feel pressured to do things im not comfortable with, because there is no one else to do it. I know I shouldn’t but I just want to fit in and earn their respect, so I do whatever it takes.

I remember my first day. I had showed up with no experience or training. They chucked me in the room with some brief instructions about what was expected from me, and everything else I learnt from the other workers. I hated my first day. By the time I finished that long shift I was sweaty, sore, broken and tired. I hated what I had done, and I was confronted by what I saw. I had been there for a few months when I started to get used to it. I was used to seeing and handling naked bodies in many different forms, I was used to dealing with bodily functions, I was used to dealing with people’s psychology, I was used to working hard. I was used to doing things and being someone who I wasn’t always comfortable with, and I was used to feeling sore, exhausted and exploited when I came home.

I had heard from the workers that there are other places I could work. Nicer places. Places where im not forced to do things I don’t like, places where they treat people with respect. After I drop the kids at school I lay down and try to sleep before I have to get up and do it all again. I lay there dreading the next night at work. I hate doing it, but I need the money. I consider my options, work and pay the rent, or quit, but with limited skills or experience I wont be able to find other work, and so the rent wont be paid.

Maybe I should take the plunge and try somewhere new. Filled with dread and loathing, I decide that this is the day to do something about it. I flick through the paper and make some calls, it’s not long before I have an appointment at a place a friend recommended.

I’ve been at the new place for 6 months now. At this new nursing home you can pick and choose your shifts and they offer training for new workers and regular workshops for the rest of us to keep our skills up to date. This has really helped me learn how to deal with those couple of residents who are violent or aggressive. They have also taught me how to lift properly, and so now I never need to hurt my back when I lift the residents. This has ment that my back problems have gone away and im no longer covered in bruises.

The rest of the carers at this nursing home are so friendly and supportive as well, If I need some one to help me I know I can ask someone. At this new nursing home we treat the residents with respect and courtesy, so now I don’t feel like im doing something wrong or unethical, in fact it’s the opposite I feel as though im doing something worthwhile and contributing to a happier life for many people.

Now I have found a better place to work and have the training and experience I need, I really love my job. I now know that we don’t need to outlaw nursing homes, just because some are bad, but infact we need to create better OH&S regulations, increase access to training, and build power for those of us doing the work.

It reminds me of the other industry I work in. The sex industry. So many parallels. But the biggest difference is the stigma I face and ofcourse the money I make.

Dear John

Tags

brothels, clients, consent, disability, discrimination, escort, fantasy, kink, laws, money, rants, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia, stigma

Dear John (or peter or paul or whatever name you give me today),

Thankyou for spending your money on me. My service is not cheap and in this day and age, I really appreciate that you probably worked hard for that money. For some, an hour spent with me is the equivalent of two or three full days work. For some, an hour spent with me took 6 months of budgeting, and for some,  my fee is a drop in a vast and impressive ocean, giving me hope of a nice tip or a good regular. Rich or poor, I appreciate every dollar you give me.

I’m not always sure about your expectations or motives for deciding to make a booking and hand over your hard-earned cash, and I am only one woman, there is no way I am able to be all things to all people. But I want you to leave me feeling that it was money well spent. So I write this letter affectionately and honestly to assist you in getting the most out of your  time with me. You may find that some of the suggestions I make also benefit your encounters with other sex workers.

When first making contact with me keep it professional. Only ask the questions that you need to know. Be clear if you are just making enquiries or if you are ready to make a booking. Remember that I get many enquiries and very few of them eventuate into genuine bookings so over the years I have developed a reliable bullshit detector. I learnt it from other whores I have worked and associated with. There really is a collective wisdom being passed around from brothel to the street to escort agencies, massage parlous, beats and bars, from generation to generation. We can spot a wanker (in the literal sense). If your initial enquiries include going into gory details about what you want to do to me, or asking me for more photos, or telling me how big your dick is, or worse – showing me, if you send email after email after email with more and more questions or if you try to bargain with me, I will deem you a wanker. Once deemed a wanker I will either blacklist you, ignore you, give you very limited responses and availability, double book you, or if I do decide to accept your booking, i am likely to treat you with suspicion for the first 15 mins of your time.

If you have specific desires, needs or concerns then please discuss them with me. Try to keep it simple giving only the necessary details. Telling me about your disability, or your kink, or your erectile dysfunction or your curiosities will put you at ease knowing I am then able to tailor the booking to meet your needs. Or recommend you to someone who is able to. If I cannot cater to you for whatever reason please do not take it personally, I am not judging you, I am simply acknowledging that I am not able to provide you the best service for your money.

Be aware that depending on the context I may not be able to discuss things as openly as I would like to. Sex work is illegal in South Australia . If I look anxious and am not forthcoming in answering all your questions there may be very valid reasons why. Please try to read my non verbal cues, or better yet pay me and hope for the best. This situation sucks but it is the reality of our laws here in this state and in many many many other places around the world. If you keep acting like a cop, I will ask you to leave.

Once you pay me there will be plenty of time to talk about all your dirty desires and the size of your penis. You can open up to me about your vulnerabilities in detail and you can ask about extra services available. You can even try your luck in negotiating that barter offer you have in mind. When you put your money where your mouth is, it shows me that you are genuine. It’s only then that I know you’re not a cop, a wanker, or a time waster.

When making a booking be prepared to trust me a little with your personal information. If I’m visiting you, I will obviously need your address. If you’re visiting me it is likely I will want your phone number or email or some other way to contact you in order to confirm the booking. Or to abuse you if you waste my time. If you’re in a hotel I may ask you for your real name so they let me past reception late at night. I know that you are concerned about privacy but we are both vulnerable in that regard. If you want me to trust you enough to visit your home or to give you my address, it’s only fair that you offer me the same trust. I have as much to lose as you do.

If you’re running late or need to cancel, let me know at your earliest convenience. I will appreciate it, even if its last-minute. If you do not show up to a confirmed booking and you do not cancel, I will pursue a cancellation fee. If unsuccessful I will keep your details and share them with other workers to make sure they are aware of the disrespect you showed. It’s not that I hold a grudge, but I need to protect myself. Please understand that I may have to pay rent for the room I booked for your service, or for the hotel room. I may have turned down another booking, or spent half an hour driving to the booking. I may have paid a babysitter or  bought new stockings or paid for a taxi. Preparing to see you takes my time and money, please don’t make appointments unless you are confident you can keep them.

When visiting me, make sure you get the address right and that you arrive at the agreed time.  Dont upset my neighbours by knocking on the wrong door. Dont upset me by knocking on my door at an unexpected time. I may not be there, I may be with another client or it maybe an inappropriate time. If I said we close at midnight, don’t show up 12:15 and bang loudly enough to wake the neighbours dog.

If we’re in a brothel context I do not mind you asking to meet the other workers but do not suggest that it is because I am not good enough. I don’t mind you having a preference but there is no need to be rude. Don’t look me up and down with disdain or make me jump through hoops trying to prove my worth to you. Don’t make the lame joke “you should be paying me”, I will only roll my eyes. I hear that every day from clients with something to prove. Please pay me upfront. Lets get that out of the way so that we can all relax. Please pay my quoted price without any debate.  If you spend the first 5 minutes of our time together displaying arrogant or disrespectful behaviours, I am likely to spend the next 55 minutes of our time giving you a pretty bad service (that’s if I agree to see you at all). When I feel comfortable and confident with you is when you will get value for your money.

Don’t act like you’re better than me or I will be tempted to prove you wrong.

Make sure you are washed and clean, if you need a shower, tell me and I’ll show you where the bathroom is. When washing yourself, pay special attention to your bum, your genitals, your hands and nails. Make sure your dental hygiene is at its best. If you smell bad or have bits of toilet paper hanging from your bum-crack (and a huge percentage of you do) I will ask you to take a shower mid booking. If you have bad breath I will avoid being too close or intimate with you. I will not let you kiss me, and infact i will encourage doggy position only to avoid having you on top of me. If your hands or nails are filthy I may ask you to wear gloves or limit the ways and places that you touch me.

Let me know if you’re enjoying it. You can use your words, your actions or your facial expressions. Telling me it feels nice, responding to me physically, smiling or even a satisfied sigh will make it easier for me to read you making me relax and enjoy the booking a little more. Tell me what you want, nothing shocks me, nothing offends me (at least nothing that involves only consenting adults ). I wont always say yes, but I often will. I am happy to explore your fantasies with you, but if you tell me what they are it will take away the guess-work. You’re paying me by the hour, it’s up to you how long it takes for me to find your secret spots.

I know you might be nervous and that’s ok, sometimes I still get nervous too. But I am a professional, I have done this plenty of times. Try and relax with me and let me take the lead.

Don’t ask me if I’m ‘faking it’ or make comments alluding to your suspicion that it’s all an act on my part. If I am faking it, I am faking it, do you really want me to tell you the truth? Even if I am faking it, I may still be enjoying myself. Asking me to constantly reassure you will only make me feel self conscious and will limit my ability to connect with you.

Dont expect me to bend my rules for you. Not even if you’re my regular. Even if you have reason to believe that I may negotiate, always ask, never presume. If you do something I do not like I will let you know. If you do it again I may decide to end your booking immediately. If I decide to give you a second chance I will finish the service in a very clinical and controlled way focussing on controlling your behaviour rather than providing pleasure. Conversely if you show respect for my boundaries, listen to my verbal and non verbal cues and ask if you are unsure, you will find that I am very open minded.

Respect the need for latex. I know condoms are not always ideal for a whole range of possible excuses you could offer me, but they are all I have. I work hard to make safe sex sexy and if you pay attention you might learn some things. Trust me when I say no to your request for “natural services”. If you persist I will be forced to graphically explain the worst possible unsafe sex scenarios. And that is a bit of a mood killer. Don’t ask me if I’m clean or tell me that you are, just use a condom. And while on the subject, if during the service i notice something that could be a symptom of a sexually transmitted infection, don’t get upset when I point it out. Most STI’s are fixed with a trip to the doctor, and others can be managed. You might be right when you try and explain it away, it might just be skin tags and not warts but I might not be in a position to take the risk. I will not kick you out, but I will have to provide a different safer service. Please know that my level of care to ensure our sex is safe will mean that you can have a guilt free hour with me.

If you’re going to drink, take drugs or masturbate before our booking, do not blame me if you can’t get an erection or achieve an orgasm. In fact, don’t blame me for that no matter what the reasons are. Same goes if you cum to quickly. I do my best to time our sessions perfectly, but you well know that there are things beyond my control that affect your sexual function. Dont be embarrassed by it, you’re certainly not alone. When you’re with me there is no pressure or expectation, your sexual performance is only of concern to you. You payed me and I want to make sure you don’t regret it, so if you experience problems in any of these areas due to drugs or alcohol, prescription medication, physical reasons, emotional reasons or anything else, I will be happy to spend the session trying, playing, pampering, massaging, or whatever we negotiate. But please don’t expect me to perform miracles or give refunds

Be respectful of my time and the time you payed for. Remember you payed for a service, not just the sex. If you need a shower at the end or take a long time to dress or you want to sit and have a chat, make sure you allow for that in your booking time. Dont try to delay having an orgasm until the last 5 mins and then expect me to go overtime when it doesn’t happen straight away. Understand that i may have other appointments, i may be paying for the room by the hour, I might have to answer to a boss, I might have kids to pick up from school or I might have to get to the bank before it closes. As intense as the session may have felt, if the time is up, the time is up. It’s not personal, but I am a busy woman. If you need longer we may be able to negotiate extending the booking, feel free to make me an offer.

If I gave you a good service, tip me. Or at the very least – tell me.

Be discreet, if you see me on the street, don’t approach me, understand that just as you may have reasons why you don’t tell everyone that you book sex workers, I have reasons for not telling everyone about my work. If you attempt to approach me in any way outside of the sex industry you will not be happy with the response you get from me. On the other hand, please keep looking for my adds and follow me from business to business as I try out different workplaces over the years, we can grow old together.

I look forward to your next booking

Lots of love, respect and gratitude,

Jane (or whatever name I have given you today)

The many wigs of a whore

Tags

clients, discrimination, escort, friends and family, Love, money, mother blame, parenting, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, single mothers, south australia, stigma, the boss, whore shame

I was pretty keen to return to sex work after doing the dutiful wife thing for a while. During my semi retirement from the sex industry I had found other work and done some study. I did enjoy my ‘straight job’ but as soon as I separated from my children’s father I was planning my return to sex work.

I missed the money and the flexibility of sex work. Obviously. But it was more than that. I missed hanging out with other sex workers, I missed providing indulgent pleasure, I missed the compliments, I missed the feeling of being my own boss, even when I was working for someone else there is power in knowing you are (or your service is) the ‘product’. And Ofcourse I missed playing dress ups! Wigs, lingerie, costumes, sexy shoes, red lipstick, pretty nails… the best excuse for a usually plain looking busy single mum to indulge my girly side!

Besides stopping sex work was never my idea in the first place so I had  no doubts about returning.

But things had changed since the last time I worked. I’m mother now. I had to rethink my happy hooker image this time round. So for the first time I went into the hooker closet where I stayed for a long time. I wanted to protect my children from the stigma that my job carries, and I needed to protect our family from the discrimination that we might have otherwise faced. Through sheer determination my separation with the father had been fairly painless, there had been no custody battles and I certainly didn’t want to jeopardise that. Not to mention, sex work is STILL ILLEGAL in South Australia! I didn’t want to make our family vulnerable to attacks from any of the possibilities I had considered or the ones I hadn’t. So I invested in a wig.

I reduced my hours at my straight job, took my wig and started working at a very small escort agency. Originally I only kept my straight job as a cover so my friends, family and the whole world wouldn’t find out my dirty little secret but it turned out I really enjoyed the variety of the different roles I had or the different hats I wore in my day-to-day life. I was a stay at home mum on some days, I had a respectable day job on some days, made wads of cash on other days and, with my kids spending every second weekend at their dads, I had a chance to act my age and spend my wads of cash on the occasional night out on the town. I even kept up with a little bit of study throughout it all, it kept me busy between bookings.

And busy I was. The escort agency I worked at was very small with not many staff. I mainly worked  during the day sitting alone with the receptionist while she worked the phones trying to secure bookings. When she got one the owner/driver would drive me to my booking and bring me back to the office to wait for the next one. Day business for escorting was pretty quiet and that was fine for me because it meant I was the only worker on shift. But it also meant I was pretty much the only one making money.  Businesses need more than one worker to make a profit. So when the receptionist left, the owner decided not to replace her.

Fine by me, I started answering the phones. I could do a better job of selling myself anyway, plus this way I get all the day bookings PLUS the receptionists cut!

Now here is where I let you client types in on a little secret. I know many trade secrets, most of which I will never tell.  But some are harmless and make for a good story.

I’m sure this will not come as a surprise to those experienced punters, but many sex industry businesses find very creative ways of marketing the workers they have available to potential clients. While mostly it’s just a case of finding enticing ways to describe the workers using rose-tinted glosses and sexy adjectives, there are some businesses that will take it further. Everything from exaggerated measurements and optimistic age ranges to completely made up characters are used in an attempt to get a bite from potential clients. Some places are worse for this than others, I once worked at an agency that had standard adds running daily in the local paper that read “Eva Italian brunette lingerie model” or “Candi the blonde beach babe” and when a client called up looking for Eva or Candi the agency would send out any blonde or any brunette available. And if there is no blonde to play the part of Candi, no problems, we have wigs.

A common trick is to ask the caller what kind of worker they were looking for. If they tell you they want a mature redhead – Hey Presto!  That’s what we invent.

And so with only one worker (me) answering phones and doing bookings I quickly adapted to this sales technique. I had 2 different wigs, 3 different names (4 if you include the receptionists name) and a couple of different life stories.

I was Nikki the 21-year-old bubbly blonde, busty and cute

I was Bridget the brunette in her early twenties with the hourglass figure

I was Melissa who was 27 with a platinum bob and long legs.

And I could pass for all three descriptions easily. I enjoyed playing the game, it amused me. As a single mum I already had so many different hats, and now one of them was wearing a bunch of different wigs.

Pimping out my three characters worked well for a while, they all got repeat business and we all made money. And  then the inevitable happened. One of Nikki’s clients wanted a booking with Bridget. And he was quite persistent.

Well I had felt pretty clever up until then, but the gig was up.  I was a good mattress actress but I couldn’t pull that one-off (so to speak). The client was disappointed to learn that both Bridget and Melissa had run off into the sunset together never to return, preventing him from ever meeting either of them.

Not long after, I took Nikki off the market and went looking for greener pastures.

Mother and a Whore

Tags

discrimination, feminism, friends and family, Love, mother blame, parenting, personal stories, rants, Relationships, Sex Work, single mothers, stigma, whore shame

I also wanted to title this post:  Wont somebody think of the children!!

There will sometimes come a time in a persons life when they fall in love and ‘settle down’. And I quickly realised that for a lot of people ‘settle down’ means I am expected to stop sex work and find something else to do to make money and fill my time. So when I met and started dating  Jack I knew it was just a matter of time before he voiced a problem with my job. Things got serious and we moved in together and sure enough it wasn’t long before Jack told me that he loved me so much that I had to find a new job. I had been through this before and so I pretty much gave in to his insecurities straight away. I stopped sex work and started applying for ‘straight work’.

Skipping through the long and not very interesting story, Jack and I had babies, fell out of love and separated.  I immediately went straight back to sex work. It was a choice. Yes it was a choice made by a single mother, but it was my choice just the same. I reduced the hours I was working in my ‘straight job’ and started back working for a local escort agency while my kids were either at school, childcare or at their fathers. Instantly I felt the judgemental double sting of mother blaming joined with whore shaming. Those who always knew and supported my choice to do sex work, had a different opinion now that I was a mother. There are people who believe that being a sex worker automatically makes me a bad mother. Maybe even the readers of this blog have questions. So in order to continue telling you my stories I thought I should get these questions out of the way – upfront.

What will you tell your child?

How would you feel if your daughter turned out to be a hooker?

What happens when your son finds out you fuck for money?

What will their friends think of them at school?

Im going to answer these questions here and now, once and for all, in response to all those well meaning people who seem to struggle to get their head around me, my work, my relationships, and my family. I may follow this post up with answers to other popular questions such as “Is there a difference between sex work and ‘real sex’”  “how can you ask me to be faithful when you’re fucking all those other men?” “do you have any self respect?” and my favourite usually asked at completely inappropriate social functions…..“will you fuck me if I pay you for it? What about your friend?”.

But for now im going to start with the ones that I find most offensive, and that’s the ones that involve my motherhood.

What will I tell my child?

I, like other working mums, tell my child age appropriate information that describes what mum does for a job. Unfortunately, I have to be careful, because I don’t want my little tacker running off to school ruining his social calendar for his entire school life because he told Tommy who told his mum that his best friend’s mum is a hooker. So I choose my words carefully. Mum works at a massage centre. At a young age they don’t know enough about the world to say much more than that anyway.  When they get a little bit older and the conversation comes up or when they ask, I might say something more like: mum gives sexy massages. Over the years each time the topic comes up I will tell them a little bit more. After all I don’t see this as any different to what I vet might say… “I fix animals when they are sick” The vet doesn’t say to her 4 year old that sometimes she has remove a uterus or cut off testicles or give lethal injections to cute kittens etc. There is no need for that child to know the finer details yet, but as they get older, they will be given more information. No different to my plan, except of course I have to deal with the fact everyone else thinks im a bad person. So at some point I have what I see as a harder discussion. Those are the discussions about what everyone else thinks of my job. These are discussions that are hard and hurtful to my family.

How would I feel if my daughter became a hooker?

I hope my children grow up to be happy, healthy and respectful adults. That’s all I wish for them. I know for a fact that being a hooker doesn’t mean you can’t be happy, healthy and respectful. However I do know that everyone else’s attitudes to sex work can create barriers to a sex worker being happy. But I feel those are my children’s choices to make. If being a hooker made my daughter or son happy, I would not have any concerns. What would hurt my son or daughter and our family, all sex workers and their families, is the attitude everyone else has to sex work and sex workers.

What happens when my son finds out I fuck for money?

To be honest I can’t imagine my children using those words with me. I do expect there will be some words about my job thrown at me during different phases of rebellion as I imagine most parents deal with..…even non whores. If I try to be honest with them, my children will grow up respecting me and sex workers. It is possible that the attitudes of other people may encourage resentment in my kids towards me or my work, but if that ever happens I am confident that once they move through the rebellion phase they will again see that my job was a positive thing for our family, that it was just a job and that the rest of the world is unfair in its discrimination of me and my work.

What will their friends think of them at school?

This is an area that I have no control over. It is an area that I have the most sadness about and the area I wish my kids didn’t have to deal with. However I don’t see other people’s attitudes as my fault. My kids have never suffered because of my work, to the contrary, they have a happy, healthy respectful mum who has a well paying flexible job that allows me to be the sort of mother I always wanted to be. In my own way I try to educate people to see sex work as work, nothing more or less than a job. Once again I see other people’s stigma and discrimination about sex workers as the only innate problem of my work. It all comes down to what other people think. It means I have to have conversations with my kids about being careful about who exactly they say what to and about other people’s bad attitude. I might even have to teach them to lie so they can protect themselves from your stigma.

It is because of other people’s ignorance that my children may suffer. Not because I am a sex worker.

You feel sorry for my kids? Do something about it and examine your own discriminatory attitudes.

Going Private

Tags

brothels, clients, discrimination, laws, money, personal stories, safe sex, sex industry, Sex Work, south australia

I ended up returning to Melbourne and the main course a few times on working holidays, but I was at a loss for what to do for cash in Adelaide in between. I had stayed in contact with the worker that was caught in the raid at Karma Therapy with me and so one boring day I decided to pay her a visit. Anna hadn’t gone back to work since the big raid for the same reasons that I had chosen to leave Adelaide for work. Both of us were terrified of being caught up in something like that again.

We hung out all day and over coffee I told Anna about my trips to Melbourne and The Main Course and she was very jealous. Anna wasn’t able to travel for work because she had young children, she didn’t want to work in a local brothel because she was scared of the cops, so she was jobless and broke. We started talking about something we had talked about many times before: the idea of going out on our own. It’s something I had often thought about, the idea of keeping all the money from the booking was definitely appealing.

But it was scary too. Not because we were scared of the clients, but because we would be outlaying money and commitments, and what if we didn’t make enough to cover it? Anna and I started to write some lists and do some sums.

How hard could it be. We could just give it a try. We needed somewhere to work from, a phone number, an advert, massage oil, condoms, lubricant, tissues, wet ones and talcum powder.

It seemed pretty simple so we decided to do it. First thing we needed to do was to find some where to work from.  We ended up booking a two bedroom apartment in the CBD for just one night. It was a cute little brand new apartment with a balcony over Rundle street and with all the modern facilities. It was important to us that the place we booked was central, nice, and had plenty of parking and had direct access for our clients. We didn’t want a bunch of random people flowing past a hotel reception all day looking for our room and blowing our cover.

Next we had to write our adds. We wanted to put three adverts in the local paper “The Advertiser” where all the other sex industry adds were. So we wrote one add for each of us and one for us together. It was difficult because there are a list of words that the advertiser wont let you use, but they don’t make that list public, so you just have to guess what words someone might find offensive.  When we tried to place our adds we were confronted with “Sorry no passionate and no sensual – it describes a sexual act. No playmate- the word play refers to a child. No ‘Girl Friend Experience’ ( a common term used in the industry to describe a passionate service)  –  use of the word ‘girl’ describes someone under age, no abbreviations, no reference to age or nationality etc etc. We ended up having to rewrite our add several times trying to describe what we have to offer, fit into invisible guidelines and stand out from all the others adds.

We bought a new sim card for my mobile phone and used the new number in our adverts. We kept our prices around the same as they were when we worked in the brothel because we still had our expenses. And by our calculations we only needed to do 2 jobs each to completely cover our costs, plus some.

The day before our add appeared we headed into the SIN Safe Sex Shoppe to buy a bunch of cheap condoms and lube and to the supermarket for everything else we needed. We got condoms in big (maxi), little (ultra special) and medium (classic) sizes. We got flavoured condoms (most sex workers in Australia use condoms when giving oral and latex flavour is pretty gross), we got pump-action lubes, dams (a thin piece of latex used when giving a woman oral or anal rimming) female condoms (yes they exist – although not very sexy), unscented easy wash massage oil (clients don’t want to go home smelling like a perfumery) and tissues and wet ones (for cleaning up the mess).

Now all there was to do was check into our apartment, turn on the phone and starting taking the calls. We were actually a little bit excited. We knew we would do well, we were two new workers with new adds and we were private (lots of clients seem to prefer a quiet private discreet setting compared to a busy brothel), and sure enough the phone rang hot.

Anna and I were opposite in our looks and description, and neither of us had any trouble getting bookings. When the client called we would run through our phone  spiel and encourage them to make a booking. We wouldn’t give the address or room number to them until 10 minutes before the booking when they called to confirm the booking. This was strategy to try and minimise ‘no shows’ (fake bookings) and to try to keep our location discreet. The last thing we needed was to have the management of the holiday apartments suspect what we were doing and kick us out before we had made enough money. But our plan worked well and we were both booked solidly throughout the day. By 3pm we had bookings to keep us busy through till 10 pm.

The day went  off without a hitch and at 10 O’Clock we were tired and thrilled with our success. Our total price for our services were comparable to the just the workers cut at The Main Course (In the late 1990’s Adelaide had the worst payed hookers in Australia) and after costs I had made a comparable amount to what i made when i worked in Melbourne, but with the bonus of  finishing at 10pm and having a luxury apartment to relax in all night. Taking appointments seemed much more civilised to the insane intro lounge and hallways at The Main Course too.

At the end of the day Anna and I opened a bottle of  champagne to celebrate our success and did what all hookers do at the end of their shift: counted our money and made a million plans for it.

Balloon Guy

Tags

balloon fetish, balloons, brothels, clients, fantasy, fetish, kink, money, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, sexuality, south australia

Most of the people in my life do not know what I do for job. But every now and then I will feel the need to tell someone close to me for whatever reason, or if I’m in a cheeky mood at a party I might to decide to tell the unsuspecting stranger when they innocently enquire ” what do you do?”. Sometimes I’ll smile sweetly and respond “I’m a hooker”, and watch their face register shock/interest/disbelief/disdain sometimes all four at once. No matter why or where  I choose to disclose I have to be prepared to do a “sex work 101” education session with who ever I tell and as part of that session there are certain questions that I’ll get asked. One of the questions that invariably comes up is “what’s the weirdest thing you have ever done/ who was your strangest client?” or variations to that effect.

So I tell the story of the Balloon Guy. I have since found out that this guy is fairly well-known around the traps, and is happy to share his story. As it turns out there is quite a community of balloon fetishists. I have mentioned before that my service has always been a fairly vanilla service and so I havent had a lot of experience with different or extreme fetishes and there are many sex workers and others who are experienced and provide more specialised services catering to people with alternative fantasies. But I still get lots of opportunities to learn about the wide and wonderful world of human sexuality.

This story is set in yet another brothel on a very quiet day. There was only the receptionist and me on shift. Every now and then the door bell or phone would interrupt our gossiping and chatting. Dull and boring with not much money to be made. And then Balloon Guy phoned. He was calling to check if there was anyone on shift who would be willing to cater to his particular interest. The receptionist put his call on hold and asked me if I would be willing to blow up balloons untill they popped, I laughed and said “sure – why not”. I didn’t for a second think this guy was serious, or that he would even show up. We get lots of strange calls, not many of them eventuate into an actual booking.

But, within the hour  the doorbell rang. The receptionist answered the door and showed the client to the waiting room. She came back laughing and saying “it’s that balloon guy who rang up!”. I wasn’t sure if I even believed her so I laughed too and went to meet my client. Sure enough before he paid the client produced a bag of balloons.

“I’m the guy that rang up. Did the receptionist tell you about me? I have a balloon fetish, I really want you to blow up some of these  balloons, maybe even enough to pop one.”

I probably laughed again. But I quickly agreed and took the money for an hour booking plus $100 extra for a ‘fantasy fee’. I took him and his balloons to my workroom and left him alone for a moment to “make himself comfortable” while I put the money away.

On a quiet day, I was thrilled for the money, but as soon as I left the room I started freaking out. I mean, it all sounds easy enough, but blowing up a balloon until it pops? Could I actually do that? Oh well, I had his money now, so I may as well give it a go. Fake it till you make it. Another funny story for the future book.

When I went back in, he had the balloons spread all over the bed. He had collected them from all over the world and he lovingly showed them to me while he told me their stories. All I could think of was “oh my god, they’re specialty balloons, they’re huge, I have to blow up these over sized, good quality balloons until they pop. What have I agreed to!!”

And eventually it came time for me fulfill my part of the agreement. By this time I was in my underwear and he was naked. I began blowing up the balloons. He watched me, smiling. I would stop to answer his questions: he asked how it felt, if I was scared, if I liked the smell of the rubber. He wanted me to tell him what I was doing.

“I’m going to blow up this big balloon until its huge, and if I keep on blowing it, it might pop!”

“Yes I am scared, because if it pops, it will make a big noise, and will bang in my face, and I’ll probably scream and jump”

“It smells and taste like rubber, the smell is all on my hands and in my mouth”

I kept blowing the balloon. It was pretty scary blowing up a huge balloon  stretching it beyond its limit. Every breath could burst it. The anticipation was killing me and I played it up for him which only made it worse.

He got me to swap balloons occasionally, blowing up many different balloons and then letting them down. None of hem had popped yet. He told me stories about balloons from his childhood. About the girls at the fair who would blow up the balloons for the kids. He would hang around watching them all day, he loved it when one would accidently pop a balloon, it would make them jump and giggle. He told me about how he would beg his mum to blow up balloons for him and then he would rub it on his skin until it made that awful squealing noise which made his mother tell him off, and he loved it.

Each time the balloon got really big, I’d slow my breathing down. I wasn’t sure if he wanted anything sexual from me as well, so I was trying to read his non verbal cues, as well as psyching myself up for the big bang. He touched me a little, and he touched the big balloon I was blowing up, a lot.

I kept talking balloon dirty to him, and he began to touch himself.

“It’s so big, it’s scary” *giggle*

I blew and blew and blew and blew. His sexual interest in the balloon and himself intensified. It was while he was rubbing it (the balloon I mean) that it popped. It actually wasnt as scary as I had anticipated, having his hand on it sort of took the impact out of it. He didn’t orgasm, but his sexual intensity had peaked.

As per usual, my timing was impeccable and the hour was nearly up by the time balloon had popped. The Balloon Guy dressed and packed up his precious rubbers. I asked him if he was satisfied with his booking, seeing as he hadn’t orgasmed. He told me he rarely orgasms with strangers, but that the memory of our session would give him lots of inspiration for future orgasms.

Once I showered and dressed I showed him out the front door and hurried back inside ready to tell the whole story to the extremely amused receptionist who had been patiently waiting to hear all about it.

Bad Dates

Tags

clients, Love, money, personal stories, Relationships, sex industry, Sex Work

And I don’t mean the American meaning of ‘bad dates’ which is a term for sex work clients who are violent or ‘bad’. I mean the Australian version, romantic dates that were not very good. This post is about the times when I flirted with the taboo, I mixed business with pleasure, I decided to date a client.

It’s probably not something you will hear a lot about, because, well, clients are forbidden fruit. I used to have a rule: if you met me as a hooker, you will never meet the real me, and if you meet the real me, you will never meet me as a hooker (with the exception of other hookers). But, ill be honest, I have dated clients. Have being the important word there, I have, but I wont ever again!

When you work for other people, in a brothel or whatever, it is pretty easy to be clear about your boundaries, the booking only lasts for a certain amount of time, you have someone making sure you don’t go over time, exchanging any kind of personal information such as phone numbers or emails will be seen as you trying to poach business from the agency, when organising bookings the client only deals with the agency, and if you get caught seeing clients outside of work, you will lose your job.

But when you work for yourself, you have to be your own boss. You have to be super vigilant about your boundaries. You have to flirt over the phone, just enough to let them think your interested, but not enough to let them think your interested for free. You can’t pretend you love every second with them and then blame your boss when you can’t give them another 5 mins. You have to set your boundaries and then stick to them, all the while pretending there are none. Sort of.

And sometimes, it is possible, to get sucked into the fairytale you create. I did 4 times. The first time it was the married man who heaped me with compliments and spoke romantically on the phone. I enjoyed the one and only booking I had with him and so I would respond to his sweet phone calls. Then he asked to stop by for a coffee and I agreed. I wasn’t sure if he meant payed or not payed, but I stupidly agreed. The affair lasted thee months before I told his wife  (yep, you read right, I told his wife – a story of heartbreak for another time). The second was with a young guy, I had seen a couple of times, taken a liking to him and given him my private number, we hung out a few times before it faded to nothing. And there was the rich guy who wanted to rescue me, so I went to his hotel room spent the night with him and allowed him to pay my rent before he drove me crazy with his controlling ways and so I ended it. But this post is about the last time I dated a client outside of work.

I was actually working in a brothel at the time, and this client had been seeing me for nearly two years. Every couple of weeks he would book, for two hours, tip me very well and treat me like a princess. He was tall, dark, handsome, he had a European accent, was very intelligent, well-travelled, dressed in designer style and had a full head of thick dark hair. I had a massive crush on him, and everyone in the brothel knew it and would tease me about it.

So one day at the end of the booking he said that he wanted to take me out for dinner, I giggled but didn’t respond (clients say a lot of things they don’t mean – so do I). But he had his phone number already written down and he left it on the bedside table (like I said, I couldn’t really run out of the room and ask the receptionist for a pen, wouldn’t go down so well). The only question in my mind now was how long I should wait before I called him.

I waited two days before I texted him. I had to explain who I was, because for two years he had known me as a different name. We arranged to meet at a nice restaurant and after dinner we went for a walk on the beach. He was divine. We talked about travel and world politics and we kissed as we watched the sunset. I had already decided beforehand that I would not sleep with him that night, no matter how much I wanted to, so at the end of the date, I went home alone.

The next weekend we went on a second date. This time, we were a little more familiar with each other, my real personality began to shine through a little more and the date wasn’t as exciting but felt more comfortable. This time, I went back to his apartment after dinner. We made love, had sex, fucked or whatever for most of the night. It was ok, but for some reason, I was a little bored. Maybe excitement of getting the hooker to fuck him for free was gone, I’m not sure but something had changed. When he dropped me at my car in the morning he said something that I’ll never forget, and it made me laugh. He said “now try not to get too obsessed with me darling” !!!!! And he was perfectly serious!!

Its ok, I burst into laughter and said “darling, do I look like the type of girl who gets obsessed with men?”.  I really did find it the most stupid and amusing thing to say. I mean, really!!

He never called again, and neither did I. He never came back to the brothel either. And I never dated another client.

The moral of the story is that when you date a client, you are only loosing what was, or what could have been a good regular customer.

No matter how well you get along, how good-looking they are, or how much fun you have together, you cannot be sure that will equate to anything in the real world. Sometimes my clients become regulars and might form genuine connections and feelings of respect, perhaps elements of friendships, but, it is limited and somewhat, manufactured. I mean, everything is peachy when your drinking champagne in the spa with the doors to the outside world locked and the phone on silent, but in reality, there is… well…. reality. So it can only be a fairly shallow connection. It’s pretty small odds that the connection will morph into something worthy of risking my asking price for.

So would I date a client outside of work? Never again. As you may have read at the bottom of this blog, I am cheap and easy, but NEVER at the same time!!