Dear Tits & Sass: Overly Attached Client Edition

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October 16, 2012

Dear Tits and Sass,

Last February, I met Phil off a sugar dating site. He was extremely effusive in quasi-personal affection towards me during our first meeting, to the point that I realized he was an attachment risk and considered not seeing him again. (He’d had a recent and extremely nasty divorce.) But I agreed to a monthly arrangement of x dollars/month for indefinite weekly meetings and saw him three times total. In addition to sex, he wanted an intellectual relationship.

Between our meetings, Phil frequently wrote me vaguely romantic emails, with very familiar addresses and conclusions (things like “dear love,” etc.). I am married and he knew that. Eventually he was sending me such intense emails that I concluded he actually thought he had fallen for me. The last piece of evidence for me that things had gone too far was when I went over to his house and found a picture of myself on his mantel: He had learned my real name from a careless mistake I made, found my Facebook, and got the picture from there.

I didn’t return his calls or emails for awhile. He sent me several distraught emails and I finally emailed him, apologized for being uncommunicative, and told him that I couldn’t see him anymore because I was concerned he was getting too attached. I was pretty blunt, but toed the line between being a person breaking up with a lover (as was appropriate to the stupid sugar game we were playing) and an escort cutting off a client (I, for example, referred to myself explicitly as an escort/sex worker in the email). I told him my role in his life should be therapeutic and motivational, not romantic, and that I did not think that was possible, basically.

He sent me a recent email proposing we keep seeing each other, just less frequently, and I did tell him I’d respond to it (oops—maybe shoulda held my cards), and I am hoping there is something I can do to let him go. I also am nervous because I (a) don’t want to acquire a stalker or something, and (b) he has my real name, which means that he could conceivable out me if he felt sufficiently jilted. Don’t know if he’d do that or not. (My husband knows about all of this.) What should I do?

Sincerely,

Unhappily Loved One

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I’m Special, Baby: The Sex Worker Edition of #notallmen

Clients

By

suzyhooker

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May 15, 2014

Not all clients are totally predictable. (image via twitter user @a_girl_irl)

Just as the rallying cry of men defending themselves from those mean, mean feminists seems to be, “Not ALL men!” so does the sex work client object to generalizations about him. In fact, the one thing all sex work clients have in common is that they all think they’re different, special, and not like those other guys. So, when they throw out that tired line you’ve been hearing ever since you started working, they think they’re being clever. We asked escorts, street workers, strippers, pro-dommes, cam-people, and phone sex operators to get on Twitter on #notallclients and tell us all about it.

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The Big Ripoff: TER, The Texas Murder Aquittal, and the Myth of the Vulnerable Client

By

Charlotte Shane

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June 7, 2013

In early 2010, Dave Elms, founder of the infamous website The Erotic Review (best known as the review site where clients rate prostitutes on a scale of 1-10), was arrested after talking to an undercover officer in an attempt to hire a hit man. Elms wanted to pay for the murder of an escort and the severe injury of a website founder who used his own forum to air the well-known but rarely publicized fact that Elms and other TER moderators extorted sex and/or money from escorts in exchange for maintaining their positive reviews. Elms was convicted of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault. This charge, to which he pled guilty, was one of many legal issues he faced at the time. He was already on probation for drugs and gun violations from 2006. Furthermore, Elms’ decision to pay for the killing of Jane Doe came on the heels of his outing her to her family, as well as publicizing her legal name and home address online in connection with her escort name. Murder: it’s for when relentlessly harassing a sex worker just isn’t enough.

Though it was only three years ago that David William Elms entered official records as a man willing to invest in murdering prostitutes, this information is rarely discussed anymore among online-advertising escorts, let alone among the clients who position TER as a defining force in their sex and social lives. TER chugs along like the profitable, amoral machine it is, unharmed by its somehow secret status as the most enduring and powerful product of a scummy, thuggish psychopath. The company itself “parted ways” with Elms after his 2009 arrest (that’s the one where he tried to engineer an escort’s death, if you’re having trouble keeping track). This is no more accurate than saying the United States “parted ways” with Thomas Jefferson after his slave-raping became public. A project cannot be cleanly extricated from the ideology of the person(s) who created it, no matter how convenient or fervent the dream of tie-cutting may be. If his legal conviction wasn’t evidence enough, Elms is also on record as conceiving TER in the crucible of his intense sense of entitlement and permanent grudge against sex workers.

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Surviving Long Appointments

By

suzyhooker

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February 9, 2012

759_large5 — For lots of money, I bet she could! (image by Anne Taintor)

We all say we want them, but do we really? Longer appointments—all day, overnights, weekends or more—can be great money, but they can also be really taxing on your soul. No matter how much you like your work, staying in character and putting your client’s needs before your own for a long period of time can make anyone go a little crazy.

Whether you’re a stripper who’s committed to a couple hours in the champagne room, a dominatrix with a super-devoted slave, or anyone else who’s found themselves committed to more than they thought they bargained for, here are some ideas for making it through with your sanity intact.

If you have some other tricks of the trade to share, please leave them in the comments section.

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I Pretend I’m Horny, You Pretend You’re A Dog: Performing Consent In The Club

By

Red

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August 6, 2013

There was a post going around the stripper tumblrsphere about what is probably one of the most common lap dance rejections of all time:

“I would love to but I just don’t think I could control myself.”

It’s the perfect way for customers to say no; phrased as a compliment (of sorts), it expresses interest and desire, encouraging the dancer to continue her attempts to sell and thus give the customer more attention without him committing to anything. They usually deliver this excuse with a cute smile, like it’s a joke.

I recognize that they are trying to be charming—even trying to compliment me on my attractiveness!—but it’s so hard to bite my tongue and not ask, “In what world is having less self control than my chihuahua something you want to admit to?” If I’m having a good enough night and don’t need the money or energy, if I really can’t stop myself from beginning a profitless (literally and figuratively!) interaction, I’ll try to answer in a way that highlights what a stupid, embarrassing, insulting and creepy thing that is to say.

“Oh, you’re an adult, I’m sure we’ll be fine. I mean you’ve gotten this far in life!”

“No, no, you’re too hot, I wouldn’t be able to help myself.” This response is accompanied by a sad, regretful face. It is my fault that my sex appeal will make them lose control.

“Really? You have less self control than my dog?”

“Men are dogs.” Another sad, regretful face.

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