Surviving Long Appointments
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.
“We were all monsters” the nameless narrator tells us four sentences into Hooked by John Franc. The “we” refers to nine men who live in a city where prostitution is conveniently legal and when the men learn this fact, they begin a downward, hooker-hopping spiral of frightening velocity that ends in the most melodramatic plot development in the history of ever. (Does any American man have nine friends he’d trust to join him as he frequents brothels? I digress.) As you might imagine, for me, a prostitute, that opening line was about as appealing an introduction as a fart in the face. But it was accurate warning for what lay ahead. I can’t think of many books I’ve hated as much as I did Hooked, and it’s easy to explain why. The book, a novel imitating a memoir, is essentially a polemic. The husbands are unsympathetic villans, the wives are unsympathetic victims, and prostitutes are the objects with which men hurt non-prostitute women—and ultimately, destroy themselves. Shorter version: prostitution is bad, mmkay? When men hire prostitutes, other people end up hurt. It’s a literal [spoiler alert, as if anything could spoil the already terrible experience of suffering through this] killer!
What can you get the man who already has the best gift—your sexual talents—of them all? Here are a few suggestions from the T&S gang. Feel free to add your own in the comments.
The term “sex worker” usually makes me cringe. By most people’s standards, as an escort, I certainly fall into that occupational category. Living in a country where prostitution is illegal in all but a single state means that labeling myself a “sex worker” is hardly pragmatic. Besides, to call men like myself (straight male escorts) “sex workers” is almost insulting. How great would my life be if I could just sell sex? I have very few clients whose primary interest in retaining my services is sexual intercourse, or even sexual physical contact. Critics of the show I happen to be a part of have no frame of reference for what my profession entails. I will be the first to admit that the show, with eight 30-minute episodes per season, is not exactly made to be educational. Those critics have said repeatedly that women don’t have to pay to get laid. I have said repeatedly that they are correct, but that both women and men most definitely pay for “sex.”