Fascinated by Hookers

Did you see the Evening Standard on Monday? No, me neither, but luckily a friend of mine did and spotted a feature titled, 'Call me a courtesan, a call girl, an escort...whatever. But basically I was a £20,000-a-night hooker'. 

He spotted it because practically every woman in his tube carriage was reading it, totally engrossed in the story. My male friend found this fascinating. It would certainly be very telling to spy so many professional female city workers, all on their way home after a dreary day in the office, doing the nine to five loosing themselves in a story about jet-setting, dates and dinners with some of the richest men in the world, sex classes in Paris and then getting a comfortable pay cheque at the end of it.  

The figure certainly makes it an attention grabbing headline. Twenty-grand a night? Fuck me! (Not literally.) Wonder how many women in that carriage had the same initial feeling I did when reading that: one of sheer envy. I imagine it's a wage many of the women reading could only dream of. 

It's not just about the money though that makes this article so interesting, or surprising that so many female readers became hooked on it. It's about gossip. Lets face it, one of the best topics of conversation when a group of women get together is sex. Now, imagine one of those friends is a sex worker that travels the world and her sexual partners are often blokes off the Forbes rich list. Of course you'd want to know what they're like in the bedroom!

Personally, I think that for women outside the sex industry, there is a healthy fascination with those that work within it. Since the revolutionary Belle de Jour blog, we've become much more accustomed to hearing the voices of sex workers and what they're terms of employment are really like, and rightly so for so many reasons - not just for a quick fix of gossip, I'm aware.

As with any reported story on sex work in main stream media, there are, of course, a few points that grind and questions to be raised. Like I said, the sum of £20k for a night of sex is certainly attractive in appearance, but how much of that does the escort see? How much goes back to the Madam running the show and, realistically, how often do those bookings come about? 

The figure later in the story, that most women are around the £5,000 mark (even typing the idea of putting a price bracket on the company of a woman like that makes me feel a bit funny). Don't get me wrong, that's still a huge amount of money for one night of work, it's pretty much what I'd make in half a year, but after you've read the £20,000 marker, anything less kind of takes the shine off the idea.

Perhaps that's the authors intention? Yes, we have become more accepting of interviewing and writing features about sex work in consumer press - 5 or 10 years ago it wouldn't have been touched with a barge pole I'm sure - but can Tatler magazine (where the feature was originally published) really promote sex work to the masses so positively? 

Of course not. Pfft...women's consumer media isn't that progressive yet! 

It certainly tries to emphasise the perceived seediness of the industry towards the end of the article so, you know, they're the thoughts your left with and leaving your nine to five suddenly looks a lot less attractive. Examples of how the piece hammers this home:

'Are the girls nervous? She laughs. “You can’t have nerves! These girls are tough. And there’s a numbness — it’s work. We don’t care about clients.”'  

Or

'“The very least you’ll be paying is £1,000 a night — those are the get-’em-in, get-’em-out service girls.” They’re booked for events like weekend shoots, or to sit in a nightclub making some sleazy guy look good.'

Or

'The top 10 are “champion racehorses”. (Great, compare female sex workers to animals that are ridden [commonly] by men).

Or 

'They want a beautiful girl they can lock in a room and bang, bang, bang.” She pauses. “But they pay well.”

Does that mean other clients treat girls well? “Yes, but...” She takes a deep breath. “A lot of these guys are seriously f***ed up. Their wives don’t do what they want. No woman in her sane mind would do half of it.”

She remembers being put in “an exceptionally expensive outfit so that the client could urinate on it”. One European royal “who has hookers all the time” is so rough that Lauren’s madam refuses to send her best girls.' (Two potentially, consenting fetishes are somewhat slated here.) 

I'm being presumptuous here, but I would assume judging by how high-end this establishment is supposed to be, there would have to be consent from the female sex worker? There must be some pre-agreed T&C's between the escort and the madam as to what services they are willing and able to offer. For this urination story to happen, Lauren (not her real  name) may have consented to water-sports being a service she offers. Having spoken to many escorts and looked at many of their websites, I'm yet to come across one that doesn't include a comprehensive list of services they do offer and just to be extra clear many of them go on to outline what they definitely don't offer to clients.

I don't know these people, or this organisation, so I might be wrong, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't something like that in place in order to match the right escort with the right client.

Fascinating piece though.