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. 
   

Does the porn industry really "trap" performers?

Everyone has got an opinion on porn. In early November, Jenna Jameson (one of the most famous and highest earning adult actresses ever) announced that she was going to return to porn. The reasons cited was that she was flat broke, had kids to support and going back into the adult industry was the quickest (?) and easiest (?) way for her to make bread money.

The majority of the press reports in relation to this news don't exactly paint a pretty picture (like this one). It plays up to the unfortunate stereotype so many people hold about porn stars: that they've all had "troubled pasts", are addicted to drugs and blah, blah, blah. A perfect example of this prejudice way of thinking is in this recent article by Morality In Media, which does it's best to paint a stifling, no-way-out picture of the adult industry and that it does more harm than good to women and their careers post-porn.

To summarise, it's basically saying that porn harms. Work in the adult industry at any point in your life and you'll be pretty well fucked in the future should you want to try your hand at anything else.

Thankfully, not everyone thinks like that and excellent site www.PVVonline.com offers an alternative view on the argument:

"This – “Halsey was able to get her real estate license and worked as a broker for 3 years until she was recognized and fired.” – is supposed to convince me that porn harms? No. All this does is convince me the we, as a culture and as a society, are a bunch of judgemental hypocritical assholes.

The harms of porn are not “well documented.” In fact, they’re not *documented* at all. To date, not even one study exists that connects porn consumption and/or production to causing “harms.” Whatsmore, even works that attempt to draw correlations between (read: possible connections with), say, porn consumption and socially undesirable behaviors (e.g. “sexist” attitudes) can be picked apart methodologically. In others words, the studies are done poorly and/or incorrectly."
Reprinted from Porn Valley Vantage/PVVOnline, copyright © Chauntelle Anne Tibbals, PhD (www.PVVOnline.com)

I particularly like the 'judgemental hypocritical assholes' sentiment in that quote (read the full article here). This is possibly because even in my limited time of writing about sex work, I have encountered people that dismiss porn as a profession. Apparently, I have been informed by people with "normal" jobs, because they work in the sex industry that's all they know how to do. The same incorrect ideologies are often associated with strippers, escorts and glamour models too, so I would extend this misrepresentation to beyond porn.

So, those porn stars, strippers and escorts I've met that are also trained teachers, nurses, authors, entrepreneurs, professional dancers and business men and women are making all of these other skills up? Because apparently if your first/current choice of career is working in the sex industry, it must mean that you're *unable* to ever do any other type of profession? That's just bull.

The problem arises, as touched on by Tibbals, is that once you've worked in the adult industry, once you've had sex associated with your name - whether that's doing it on film, privately with clients, or even writing about it - you're tarred with a brush by society.

Why is it so hard to move from the adult industry into another profession should someone choose to? Why can it not be like any other career move? If someone has made the active decision to say, "I don't want to work in adult anymore. Actually I think I'd rather go and work in banking/nursing/be a travel agent," why can they not escape professional prejudices in the same way someone would if they decided they didn't want to be a teacher anymore, but would actually like to go train to be a vet?

Even if their career history does come to light, why should that matter? Why should that mean they're not able to do their new job of choice anymore, even though they've been doing a fine and dandy job previously, just because before that time they decided to make their living by starring in porn? I don't get it. I honestly do not see the sense in that.

This stigma of, if you do sex it must mean you're lacking else where, just doesn't fly with me. Like I said, my experience isn't extensive, but as my freelance career continues so does the number of adult industry professionals I speak to and come into contact with. All of the "extra skills" I listed above are examples of what these professionals have told me they have under their belt as well as doing adult film.

So no, they're not just tits, pussy, dick and ass. It's not the porn industry that traps people in, or forces them to return; it's the wider professions and industries that keep these individuals out because of societal prejudices.

The Winds Of Change

Currently I'm experiencing something new in my freelance career: the (potential) cancelling of one of my regular columns. It sort of came as a surprise, but not entirely and I have mixed feelings about it. Columns, contributions and commissions get cut all of the time I'm sure, but it's yet to have happened to me and I'm what? Two years in at the most? That's not bad going really.

At the moment I'll avoid saying which publication may be canning the feature I write as it's not 100 percent confirmed, but when the issue was raised last week I felt a little bit crestfallen to begin with. They had sort of thrown it open to me, in a very round about way, asking if I'd like to continue writing it and part of me did and part of me didn't. In the end I decided to think on it for a few days.

So I took the weekend and stewed it over. Mostly I've come to the conclusion, depending on the editor's final decision, that this particular feature has run it's course. Realising that actually gave me a bit of a thrill. It's been a while since I've approached any new publications - online or print - and flexed my digits around some different writing styles. There are a couple of projects that appear to be drawing to a close at the moment and on the whole, rather than feel panicked, it's actually quite refreshing.

I apologise for sounding hugely clichéd right there.

Pretty much since my freelancing career began I've been writing for the same titles. This is partly for financial security reasons, partly because they've been on-going projects that have afforded me opportunities to develop a few new skills. It would have been silly to stop any of them in their tracks just because I'd been working on/for certain companies for a year or so.

On the other hand, part of the beauty of freelancing is having the chance to chop and change and test the waters with lots of different publications should I desire to do that and I definitely think that's one area of this whole freelance journalism malarkey I'm yet to really put to the test and experiment with. Although it's sad to loose a regular column - and one that I actually really enjoyed writing - I'd rather see this as a positive. It will free up a bit more of my time each month so I can explore other avenues.

So, it's a little bit out with the current and in with the new and so far the breeze seems to be fairly warm and inviting. Will have to 'watch this space' though.

Over and out for now.
RoseC -x-

Switching Off: Not Even A Holiday Can Stop ME!

When I tell people that I work from home, the most common reaction I get is, "Ooh, I couldn't do that. I'd get easily distracted by things to do around the house, or just wouldn't bother getting out of bed 'til late."

Surprisingly, what I've so-far found in my short, work-from-home freelance career is that it's amazingly easy to not be a lazy fucker, especially when you see the state of your bank balance at the end of the month. So, it's not the getting motivated that's the problem, it's the learning when to stop and switch off that I find tougher. There is no home-time bell, no contracted hours, no office manager or building security chap to say, "it's time to stop and go home."

I've been learning and realising that knowing when to stop requires just as much discipline as getting started.

Recently I've had the opportunity to sink my teeth into some meaty articles and I've really enjoyed researching and writing them. As I touched on in a recent post, some days I simply sit and read for work. I can do this for hours before consolidating what's relevant to put into the piece I'm working on. Finally, I've been fully enjoying and loving what I do and I've become more confident too, taking on more and more projects. Apologies, I don't mean to sound smug, I know there are a good many people stuck in jobs they wish they weren't and trust me, I know how that feels. It's taken a lot of "uhm'ing" and "ah'ing" and much soul searching and questioning my career options, before finally getting to this stage and now I'm reluctant to let it go.

Last week the boyfriend and I went on holiday to Fuerteventura. Yes, it was lovely thank you for asking, but I found it hard to stop and relax which I thought was weird and a bit unsettling. I'd been gagging for this holiday before we went away having not taken any real time off since January. There were a whirlwind of deadlines I needed to meet before we caught our flight and it was all go, go, GO! in my little home office. I loved it because it felt like being on press and that's definitely something I miss about not working on staff at a magazine. A bit of pressure never did any journalist any harm.

For the first two/three days of being on holiday, I couldn't relax. My phone was off, there were no emails to check, no press events to go to, articles to write or edit. My only job was to sit. Read (something not work related). Relax. I found that hard at first and it made me anxious, having the total reverse effect of what "a holiday" is designed to do.

A few ice creams and a dune buggy adventure ride around the volcanoes later and I was managing to get into the swing of it. By this time is was Wednesday rolling into Thursday; we were due to fly back on Saturday. Still, I did get some days of R&R, feeling the most tranquil when I was at the beach, floating and swimming in the crystal clear ocean.

Do you know the first thing I did when we got back to the UK though? Correct, I turned on my phone and checked my work email. We hadn't even got to baggage reclaim and it was a Saturday. There was no reason why I couldn't have waited to check until Monday. It was my boyfriend's reaction that possibly prompted me to question my ability to switch off, when he said: "So that's it then? Holiday over?" I felt bad. I'd definitely screwed up the work/life balance on that occasion.

Since being back I've worked until 8pm or 9pm every night and my mind has been ticking over with readings and ideas all the time I'm not sat at my laptop. I know, I know! There will be some people out there thinking, 'Is that it? I work until 2 or 3 in the AM,'. Well, that's fine, but I am definitely more of a lark than an owl. Give me an early, productive start over a late finish any time.

Slipping back into work-mode has been so easy and I've got a whole new set of projects to start now. There are also some interesting looking events I'm going to over the next month, again all work-related, and although I'm excited by them I'm conscious of the fact that a lot of my conversation, socialising and evenings are still me being switched on for work.

Definitely, one of the biggest pitfalls, or toughest things to get right is a life/work balance.

RoseC -x-
 

Red wine + opinions = danger

I've come out of the other side of this weekend thinking that I couldn't actually be happier with my life right now. That's quite a statement to make and I think it's taken me a while to get here, working through life-changing decisions and facing up to the fact that I could actually be making things harder on myself, but at the same time knowing that they're right decisions and so ultimately I will end up happier.

Thankfully that's happened. I think I came to realise it in the pub this afternoon with my fella. Sat chatting, putting the world to rights and just smiling, just knowing that I'm having the opportunity to pursue a career I enjoy with people I love supporting me.

Smug, sickening, self-righteous I may be, but I've taken a step that I know many people have admired, or even envied, because at least I'm no longer wasting my time stuck doing something I don't enjoy.

It's funny really, the people I've spoken to this weekend that have told me they're 'hoping to stick it out for another year' or they're 'so fed up it has to change' and knowing they're where I was two or three months ago. All I can honestly say, in my slightly tipsy, but perfectly lucid, red wine state, is that if something doesn't feel right in your life, then fuck it. Jack it in and move on. It's tough, but by far the best thing you can do.

Ok, so I'm not sure how to get the rent together in the next month or so, but I'm not worried. It will work out. So far it has. Since I've quit my job I've managed to score three, yes three, different writing jobs and have been encouraged to pitch more ideas to a national women's mag. A year, or even five months ago I never thought I'd be in this position because I never thought I'd have the bollocks to do it. Obviously, it was never going to be an easy ride, but the fact of the matter is that three weeks into my self-employment I've managed to get regular, paid, writing spots goes to show that if you want something bad enough then it will happen...because you have to make it so.

Today I heard that a friend of a friend had jacked in his job to give it a go at being an actor. Risky, but he's committed. He's down-graded his home/rent and followed his heart. As people have been saying to me over the last few weeks, I really admire that's he's doing it, putting himself out there, and you know he'll work his bollocks off to make it, no matter how small the personal landmark will be that he's "made it", because we all have our own goals, but he's doing something about it. He's not staying somewhere for the sake of it, feeling duty bound like so many of us do because at the moment we're pressured into the feeling of having to keep a job because they're simply gold dust.

It's bull shit.

My heart goes out to my friend that's stuck in a job she's 'sort of' enjoying, working for a wage that's getting her by and living in a town she's desperate to get out of. If I could, I'd pack her bags for her and tell her to take more of a chance. In some ways I admire her, she's following the map and the plan I once had, but was thrown off because of circumstances out of my control. At that point I was forced to tread water, as it were, and make (sometimes shitty) decisions as to the direction of things. But it's worked out fine, and she'd be fine, but she's too sensible and I hate the thought of her being unhappy for another two years.

Overall I think I'm just fed up of people being unhappy; of seeing people I care about stuck in situations they feel they can't get out of because I know that's the shittest feeling in all the world. I hate that as a young person, supposed to be full of beans and starting on their career, we're given nothing but negativity and shit in the media about how bad things are and there's literally no resolution at the end of it. It's sad, it's depressing, it's scary as fuck and I guess the only positive I can see is that we're being pushed into these gold dust jobs, but we can only withstand it for so long before it motivates us enough to say "fuck it" and try to make it anyway because at least there's been an attempt to do something that makes us happy and fail, rather than work in a two-bit job that makes us miserable.

Realisation can be tough sometimes.

RoseC -x-

Rose Crompton: The Risk Taker!

Nine more days to go,
Nine more days of sorrow!
Nine more days in this old dump,
But I still have to go to work tomorrow.

Boo and hiss. I wish I could finish that song properly, with the correct line of 'Because I won't be here tomorrow.' Bide your time Crompton, bide your time...

Actually, after those nine days I shall never have to go back to the school again, because last week I handed in my notice. This could either be incredibly stupid, or it could work out to be the best decision and the life changing moment I've craved in the last year and a half. As yet I'm undecided; I'm hoping it'll be the latter though and be the massive shove I need to make a few stable life decisions about what to do with my career.

Before you ask, and to get the stupid side of it out of the way, no I don't as of yet have another job lined up. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I don't have a nest egg to fall back on to support me. When my last pay cheque comes through on the 20th December that, as far as I know, will be the last of my money to make stretch as far as possible until I find something else.

Yep...there it is. I can definitely hear those faint cries of, "Fucking hell Rose! What you playing at?" But hey, you know, I'm ok with it. I'm not worried about money at the moment. My main aim is to find something to do that'll make me happy. I know I've only been in my promoted role of HLTA for five weeks, but sometimes you just know when something doesn't feel right. The last few months I've been questioning whether my job is really as satisfying as I thought it was and trying to convince myself that I enjoy it in the hope I may be able to cross off the

• Find a job that I find interesting and rewarding

target from the 2011 list. Time is fast running out and I fear that may have to be a repeat point for 2012. Thankfully I do have the moral support of my parents on this too. My Dad was a teacher for thirty odd years, and he's always said unless you're 100% committed to teaching, it can be such a soul destroying profession. And he's right. I haven't felt totally into it and I guess the promotion was a bit of a slap in the face and wake up call that life is too short to be slogging away at something that you're heart's not in.

Gosh, he can be a very wise man sometimes!

Despite not knowing exactly what I want to do, I do have a few rough ideas: the main aim is to establish more of a freelance journo role and get back into writing. Over the next couple of weeks I may become a bit of a stalker and harass a few titles I'd like to write for in the hope of getting some commissions to pay the bills. I've thought I might even go old skool and drop off some CVs in Soho. I could see myself happily working in one of the many sex shops giving appealing advice to sexperimental couples. I've got a few writing projects for fun I'd like to get off the ground too, a short film here, some erotic stories there...

Even being able to splurge all of these possibilities in a blog entry is making me feel excited that I'm taking control of possible career choices, rather than rolling from one job to another for the sake of money. It's the exciting prospects and adventures of what could lay in front of me as long as I completely submerge myself and throw myself into it. I know it won't be easy, probably with a fair amount of rejection along the way, but at least I know that this will be happening because I've chosen it rather than feeling duty bound.

*Sigh* Definitely a happy Rose this evening.