I’ve thought a lot about what to write in regards to clients because of all the emails I’ve received with similar questions. I thought about it a lot and wrote a fictional piece entitled, ‘Dear Mr. X: A Love Letter to Clients’. I’ve published it here.
The letter is my fictional stream of consciousness if I were going to confront a past client with all my thoughts on ‘him’.
In the piece, as a hypothetical client, you’d envision seeing me pace back and forth going through every thought I had in an attempt to explaining everything happening in my mind. I let you see my internal monologue about all things ‘you’.
So, if you’re a client that wants that kind of inner-world confession from me - lucky you, I’ve created it. I also audio recorded it because, why not. I’m sure some of you find physically reading to be a little less engaging or personal.
Anyway.
As for today’s essay,
I often found myself wondering,
Why is the prostitute constantly asked if she likes her job by the clientele?
Seriously.
I was regularly asked if I liked the work by men paying me. Obviously it wasn’t every client, but it was well over 50%.
By comparison, how often does a server get asked how much they like their job? Is it well over 50% of people frequenting the establishment?
Well, I worked as a server throughout university, worked in retail before that, the food industry before that, got a paper route and cleaned offices before that when I was too young to be properly, legally hired.
I can vividly remember being asked a few times about how I liked my job when I worked at restaurants with rooftop patios in my early twenties. Patrons would see me running up and down the stairs for hours. I assume they wondered if it was something I enjoyed or if I felt it took a toll. (I did enjoy the exercise the job entailed, reader, found it to be a bonus gym session.)
Still, it was labour I agreed to…
What were the curious patrons trying to discern, exactly?
…if my job was humane by their assessment? (LOL because serving is nothing compared to the gruelling physical labour men get up to)
But, if the cost to me was too high, by their assessment, would that have made drinking on the patio less enjoyable to them? Would they’ve stopped going?
Hmmm…
What is the reason clients frequently ask prostitutes if they enjoy their work?
…
What is the client searching for?
…
What does he want to hear?
…
Why does he want to hear it?
…
I think this is the right thing to be curious about.
Agree or disagree with me as you wish, reader.
But to me, this behaviour demonstrates that the average person knows there’s something inherently sad about selling sexual intimacy and access to the body. Even while actively engaged in a delusion, clients have a drive to ask this question. The only logical conclusion my brain can source is - we must instinctively know selling sex would affect a woman - her essence/self/soul.
For some context reader, I was considered high-class when I quit.
A booking with me was a minimum of two hours and I charged $1500. Though, it was probably closer to $1,000-$1,200/2 hours the last two years I worked. I had a minimum of 90 minutes or two hours for all but my first year of living in Toronto. It made the pool of clients smaller but I’d make more from seeing one person. It wasn’t often that I declined a client. Despite reality perhaps being different than what I thought, I thought I couldn’t afford to say no unless it was some kind of emergency or extenuating circumstance. Who knows when you’d get your next client? It’s not reliable work.
For some more context, when I first escorted at 21 for an agency in the UK the agency charged clients £160/hr. The agency kept £60 and we were expected to pay the agency driver £20 or get our own taxi (frowned upon but what I often opted for because the driver was a creep). So, I kept £80 for an hour. Except for one or two exceptions, they were all hour-long bookings.
If I was doing sex for money because I felt like I had no other options to survive/earn an income, what the fuck did it matter how much I liked someone? The logic didn’t add up. So, unless I got insanely bad, I mean insanely bad, vibes from a request, or I was literally unavailable, I’d do it. Even if they talked to me like an object, even if they wouldn’t screen (I only screened the last like two years I escorted), even if I knew I’d hate them the second I met them. It was absolutely not about my personal enjoyment of the situation.
Obviously, that’s the opposite of what I’d market, that didn’t sound sexy. I wished I didn’t have to be having unwanted sex in even the best of conditions - though I’d never let the client know that.
The way I see it, there are only two kinds of client,
The ones that treated me like an object - I heard, “you aren’t the same as a ‘normal woman’”, hundreds of times by wannabe and actual clients.
These objectifier clients find a woman who consents to being treated like a piece of meat. Most workers aren’t in the habit of declining ‘safe’ work and objectifiers aren’t unsafe per say. For me, if a client didn’t try to assault me or not pay, he was ‘safe’. Not getting dehumanized, or not being treated as an object was a bonus. It wasn’t something considered when accepting a booking for most of my time in the industry.
Objectifiers view hookers as a less than human outlet. She’s a temporary waste disposal for his feelings of hurt, anger, despair, lust, powerlessness, etc. He’s under no delusion he’s doing a good thing by hiring her.
Not every objectifier is a total monster, there are many shades of grey. Nevertheless, this client is a sadist. Some more, some less horrible. There’s a spectrum. The hardcore sadists exist in this category - dehumanizing is a satisfying game they get to pay for. They look to see what they can get away with for a few bucks. Sex addicts are objectifiers; they could be anywhere on the sadist spectrum. Many objectifier clients come off as nice people until they feel slighted, in whatever real or imaginary way, then their horns and fangs come out real quick.
Clients who constantly call themselves ‘nice guys’ (to hide their fangs) belong in this category. For some reason, they always annoyed me more than the blatantly devious monsters. I’d prefer the monster who didn’t try and get brownie points as he terrorized, it was honest sadism. The professed ‘nice guys’ play mind games and gaslight. He announces he’s a ‘good guy’ multiple times, hoping one of us starts to believe it the more he says it. Many ‘good guys’ try to absolve themselves of any wrong doing pre-emptively by calling themselves ‘good’ or ‘nice’.
Can’t you see what a nice guy he is!?
He gets away with it because he paid for the privilege to gaslight and abuse you. And you want the money, right? Many clients tell themselves what they’ve paid for is access to everything and anything because well, you’re selling yourself.
This man knows he’s paying a woman to do something she doesn’t actually want to do. Hence his objectifier title. Treating woman as an object he has purchased, not as a person. He’s fully aware. If you, as a man, knowingly pay a woman for sex you know she doesn’t want - I don’t know what to tell you, you’ve got some sadism in you. That’s just reality.
Some men are kind about objectifying, some are monsters. A kind objectifier. Looks something like this,
Clients meets escort. Gives money. They sit and have a nice chat. After a a bit of talking he looks at her and says,
“So, I’ll have quick shower. Then, I want a blowjob, then you on top of me, then I want to come on your face. Is that okay?”
:/
I mean…he’s not in the wrong. He’s literally paying for sex. Why wouldn’t he have a script for what he’d like to have happen? He’s purchasing a sexual service, why can’t he say what kind of service he wants? He asked respectfully. She was offering…
The escort hears his request. Doesn’t hear anything that she strictly doesn’t allow - personal boundary wise. Still, there’s a depressing feeling in the back of her mind she can’t quite put her finger on…a lingering bad feeling to be treated like a sex object with a script. Removing the script makes it somewhat more humanizing but doesn’t change the transaction. The escort’s there to perform her dutiful sexual intimacy then the man leaves. She can decline, of course, but that means no money - her entire reason for engaging in the activity in the first place.
In the scenario I’ve just shared, I don’t think the client is a monster. He’s only a mild sadist or whatever you’d like to call him - could be worse. Doesn’t make it good, just shows he’s not at the end of the spectrum. I think this man tells himself, ‘Its normal and no biggy’. Somewhat delusional in thinking, ‘my actions have no consequences, she’s just this kind of woman”. There is no ‘certain kind of woman’ that is unaffected by constant unwanted, paid sex with strangers.
The ones who don’t want to treat you like an object - they require a variation of the narrative that you ‘love your job’ and/or that you ‘share a real connection with clients you see’ to feel comfortable hiring you.
Without confirmation that there’s something real about the relationship, these men feel upset at the reality of the inherently sad act of paying a woman for consent to sex. They need, and check in for, constant confirmation they aren’t dehumanizing the woman to be able to proceed with the paid intimacy. They tend to call the payment a ‘gift’ and use other flowery language in an attempt to distort the unattractive reality that it’s just plain ol’ prostitution. These clients aren’t sadists, in my humble opinion. They’re delusional.
However, being under a self-imposed delusion doesn’t give carte blanche to be absolved of responsibility for one’s actions. Despite being enticed by the delusion, the client knows he’s paying for unwanted sex deep down. After all, that trip to the ATM, or online banking portal happened before his eyes. Can’t tell me it didn’t happen, or he wasn’t aware. He just justifies it as a ‘gift’, etc. Same as me justifying that I respected myself and felt empowered by torturing myself with endless unwanted sex. These clients aren’t motivated by the same deranged objectification desires as the hardcore sadists. They refuse to acknowledge that they’re paying for unwanted sex. They aren’t pushing through their guilt, trying to at least be ‘a good guy compared to other clients’ like the mild sadist. They tell themselves there is a real connection and/or the escort loves her job so they aren’t doing a sad thing. I mean, maybe they are with cheating on their wives or something but not in this respect. I think the difference in how they approach the transaction is noteworthy, so I am noting it.
It’s sane/humane to need a woman to look like, and confirm, she’s enjoying herself while being sexually intimate. These clients are living in la la land where prostitution isn’t inherently sad. They were likely cheerfully encouraged and persuaded by the escort that they’re doing a good thing - engaging in self-care and supporting female liberation, yada yada. They chose to believe it.
Is that so crazy? Honestly, no.
Delusional? Yes.
Maybe I’m too big of a dreamer, but the female liberation I’d like to see in society doesn’t involve women selling sex as their main claim to ‘girl boss’ fame.
Is respecting sex work as a good/normal form of employment the hill we’d die on as a gender?
What’s the message there at the end of the day?
I don’t find it to be an empowering, or respectful one for women.
It’s not honest work. It literally requires a lot of lying.
The second kind of man (non-objectifier) is lying to himself.
He wants to have his cake and eat it too. In reality, when you eat the cake, you no longer possess the cake. You’ve eaten it. In reality, when you pay a woman to have sex with you, you’re not the good guy doing a good thing. This used to be common knowledge.
Clients generally fall into one of the two types, then there can be shades of grey based on the person. Ex: there can be delusional objectifiers but if the client is clearly objectifying you, then he’d fall into the objectifier category with shades of grey. I wrote about where and how sociopathy plays in for clients, from my view, in ‘Dear Mr. X’.
I’m going to ask you again, reader, if women who despise escorting sound the same when they talk as women who love escorting (because you must say you love it to attract clients these days), how is anyone supposed to know what’s real?
The only thing that’s objectively real is it is sad to need to sell access to the body, and consent to sex. It’s a sad reality that it helps women in bad situations. It is what it is, but confusing it as a societal good is where we need to draw the line or there will be grave consequences for onlookers thinking it’s a good idea.
The case for humanizing:
It made a difference if someone treated me humanely. Big difference.
I think everyone can empathize with what it’s like to be working a job and having a customer interaction and being treated well and humanely, or poorly and like an animal.
Except, in sex work, it’s over you and personal affections. The value and inherent worth being debated/haggled over was over me as a woman, and my naked body.
Not over a separate, independent item; it’s unlike any other industry.
The opportunity for mental health damage when you look at the transaction like this makes it seem like a near impossible industry to engage in and not be left with a total, lingering mind fuck as a woman.
I’ll close with reiterating that ‘the client’ isn’t inherently an evil person, nor is ‘the prostitute’. Each individual person is both good and bad on any given day, sure some clients are monsters in human flesh, but many are kind. Some prostitutes are extremely cold hearted and do things like blackmail mercilessly, most are kindhearted.
The transaction is the undeniable evil in every circumstance, not the whole person.
Stay curious, reader.
‘Dear Mr. X: A Love Letter to Clients’ is no longer available.
I really appreciate the empathy you look to pull for all groups of people in this area. This is so rare in currently highly stigmatized/politicized issues, esp. sex work. This writing feels like it leads to the deeper question of what is that ‘delusion’, in other words what could make good natured humans get there to where they are willing to objectify other people? Was there common thread(s) you’ve noticed in people’s stories that seemed like it made them lean that way? Did that same thread lead them further down the spectrum? (Guessing this might be in the book)
On the part about people asking if you enjoy your work, I feel like that really could also vary between fields. Ie in real estate and startup culture that can happen very often, maybe relating to how interpersonal you’re expected to be with clientele (possibly to your point).