"I've always considered writing to be the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like f*cking — which is fun only for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling. Nothing is fun when you have to do it — over and over, again and again — or else you'll be evicted, and that gets old." - Hunter S. Thompson
This is the first thing that should go through the mind of anyone who is thinking about life as an Escort. You will be stepping into a world of Rote Sexualization, and something that was once fireworks-in-the-sky awesome will be slowly ground down to you dressing as a cheerleader in a squalid motel room and sullenly climbing onto some ugly fat guy who is more than twice your age. You and he met five minutes ago, when he yelled "Hey, slut!" out of a car window. There's a reason this man is paying for sex, but there is also a reason you are taking payment for it. It's not for me to judge. I have some remarkably shameful things on my personal resume...
(lost in thought)
Sorry... where were we?
What I can do for you is get out on the street, talk to some escorts, and get some insight into just what this sort of life on SL entails. I can also try to find out, as the SLE Staff Assignment Log entry asks for this article, "Why would someone take it up?"
This article may be somewhat skewered demographically. I don't do much whoring, on either end of the transaction, and am not familiar with the processes of getting or being a prostitute. I have ideas where, while researching this article, I might find streetwalkers. I really don't have any idea at all where I may find a more high-end, organized pimping service where the girls have dental plans and 401Ks or screw Charlie Sheen. Therefore, we may get a more street-level view of the oldest profession, which is probably where someone thinking of taking up God's Greatest Game as a job or lifestyle is going to start off/end up anyhow.
Most of the girls who I found practicing this trade had an understandable desire to keep their names and faces out of this article. Even if the shoe fits, no one wants to be known as the girl who blew someone while sitting on a toilet. I shall respect that. That is why this article will be more me speaking of things in general, rather than me quoting the streetwalkers by name. No Van Morrison/Caravan outing in this column... "Sweet lady of the night, I shall reveal you!"
The pictures with this article are models posing as strumpets- I'm the brunette, the blonde is SL Enquirer model Courtney, the redhead is Divas dancer Lynda and none of us work as prostitutes- because the real deal girls are smart enough not to appear on camera. We're not listing any sim names which welcome prostitution, because at that point we become involved indirectly with pimping, and we're a family-friendly newspaper who really shouldn't be doing stuff like that.
While the movies and TV shows may make Escorting seem like an exercise in Female Empowerment, the truth is a bit less Female Empowering. An escort is often someone who has no other options that he or she is aware of. Life deals us all a hand, and we have to make the most of the cards we draw. Sometimes that makes you the President of the USA, or sometimes it leads you to the No-Tell Motel. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and you should always read the small print.
On SL, it may be less tragic and more functional. This very reporter refuses to use a credit card to buy Lindens for a video game. I also have a job at this paper that pays my SL bills, and I have it because I have a talent for finding, investigating, interviewing and photographing SL stuff. I had a friend who knew Lanai, the boss of this paper, and I got a job. I had options when I started SL. Some people don't have journalistic skills, and employment is a hard thing to find on SL. You can only go so far with freebies, even if you shop like a MFer.
However, any girl who can make a pretty avatar and who can talk a good game has at least one option. It's nothing you'd brag about to Mother. "Mom, Dad, awesome news... I fellated three businessmen today!" It beats starving, but it's nothing that Mom is going to be bringing up at the PTA meeting.
The role play aspect is a strong motivating factor on SL. Face it, most of us have mundane lives. Get the kids off to school, do the laundry, vacuum, afternoon shift stocking paper towels at the grocery store, church on Sunday... one can understand how a woman with that RL might seek a bit more spice on when establishing a fantasy version of herself in a virtual world. A boring housewife can push a button and become a wild sexual icon with men all up and after her, throwing money. When I spoke of "no other options" earlier, I left out some things. Some people do Escorting just for the role play aspect of it.
Once you perform the moral gymnastics necessary to start off in the business, the money is OK. You can buy a new dress, some nice shoes, go out shopping with friends... like a normal person. Just when your normal friends are reaching for their credit cards to get the funding for a new hat, you need not do so. You've paid the piper in a different manner, with a special kind of currency. Your friends need not know a thing. As this column frequently advises our readers, "Do your dirt by your lonesome."
One of the hookers and I got to talking about regular stuff, and we found out that we had the same mesh body. We got it at the same store, roughly about the same time, and paid the same amount for it. I work as a journalist, and I have a side job as a professional wrestler. She's a prostitute. To get myself meshed, I had to research and write 3 lengthy articles for Lanai, and also had to fight a really mean Czech girl at a Saturday afternoon arena show. I got held upside down, then driven down on my head until I was unconscious. For three days after, I was unable- even with prompting- to remember my own birthday or middle name. That's how I was able to buy my mesh shape. The escort? "One word, lady... bukake. Three Japanese guys. It took seven minutes. I was at the Maitreya store a half hour later."
A lot of the hazards associated with RL escorting do not apply to SL. I don't think that you can be arrested for hooking on SL, unless you go to some heroic lengths. You can't catch any diseases from sex on SL, at least not physical ones. Escorting on SL is not like Grand Theft Auto. You can't have your fun with a lady of the evening, then hit her with a flamethrower and get your money back. That doesn't mean that someone won't try...but you will not fall victim to the Long Island Serial Killer or the New Bedford Serial Killer on SL, unless it is part of the role play. You're probably not going to end up marrying Richard Gere either, but if the risk is low, why not shoot for a high reward?
There are various sims devoted to attracting streetwalkers, and the men who love them. Most of them are seedy, by design. Sim owners sort of aim towards a stereotype when trying to attract a niche business, and the sims reflect it. If you are hunting for a hooker, you probably want to focus on shadowy, urban sims more than trying to get a Happy Happy in a small town that looks like it drifted out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I can not recall a single episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Andy and Barney had to kick a couple of prostitutes in the ass to get them off the corner in Mayberry.
My research did lead me to learn that high end girls operate out of private clubs, usually classier strip clubs or BDSM sims. Group membership often involves an annual fee, and the girls are battle-tested and runway-ready. You can't just walk in off the street with a noob av and work at these places, even if you can write sex better than that Fifty Shades Of Grey author. These places often have a sort of House Mother who makes the girls look like the club and customers want them to look like. Hell, when I was a cheerleader, I was given a ton of gear and outfits, and we weren't f*cking anyone. A brothel will often spare no expense to have very well-made girls, and the expense is not the only thing passed along to the customer.
I should add that the Grand Slam Breakfast on this topic of SL Escorting would be someone who uses SL to set up RL prostitution interactions. I'm no lawyer, but my guess is that this is highly illegal, perhaps even on a Federal, interstate level. I didn't find any of those kind of girls in my research, but the day ain't over yet.
In the end, it matters very little how one practices her craft. Whether you are laying on silk sheets at the Playboy mansion or sucking/f*cking/long haul trucking through a series of shoddy hotel rooms, you are all sisters in a special club, one that goes back to Neanderthal times. After overcoming a few language-based difficulties, you could talk shop with a girl holding the same job in 200 BC Mesopotamia and basically be telling each other the same story. Life is funny that way.
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Well written. Thanks for the perspective.
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