How typical would you say you are among escorts? Do you like books?

I'm about as typical among escorts as I am among women in general, although it's not quite the same. Escorts in general tend to be a little different, if only because someone who believes wholeheartedly into society's vision of an "ideal" life is probably not going to want to be an escort. We're oddballs in different ways, though. For example, my friend Tara is a huuuuge fitness buff, runs marathons, and loves to kickbox. I work with an escort who does a lot of community theater and loves historical reenactments and another who is really into the hardcore BDSM scene (although she doesn't do BDSM at work).

Anyway, a lot of escorts like to read, although not everyone is into nerdy fiction like I am. If you want to make sure you can have a good conversation, look for escorts with reviews that point to them being fun to talk to, consult the agency and ask for recommendations, etc.. The agency wants to get you an appointment with the right escort so you'll become a repeat client, so don't be afraid to be specific about non-sexual stuff.

Do rates increase with experience, decrease with age, or do rates generally stay the same over time?

This is going to be an unsatisfactory answer, but: it depends. We generally play with our rates a little using good old supply and demand. If I'm swamped with appointments (usually in the summer), I experiment with raising my rates until my scheduling is more reasonable.

Experience can be an increase, especially if an escort has tons of good reviews.

Age can decrease rates, although not generally until 35ish or so. Then again, most over-35 escorts lie about their age, but it's kind of an open secret.

What factors go into determining an escort's rate?

Rates are determined by area (NYC is way more expensive than, say, Richmond), fame (an established, well-reviewed escort can charge more than an unknown), looks, race to some extent, demeanor, and limits. I'm never going to be one of the $1000 an hour escorts because I don't act in a way that would let me fit in around high-powered politicians or celebrities, I don't do condomless blowjobs, I'm not famous (although I have excellent reviews, I'm not a porn star or a big name), and I don't live in an area where CEOs and celebrities hang out.

Do you get virgins with performance anxiety problems?

Virgins + performance anxiety is like alcohol + bad decisions. They don't always go together, but... Anyway, I generally talk with them for a long time, give them a backrub to make them less jumpy about being touched, kiss for a long time, etc.. If things just aren't happening, I do more backrubs, suggest they play with me for awhile (it's relatively easy to get me off and it boosts their confidence to know that I'm having fun), that kind of thing.

You can just say "I'm not used to this, please take things slowly." We get much weirder requests, I promise!

What is a normal day like for an escort?

Here's a typical day:
Wake up, shower, shave everything (takes forever, too), moisturize, stretch.
Call my favorite phone worker for my schedule.
Drive to the apartment a half-hour before my first appointment.
Clean up the bedroom, put out fresh towels, make the bed with fresh sheets, light candles, make sure there's plenty of water in the Brita. We used to use bottled water, but that's wasteful.
Chat with other escorts and security until my client arrives.
Warn other escorts so they can hide while I let the client in, check his ID, and take him to the bedroom. Show the client the bathroom so he can shower and freshen up. Ask if he wants some water.
Call the phone worker to let her know that my client is here and his ID checks out.
Return to bedroom. Wait for client to emerge from the shower.
If client is already naked, strip. If not, I wait to get naked until he does.
Chat for a while.
Begin kissing.
Kissing progresses to wandering hands, which progresses to sex, yay!
After sex, get rid of the now-icky condoms and chat for awhile longer.
About 10 minutes before the end of the session, offer another shower.
Get clothes on.
Check to make sure that no other clients are leaving right then and show my client out.
Take shower myself, re-clean room, change sheets, run laundry (I run so much goddamn laundry, it's ridiculous), wipe up bathroom, put out fresh towels.
Hang out in the living room until next client, and then repeat.
After four clients or the end of my shift, go home.
Do typical 20-something stuff until bedtime!

Could an escort do oral only and still get clients?

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How can you escort? It's such a degrading thing for a woman.

I don't feel degraded. Do you feel degraded or dehumanized by doing your job? After all, you're selling yourself physically and mentally for however much you make. It's not like my fast food job valued me for anything more than my body (physically cooking nasty, smelly food, cleaning, fetching and carrying) or some very limited uses of my mind (running the register, taking orders).

Every job smacks of desperation. Would you go to work every day if you didn't need the money? I'd rather be unemployed and magically rich so I could stay at home and read a novel per day, but since I have to have a job due to a severe lack of dead rich uncles, what's wrong with it being something I mostly enjoy and that pays well?

Don't you feel bad that you are having sex with what can be assumed are married men?

I don't feel like I do harm the lives of others, no. In a lot of ways, I see what I do as harm reduction. My clients are going to cheat, but when they cheat by seeing me, they're with someone with strict rules about safer sex, who isn't going to involve herself with them emotionally, who isn't going to show up pregnant and break up their families, who is going to encourage them to treat the people around them well. If I wasn't in this business, they'd still be cheating, just like (extreme comparison ahoy!) junkies will still shoot up even without sterile injection sites, but it's better if they do it as safely as possible.

What is the percentage of your clients that are in monogomous relationships?

Younger guys: less than half, possibly even less than a quarter. A lot of my younger clients are seeing an escort because they have a hard time getting into a regular relationship but still crave sex and companionship. I end up giving these clients a lot of dating advice. (I'm kind of tired of giving dating advice; there's only so many times you can say "Join an activity that will force you to talk to people" or "It's better to ask someone out right away than hope she magically realizes you like her" before you start to grit your teeth.)

Older guys: At least three-quarters. I dislike that they're cheating — breaking your promises to your partner is a shitty, shitty thing — but, although it doesn't excuse them, nonmonogamy is only just starting to edge into cultural acceptability. The option for "have an open, honest, nonmonogamous relationship" just wasn't there when they were getting married, and I imagine it's hard to break off a loving, long-term relationship because of something that's easy to cover up.

How can you make an open-relationship work?

You have to make sure that both people definitely want an open relationship. It's not something that you can push the other person into, because they'll be miserable and, if you're at all a decent person, that will make you miserable as well. Other than that: communication, respecting boundaries, communication, honesty with all your partners, communication. If you're not fond of talking about your feelings, I can't recommend an open relationship, because you'll end up doing it a hundred times more often.

Do you plan on telling your kids you were an escort? What would you say if your kids wanted to be escorts?

I doubt they'd find out, since it's not like you get branded by a big scarlet P when you become a prostitute. If they did, I'd tell them that it was a job I did when I was younger and that I didn't have a problem with it, but because prostitution has such a social stigma, they should keep their knowledge to themeselves.

If my daughter/son became an escort, had attitudes toward sex to let them do it healthily, were taking care of themselves physically, and seemed happy, I wouldn't mind. If they seemed unhappy or wanted to quit, I'd encourage them and offer to support them financially while they got a normal job.

If my son/daughter started seeing prostitutes, presumably he'd have to be financially successful to be able to blow that much money on a luxury. If he was spending the rent money on pussy, I'd kick his ass. I'd try to make sure he wasn't seeing prostitutes because he was unable to form normal relationships. If he was just doing it for variety and not in a monogamous relationship, I don't see why I'd care.

In general, I don't want to hear a lot about my offspring's sex lives. Euw.

What do you think of "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"?

I have mixed feelings about "Secret Diary of a Call Girl"; I feel it makes escorting look too glamorous and dramatic and may be encouraging women to go into escorting because of that rather than because they have compatible attitudes toward sex and enjoy having casual sex. (Sorry for the long sentence; I just took my medication and it's making me a bit woozy.) However, "it's a job that I mostly enjoy and that pays well" doesn't make good entertainment, huh?

Have you ever considered going into the Adult Film Industry?

No, the adult film industry doesn't appeal for me. I have some feminist issues with the way it's currently run. I know this may sound odd, but as is, I'm working with a female-operated-and-owned company, my boss backs me up against clients and cares about us personally, and I've never felt pressured to do anything I didn't want to. There are some feminist porn producers, but from what I've heard, they're few and far between. Besides, porn sex never looks like it would feel good from the woman's point of view: little clitoral stimulation, huuuge cervix-battering penises, and a lot of degrading language.

How do you initiate sex if you aren't allowed to take the money for sex?

No talking about sex without us actually having sex is a liability issue, yes. Officially, I don't go in planning on having sex. We generally talk and then make out, and, if when the clothes come off, sex happens, that's just natural.

Generally, I start kissing and let the client initiate taking clothes off, starting with himself. I'm always the last person to get naked.

Why does the escort agency ask for my work number and references?

When calling work, they just call a coworker make up an inquiry and then tag on a "Is so-and-so in your office? I need to call him but I lost his extension, if you don't mind giving it to me." This is to make sure that the client didn't give us a fake name.

If it seems excessive, don't see escorts that require that much security. It hasn't hurt me any.

The references are more like "So and so really saw me, is probably not a cop, and isn't a jerk."

So how do you find your way to an escort agency?

I lucked out on craigslist. If I'd known what I was doing, I'd have gone on TER, made a fake account, and then asked about agencies. Most agency websites have an email you can use to apply (they all want full-body pictures and a good face shot), and then you just interview like for a regular job. Mine was a phone interview because my agency is busy and I live a little ways out of town.

Reputation is EVERYTHING in this business. Mostly, it's based around the hobbyist community on TER and several other secret forums. So, if someone wanted to see a new escort, he'd look her up on TER and read her reviews, which have a numerical component and a description of the session. Because of that, getting good reviews is the best publicity you can have, and someone who is known to be a TER reviewer usually gets the VIP treatment (nothing special, I'm just extra-nice and am careful not to make him feel rushed).

I have friends who want to escort. How should she get started in escorting?

If they want to give it a shot, I'd have them make fake accounts at TER and ask the Chicago board for the best agencies. After that, they should look up the agencies' websites and check out the employment information. 70/30 is a very good split for this industry; 60-40 is more standard. After that, they'll need to send pictures to the agency owners. If the agency is interested, they'll set up a phone interview, where your friends should ask about the split, screening, who pays for what, how long they've been in business, their clientele, if they've ever had legal issues, whether they do incall or outcall, advertising, etc.. I personally prefer working with female agency owners, but there are some good male ones out there too.

Can you tell us a story about any surreal moments with clients?

Let's see. I was working in an apartment with Tara (not her real name!), another escort that I really get along with. She's gorgeous, but remember how I said I'm not an amazon? She definitely is. She's 6'2, very muscular (not in a bodybuilder way! She runs marathons, so she has legs that could snap you in half, plus her shoulders are really broad), super-long red hair in little braids, and coppery skin. She gets stared at whenever we go out for lunch. Anyway, we do doubles sometimes, which is a lot of fun, but she has a tendency to manhandle me.

So we have a double scheduled and, when the client comes in, he's teeny. About four inches shorter than me, so 5'2-ish, and bird-boned. Tara gets a lot of really short clients because, for some reason, they usually like very tall girls. He brought a robe and this weird gold necklace and wanted me to play High Priestess while he "worshipped" Tara. So I had to just stand there dressed up like something from a low-rent Indiana Jones movie while he ate her out, telling him every so often to "pay homage to your goddess" and "your goddess is pleased with you." Oh, and he wanted me to chant, so I made up some crazy-sounding phrases and repeated them. Finally he got her off (I think she was faking, mostly because she was obviously trying hard not to crack up the whole time), thanked us both very politely (still calling her goddess and me "high priestess"), took his robe and necklace, and left.

Tipped us both an extra $50, though.

Who besides the escorts work in an escort agency?

Usually it's just escorts, security guys (who double as drivers), receptionists/screeners, and the owner, who generally does the accounting. I do bi-weekly drops, where I take out the 30% I owe the agency and either give it to the owner if she's around or put it in an envelope and drop it in the safe. Occaisionally you hear about escorts skipping town with their agency's money, but it's a stupid thing to do when, instead of stealing 30%, you could just work an extra week and make a ton more money. An escort who steals generally won't ever be able to work in that city again.

Most people hold other jobs or do work-from-home stuff. Escorting can be very profitable part-time. A lot of people just tell others that they're strippers; it's a good way to explain having lots of cash around and working flexible hours. The security and phone people generally work under a very blandly named business name, like (am making this up, but it's pretty typical) Star Administrative Solutions or something.

What's your opinion on penis size? You've had sex with a lot of guys, so what are your opinions on a big vs average vs little?

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How does oral sex with an escort work?

I use dental dams and condoms for all oral; it's one of the things that keeps me from being a $1000 an hour type of escort, who generally doesn't require protection for oral. I'm simply not willing to take the risk.

Not many guys insist on not using a condom for oral, probably because no condom = no oral. Too bad, so sad for them. If a guy can't before my jaw tires out, I'll suggest that we switch to intercourse or he lets me give him a handjob. If his time runs out, I'll give him an extra five minutes or so if he's been nice, then tell him that he should book more time when he comes to see me next.

Do you have bad feelings to the lower class professionals, if you could even call them that?

My feelings toward lower-class escorts, prostitutes, and streetwalkers are a little complicated. I do feel sorry for a lot of them: drug addiction and abuse are very common there, and it's not like you can help how you were born and raised. The qualities that allow me to be higher-class are very much middle-class ones: I'm educated, I speak without class or racial markers (ebonics or a "redneck" accent), I've had the benefit of good healthcare and nuitrition throughout my life, my parents raised me lovingly and modelled a good relationship for me, etc.. Most streetwalkers don't have those advantages, so it's hard to blame them. On the other hand, though, there are people who have made some really terrible choices in their lives, who are involved in gang activity, who don't want to try to get out of their addictions, and it's very difficult not to be angry when their choices put me in danger.

I do donate anonymously to several sex worker outreach programs that provide STD testing and help to sex workers who want to get out of the industry, so that assuages my conscience somewhat. Still, it's a difficult topic.

Where does an escort keep all that untaxed money?

Money lives in a fire-proof safe. As far as investing goes, I've thought about it. What I think will probably eventually happen is that, when my partner is working, we'll use my income for buying things, rent, and donations, while saving and investing most of his.

I've never known anyone who got in trouble for not paying taxes, but I'm sure it happens. Most of the people I know who've had trouble with their money are just shitty at managing it; they spend beyond their means, don't save anything, get into a druggy lifestyle, that kind of thing. Drugs especially are a problem, because the moment an escort gets a reputation for having a drug issue, higher-class clients stop seeing her (because they don't want to get arrested) and she generally has to drop her rates. Lowered rates bring lower-class clients, who are more likely to bring drugs in, screwing up her reputation even further as well as increasing the likelihood of legal attention. At this point, the escort's best bet is to get clean, move, change her working name, and start over without the benefit of reviews, but not everyone can manage that.

Do many guys lose their virginity to escorts?

Yes, I've seen virgins. Sometimes they're people (like the fat guy) who, in my opinion, probably aren't going to get laid the normal way, so I have no problem with them coming to me. They're mostly very nice, very nervous, and almost always have a hard time getting off. Some of them, however, are younger guys, nothing really wrong with them besides social awkwardness, who decide to see an escort instead of trying to work on their social skills. They're almost always clingy and complain about not having any friends, so I try to push them into getting themselves involved in more social activities. One of the nice things about the job is that, when two people are naked together, you can be a lot more blunt about your advice.

I think being an escort has more of a stigma, especially because escorts are generally women and women having casual sex at all is more looked-down-upon. Look at how people talk about, say, Ron Jeremy versus Asia Carrera. Both of them seem to be charming, intelligent people with a sense of humor, but Ron Jeremy gets to be a teddy bear and show up in mainstream movies while Asia Carrera is relagated to the trashy porn star bin.

Like the previously mentioned fat guy, how do you, uh, get turned on to even touch an 50+ year old penis, and put it in your mouth and vagina?

It's not like 50-year-old dicks are covered in mold or anything. :P Generally by the time I do anything sexual, I've been talking with the client for awhile, making out, etc., and I'm not physically turned off by wrinkles or white hair. (I don't date older guys because I dislike the difference in life experience, not because old = ugly.) Also, pretty much all of the old guys are waaaaaay into giving me oral, so after half an hour of getting eaten out, I'm pretty turned on.

You know, I've never had a really hideous client. No Quasimodo types, anyway. Most of the unattractive ones were so eager to be friendly and nice to me (like the aforementioned fat guy) that I end up liking them.

How often do you get guys who orgasm in a minute or two?

I get minute-men every so often. Usually they're young guys and are ready to go again in five minutes, so it doesn't really matter. If you're old and not going to be able to get it back up, please don't give yourself a heart attack trying, though. We can talk, or I can rub your back, or you can go soak in the giant awesome bathtub, but don't make me worry about explaining a wrinkly naked corpse to the paramedics.

I've had a couple of clients that were so good that they go into the Fap Bank and I actually look forward to having sex with them again. Generally, though I'm not really attracted to clients the same way I would be to a date.

Most expensive gift? Probably a $100 bottle of champagne. I couldn't taste the difference, though.