Space City Conwas held over the weekend in Houston. General interest SF/comic convention, with several media guests (Robert Picardo of Voyager, Tim Russ from Voyager, Tracy Scroggins, Walter Koenig, Sylvester McCoy, etc ad nauseum).
So sitting in the hotel restaurant, observed an older man with his younger female companion. At some point, the man walked off, and overheard the following comments made on the phone:
“I’m with a client, and he brought me to ComicCon [sic]. He didn’t tell me he was bringing me to CominCon.”*
The joke is that it appears she was an escort hired to accompany him, and didn’t know where he was taking her.
Apparently I made a typo on the second ComicCon.
She didn’t know the venue was Space City Con, not ComicCon, which doesn’t even come to Houston. Houston does have a ComicPalooza, but that was held in June at the George R Brown, and is a totally separate event.
This is a real thing? An escort girl attending a convention with you?
I thought it only happened in the movies, and then the girl turns out to be a spy.
Other than that, I thought escort girls accompany you–but only to your hotel room. And then leave quietly.
Have I been missing out on an exciting life?
I mean, geez, I go to conventions sometimes. But I ain’t no Elliot Spitzer.
If you attend many suit-and-tie gatherings and spend time in out-of-the way watering and eating holes, you will see such pairings and (while he’s in the bathroom) hear such comments. More than once I’ve caught the eye of an exasperated escort and gotten to mutter, “Tough client?” in return for a roll of the eyes, a mutter of exasperation or even a telling anecdote.
ETA: Yes, it’s much more common than you think to hire arm candy for professional conventions etc.
You can hire a very attractive escort to be your date to a comic convention.
For a little more, she’ll be your date after the convention too. Really, it’s just about how much money you have.
Okay folks, tell me how this works among grownups in suits and ties…
Arm candy? While sitting at the restaurant with your professional colleagues…That seems to me that it would be more awkward than being alone.
Let’s say that you’re at a hotel for your annual convention of the printing industry. You’ve been talking shop and business all day with other guys in suits , discussing the price of barrels of ink and the new glue machines that can bind books more quickly, but aren’t always cost effective.
Then at the end of the day, you go out to a steakhouse and drinks.How does having a total stranger sitting next to you make the social situation more comfortable, and not embarrassingly awkward? How to you introduce her to your business associates? “This is Jennifer…, at least I think that’s her name.” ?
The conversation around the table drifts away from business, and gets more personal. You talk about sports, about your family, tell a funny story about your car breaking down while on a ski vacation. Each person around the table chips in with a story, you all enjoy a few laughs…
Then your arm candy tells her story; It may also be funny–but it certainly did not involve you.
And as the evening runs on–how does that make you feel more comfortable with your business associates.?
When you all say goodye and shake hands with your colleagues,each person can honestly say they’ve made friends, and will meet up again at the next convention.
But how you relate to the arm candy leaning over the other guy’s shoulder?
She’s not one of the buddies, because she doesn’t know your industry, and she’s not going to become one of buddies, because , unlike everybody else at the table, she won’t be coming to next year’s convention. In fact, she will obviously never see you again.
So how does it work?
A niice looking blonde would be great to have hanging on your arm —if you are 22 at a college party, with loud music and dancing.
But with professional colleagues, in a relaxed-but-still-business-like setting? You are chatting with people who you may need to turn to for help one day- to advance your career, or to find a business partner who can help you land a big contract… You need to feel comfortable with them, so you can work well together.
So you need to be yourself.Why the arm candy?
(now , of course, arm-candy-with-benefits, I can understand. But you don’t do that in public.So it seems less awkward to just hire her to come to your room at night for an hour. Why pay extra for her to hang on your arm all day? How does that not seem awkward as you do business?
Because *good *arm candy, like courtesans of old, is more than a pretty thing to look at. She’s good at making conversation, keeping conversation going over the stalls, diffusing banter that looks to be turning into an argument… She may not know the industry (although if she’s a repeat hire, she may know more than you think) but she’ll know how to ask questions to get people to explain the industry, which makes people feel important and smart and puts them at ease. She’ll know when to be quiet and when to speak of other matters unrelated to the business discussion to keep people having a good time. She’s not at a board meeting, after all. Sometimes a little discussion of the merits of the wine or last week’s football game is just what’s called for.
If the dinner is appropriate to bring a spouse or girl/boyfriend to, then a good escort is just another date to the rest of the people at the table. Only she tends to be a rather attractive date with excellent people skills.
It’s very often arm-candy-with-benefits, Chappacula, but not always. There is simply a grade of executive who thinks a 20-something pretty on his arm is an asset - to his ego, to his image, to his fantasies when he gets home to the trophy wife, whatever. Whether or not it’s with-benefits, even for a single man, it’s a pretty sleazy practice and the only instances I’ve seen were sleaze-in-Armani types or somewhat bashful types trying it out on a long business trip.
(I worked, for a while, with the sort of modeling that tends to slide into escort and hooking - not necessarily nude and porn, but that bottom tier that’s attractive enough to get bookings but not ever going to rise in the profession. The women tended to talk freely about their non-modeling work. I’ve also attended a lot of big conventions and trade shows as something like a journalist, which means I was sort of invisible and saw and overheard things other attendees might have missed.)
(And yes, journalists covering major-industry trade shows DO get interesting offers from vendors looking for boosted coverage. I had one colleague who went first class on everything, including benefits, without every spending a dime. Me? Nah. Some interesting experiences, but…)
I did know one guy who was invited to a fancy schmancy party with the big bosses. When he said he was not in a relationship and was happy that way, they hired him an escort (no benefits) because going alone just wasn’t done, and made you look unstable or something.
No, not likely. I’ve known a couple people with home health aides, etc. Definitely not that vibe. I mean the guy was maybe a decade older than me, but not nursing-home old, did not have mobilization issues. He was just an older guy, wearing a sport coat. Her attire definitely wasn’t health care attire. I’m not talking scrubs, but just comfortable clothes. She was wearing something of a cocktail dress, a little skimpy.
If we look at escort service as a commodity, commodities typically come with a range of price scales. One can often judge the price range of a commodity by the amenities, appearance, etc. This one definitely appeared to be in the “more affordable” category. I’m not saying she was sleazy, but closer to Julia Roberts at the beginning of Pretty Woman rather than after the hotel manager hooks her up.
I don’t have any real experience with this. I’m not in that kind of business world. My job doesn’t involve fancy suits, or business conventions, or taking out clients to impress them, or any of that kind of culture.
If you are going to any kind of business social outing where one might bring a date - whether a spouse or girlfriend or whatever - and one is a single guy without commitments, one might be the type to date a lot of different women (possibly with benefits). Thus, one might reasonably attend various functions and events and have a different date from time to time. No one else needs to know that many of your dates are paid cash to be there. Often, in those kinds of social gatherings, one is expected to have a date of some sort. Think about going to a high school reunion, or a wedding reception, etc. Many of those social engagements come with a big dose of expectation that you not be alone. Business social gatherings can carry the same kind of stigma, of social pressure.
That’s why there’s a legal profession of escort that overlaps with the illegal profession of prostitute. The veneer of escort is just thick enough to provide plausible deniability. “I’m hiring her to accompany me to this social outing, to help break the ice and keep conversation flowing and to make me look charming and desirable. If we happen to have sex afterwards, that’s not a business arrangement, that’s just two people who hit it off and decided to have fun.”
I wanted to elaborate on this response. I don’t expect everyone to know or care about the difference between ComicCon, ComicPalooza, Space City Con, or even OniCon, ApolloCon, OwlCon, etc. But the fact she wasn’t paying attention to the name of the venue shows a lack of interest on her part in attending the event, which reinforces the impression of being hired for accompaniment.
As for why a guy might hire an escort to this kind of convention (besides the private festivities in the room later), there are the standard motivations for why a single man might want an attractive female companion when hanging out, especially if one is not with a group of friends but at a big event alone. Plus, there are a large number of people who attend in costume, many of them attractive ladies in outfits that accentuate those features. Lots of spandex. I met a young woman dressed as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, complete with seashell bra (she was hanging out with Alice in Wonderland and Merida from Brave). There was a striking Blue Lantern (won an award at the Masquerade), and a rather stunning Black Widow (from The Avengers movie). (There were also plenty of men in costumes, like a couple of Klingons from DS-9, a Predator in full suit, a spiderman, etc.)
Part of the draw of these events is the eye candy. If one is a single man, alone, one comes off a bit more creepy than one comes off if with someone else, especially a female someone else. Because no one needs to know you are paying that someone else to be there. (If they knew that, that might be more creepy than being alone. YMMV.)
Yes, but to me a date is someone you know and want to get to know better. If I find myself at a wedding or reunion with a guy I know and his date, I might reasonably ask a question like “where did you meet”. Now,yes, that is a social faux pas in a business setting. But I would still expect the guy and the date to use the word “we” once in a while, when talking about something they did recently. And if it becomes painfully obvious that the guy and the [del]call girl[/del] “date” don’t know anything about each other, then ,for me, that makes you look unstable—or worse. I’d rather spend time with a guy who has the grace to say that he is single, and not need to apologize for it.
So I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t travel much in the circles where businessmen need escorts.
(now , on the othe hand, the kind of costume party convention described in the post above would be a different story…but I’ve never been to one like that! . I’m talking about a standard business convention.)
I’ve never heard of this either. Pretty much all “escorts” I’ve ever heard of are essentially prostitutes. How far they go is largely based on what you are willing to pay for all the way from non-sex arm candy for events to whatever sexual services you negotiate. If you pay enough I imagine you can get some pretty well educated and able conversationalists.
If you’re going to go to a nerd convention with a hired escort, at least pay her a little extra to dress up as Princess Leia, or something. I’m sure that that could be negotiable with most of them.
