On another thread someone has pointed out that I really dont know personally anyone who is or ever has been a prostitute. Then closest I’ve been is knowing 2 strippers by a friend of a friend thing and then only meeting them. On another board a woman was a phone sex operator and she talked about what that was like.
So I’m going to ask you all, have you ever known anyone, male or female, who is/was a prostitute?
If so, how did you know them?
Why were they doing it?
Did they seem “proud” of doing it?
Did you know or sense any drug, mental, or abuse issues causing them to do it or were they honestly doing it because they liked it?
We were actually friends from well before I learned that she was working as a “call girl”, a high-class prostitute. We were very good friends and one day she confided in me.
To pay her expenses while she followed college courses.
Neither particularly proud nor particularly ashamed. It was an option to pay for her expenses, she took it, and she ceased “working the trade” after she got her master degree under her belt.
No drugs whatsoever (not even pot, and we lived -well, still live- in the Netherlands ), no abuse that I know of, definitely no mental issues (and she was very smart, to boot!), and I don’t know whether she enjoyed it thoroughly, but it didn’t look as if she loathed the fact that she was working as a prostitute to pay for her expenses while she studied.
One was a fellow student in college, it was how she supported herself and paid tuition.
One was a psychiatrist, again, he did it to pay for his schooling. I met him at a clinic I used to work at.
They were also at the clinic I used to work at, those folks were drug addicts and drug addiction was a huge factor for them, it was how several of them supported themselves and how they paid for drugs. They were there mostly for drug treatment services.
Pay for college and living expenses
Pay for college and living expenses
Pay for drugs and living expenses
It has always seemed a little strange to me that the two big reasons for engaging in sex for profit seem to be “drugs” and “college tuition”.
I will mention that I did not know any underage whores, kids and teens who have sex for money are not a category I am familiar with on a personal level.
No.
None of them were doing it because they liked it. The ones without the drug issues were doing it as a job to put them through college, just like folks who work at fast-food or retail might except they were making a crapload more a shift. The ones with drug problems were doing it because they needed lots of money for their lifestyle and frequently had no other marketable skills, or were otherwise unemployable.
Judging from some of the overheard conversations in the waiting room between the whores at the clinic I’m not sure “like” entered into it. To them it was a job, it was all about extracting money from the john, and quite a few of the women preferred their own gender for satisfying their personal sexual needs, to them hetero sex was being at work.
My cousin Michael, before he became my cousin Michelle, was in the entertainment industry in NYC. Now she’s retired to Florida and says she misses Times Square before it went all fucking Disney." We never really talk about her work (or mine) when we visit.
Yes, a couple ladies. Know some gay guys who probably dabble as rent boys too, if I extrapolate from their convos, but that is my interpretation, so I’ll just discuss the ladies.
Met them at a nightclub that plays a genre of music we all like
The money, AFAIK.
They didn’t have a problem telling me what they did for a living, no.
Don’t know if they like it any more than I do my job, but there were no issues, they were both healthy, well-adjusted women who didn’t drink any more than the rest of us and didn’t slip out for a spliff with half the group (in fact, them not going led to the “what do you do for a living” convo with me)
On another discussion board a college professor commented that she is seeing more of her students dabbling in this. For example some young men being “gay for pay”. For the young women they were doing webcam videos or being full on escorts. I guess its amazing how much some rich men are willing to pay for college bodies.
I’m sensing this also when I’ve heard about Party Cove at Lake of the Ozarks where these guys with mega expensive boats have all these hot young bikini clad women lounging and partying on them.
Dated one for a while. I knew about it, and I was fine with it. He wasn’t a drug addict at all. He just liked having sex for money. He definitely wasn’t proud of it and didn’t go around telling everyone. He was honest with me about it, after we had dated for a while he told me he had done it in the past and how I felt about him continuing it while we dated. He had a regular job as well; it was just his fun money. Made about $400 an hour if I remember correctly.
I used to be a professional belly dancer, when you are in the entertainment business you meet lots of entertainers, of all sorts.
Also, my son’s father liked to hang out at ‘the block’, the ones he knew tended to be the streetwalker type.
I knew more ‘escorts’.
The strippers/hookers down the block did it mostly for drug money. They were usually messed up mentally, whether from drugs or mental illness, I don’t know. While I knew a few by name I really didn’t care to get to know them too well. Some of them were very nice but they’d rip you off in a heartbeat if you let them.
The escorts did it to pay for tuition or because the money was quick and easy. Well, they thought it was easy, it’s not something I could/would do.
Several times I was offered a nice amount of money to service a client, my answer was always no.
None of them seemed proud of it, nor ashamed of it. All of them were quiet about it, afraid of getting busted and/or their families finding out what they were doing.
The escorts were mostly intelligent nice women who wanted to make a lot of money quickly. A few were as dumb as rocks and it was probably the only work they could get beyond asking somebody if they want fries with that. Some of the women ran it like a business, very professional, even filing tax returns each year. Their lawyers recommended it, getting busted for prostitution is nothing compared to having the IRS come down on you for not reporting income.
The hookers all seemed messed up to me. Whether they were messed up from the drugs, or being messed up led them to the drugs I don’t know.
Yes, one. She’s a $1000 a night Vegas “escort” with her own website, and 3 homes for entertaining, including the one in Vegas, but not the one she actually calls home, lives in and baby sits her grandchildren in. True shit.
I think they were kind of outliers, meaning not so typical. They were pre-op transsexuals. They were entertainers, primarily, and did lip-sync shows at New York joints like the Anvil and Blues (later Sally’s).
But on the side, they were prostitutes. Either on the street, or working from nightclubs like Edelweiss (or even Sally’s – a lot went on there), and having sex with men for money. Some worked the booths at places like Show World in Times Square.
Some had drug problems. All used drugs, although some manged it better than others. They all seemed, to my mind, to be somewhat delusional about what the future held for them. Mostly they thought they’d become famous performers or models or something. None ever did, and I know that most of them died quite young. Some violently, some of drug overdoses, and some of AIDS.
Sad, really. But some of them were incredible, captivating performers. I still miss one of them in particular – we became pretty good friends.
A colleague of a family member put himself through college working as a male prostitute. He only mentioned it once, didn’t seem either ashamed or interested in discussing it, and he just did it for the money. Now that he’s a full professor, I’m assuming he doesn’t need the money any more.
Just so you have one data point on the other side of the equation, no, not that I know of. One person I know shares her name with a pornstar, and made some jokes about going to adult movie conventions (complete with link to her identically named alter’s ego attendance) that had me very confused, but she’s actually a hairdresser.
I am a social worker for an NPO and we help people get off of AID, such as food stamps.
A lot of my female clients have had arrest records for prostitution. All of them without exception for the last 20 years do it to support their drug habits.
I have also had contact with men doing it. My experience does not match up with what I read on the Internet, but I guess that’s due to my line of work.
I have never seen the “hooker with a golden heart,” or any sex worker ever making any kind of real money or having a decent sort of life. I can say I’ve never had any of them enjoy doing it, be proud of it and universally they all want to leave and never look back at it.
But that is probably just me as the people I meet are coming over to us from a state agency.
That said, I do favor legalization of the sex trade for those over 18.
Yes, many years ago I knew a woman who worked as an escort. She worked for two or three different companies - I remember seeing the pagers lined up on her coffee table. I don’t know why she did it, I’m assuming to pay the bills and support her crack habit. One night I was visiting her and she was smoking crack. She showed me the rock - it was so small I had to lean forward and squint - and said it cost $85. She had two kids who lived with their father. When our lives took different paths she was going to school (adult learning centre) and had met an apparently great guy and had two girls with him. She seemed happy and was doing well. The last I saw of her was a picture in the newspaper of her and her young daughters at the man’s funeral, he was a taxi driver and had been murdered. I wondered what became of her after that.
Several. A couple of them do it because I don’t honestly believe they could support themselves any other way. No other apparent skills plus heavy drinking problems.
One that my husband was talking to was a part time hooker. His statement was “if I’m running short one month, I just go down to this bar and can always make some extra cash”. I wouldn’t say he was proud of it necessarily but just made it sound like picking up any part time work for extra cash.
Not that she’d ever admit to… and only an A-hole would press that point.
She left that a long time ago & is getting married in 2016. She’s smart, Incredibly Nice, Amazingly Thoughtful, has survived the single shittiest “cult religion upbringing” childhood (not my story to tell) that I can honestly say (by the parts that I can personally verify)
that I Know for-sure happened. I Honestly wish her well and if there IS a God, He Knows Why & Does Too.
She’s one of those women who you’d hug, Not because of [Susan Sarandon] “Boner…!” [/Susan Sarandon]… but because she’s So Amazing that they just don’t make them that way anymore.
), no abuse that I know of, definitely no mental issues (and she was very smart, to boot!), and I don’t know whether she enjoyed it thoroughly, but it didn’t look as if she loathed the fact that she was working as a prostitute to pay for her expenses while she studied.