Prostitution hurts women. It doesn’t matter whether the trade in commercial rape is legal or not – reducing women to the role of fuckable object corrodes their body, mind, and soul.
But it can’t be all that bad for everyone, right? Let’s see what Rae Story, one of the ‘lucky’ high class escorts has to say on her experiences.
“Towards the end of my work as an “escort” I was thoroughly exhausted. The brothel work had been brutal on my body, but the “independent escort” work had exhausted my spirit. Whereas once I just ran the gamut of garden-variety sexual activities with, at best, a distant smile and a “good day to you,” I now had been obsessing over my appearance, my apartment, my advertising, and my “image” as well. I’d been made to adopt the most insidious of all contracts: The Girlfriend Experience — winsome, involved, overly nurturing, and available. Intelligent enough to understand but never enough to contradict. Lying to “clients” about my background, my views, and my habits in order to demonstrate a pleasing personhood for the paying male ego.
Friends had also left brothels in droves and began to navigate this landscape of pretense for themselves. According to “clients,” we didn’t drink heavily, smoke, do drugs, swear, speak coarsely (other than at appropriate sexual moments) argue, have opinions, or refuse to gratify. In truth, most of the women I knew had problems with drink, drugs, eating disorders, mental health problems, and anger issues. We may not have been routinely beaten by punters or raped (although it does happen), but our self-esteem and self-assurance was as paper thin as our digital platforms.We pretended to be happy, empowered, sexy, and comfortable in our roles as sponges for immediate male satisfaction while pushing our maladies and distresses down the sides of the sofa… just like those women detailed by Betty Friedan: isolated housewives, secretly quaffing vodka and pills to deal with their controlled misery. In each of our separate apartments, the “high class escorts” I knew were indeed like those housewives, only now it was more than one “husband” we served to keep a roof over our heads.”
— Rae Story
It would seem that centring your existence around pleasing of others (men) – the traditional and expected role for females – is a shit job no matter how you package it.
[Source]
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
6 comments
April 23, 2016 at 5:53 am
roughseasinthemed
I read a blog from time to time by an escort. She pretty much exhibits all this behaviour. The myth that this is a great career because she earns thousands of bucks, obsessing over appearance, will the advertising work? lying to clients, hating some of the sex, endless faking, yet all is well in her life. Apart from not beng able to have a non-work related relationship with men. And the amount of coke consumed … oh, and also going into porn too.
But it’s ok because it’s her choice.
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April 23, 2016 at 8:30 am
The Arbourist
@RSitM
Ouch. It’s hard to give (neo)liberal feminism much credit these days considering what it endorses, both overtly and tacitly. Not recognizing the larger game at hand can really obfuscate the important feminists issues at stake. :/
And if money could actually purchase lasting happiness all would be well. Having to turn of your insides off to work pretty much kills you from the inside out – if we subscribe to the attachment theory of addiction – cue the addictive use of drugs to provide the necessary comfort and support.
It is a vicious cycle.
Well that doesn’t bode particularly well now does it?
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April 23, 2016 at 8:43 am
roughseasinthemed
Isn’t this the heart of the sex pos thing though?
‘It’s her choice, she’s making good money, she enjoys her job (? Really?)’
No. In this case, I think I recall she was originally skint and was desperate to work. Well, holy shit. There’s an original story. Women STILL have no economic power/independence – did I add there was a child? – so what do they end up doing? And that is ‘choice’?
She fucks for money whether on-screen or off-screen. Boils down to the same, although I think she was anooyed she could have earned more money ‘escorting’.
*Insert appropriate radfem rant.*
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April 23, 2016 at 11:46 am
Sha'Tara
quote: It would seem that centring your existence around pleasing of others (men) – the traditional and expected role for females – is shit job no matter how you package it. [unquote]
There are lots of shit jobs that force people to shut down inside – this one happens to be one of the lowest grades. Some people would say it’s a choice, that’s like saying being poor instead of rich is a choice. It’s slavery, replacing the chains with economic bondage. Remove the economic straits and give a real choice. Then there will be women who will choose to be “providers” because they like it; they want to do it. But always make it possible for that woman to move out of her chosen role when she needs to. It was thus in the days of temple priestesses, and it could be again, but not under the current twisted sexual mores that have joined hands with all the other types of corruptions that pass as modern civilization.
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April 23, 2016 at 12:10 pm
The Arbourist
@Sha’Tara
It would seem that we may find common ground on the issue being not necessarily the choices that women make, but the societal superstructure that limits them to a particular set of less than ideal roles.
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April 23, 2016 at 12:37 pm
Sha'Tara
Certainly. We should not confuse men’s need for sex with society’s oppression of women. Men will always want sex, and they will find ways to get it. In a free society where women can make free choices, you would not have victims of sex slave trade (or much fewer) and you would eventually strike a balance between need and provision. Sex is no different than food. But as society does not allow hungry people to just walk into a store, restaurant or private home to help themselves to the food, so something has to happen so men can get their sexual appetites sated without raping or enslaving women into disempowering and inhumane conditions. According to what I’ve read, “non” civilized tribal societies didn’t have the kind of misogyny problems modern society is saddled with. There was no stigma on sexual intercourse, one way or the other. I think that if men knew they could have sex any time they need it, anywhere, that their “hunger” for sex would drop significantly. Of course society’s sexualization of woman in commercial, advertising and entertainment has to go – completely. This is a truly deep and disturbing topic to me.
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