You’ve compared being a sex worker to a psychologist. What have you
learned about the human psyche from your clients? As a gay escort,
learning how many people believe that “fitting in” is more important
than personal happiness is the biggest eye opener. Many of my clients
have a lot of repressed feelings and desires—and not only older clients.
I’m still amazed how many young 18–25-year-old clients still feel they
“have to” get married and yet don’t want to. It’s also quite evident how
nationality and race affects those beliefs. Then there’s a lot of clients
who bring up early sexual experiences they need to relive and express
feelings they’ve never talked about with anyone.
Do you feel you’ve helped any of these people in some deeper way? With
a client in New York I met weekly over a few months, the effect the experience had on him—he was questioning everything, and he told me
on our last meeting how his life had changed because of our time. He
was happier. Family life, business, everything got better. He said he felt
like he dealt with things that were beneath the surface. I’ve had lots of
experiences like that, and those are the best in my opinion.
You’re campaigning to promote the legitimacy of sex work in the hopes
it will lessen its stigma. What change do you want to see? It’s about creating a safer environment. If no one talks about sex work publicly, it
could continue to go deeper underground, which will only make it
more dangerous for people forced into sex work against their will. It’s
about recognizing that some of us are business people yet others aren’t
in it by choice—and they shouldn’t be ignored.
Which brings us to the charity you work with: The National Ugly Mugs
scheme. What to they do?
The NUM is very important and unique. It lets escorts make reports
direct to the project to be logged in their database so other escorts
can be alerted to any dodgy dudes. Escorts can check the database
and get alerts via emails, text, or the app. NUM helps escorts report
crimes to the police anonymously. That’s vital because most escorts
won’t report crimes, expecting the police to not be interested or do
anything—or maybe even arrest them. That’s because not everyone
knows where they legally stand. The charity works closely with all
police forces around the country on behalf of street sex workers and
escorts. Everyone in the business would be smart to sign up.
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