Escort Diaries: What’s so exciting about paying for sex? What actually happens during a session? What’s the difference between a prostitute and escort and an “arrangement”? We got to find out by speaking with a professional escort in India.
How did you become an escort? Where did it all start?
When I was in college, I was always fascinated by the girls who seduced their boyfriends and made them pay for things. I loved movies on strippers, courtesans and dance bars. I even personally knew a couple of girls who slept with men to get shopping money and go on exotic holidays. The stories were always full of intimacy trials, strong emotions, passion, excitement and glamour. I aspired to that kind of lifestyle.
One day I was approached by a family acquaintance in his 50s. I knew he had a small pest control business and that he was married with kids roughly my age. I kind of knew he looked at me in a sexual way too. That day I was wearing a short dress and he immediately threw the bait, commenting on how a dress worn in a particular movie would look good on me. I flirted back and hinted that I would be happy to receive it from him. I already knew from the stories I had heard that I had to welcome any form of attention, accept with gratitude any offers and praise his generousness generously.
I started getting gifts, going on paid holidays and enjoying all the perks of escort life. I had just started working and my salary was hardly paying my bills. After a couple of years in my job, I realized that no increment and career path would make me live the life I was living with my paid sex stints. I also realized that engaging with men sexually and be pleasant around them was not a big deal for me. I enjoyed their company, their attention and I felt special. They made me feel as if I was their treasured secret. I was more exciting and fun than their wives and that’s why they would run to me as soon as they had free time from their duties. They valued me, my time, my presence.
What drives your clients to use your services?
I have had a good amount of experiences by now and for me all the occasions have been very strange encounters with lonely, fragile and emotionally immature men. Many pay for sex when they don’t want to associate any feelings to the physical act. They pay for emotional distance and the distance gives them relief from the burden of daily responsibilities. They want to stay away from the emotional complications of an intimate relationship and feel in control of the entire experience. Others pay to feel a stronger emotional high. To feel energized by a forbidden experience. To get the adrenaline rush of a romance, an affair that they have some control over – because it is paid.
When men pay, or when anyone pays, it’s about shopping for power. The excitement over paid sex is about power. The more men feel powerless, the more men will pay for sex. Powerless in the face of responsibilities, their relationships at home, their occupations, their businesses, their sex lives. It’s not just an older man phenomenon.
Younger men today feel even more powerless than the previous generation. Women empowerment has had a huge impact on how insecure men feel. Sometimes I go on date with people my age and they are so wary of what they say and do. They are afraid of expressing their sexual desires towards a woman because they have been attacked and judged multiple times.
What are some of the challenges you and your clients face?
In India, like in many other parts of the world, there is stigma and guilt people carry when they visit sex workers of any kind. Paying for sex is still associated with failure, weakness, perversion. For younger men it can become a vicious circle because dating is becoming scarier, women have become scarier. Engaging with sex workers is much easier than dating and it gives men a sense of power a non-paid relationship will not.
Not all men are willing, or admit, to go to prostitutes. The guilt disperses when they feel they are dealing with a real ‘girlfriend’, even if it is only for one night. ‘Arrangements’ work very well for this type of requirement, but they cost much more because there is more effort involved, both physical and psychological. From a service provider’s view, you have to chat pre and post the meeting and you have to really understand the client inside out. All this to make sure they come back and are happy with the experience. It is similar to dating someone you really want to impress.
For those who have accepted, or get turned on by, their ‘dirty’ selves, the challenges revolve around safety. Prostitutes and escorts make the experience quick and straightforward, but it is difficult for clients to find someone they can trust. Men are always wary of intermediaries looming in the background, blackmailing, etc. In this role for us service providers it is just about sex by the hour. Sessions and conversations are short, and one can charge more only if you are very attractive, or if there is a specific and out of the ordinary sexual preference – the usual BDSM stuff, etc.
Where do you see the industry heading?
I want to be positive and believe that sex work will be made legal at some point. It is a service like any other and it contributes to society by defining how we relate to one another. People underestimate the educational value of sex work. Imagine a world where sex workers would be hired by schools to teach sex ed. We have more hands-on experience than any sex education teacher, we have worked with all different body types and sexual preferences, we understand how consent, pleasure and safety are important when building intimate relationships. We can share our experiences and contribute towards better sex lives between couples. We already do but it would be really great to feel acknowledged instead of being shamed and judged over it.
Escort Diaries put forth the unheard stories of people offering the “known yet not talked about” services. To read more such unheard stories click here
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