Sorry I don't know how to link to another thread.  That thread has a link to the full article, for those who want to read it.  The article was written by TER's former Love Goddess, using posts to the Erotic Highway discussion board on TER for data.

My reaction to reading the full article:

Emotional labor and “bounded authenticity”

Milrod’s paper is an important contribution.   From a clinical, patient-treating standpoint, the most important point is that male clients of sex workers can be benefited by therapists who help them to have a realistic understanding of the emotional  labor that is done by many sex workers who provide the “girlfriend experience”, and to distinguish this emotional  labor from true romantic feelings.

It is worth noting that sex workers are far from the only workers who do emotional  labor.  Therapists, for example, are trained to provide a warm, accepting environment for their clients, because this helps greatly in forming the therapeutic alliance.   This is certainly also a form of emotional labor.  And many types of sales jobs can sometimes involve, at least to a minor extent, some form of emotional labor.

Milrod uses the term “bounded authenticity” well, and correctly credits Elizabeth Bernstein with coining the term in her excellent book “Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex” (2007).  Although feelings expressed by sex workers can of course be entirely feigned, or counterfeit, in the “bounded authenticity” model, the feelings are genuine, and grow out of the emotional  labor done by the sex worker.  





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