About a week ago, this exchange came up in the 'How to treat a sex worker thread'...
LynetteMarie said: " [...] Additionally, it's a nice reminder for patrons to respect the boundaries of a sex worker. I have had to terminate too many relationships with patrons because they got lost in the fantasy."
DuplicitousLust asked: "Dear Lynette: I was just wondering how have you come to master the art of psychological compartmentalization? What are the keys to having a successful disconnection but still being able to do business in a profession that would have still some emotional connection? What are the keys to this, and what do you do to protect yourself psychologically while still having the ability to be an effective provider. Also with respect to your last client that you alluded to, how do you know exactly when to terminate a professional relationship when the lines are blurred? What are the tell tale signs that you look for in a clients behavior and does a person seeing you more frequently than you expect raise a red flag with respect to him gravitating towards this behavior?"
LynetteMarie answered: "There's so much to discuss in answering your questions and I feel as though I'm hijacking the original purpose of this thread. I can share privately if you email me (I cannot accept private messages here) or perhaps you can start a new thread of your own asking these questions to the ladies? "
I too am curious about what providers might have to say. And since I never saw a new thread, I'm starting it.
The clients here can also chime in. Obviously we also must master psychological compartmentalization. Here is my story about a failure to do that:
Once, a provider and I became friends, and everything was nifty until one night she had a fight with her boyfriend and wanted to do some serious drinking. I happened to be available and am always up for a free drink (she was buying), so I volunteered to be her drinking buddy (later we also met up with a flamboyantly gay guy friend of hers). We were out in public and monitored by friends who ensured that we got home safely (and separately). And we didn't have anything sexual going on at that point anyway. It was a really fun night out. Totally crazy. But we got really really drunk. I still don't remember parts of the night, and she said she puked the whole next day. About a day after that I was sending her a text, to see whether she had recovered yet, and was shocked to discover that I had late that night sent her a text saying "I love you". I had absolutely no recollection of sending it. At first I thought maybe she or the gay guy friend had taken my phone that night and sent the message as a joke. I know at some point earlier she had my phone, because another friend -- also a prostitute, incidentally -- called at about 3:30AM and later told me that this other girl answered. It didn't worry me that the first girl had my phone, though, because I had hers. I took it at the start of the night because she made me promise to keep her from calling the ex-boyfriend. But the I love you message was sent after I had gotten home, so it couldn't have been them. I freaked out, because sending 'I love you' was totally inappropriate. And she was a friend anyway and I wanted to keep it that way. So I apologized for sending the message. She said she thought it was cute and to forget about it and said maybe people say what they really mean when they are drunk. I said I didn't mean it, and apologized more, and went on and on about how stupid it was of me to send the message. Obviously I am a moron. Things sort of got weird after that. We began to argue, and eventually she said that we could never talk again without me paying.
-- Modified on 10/8/2010 3:40:05 AM
For me, compartmentalization is practically automatic. Anything outside the norm -- either pleasant or unpleasant -- and I essentially spin-off a duplicate of myself to deal with the experience that I can either absorb or discard later.
I like to make lemonade out of lemons. This unusual capacity is usually seen as a liability due to its origin and the fact it can interfere with bonding; but I turn it into a strength.
This capacity is common in people who have been exposed not just to chronic or acute trauma, but to both, repeatedly and over time. I started to develop it when I was 6-7 and through various things, sometimes deliberately visited additional training upon myself through occupational choices up until I was about 30. Since well before then I have been able to compartmentalize. I did it so much and so often that it is sufficiently automatic that it is something I have to consciously prevent rather than consciously implement.
Over time I have learned to control compartmentalization to a degree in order to prevent it in some cases and allow bonding that would be appropriate for SOs, offspring and so forth. But earlier in life, up until I was about 35 or so, I was largely incapable of forming romantic bonds of any substance.
Even today it is there to such a degree that bonding cannot occur without my conscious decision to disallow compartmentalization and thereby allow the bonding. So, in essence, it isn't an issue.
My capacity to compartmentalize is so thorough I can literally fool lie detector tests. But it isn't something I can teach. It is an ability that must be acquired through a form of forging to which I wouldn't subject others.
It DOES make me one tough bastard. That's a plus.
I've always _had_ to "be cool". As a kid I had some injuries. As a consequence I had seizures whenever I'd get emotional. While I have a vivid inner emotional life, I got to be very skilled at keeping the lid on. So if you know Star Trek, the alias is a pretty good self description. There is a vivid inner core (McCoy), clamped down rather fiercely by a controlling function (Spock). Mediation between the two (Kirk) is not very skillful.
The problem with having practiced so much control for so long is that folks want something warmer and cuddlier. Otherwise relations do not work smoothly. So I have had to adjust a bit to give a bit of a show. “Spock” finds that he needs to let “McCoy” out in order to get along in the world. But it is clumsy and things often go wrong. With few exceptions I have found it exhausting to be around other people much. I have a strong need for companionship and an equally strong need to be left alone when that is necessary. I’ve been married several times. The wives all thought that in time I wouldn’t need to be alone. (Maybe once a month I would feel so overexposed to people through work I’d need to hole up in my office at home for a weekend.) When the day I no longer needed my solitude never arrived, they got tired of waiting for it. They moved on and all OK.
So “Spock” lets a little “McCoy” out of the bag from time to time. It can be charming enough to be effective but with some clumsy moments. My act passes well enough at work although I have a reputation for making over the top remarks. My lack of mastery is inherent in the clumsiness of having such a rigid structure of controls. There is a constant push-pull tug of war that has accidents.
In the hobby this has created some difficulties. I’ve had some drama with 2 providers. One almost certainly mistook the vivid emotional part of me as a weakness that would allow her to play me for a sap and pick my bones. It didn’t get far at all. The control function is too strong, Spock is too vigilant.
In the other case it was more serious and may have been a misunderstanding. I think initially she understood that I may be “over the top” in performance but always have things under control. So permission to be more expressive was granted. Maybe she forgot that and got spooked, needlessly? Maybe she decided that I was too difficult for her to handle? I think she liked me a bit as a client, perhaps, but no more than that. I doubt that I hurt her feelings as some have suggested. I don’t think she was repelled by my need for solitude. I do hate leaving a mess behind and prefer to clear up misunderstandings. But we don’t always get what we want do we? Incompatible communication styles always make a hash of things.
So I’ve modulated my act as a hobbyist a bit. I’ve fine tuned the controls. I don’t want to needlessly alarm a compensated friend. I am more self critical of my “intuition” that she will understand that I can be simultaneously over the top and yet completely under control. But I still feel awkward and clumsy. I'm constantly looking over my shoulder trying to avoid past mistakes. It's unpleasant.