Should a provider be subject to the same client-relation ethics that an attorney or a physician is subject to?  Meaning no personal relationships unless the business relationship is dissolved first, etc.  I've read of some situations on these boards where if a lawyer or doctor were to do the same thing, they could be disbarred or their medical license could be revoked.  Any doctors or lawyers out there care to respond?

-- Modified on 5/4/2009 3:01:05 PM

-- Modified on 5/4/2009 3:04:19 PM

they should not treat or represent a provider they see?

I'm neither a doctor nor a lawyer, but I don't see how any harm can come of it.

I was under the impression that a doctor is not to be intimately involved with a present, nor a past patient. I'm not certain if they can lose their license in the latter case.

For doctors, when you renew your state license, you will be asked whether you have had a felony, misdemeanor, etc...

You will have a chance for an explanation. Your licensed can be suspended however it will depend on the case. However, your license will not be  suspended on a DUI. Other offenses possible.

No, I am not saying providers shouldn't see doctors or attorneys.

I am pondering whether providers should handle their clients as doctors and attorneys handle theirs... no personal relationships with a client until the business relationship is resolved.  And by personal, I mean romantic, dating relationships.

Right... I don't think they can either.

i think we should talk ethics first before we talk about what the laws should be. then the laws might not be so hypocritical and bizarre.

there are many laws that i consider unethical. laws against paying for sex are among them. there are others. but then my idea of ethics is summarized as eliminate grief for self or others... i guess that is a pretty bizarre ethical POV though.

No, this is not a joke.  And since prostitution is not legal, it seems that law and ethics is something that should be paramount in the discussion of the hobbyist-provider relationship.  I'm not sure you understood what I was asking.  And interestingly, it doesn't seem that any doctors or lawyers answered my question.

Sounds like we're on the same page... for the most part.

whores lie.

There is no way to do that especially if is a GFE provider, how can she be suspended if at that very moment that's what is about?. I got involved once with a client for a while and it also happened with some others who were very serious about proposing me a relationship, as u know in this business we go really intimate from the beginning it's different story with doctors and lawyers
Kisses
Kianna

Until prostitution is legally regulated, you CAN'T have agreements between providers and hobbyists that are based on the exchange of money for sex, and enforceable in court. You can dream all you want, but there isn't a court in this country (with the exception for certain counties in Nevada, maybe) or any kind of jurisprudence that's going to legislate relations between providers and hobbyists, other than penalize them for breaking the law by engaging in paid sex. As for ethics, unless they are supported by laws on the books, they become voluntary standards accepted by legal associations. What association do you see among providers?

This whole argument is pointless. We're not talking state/federally regulated professions - we're talking illegal acts in the eyes of the law. There ARE no rules or ethics, other than the ones you make up in your own head. Whether or not the provider will go for it is a different story. This concept is so far away from state regulated professions, malpractice insurance, confidentiality, dual relationships, fiduciary breaches of contracts, etc., that it makes no sense to make any comparisons. But hey, ask on the Legal Corner, maybe the lawyers over there will have a much more comprehensive response.

but just not the particular one to which you refer.  Hobbyists come here to determine that the provider that they may want to see doesn't rip them off; upsell them; is not LE; is actually the provider in the pics on her ad; and performs the services that she advertises.  Are the providers "subject" to these standards?  Well, only to the extent that their business suffers from TER members if she isn't legit.

As to the relationship issue, we are talking apples and pork chops here.  Even though a lawyer may fuck you over, and a Doctor or therapist may fuck up your body or mind, the transaction itself is not about fucking, which IS the most intimate of services.  

For the sake of argument, let's say that in a possible future that Providers are licensed by a government sanctioned organization with ethical standards reduced to enforceable rules (which is what would be needed for them to be "subject" to an ethical standard).  How could not having a relationship with a client be one of those rules?  The ultimate goal for a number of these transactions is to have the client "forget it was a service."  If the fulfillment of that goal leads to a relationship because emotion takes over due to an act that is emotional by nature, the provider loses her license for being good at what she does.  This threat of losing the license would put a chilling affect on the transaction itself because the provider would not want to even cross the line.  It would lead to a hobby of anonymous fuck rooms with no connection between the two participants.  Drop the money in a slot and dip your wick in another.

And which of these relationships that you hear about is real?  How many of the guys who think they are in a relationship are actually with a provider who is damned good at selling the fantasy?  The ultimate defense to a claim that the standard was violated would be "I just had him convinced that he was 'the one' but was really taking him for everything he was worth."  Talk about a bizarro world.  In a sense, a provider like that would be applauded by the licensing organization for keeping within the standards.

Just to be clear, Lawyers and Doctors are held to that standard to keep them from taking a relationship already vulnerable to exploitation to the level of of one rife with exploitation.  The hobby relationship already starts there, and is so intimate and personal to each unique individual that there would be no effective, organized, way to prevent the escalation of it.

Do they fuck for money or love?  Or both?  That's too personal to globalize into an enforceable standard.

I think your question is worthy of consideration.

While in our Great Free Land of Opportunity it is even illegal to engage in the provider-client relationship, there are plenty of countries in the Real World where it is legal and, I assume, regulated to some extent.

Does anyone know if there is any such law in other countries?

I can see what you are getting at, in a theoretical sense.  I can also see DC's point on the problems that arise in trying to implement such a law with respect to this unique profession.

Is there such a thing in the world of licensed massage?  I doubt it.

As a doctor I am not allowed to date patents that i am actively treating or have treated in the last three yrs.  This rule is enforced by your state license board and not the police.  License loss is common in this situation but this situation occurs more commonly then most think.  Its is usually after the break up that license loss occurs.  Doctors often see people at their most vulnerable times and are placing a great deal of trust in our hands to provide for their well being.  This trust can be easily abused by a doctor for his/her own agenda and patients feeling gratitude often mistake this gratitude for something more.  Patients also tend to look to their doctors as authority figures, hence possible manipulation. Flame me if you must but i think the comparison is laughable.  p.s. don't report me to your licensing or ethics board

doc

I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT LEGISLATION!!!  Jesus, is it really that hard to fathom what it is I am referring to.  We obviously self-regulate ourselves.  I'm talking about providers practicing in accordance with self-imposed guidelines... in the way that these boards operate along the guidelines of those constructed by the creators.

Ah ha!  So there it is!  You think that the hobby is about the exploitation of men.  I don't see it that way.  And that's not what I'm getting from some of the men who get on these boards and disparage providers... it seems that they are taking the point of view that they are in the power position.

Look, it is obviously a very personal service that providers provide to hobbyists.  Am I really so wrong to imply that providers should self-regulate themselves -- a sort of secret code of conduct, if you will -- so as to elevate the hobby and retain a higher level of professionalism in regards to their work?

DC you missed most of the point of the question.  But then you're a man, right?  You're coming from a different point of view.

I had no idea such a simple question would be so grossly misunderstood and attacked.  Wow!

Hey K...  I'm not talking about suspensions or reprimands or review boards (although, this site actually serves as one, I suppose)...

I'm talking about a secret, informal code of honor - if you will - for those who choose to be providers.  From what I gather, one used to exist but we seem to have gotten far from it in today's day and age.

And some of the code was SIMILAR to those that doctors and lawyers are formally and legally held to.

Like, not dating your client.

And please know that I am not judging anyone... I have had to deal with the same predicament so I understand.  It just goes to show that there should probably be some sort of informal code of ethics or honor that providers could use as a guideline.

" Doctors often see people at their most vulnerable times and are placing a great deal of trust in our hands to provide for their well being.  This trust can be easily abused by a doctor for his/her own agenda and patients feeling gratitude often mistake this gratitude for something more."

This was from HDDOC but applies also to lawyers.

Also a lawyer with a sexual relationship with his client has a conflict of interest.  He may have the power to delay resolution of the legal problem and could do so to keep the sexual relationship going.  Or he may manipulate the system (or the client) in other ways to promote his own interests, sexual or otherwise, above the client's.  That's why it's a no no for lawyers.

Once the legal problems are resolved and the client is no longer a client, the potential for abuse is removed and therefore the prohibition does not apply.

Let's break it down, shall we...

Your first sentence is one of the points I am making... but I'm not saying there should be a licensing board or LE to regulate this... it would be the provider's CHOICE to regulate themselves, obviously.  A provider can do exactly as she pleases, but her choice in certain matters may lead to a messy  or uncomfortable situation and thus may reflect on the professionalism of other providers.

"Doctors often see people at their most vulnerable times..."  Are you saying providers don't?  And even if they don't, they may cause a hobbyist to feel vulnerable if feelings start to develop due to the very personal nature of the service being provided.

I'm not talking about reporting providers to some state authority... I'm talking about some sort of code of honor to cut down on unnecessary drama.

Actually, it's not about making it up as we go.  It's about getting back to our roots.  These used to exist back in the day for providers.  And there doesn't need to be an agreement between the hobbyist and provider... just a sort of code of conduct that gives the provider a guideline on how to conduct her business relationship with a client so things don't get out of hand.  I've been reading about some unfortunate situations on these boards and thought something like this might be needed.

-- Modified on 5/5/2009 4:08:53 PM

Certified massage therapist are licensed by a state professional licensing board and over the past couple years are now licensed nationally as well.  They do have a board of ethics that they pledge to work under in the professional world not unlike doctors because they are considered healing practitioners.  They are not allowed to date their patients when seeing them as such or for a period after, I believe it is 1 yr.   CMT are health care workers and held to the same higher standards doctors or nurses would be.  On a side note if you provide and are a CMT as well(and advertise it) and use you massage skills for any thing remotely erotic if found out your massage license will be taken and not returned.  A Certified massage therapist by name is some one capable and allowed to follow a doctors script for massage and get reimbursed for doing that work.  Perhaps its just me, Dr. Joe, and a couple of other docs on this forum but CMT are healthcare workers that not unlike us as doctors have taken an oath, they have no business providing.  That's not to say they don't have my blessing if that's what they decide to do, just drop the CMT first and call it what it is erotic massage.

That's okay... I'm not judging you.  But thanks for understanding.

-- Modified on 5/5/2009 4:31:36 PM

Exactly.  But since the service provided by providers is of a particularly intimate nature, shouldn't it be that civie dating should probably be avoided if there is still a business relationship going on.  Isn't that a conflict of interest?

I know some people are getting all up in arms over this, but I'm just asking a question.  Personally, I've had this situation come up before and I did not handle it in the best way.  In retrospect, I think I should have kept things professional -- it's hard when you're attracted to someone, but I'd like to think I could be 100% genuine and emotionally present without crossing the line now.

many patients.  There is nothing against this.  Sexual relations are very different.  This was a bit stressful for me since I had one then many professional ladies as patients who became friends of mine.  During my divorce, I became quite close with a number of them many of whom offered to comfort me physically.  I always refused.  One particularly close friend employed a number of young women and offered to have one of them take care of me without charge.  Again I refused.  But I have become very close to a number of patients personally.  It is difficult when one of them dies or becomes very ill, but there it is and there is nothing wrong with that.  I have been made uncomfortable on occasion when "patient/friends" gave me sports tickets or other gifts and then pressed me for certain medications that were not appropriate.  We are all very sensitive to this and careful not to get sucked in.  

the exploitation of men. You, however, framed the issue around the provider - CLIENT relationship.  Therefore, under your issue as presented, the client is the one that you seek to protect (the purpose of the Professional Rules of Ethics).  In a hobby transaction, the client is the man.

You said:

"Should a provider be SUBJECT to the same client-relation ethics that an attorney or a physician is subject to?" (emphasis added)

"Subject to" means that there is an inherent punishment for violation.  You further referred to this with your statement:

"....they could be disbarred or their medical license could be revoked."  Thereby tying the issue to a cause/effect punishment.

You did NOT say anything about SELF regulating, or I would have responded that any true professional provider should, of course, regulate herself to prevent the client relationship from crossing a line.  However, when you talk about self regulation, there is no "subject to" or accountability like losing a license, since there is no governing body to adjudicate violations of an ethical duty.

I am one of those lawyers that you invited to respond.  I am subject to rules preventing me from having a sexual relationship with a client during representation for all of the reasons Rudy50 described.  However, trying to apply my situation to that of a provider/client relationship is, as I said, talking apples and pork chops.  There is no way to effectively compare the two in this context as the subject matter of the transaction is so vastly different.

My point of view in this issue is not strictly as a man, but as a client, which is the frame that you chose for the query.  If you want to extend the type of rule that you envision to the Provider/Client relationship, then the client's exploitation is what you are naturally trying to prevent.  I find it hard to understand why you don't see that, and instead try to turn it into a man / woman Mars / Venus thing.

Finally, I don't see any attacks in this thread.  I do see disagreement, but you should expect that by the way you presented the issue.  

As far as being misunderstood, it has more to do with the fact that, judging from your subsequent posts, you did NOT write what you were actually thinking, but something else entirely.

Good luck.

The Erotic Highway board (over on the left side of your radio dial) might be a better place to post this question.  If you could take the time to frame it in terms of the sociological or psychological implications, I think the Love Goddess and some of the other thinkers over there would be glad to share their views.

TEH attracts slightly more thoughtful posters.  Those of us over here are more the Unwashed Masses

Maybe it was the language I was using that caused the disconnect.  But I chose the word ethics because that is the word that is used in relation to doctors and attorneys.

Also, there are several people on this board who understood what I was saying and thought the question was valid.

-- Modified on 5/9/2009 1:02:21 PM

Thanks for the heads up as even the moderator is acting like he doesn't know what I was getting at.

Thank you Dr. Joe for your insightful post.  These sort of  situations happen on both sides of the fence and I don't see why there is resistance to discuss such things for the sake of clarity.

I am new to these boards and have read about some unfortunate situations that I would like to avoid.  And, though others swear they don't see it, I see similarities between doctors, attorneys and providers.  It is also my opinion that if providers took some cues from doctors and attorneys on how they conduct their business, it would cut down on some of the drama I've been reading about on these boards.

This post is in response to DC's remarks on my earlier post "Calling All Doctors and Lawyers at TER"... which apparently ruffled a few feathers...

So, DC...

In your first message titled, "In a way, sites like these..."...

The first paragraph I agree with, so kudos to TER.

The second paragraph is where things start to go wrong.  You seem to be hung up on the sex, which I suppose, is your prerogative.  Yes, "a lawyer may fuck you over, and a Doctor... may fuck up your body or mind, the transaction itself is not about fucking..." as you so eloquently put it.  Umm, and your point is?  Because all you did was state the obvious in an unflattering way.

And yes, "fucking IS the most intimate of services."  But don't you think that is why providers should take extra care (and not the kind you might be thinking of) with the way they handle their business relationship with a client?  Because after all, no matter how good she is and how well she makes him "forget it was a service" it is a business relationship and providers should be careful not to cross certain lines, right?  That was my point.  Not how to go about legalizing the hobby so that it could be government regulated and ethics could formally be applied.  I simply used the word "ethics" because that is the word used for doctors and attorneys.

Third paragraph.  Now that you know why I used the word "ethics" now I can go on to explain that it was NEVER my intention to bring the legalization of the hobby into the discussion, or governing boards to enforce ethics or any of that into the conversation... though since the hobby is legal in other countries, maybe we could look to them for clues as to what the ethical guidelines for providers in such places as Amsterdam (or Germany or Australia, possibly since I heard the hobby is legal in those places too) are.  What I was asking is not so far out of the realm of possibility -- that's my point.

Also, I was not saying that the hobbyist-provider relationship is not a relationship.  I was suggesting that the relationship should probably not go beyond certain boundaries until the business relationship stopped.  You did not address this.  Maybe it's something that people don't really want to hear, though.

Oh... and suggesting that providers follow certain guidelines would "lead to a hobby of anonymous fuck rooms with no connection" blah, blah, blah is laughable.  I suppose it would if you see the hobby from a very narrow point of view.  In my opinion, it could elevate it... but that all depends on the provider, now doesn't it?

The fourth paragraph is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned.  It's that same argument that men use when they want it both ways:  I'm in control, but she takes advantage of me.  A guy who is paying a provider for companionship and then wants to say he's in a relationship?  Uh yes, a business relationship... and if he doesn't understand that, then he's the problem.  Many men on these boards know the difference, to those who may not -- this whole "ethics" or provider code of honor idea may be just the thing for them.  Hmmm, sounds like more of what some people may not want to hear...

Fifth paragraph:  "Lawyers and Doctors are held to that standard to keep them from taking a relationship already vulnerable to exploitation to the level of one rife with exploitation.  The hobby relationship already starts there..."  Well, isn't that my point?  Of course, your point of view seems to take the side of the hobbyist... mine takes the view of both sides, because it is possible for a hobbyist to take advantage of a provider, too.  So, maybe providers could be proactive and operate according to a few informal guidelines to protect not only themselves, but their client as well.  What's so wrong with that?

There are other things I did not agree with DC on, but those responded to here are the gist of it.  I still hold the view that there are some similarities between situations involving ethics that doctors, lawyers and providers share.  And just because a provider and hobbyist may be sexually and even somewhat emotionally involved with each other, does not mean that anything goes and there shouldn't be some restraint taken in certain situations to protect both sides.