A few months ago, I posted (on the 'Erotic Highway' board) about a provider here in Berlin that seemed to overstep the boundaries when we were together and then acted like a 'normal' jealous girl later when she saw me with someone else.  I asked what I should do to fix the situation.  LG (and others) advised me to stay away.  I wasn't sure I could do it.  LG got more stern, and ended with a warning about impending entanglements: 'Those who lie down with dogs wake up with fleas'.  Great point.  Great line.  But later, I posted an update about how I didn't stay away, and in fact dived in to the dog pit.  And wow.  I am now here to report that I totally have fleas.  The funny thing is, I'm not sure if it's good or bad to have fleas.  It's definitely not easy.  If you want easy, follow LG's advice.  If you want fleas, follow me.  Here are a couple examples...

1) I know an escort who I hang out with a lot (unpaid).  She's cool.  I like her.  The problem is that early on, to be honest, I couldn't figure out whether I liked her better as a provider or as a friend, and eventually decided on friend.  So I sent a lot of mixed signals.  I regret that.  Big mistake.  I have firmly decided on friend and nothing more, but unfortunately she now has a thing for me.  We talk about it explicitly, and resolve it over and over, but it still gets awkward sometimes.  For example, I have been the totally platonic might-as-well-be-gay friend who goes to the mall to help her pick out work clothes, but then slowly realizes she really just wants me to see her in lingerie and get hot for her.  So an otherwise fun day goes downhill.  Or she needs photos for the agency website, or a good review with the agency so she can boost her rates, or advice about what men think in certain situations, but sometimes these end up being just set ups for me to see her naked or some imagined romantic thing.  Awkward.  There have been tears.  I am very clear in my mind that I don't want a romantic relationship, or even a sexual one given the difficulties that cannot be resolved.  I love hanging out with her, but I hate the fact that we met because she is an escort.  Some guys out there reading this might wonder how they can get so lucky to have an expensive escort plead with them to take freebies, and try to trick them into bed.  But it's not so cool.  Nothing is free.  I'm not sure we'll ever get past this situation.  Crazy thing is, she's just visiting Berlin too, and in fact we live in the same city back in the U.S.  So there's potential to actually be long term real honest-to-god friends.  And we've shared stuff we could never share with anyone else, because of our interesting relationship.  And that's been great for both of us.  But unfortunately all the things we could uniquely do because of our special relationship and trust must be avoided.  It's like a hollowed-out friendship.  There's definitely no room for being a customer and friend.  It is a weird way to meet.  It's better to meet friends other ways.  I would never trade the people I know now and my experiences for anything, but if you want my advice, do what LG says: Pay and walk away.  I wish I had.  I'm glad I didn't.  But as I was typing this she just called, and we'll get together later, but there's definitely something weird going on again (probably related to flea situation #3, below).  Wow.  Fleas.

2) I have described Berlin's Oranienburgerstrasse a little bit before, and how it is famous for the streetwalkers in corsets and stuff.  The cafes and bars and clubs and hookers there are a fast-growing tourist venue.  Prostitution here in Germany is legal and regulated like any other business.  In some cases the business aspects have been totally embraced and things are pretty great.  At Artemis, for example, the girls seem happy and both the girls and customers get a good deal.  But in general this is not a normal business, because despite liberal European attitudes it is still not like having an ice cream parlour in the neighborhood, and in some cases it still attracts a lot of desperation and some crime.  It's still definitely a fringe-of-society thing.  In what other business can someone walk by and call a worker names and spit and if the worker argues back or uses mace it is *she* who gets in trouble with the police and other business providers?  In any other normal business the police would protect her and the business owners would band together openly and effectively.  And it's not just the customers, it's pimps and room owners and club owners and security who are all the jackals.   This is sad, and allows the exploitation and crime that feeds the circle of desperation and exclusion.  I think communication and light would make a huge difference, so last fall, I actually got the idea that a prostitute school (more like a 1-2 day business convention/seminar series) would be profitable and useful here.  Help girls find out what the options in the profession are, what it takes to get in, and the skills it takes to succeed.  Plus they can connect up with other girls so there is a support network.  Photographers and agencies and brothels can say what they offer, etc.  The idea is to share information and create a community.  Just like any other business.  And as the profile and professionalism grows, maybe attitudes change.  Anyway, it seemed to me that a reasonable place for this to start would be Oranienburgerstrasse, which is pretty well organized but the girls are still exploited, mainly by the room owners and a (relatively few) pimps and unfortunately each other because the street is pretty competitive.  Key to this was identifying the smartest person there, someone ideal for starting this thing, and getting her on board and helping her as much as I can.  So I did that.  There is someone here who is ideal.  Works the street brilliantly but also as a well-paid escort for days or a week or two at a time, in this city and others.  Not educated (which is why she does this job), but really really clever.  I have had discussions and debates with her about the business and psychology that match stuff I do with grad students and other faculty from some of the best places in the world.  She's on board.  She likes the ideas and the timing for this in her life is good.  I think the seed is planted.  But it hasn't been easy.  

(Continued...)

[Re: getting the woman on board to help with the prostitute school and other business-related things in Berlin]  Trust has been a huge issue.  Here is a guy (me) from out of town poking into prostitute's lives promising to rearrange them for the better, just because he supposedly wants to do something nice?  No girl has no reason to trust you, because why should she?  Right off the bat you're a guy who visits prostitutes.  No matter how sexually liberated we all are, this is just not cool with girls.  And there are hundreds of guys like you.  Some more handsome, some richer, some nicer.  Whatever.  You like everyone else will pay and go away and if you think about her or say anything at all, you will say what great pussy she was or how well she sucked your dick.  No matter how nice you are, your whole relationship is based on the fact that you are willing to buy her, like a plaything, an object.  Whatever you say or whatever your intentions appear to be, you are just playing another game, maybe an unusual game, but she knows it is a game.  She has built a wall that you cannot scale.  The way that walls come down, of course, is by someone giving in completely.  This is not so easy.  You also have no reason to trust her.  She is being paid to be nice to you.  If she is good at her job, you will be convinced she really honestly likes you and is interested in what you have to say.  But it's not real.  You now that.   Is the guy just after freebies?  Is the girl just leading him on to get paid?  So it becomes some sort of cold war spy game, where the tiniest things become meaningful.  The tiniest memory lapses or missteps become significant betrayals.  You can't sit and have a coffee without second-guessing the silences, or the eye flicks, the body posture, or the supposedly spontaneous smiles.  You study each other.  You ponder each other.  So, if you lie down with dogs, part of having fleas is wrestling with trust issues in ways you never ever imagined.  There's no way around it, because the whole business is based on a lie.  Having fleas is having to devote major time to pondering trust.

3) The problem with the girl above is also this: I think we like each other.  We didn't need to.  I didn't mind if she didn't like me as long as she bought into the ideas and was willing to help.  And of course she didn't need to like me because this was a legitimate business plan that could make her a lot of money and help her shift into a different type of career.  We've never had sex.  But yet we've studied each other so closely for so long, and wanted to trust each other so much.  A week and a half ago or so her ex-boyfriend, who she is still torn about, pulled a dumb maneuver and she was upset and wanted to quit for the evening and get drunk.  And so we got drunk.  Really really drunk.  We both loved the night, and had a great time.  Really fun.  No worries about business, or trust, or anything.  The goal was just to get drunk and have fun.  Neither of us can completely remember it all, but I'm sure nothing sexual happened, and we were on the street where she works, so everyone was keeping a close eye on us.  I'm not sure who got me home, but someone did.  A great night out.  But here is the problem: Something switched.  I am suddenly interested more in *her*, and the school and business stuff is twisting into something to help *her*.  And her work on the street has gone downhill.  Sometimes she blushes around me, and she is careful about drinking.   People treat us differently when we're together.  And the crazy thing is, we know this is terrible.  It's a problem.  We are not naive.  So walls have gone back up.  Three days ago she blew off a dinner date.  It was a long-planned thing, and the whole point was that it was not a 'date', but somehow I think it became one for each of us.  And because of that I was 99% sure she was going to blow it off, but I went anyway because I was prepared to stick it though and ignore any problems.  But I found myself aggravated by the fact that she blew it off, because we worked so hard on trust and I figured she could at least tell me or trust that everything was under control.  Then later she said that I can see her but must always pay, and then quoted outrageous rates (several hundred euros/hour) just to talk.  So I dropped the business stuff we had planned and decided to hell with her.  Then she contacted me and told me a lie that she was leaving town and I wouldn't see her again, unless I came that night as a customer, but I suspected it was a lie, and so met her on the street and she totally lied and I called her on it, and out of pure meanness I conspicuously took her friend from across the street into the rooms to get 'everything'.  And I mostly did, just because I could, and then I went home, and that was going to be it.  There was this huge feeling of relief.  Except then I felt bad.  I decided to apologize.  Both to her and her friend.  And I found out her friend had actually handed the money to her as soon as I left, saying it was basically all about her anyway.  And they talked.  And the next morning I apologized.  And we met briefly last night and talked, mostly about the Last Three Days, which we refer to in capital letters like that, and a little about 'us' with an air of hopelessness, because we know that everything is really fucked up.  But in general we had a good talk.  She left early this morning to work a few days in Munich, so we will have a break.  She'll contact me when she gets back.  I know the advice on this one: Let it go.  But I still really want to see this business get started, so I can't.  Now more than ever I hate the street and the way it works.  I want to see it changed, I want the cheating room owners gone.  I want the girls to be immune to the pimps.  I want the girls to take control and get the fair deal they deserve for working really really hard doing a job that people shame them for but obviously exists for a reason.  That's all noble stuff.  My colleagues from work near here have seen that I treat the hookers with respect and defend them and have been up to something with them.  Yes it's been awkward but I don't care.  I am not ashamed of my friends.  I have shown my wife video of the woman I am talking about here in #2 and #3, and talked about the fun I had on our drunk night out.  I talk all the time about the stuff I do with the girl in #1.  I don't talk about the romantic tension, and yea in any case my wife isn't too happy about me hanging out with women she considers manipulative and not worthy of respect.  But my wife also knows I love her.  Heck, lately more than ever, and I'm better about showing it too.  I don't have the fallen-and-cant-get-up syndrome.  Because there is a wall around the emotions.  If you lie with the dogs, you have to build a wall just like the prostitutes do.  But inside that wall I also hate the fact that this girl in #2 and #3 started working on the street when she was 17, and I hate that she is incredibly lonely and no one seems to care and she knows exactly what the slow decline of her life ahead will probably be like.  I hate that I think I can make a difference for her but I don't know if I can.  At least the girl in #1 has an ivy-league education and something more to do than stand on the street.  It's a lark for her.  But it's also because she has low self-esteem.  And now a quiet air of desperation where before she might have been bouncy and adventure-seeking.

Oh, and yea -- the escort from #1, who was going to help with the business, is now incredibly jealous of the girl from #3 and thinks I am doing this business stuff for all the wrong reasons and is no longer helping.  I can't even mention it without her getting upset.  So that has become another aspect of the problem.  

So, long post.  I guess the summary is: Just like LG says, if you lie down with dogs you WILL get fleas.  Be prepared.  And maybe, like me, you'll suddenly find yourself a strange sort of pimp with the keys to the kingdom but hating it.  I will defend prostitution, but I also now detest it.  I want to make it more high-profile and professional and I also want it to go away.  There is no upside to this business.  There are only downsides that are less down.

One word of advice:

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What did you just say?!?

I just wanted to let you know I enjoyed your post. Believe me when I say I find that the women at the Nevada legal brothels are getting exploited as the brothel owners know the ladies have to work there or risk jail time if they want to stay in the business. I wish independent escorting was legal. It would fix a lot of problems in the industry in my opinion. Pimps of all kinds are the number one cause of exploitation in P4P, again, in my opinion. Yes, I include all legal brothels and most agencies as pimps. I really hate those pimps, The school idea for escorts sounds like a good idea, where prostitution is legal as many ladies don't have a clue when they enter this business (just like us gents) and bad thing do happen to the clueless in this hobby.