I for one have NEVER been asked to participate in any survey so I am not sure that counts for much. I agree that you can't really know. However, if you google "providers percentage men' you come up with a variety of sources giving numbers between 20 and up to 60 percent. I can tell that when women bring up this affair, I find many men remain quiet. I think the figures for abused women also comes from lumping the streetwalker group along with the rest.
there are several aspects of this story that make me think that the hobby is about to change over the next few years in a way that has not been seen since the internet came to the industry.
1-Most providers (that I have had the pleasure of seeing) are ethically sound and good people, but I can see the temptation to cash in on 'outing' a high profile client. If I were a politician, I would consider my career choice to be a vow of chastity.
2-The statistics are that most men over the age of 45 have hobbied several times. This means that most judges, politicians, etc., (men) are lying on this issue (just like the rest of us).
3-Spitzer was disliked by many--yet he was brought down by a bullet that may come around and bite the rest of us on the ass. Beware to those of us on this very board that call him a hypocrite that deserved what he got. There are some who may feel the same about you.
4-High and midrate escorts have been considered 'safer' than the lower end part of the trade. Will this remain the case?
5-So it turns out Spitzer's call girl was 'abused' as a child. We are told this is often the case with call-girls. Is it? I gave up AMPs for this reason.
I do not know about the rest of you, but while I have no intention of giving up the hobby, it does seem time to rethink it. In particular, I think renewed efforts to decriminalize prostitution should be the result of this story and NOT a crack down on 'trafficking'. While TER has a politics board, maybe we can bring this debate on the General Board to get the conversation going.
I have talked about this issue with a few providers who PREFER (to my surprise) that their profession remain on the edge of legality (more lucrative under these conditions) but I do not know if this is a majority view.
Any takers?
5 - It turns out Spitzer's call girl was abused.....
This is one facet of this story that just cranks my noodle. It really does. I am looking forward to the time when this woman's mother and other family members are interviewed to hear their side of the story. For now, all we have is hers. It seems rather convenient to me though, that of the thousands of women who haven't been abused, who didn't have rotten childhoods, the one woman who got caught just happens to be one of the few who did.
It may very well be true that she had a rotten childhood that included emotional neglect, abuse etc. It may also be true that this is a justification she has fallen back on to put a better face on her career choice. The media is happy to flay a woman alive for being greedy and being a homewrecker, but if they can turn her into a poor disadvantaged young woman who was just doing what she had to do to survive, that sounds a whole lot better. As far as most people are concerned, a prostitute should be degraded and looked down on by society, and must surely have no self worth and be ashamed of herself as well. BUT if the same woman had a rotten childhood, then instead of condemning her, its ok to have a pity party for her instead and feel bad and terrible for the life she got stuck with due to her rotten childhood.
Now, I have little doubt that among the street walking population, stories of genuine abuse, not to mention drugs, coersion and all the other dark aspects of this business are common. I have little doubt that most of these women hate the life they have, and would be grateful for the chance to get out of it. Among the mid to high range escorts though, I don't believe this to be true. I don't think that a history of abuse, drug addiction, or poverty are the major motivating factors that cause women to choose this occupation.
It will be a beautiful day when society stops asking the question "why" when it comes to escorts. No one asks a lawyer, a doctor, a plumber, or a teacher why the chose their occupation. The automatic assumption hidden behind the question of 'why' is "Since this is a terrible choice for you to have made, why did you make it? What MADE you chose to be an escort?" The occupation must be justified. Even as vilified as lawyers are, no one asks them to explain how they made such a bad choice. Why then, ask an escort to explain why she chose to be an escort? (By the way, on the ocassions when a guy asks me how/why I got into escorting, the above statements are why I simply say "because I wanted to" and move on. I'm not going to justify a decision that seems perfectly natural to me.)
While it is true that some women may enter this profession as a result of actual or perceived abuse it may also be the case that many enter into it DESPITE this fact.
The providers with whom I enter into a long term relationship with (and there are many) all have a common thread of enjoying what they do.
(I know that the preceding statement could be challenged but just ride with it for now.)
Ergo, the whole abuse issue is a red herring and has no validity in the question of whether or not to allow the hobby to be legal.
Also, what if a provider finds the hobby to be a salve, of sorts, for their earlier abuse? How is it helping them to prevent them from dealing with it in a manner that they find restoravtive?
Who thinks that putting a person in jail and/or depriving of their right to make a living is going to cure their emotional scars?
Doesn't anyone here watch Fox news? Very upper middle class. They interviewed some of her highschool girlfriends who said she was a fun loving "go for it" kind of girl. Kind of like a lot of the girls one meets through TER.
A nice house doesn't mean that it was a loving family life. As for her reputation of being a fun loving girl, many people who are abused put on masks when they are with other people. People hide their hurt when they are abused, many times because they think it's their fault, and don't want their friends to think less of them. Abuse isn't something that just goes on in that trailer in the trailer park. It also goes on in the big house on the hill in the center of town.
Brings to mind that movie starring Catherine DeNeuve, what was it named again? Oh yeah, Bel De Jour! 
why people aren't decrying the evils of being musicians, which is what she touts herself to be. Since she was allegedly abused, doesn't that mean that all musicians were as well?
LOL at the Lawyer thing. I've got to try that next time I get a lame lawyer joke - "Don't make fun of me, I had a bad childhood." 
As for Spitzer himself? I've tried to stay out of threads about him because I get too angry to write straight. That dickhead is the ultimate hypocrite - not for doing something he said shouldn't be done, but because he was RUINING the lives of people for doing what he was doing himself. IMHO, not enough bad things can happen to that spoiled little rich asshole who thinks he's above us all because he can pay for things from his trust fund, which he had absolutely nothing to do with earning except being a microscopic swimmer in his daddy's cum the night his mama got pregnant with him. Fucking looser.
-- Modified on 3/16/2008 5:49:09 AM
5-So it turns out Spitzer's call girl was 'abused' as a child. We are told this is often the case with call-girls. Is it? I gave up AMPs for this reason.
What is it with this constant sexslave/AMP connection? It is complete bullshit and it racist. It is just as sterotypical and racist as saying every ebony provider has a pimp.
GaG, I know that the whole amp thing is a pet peeve of yours and I agree with you to some degree. All AMP girls are certainly not sex slaves but realistically there are some that are. it may depend on where you are or your frame of historical reference but the problem does exist. I stopped going to AMPs after a particularly sad experience with a young woman at an AMP in Oxnard CA a few years ago followed by a horror story I heard from an indie Asian escort in NYC. We all have to make our choices based on what we read or experience. We all have to determine what our personal comfort level is since we can not always know what the exact situation is when we walk into a particular situation.
I have a particular penchant for Brazilian women. For about a year I frequented an agency near Boston that had several very beautiful South American women available. To be honest, the experiences were mixed. The good ladies were amazing and the average ones, though beautiful, were very mechanical. About two years ago the agency got busted and the owners were charged with, among other things, human trafficking. Turns out that several of the young women had been promised green cards and jobs as house keepers here in the US only to be forced into prostitution once they got here. Did I have any idea? Of course not. All of a sudden the lack of consistency among my appointments made more sense.
I have no desire to be with a woman, no matter how beautiful, who is doing something against her will. Since I can't know going in exactly how all of the women in a brothel-type of situation ended up there I avoid those situations.
It's not complete bullshit, and it is not racist. It is part of the reality of the sex industry weather we like it or not. We all have to make our own choices.
It is almost comnplete bullshit and yes it is racist. Sex slavery is obviously not a complete fabrication, but the extent that it has been overblown borders on the ridiculous.
If white providers were on here trying to make ia case that hobbyists should avoid providers of color because they might have a pimp wouldn't that be racist? The chances of an asian AMP girl being there against her will are no higher than the chances of a woman of any other race or situation.
I am usually that last person in the world to cry racism, but there is no other word for it. If you'd like to critcize AMPs because of their propensity to being raided, now that's a fair argument, or the fact that the service is rarely GFE, that too is a valid point, but to say that sex slavery is endemic to the AMPs is simply not a fair statement.
I have literally decades of experience with AMPs in many states, most of my evidence is anecdotal in nature, but I have known several hundred AMP workers and many AMP owners, including a couple of exgirlfriends, so my experience is not limited to a mere handful of women. I have never met a single woman that was there against her will, except in the context that not everyone loves there job and some or might I say most are there strictly for the money, but that doesn't make them any more a slave than anyone else who has a job.
and vague to think they are focused on AMPs. AMPs may be easy targets, but I hear sex-trafficking accusations or inferences in almost any problem that involves both men and women, so I think it's less racism, and more a gender relations issue.
I have to wonder if the reason the neighbors like to get into each other's sex lives is some sort of fetish, or maybe because they can't get their own right.
...and from the sounds of things my experience with AMPS is far less than yours GaG. However, I HAVE met women that were working against their will. Some Asian, some Brazilian. I didn't realize what was going on until I met an indie Asian lady who had been brought here under false pretenses and forced to work in an AMP for a little over a year.
The fact is, there are white street walkers being pimped out on the streets everyday. They are also being forced to work against their will. There are agencies with girls who are forced to work long hours taking on all comers until they are allowed to leave. Are they sex slaves? Are they prisoners? No but by the same token the sex industry is not like any other job. Sweat shops are illegal for a reason. The venue may be different but the intent is the same.
As I said earlier. We all have to make our decisions based on our experiences. I don't doubt your's but I won't deny mine when I decide where to spend my money. I don't consider myself a bigot for admitting to myself that I simply don't know which ladies, no matter how small a percentage, are working against their will for whatever reason.
I agree with most of your points, except regarding abuse.
I'm convinced that child abuse is far more prevalent than is acknowledged by society, and that most *people* in general experienced some form of abuse at the hands of their parents.
As for escorts being continuously harassed with the question why, it's a result of society insisting that everyone, and women especially, should be ashamed of their sexuality.
This message/mantra is endlessly repeated by parents, preachers and politicians.
Unless and until that changes, we can expect escorts to be subjected to much more of this stupidity than everyone else.
On the other hand, if that does change, men will suddenly find it so easy to get any and all the sex they need, that escorts might start finding it a lot more difficult to drum up business, LOL.
Since I'm not a high profile person and I'm not shopping for sex with pretentious agencies I'm not really concerned about the events of the past week.
I do agree that there will be temptation from SOME ladies to expose well known clients but I don't see it as becoming some sort of epidemic. I honestly can't remember a case of this happening BEFORE a bust. Anyone who hobbies has to come to grips with the fact that AFTER a bust your name could become public. Famous or not, it could ruin your life. No one should hobby with the blind assumption that it could never happen. Thinking smart causes both hobbyists and providers to BE smart.
While the idea of a vow of celibacy seems like the obvious solution to not getting caught it is realistically never going to happen. Men in power have big egos. Their ego is part of what makes them successful. A high sex drive is also part of this. We live in the tabloid-driven information age but powerful men have been screwing beautiful women for centuries, it's just never been talked about as openly as it is now. What I have found interesting is that, if you remove the tabloid-driven sensationalism aspect from recent celebrity "outings", most people understand that having a roaming dick is part of being a powerful and effective leader...for better or worse.
Sadly there are women in the sex industry who were abused as children. There are also women in many other occupations who were abused as children. Life is about dealing with what happens to you. I don't happen to believe that being abused HAS to send you down a certain path. I can only speak form a relatively small cross section but the providers that I have become close to are all well adjusted and intelligent women. None of them have ever talked to me about being abused but weather they were or not they have learned to move on.
When talking about abuse percentages among sex workers you have to remember that the numbers are based on women who have sought help for it. There is no real statistic for the total number of women involved in the sex industry either nationally or globally so there is no way that any statistic will ever be accurate. Also, the experience of a young runaway who winds up as a street walker with a pimp is going to be different from that of a twenty- something coed who is trying to pay her tuition. That coed's experience in turn will be different form the lady who has a degree, or several, but likes the money and flexibility that escorting affords. The last four ladies that I have become close with all have bachelors or graduate level degrees but choose to work as escorts simply because they like the job better than the alternatives that were available to them
Discreet women will always be safer regardless of the price that they charge. In their own way agencies like the Emperor's Club who cater to high profile and wealthy clientèle are no better than Craig's List. They attract arrogant clients who in many cases see themselves as untouchable. Sound familiar?
The quickest way to get burned is to think that it can't happen to you. Also, let's remember that in all cases of high profile agency or indie busts it has been the feds-the IRS-who have gone after the goods. Local LE still handles the vast majority of prostitution crimes and their efforts are concentrated pretty much exclusively on street walkers and indiscreet providers.
I have also talked with many providers who would prefer decriminalization or no change at all to legalization. If the government gets involved with prostitution on a large scale it will make it LESS lucrative for many of the ladies who are involved in it. Ultimately I believe it would raise prices but put less money in the ladies pockets.
Wow, this was long. To sum it up, I honestly don't see things changing much...
-- Modified on 3/16/2008 5:26:30 AM
I think the publicity will bring a lot more men into the hobby. Office water cooler conversations bring up how a lot of guys would like to hobby but have never pulled the trigger. There is something about the forbidden aspect of the hobby that titillates guys and the publicity will help bring these guys in.
I also think that the independants providers will see more business due to the fear that all agencies will get busted sooner or later.
I don't know that anything will change in general. People's attention spans are very short. The life span of this story is four weeks, if that. We are in the middle of a national election, so the national press coverage will be focused on that. You will see a small spike in coverage when the principles in this situation do something, like the trial, or any attempt at making money off this by writing a book, or posing for magazines. Then it will fade away until someone else is caught, which will happen. It always does.
The one thing that most of us would like to see addressed doesn't even involve this case, and that is the trafficing issue. People can think what they want of the people involed in the sex industry, but none of us want to see people exploited.
The same rules will apply next year, that applied yesterday. Do your homework. Don't be stupid. Safety first. Finally, respect each other, and have fun.
This was speculated in a thread below. What is your source of statistics? Do you have a link?
I also read somewhere last week that "less than 20% of men ever see a prostitute". I for one have never been asked to participate in a survey about weather or not I hobby or how often. Non of the ladies I see have ever received a questionnaire with their bulk shipment of condoms and lube asking them to estimate the number of men they see, if they were abused as children, if they get tested monthly, if they use condoms, if they are drug users or anything else pertaining to the hobby. My question here is simple. How can any organization compile any sort of accurate stats on an activity when the vast majority of the people involved don't talk about it? The simple answer is that you can't.
I for one have NEVER been asked to participate in any survey so I am not sure that counts for much. I agree that you can't really know. However, if you google "providers percentage men' you come up with a variety of sources giving numbers between 20 and up to 60 percent. I can tell that when women bring up this affair, I find many men remain quiet. I think the figures for abused women also comes from lumping the streetwalker group along with the rest.
The researcher/s pull them out of their ass.
While I disagree that a crackdown on trafficking isn't warranted after this story (it should always be done), I do believe we should debate the issue of decriminalization/legalization either on the General board or the Politics board not just for future hobbyist and provider safety, but for greater enjoyment as well. I think the secret to getting prostitution decriminalized will come from forming a solid philosophy about the morality of it and that necessitates challenging the views commonly held by anti-prostitution crusaders that prostitution in all its forms is intrinsically exploitative and constitutes violence against women; and that only a woman with psychological or economic problems would choose this career since they assume that all women, including providers themselves, naturally find it repugnant. I attempted to address this issue previously and would love to hear everyone's opinion on how to make the argument stronger.
Sadly, the folks you're referring to - the anti-prostitution crusaders, mainly radical feminists who can't come to grips with their own sexuality, and preachers like Jimmy Swaggert - cannot and will not have their minds changed.
They're so entrenched in their shallow belief systems, that there's no way to get them to even so much as *consider* another perspective.
After all, they have nothing to lose by maintaining the status quo!
I don't believe that. The very existence of ideas like third-wave feminism and sex-positive feminism, as well as a change in the views on homosexuality in this country, prove that people's minds can be changed. They just have to be exposed to well formed, sound arguments. And maybe some great literature would help.
Honestly I don't think the moral "majority" or any feminist doctrines have anything to do with prostitution still being illegal in most of this country. For the life of me I see absolutely no correlation between views of homosexuality and prostitution.
The fact is the ill-informed and vocal but clueless majority of US citizens are the ones who elect the majority of our politicians. For better or worse the vast majority of people in this country are against prostitution simply because they are afraid of it. They are afraid of it because they don't understand it. The media presents it as a plague on society and the vast majority of coverage we see is of high profile busts with politicians resigning, homes and careers being ruined or the other extreme with Craig's List busts of crack whores.
The vast majority of men and women involved in the hobby do it discretely and successfully but no one on the outside of the hobby really knows that.
I stand by my original thoughts on another thread. If the government gets involved they will only find a way to make it less fun anyway...
I think we're in agreement on most salient points here, with mostly just a few semantical differences.
I'll address Magnum first, and then Boston.
Magnum states:
"The very existence of ideas like third-wave feminism and sex-positive feminism, as well as a change in the views on homosexuality in this country, prove that people's minds can be changed. They just have to be exposed to well formed, sound arguments. And maybe some great literature would help."
I partially agree, but this really only applies to a fairly small fraction of the population. The recent feminism variants you refer to are not really politically active, and no where near as vocal, or vociferous as the man hater's.
The views on homosexuality have mostly been changed in the big cities where it's most entrenched, such as NYC and SF, not in the heartland, where the majority lives.
As for exposing them to well formed sound arguments, you assume they'll actually listen to reason. Sadly, they won't, they're not reasonable or rational. The only argument they'll hear is "Jesus Saves!!!" No matter how well considered, no matter how reasonable, rational and logical your presentation is, it's just not congruent with what they *want* to hear.
However, I could be, and very much hope I am, dead wrong. If you're right, we'll have a much more livable society.
Ok, Boston:
"Honestly I don't think the moral "majority" or any feminist doctrines have anything to do with prostitution still being illegal in most of this country."
Methinks you underestimate their overabundant influence.
"For the life of me I see absolutely no correlation between views of homosexuality and prostitution."
They're both "immoral" according to all the uprights stiffs out there.
"The fact is the ill-informed and vocal but clueless majority of US citizens are the ones who elect the majority of our politicians. For better or worse the vast majority of people in this country are against prostitution simply because they are afraid of it. They are afraid of it because they don't understand it. The media presents it as a plague on society and the vast majority of coverage we see is of high profile busts with politicians resigning, homes and careers being ruined or the other extreme with Craig's List busts of crack whores."
We're in agreement here!
This is the semantical difference I mentioned above.
You're pretty much reiterating what I said, just phrased a little differently.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of folks in this nation, ill-informed and vocal but clueless, not to mention mis-lead, are pious types who nod their heads in agreement with the televangelists, and who contribute vast sums of capital and other forms of support, as you point out, to those politicians, such as Huckabee. The media knows what sells big time. The same people who are so against sex (!), are in fact *obsessed* with it, and with anything related, such as prostitution, which has the added interest of being "illegal".
Yes, they are afraid of it, deathly afraid, because they're terrified that one day they themselves will lose control and give in to their deepest kinkiest fantasies!!! They try not to have them, but they can't help it, they're human, just like the rest of us.
They just can't accept their humanity, because "god" tells them they can't. God in the for of the Swaggerts and the Bakers and the Fallwells etc.
Finally, you state:
"If the government gets involved they will only find a way to make it less fun anyway..."
OMFG, I "pray" that you're wrong about that!!!
In closing, this has been a most enjoyable thread, thank you both for your responses.
One of the reasons I see independent ladies almost exclusively.