Guidelines for Joining the Sex Industry

Ever since I started talking freely about my past in the sex industry people have asked me ‘how do they get into it?’

I think if you want to get into the sex industry, you just do it. You shouldn’t need to think about it too much; it’s very much a doing thing.

It helps if you don’t mind the idea of casual sex with strangers. In fact any aversion to that will be a definite hindrance and I would give the sex industry a miss. You could try juggling, hot air ballooning or just wash dishes. It depends what you want to get out of it.

When I got involved, to be fair, I did think about it a bit. Gramp complained to Mum that I looked like a prostitute, and she’d made a prediction concerning my in turns insane/whorish then star-studded career to be. Guess I went with it. And given my wardrobe and bent for casual, mindless sex, it seemed most natural AND lucrative. Being dumped horrendously by my first love kick started the proceedings; from there I developed an obsession for going home with strange men.

You might want a special website or business cards these days. That did not occur to me in 1995. I just went with the flow. And being young and pretty daft I didn’t mind being employed by assholes. I thought it might be character forming. And you get to meet more people, and there’s less organising, when the truly important matters in life are about dancing and getting wasted on Saturday night to a very select soundtrack. I wanted to live!

But your own business is another matter entirely. Do you masquerade as something legal or does that even matter? What can you advertise and where, and who do you want to attract? What if you don’t know anyone in the industry? I believe if you really want it you’ll find it.

If it turns out you actually are looking for a few decent lovers and a new income, escorting may not be the answer. It comes down to selling sex, so you must remember not to dress that up too much. You might be lucky and get some fun clients. But they are not the same as lovers.

A good exception is when a woman becomes a state employed sex healer, like for wounded ex-soldiers. In this capacity a bond may be formed. She may teach him how to appreciate sex.

So if you wanted to go about selling some sexual healing, it may be more rewarding. Of course you’d have to be pretty confident about what you were selling. You could promote yourself as available for mending broken hearts. You could mention that due to the intensity of your work, you can only manage a few customers at a time, and they must be carefully selected by you so there is a good match. That way you may guarantee quality and integrity. You could suggest examples of people you think you could or would like to heal. Maybe they would be ill or disabled, older, have suffered some catastrophe or been at war. Doesn’t sound like a lucrative market, if a very appreciative one. But you never know. If it makes you happy, there will be a way I say. My recommendation for discovering yourself, who you want to be involved with when doing this work, and why, is to write freely from your heart and try to describe as best you can what you want to express, the role you want to fill, the whole purpose.

If it is a political statement, that alone may not carry enough weight. If it’s emotional, get to the bottom of it. But most of all if it does seem to be your niche, try to describe what you would get from and give to, how you might experience your encounters in this domain. Words of this order, not too fancy either, may be what you put on your site to let people know what you’re about. It just helps to know clearly, have a picture of it working well.

I would love to hear from people with more experience of this than me. There is so much I don’t know.

Related articles

One thought on “Guidelines for Joining the Sex Industry”

  1. We can always trust Esther to be honest about her past and leave thought provoking comments for us all. Talking about the sex industry tends to raise emotions, it’s inevitably an important part of feminist writing but also, in a very English way, tends to be swept under the carpet as something that we all know goes on, but don’t necessarily want to acknowledge – unlike e.g. Germany with its licensed brothels and red light areas. Speaking as a man, my perspective is inevitably different from a female author, although I take Esther’s comments as being generally positive towards the industry and those that earn their living by servicing others’ sexual needs. I think there are broadly two types of men who use prostitutes, first those who have a high sex drive which is not met by their wife or GF … maybe during or after pregnancy or while on business trips when regular sex is not possible. Those men are more than likely to be “normal” and respectful of the women they pay to spend time with…. In such situations I don’t see a victim… it is consensual and the woman can decide what she is or is not comfortable doing. She is paid (sometimes very well), he is made to feel good and if they engage in protected sex then there is no physical harm done to either. That’s not to deny there is no emotional element to the experience but I’d argue that had no less an effect on the man as the woman. There is obviously another type of man – the “abnormal” male who will use prostitutes to feed an pyschological illness, and may derive pleasure from abuse or pain in a non-consensual environment. Some may even kill their victim. Such men are likely to seek out more vulnerable woman such as those feeding a drug habit or the homeless. No-one can have any time for those people nor can one deny that some women in the sex industry need help and are not really in control of their destiny. Forced prostitution and people trafficking is abhorent to me.

    There are also large number of male prostitutes these days too – mainly working as rent boys but also some with a female clientele … I am sure there are some male life models who have given thought to pursuing that kind of activity.

    It would be interesting to know of other models who like Esther have worked in the industry or might want to…

    Like

Leave a comment