So we must say Goodbye, my darling,
And go, as lovers go, for ever;
Tonight remains, to pack and fix on labels
And make an end of lying down together. – Alun Lewis
One year ago today I told the story of my last few months in New Orleans. In June of 2006 I was tired and in poor health due to overwork and post-Katrina conditions; I literally hadn’t had a single day off in many months, and the rapidly-shrinking customer pool was being shared among an increasing number of escorts so I was having trouble getting even one call per day, and the long, hot New Orleans summer was just beginning and would certainly exacerbate all the existing problems. So when my husband decided it was time for me to go home, I didn’t put up much of a fight; though I’m incredibly tenacious, I also know when to quit. That time, I was ready; the business had changed, my friends were all gone, and it just wasn’t fun any more. But the first time I retired was a different story entirely.
As my husband told you in the first day of his interview, when I accepted his proposal he asked me to retire from regular escorting; I still ran the agency, drove girls around if needed and did two-girl shows and bachelor parties, but I no longer did regular calls. I agreed to the condition as a gesture of my commitment to him and I accepted that it was reasonable, but there was a still, small voice inside of me that kept telling me I had quit too early, that I had made insufficient investments and that financial difficulties could destroy our plans. As it turned out that voice was right, and in January of 2004 we mutually decided I would return to active escorting, but that wasn’t the major issue which troubled me in the first few months after my retirement; the problem was that, as my good friend Dr. Helena had warned me, whoring can be “addictive” (in the popular sense):
The sheer thrill of being offered large sums of money for my sexual favors was the most intoxicating experience of my entire life. The neofeminists love to pretend that sex work is “demeaning,” but the truth is that a large percentage of women in the trade (including strippers and porn stars) find it more empowering than anything else we have ever done, sometimes even more gratifying than romance.
Basically, I had quit “cold turkey” and was having withdrawal symptoms. It didn’t sink in at first; I thought it was just nervousness due to the greatly decreased cash flow. But a couple of months after I retired, my husband was in town on business and his company had booked a hotel room for him literally one block from my apartment. So as you might expect we were spending a great deal of time together, and one night Doug asked me to meet with one of his girls at one of the downtown hotels (I forget the reason). Anyhow, as we drove into the Central Business District and I saw all the hotels all lit up, a strange feeling very much like homesickness overwhelmed me, and I started to cry. My husband of course asked what was wrong and I told him I couldn’t explain it because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But he’s not stupid, and he figured it out in a few seconds; my male readers can probably guess that he got angry about it and we exchanged words. The argument didn’t last long, and ended with my saying something like, “It wouldn’t have meant very much if I had given up a job I hated to be with you, now would it?”
I dried my tears and completed my errand, and when I got back in the car he said he was sorry and that he had an idea to cheer me up. I still felt awful but I was certainly curious about what he was planning, though I didn’t have long to wait; we went back to his hotel and as soon as we got into the room, he pulled out his credit card and gave it to me. I was unsure of his intention so I just stood there for a moment until he said, “aren’t you going to fill out the credit card slip?” Then I realized what he was up to, and I laughed as I pulled out my papers and charged his card, calling it in to a very confused Grace. It really did work; I felt much better, partly because of his clever gift to me and partly because I knew that in the future I would be able to share those feelings with him without fear of making him angry.
Neofeminists and trafficking fetishists want to believe that all or nearly all prostitutes are coerced slaves who desperately want out of a life of degradation, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Obviously there are some women who are coerced, though the number is very small; and obviously there are some who could walk away in a heartbeat and never miss it, and would do so if they didn’t have bills to pay and mouths to feed. But as demonstrated in yesterday’s column and that of July 23rd, most whores are satisfied enough with their jobs to resent attempts to “save” them from it, and I suspect that like me, many retired escorts found leaving the life, even for the best reasons, to be a bittersweet experience.
Damn … your husband is smooth, Maggie.
I wish I could think on my feet like that.
Smooth enough to impress a hooker, and let me tell ya that ain’t easy. 😉
Nice little story. If I were a woman it would be very hard to retire from getting paid to have sex. I think the problem is that unattractive women don’t have the option and resent those who do.
I think everyone likes to do what they know they’re good at. I don’t think everyone finds what they’re good at though. There’s an “epiphony” moment where you know you were born to do a certain thing. For me – it was on Submarines as a Diving Officer. From the moment I sat down in that chair as a trainee – it felt like I had been there before. I could ballast a Submarine just by the “feel” of it. Working close to the bottom – I could effortlessly maintain a 50 foot altitude over a hilly bottom and I once hovered a Submarine for 6 hours at 150 feet after a propulsion casualty – never changed depth more than six inches and I had no propulsion assist. After six hours – the CO ordered me to surface the ship – nice and slow (no propulsion) … basically a float up to the surface. It went off like a ballet. I miss that job – I think about it everyday. I wish I could go back to it. I like my current job – but there is no way I’m the best at it – like was when I was on the Dive.
Very interesting. In addition to what you said about the neo-feminists it seems they find it impossible to think that there are exhibitionists in the world and that they actually enjoy strutting.
When you were renting out your smoking hot ass back in the day, life was good … for you. I can grasp that. –even as a man.
Nowadays you have a different objective – Permanent Catholic School Girl that you are – – Now you want to make the world a better place…by patiently teaching the next, younger generation the virtues of whoring and whoremongering..
In terms of being computer savvy I am trapped somewhere in the 14th Century. Nonetheless, my friends are being steadily being made aware of M.M. the Honest Lady Of the Night.
Because my Religion is from the 11th century at the latest.
🙂
Thanks for writing this.
I began sex work when I was 19. I’ve never been trafficked, beaten by a pimp, or forced to do sex work. Form all my experience in that industry, I am not atypical. When I began, I decided that making a good income as a stripper was better than getting by on tips as a waitress. I’ve done stripping. porn, phone sex and call girl work. Of all that. I’d say the call girl part was the most work, and most challenging.
In my early forties, I decided to leave the business. Although I was still popular, and busy, the arthritis I’d been battling since I was a teenager was really beginning to have an effect on me, and I needed work less physical.
Sex work was always dependable work for me. I was almost always hired for whatever I went for in that world. It provided a good and steady income for years. The first real regular non-sex work job I got ended after three years, when the company closed. I’m on my second try now, after a couple of years of unemployment. (Thank goodness I saved when I was a call-girl.) Who knows how long this gig will last, given the economy? I felt way more secure working for myself.
Sex work was a world I knew, was good at, and felt very comfortable in. At least most of it. (I tried being a domme, once or twice at client request, and was awful at it. It’s just not me.)
And i miss it. I miss my regular clients. After seeing someone regularly for years, you develop a relationship with them. I think sometimes I knew more about these men, because of what they felt comfortable confiding with me, than most people.
I know that you mean about withdraw. I’ve been there, big time. I still have a whore’s brain, sizing up situations as a working girl would. One of the prime abilities demanded of a working girl is to figure out fairly quickly what a man really likes, and supply it. it comes in handy in a straight job, although it means responding with different things, of course.
But there’s been lots of problems too, in adjusting to a straight life. I’m too independent. Too used to running my own show and life. Over 20 years in sex work has left me socialized way differently than my straight co-workers, and I find myself playing a new, and different character around them. But all my sex work has given me good training for that.
Was it easy to leave the sex work? Yes, and no. Yes, because I just had to inform my regulars, take down my website and ads, and shut off my work phone. No one came after me to force me to return. There’s always a new girl to replace the ones leaving. No, because emotionally, I miss it, miss it so greatly.it’s not just the money.
In my case, I do fear that someday, some one might just happen upon an old video tape or something, and out my previous life. It could happen. Never worried about that in sex work.
Would I ever return to sex work? If I were younger (I can pass for about ten years younger on a good day when the arthritis isn’t too bad.) and more mobile, my joints more flexible and less creaky and swollen, yes, in a heartbeat.
Those who say that no woman could possibly feel empowered by stripping, or hooking, or doing porn, need to remember that just because THEY don’t like chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream doesn’t mean that anybody who claims to like chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is lying.
I could have as easily said Vegemite or natto or haggis. I haven’t had Vegemite or haggis, but natto isn’t nearly as bad as I feared it might be. I’m planning to buy some tomorrow. I really can’t stand to be in the same house where hominy is being cooked, but I have accepted that there are people who actually like it.
As you know I didn’t actually start escorting till I was between 39 and 40. So I started late in life. I did topless dance in my teens and into my late 20s. Then got married and settled down with kids and marriage. But I honestly think that people who are so dead set against sex work are ones who have hang ups with sex. They are very narrow minded and only want to believe that every woman or girl who does sex work is either a victim or just a criminal whore/slut. Instead of viewing those who choose to do it as a business and a very viable means of income. Sex work can be a very safe trade if only those people could realize once it is legalized and destigmatized, and these ladies and men are allowed to be treated like first class citizens (and afforded the same protections as everyone else) all the real rampant crime and the real criminals will quickly go away and become minimum at best. I find it interesting that the anti-sex work movement has found a new way to rile up their base and others by making false claims about sex trafficking and claiming teenagers and children by the 100s and thousands are being forced into sex slavery. There numbers are exagerated and the police lie, and the media goes right along with all the lying. No one questions the false claims are calls them on it. Anyway, some of us have enjoyed sex work. I miss it. I really do.
I have been escorting for five years in the beginning I did it out of desperation I needed a place to live then I realized what kind of a euphoric rush he gave me to get money for simple sexual pleasures that I enjoyed giving if I hadn’t had tried it and gotten the money I don’t think I would’ve understood why P so many girls do it now I can’t imagine a life not doing it but for some physical problems I have now I have some physical problems I have acquired due to age and arthritis and I’m on able to keep up with that kind of a schedule and I met a guy am in love with and he really doesn’t want me to work so I’m trying to stop what’s strange is I never realize it could be an addiction but it is and I try to stop for three or four days I don’t have the kind of money I had and it just makes me feel my town but somehow I’m going to have to figure In the next few months I will be giving it up completely I hope I’m not bored