I wonder if Aella ever feels bad about providing information that’ll (for the most part) make a persons life worse. Emotionally, physically, and existentially.
Overly analytical guide to escorting
211–220 of 465 posts
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#212> $1200/hour Holy shit, why do ppl pay this? Honestly wondering. Cant most people just go hook up at a bar or smth if they're that desperate?
Sex/conversation/whatever with a person you really like and feel that you click with, who focuses all her skill attention on giving you the time of your life, is completely different than with some random person you would rather not wake up next to in the morning. There are lots of men with that kind of money to spend but only one Aella.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#213This is a fantastic article: informative, well-written, thoughtful, human, and funny . And it’s especially interesting to see it posted here at HN, because while reading it I kept thinking there are some solid lessons here about entrepreneurship, sales, and product pricing that could certainly be applied to your average start-up SaaS. I mean, anchoring your price high, to better capture the businessman/enterprise mar…
This is a brilliant article, it answers a lot of questions that I had no opportunity to ask.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a woman is poor, struggling to survive or trying to give a child a decent life in a society and economic system that is very sink or swim, do you consider it "consent" if she agrees to have sex with you so she can pay the rent, or have a decent meal, or buy the drugs she got hooked on dealing with depression and alienation, sold to her by a predatory drug dealer?
Seems a bit inconsistent to throw desperate addicts/single mothers in jail if they steal car stereos for meth money/baby food, but blame their johns if they turn to sex work instead. Which is it?
I did not make a comment on the issue of legality, and if you read my comment with an ounce of good faith reason and logic, you would never have put the words you just did into my mouth, and instead focus on what I actually said.
I was commenting on the casualness and callousness with which he uses "consenting adults" without regard to the power imbalance as well as the statistics with regard to sex workers and their "freedom".
Look at the attitude in the other replies:
> At least a woman can take the easy way out and become a prostitute. A man has no such "luxury". Society does not pity weak men the way it pities weak women.
> what you described applies to every single person in the world with a job.
> We all do stuff we'd rather not do for money.
And then there's the guy comparing strangers putting their penises into your mouth and vagina, always in fear of sexual assault, disease, degradation to "attending Scrum meetings and fixing CSS bugs."
Even you, with "but blame their johns", ignoring any notion of exploitation of the desperate and vulnerable.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I find it quite unfair be able to make so much money for relatively low effort I hope you hate capitalism then. It's all about supply and demand. As a gay man with some friends who escort, their rates are much lower, both for obvious reasons (it is ridiculously easy for most gay men to find other men to have sex with) and less obvious ones (IMO there is much less of a stigma among gay men for escorting, and at leas…
It is absolutely supply and demand. I meant girl escorts when I wrote what I wrote. I find it unfair that it you're born a girl and are pretty, you have this option.
People who are born men and rich have the option of paying for those services, so what's most unfair?
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
If a woman is poor, struggling to survive or trying to give a child a decent life in a society and economic system that is very sink or swim, do you consider it "consent" if she agrees to have sex with you so she can pay the rent, or have a decent meal, or buy the drugs she got hooked on dealing with depression and alienation, sold to her by a predatory drug dealer?
How does prostitution being illegal improve this situation?
i did not comment on legality. See my other reply.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
The question of whether it's good and wholesome is orthogonal to the question of whether society should punish those who do it. Scenario A: Resourceful, successful, happy. Should she be forced to accept dangerous working conditions and live under the constant threat of eviction, imprisonment, harassment and stigma? Why? What's the argument in favor of making her life difficult? Scenario B: Physical or mental disabili…
The point is her experience is niche and unique, it is not indicative of how the industry at large actually operates so making any judgements would not be meaningful as OP was doing.
but the issue the article points out that she as an escort has no access to law, should something go wrong.
If an in-house hair dresser was assaulted/robbed/stolen from, they would be able to report it to the police. There would be a strong chance (well as high as any other crime) that it would be punished.
There would also be an opportunity to use/create a verification scheme for clients, but also ask for insurance/tax/qualifications for the hair dresser.
This is what operating in a "decriminalized" world looks like. You don't get harassed by the law, but they wont help you either.
Ideally we would have a world where sex work is legally allowed (so long as its not coerced) and allow those workers to form companies, hire security, use payment systems, have vetting functions. All of the services that would make life much less precarious.
I know that in the people I have encountered in the sex worker world (who are related but not the same as escorts) are very against "legalisation" as they fear it would lead to registers and no chance to limit or control anonymity.
So unless the moral objections are sorted, I don't see any future in these changes.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#218> Once you start seeing clients, expect to get used as a reference and to start getting emails from other providers asking about clients you’ve seen. It’s considered extremely good form to respond; this is a collective safety system we all use to help each other, you rely on their information and they rely on yours. I wonder if the police could exploit this practice to make arrests. Arrest an escort, get access to th…
> Arrest an escort, get access to their email as evidence, then start going after the people who made reference requests.
But you already know who the people to "go after" are: they're advertising on the websites.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
And no doubt the risks decrease as the hourly rate increases.
I'm not sure that's true. There are wealthy, powerful men who can pay any hourly rate for sex and who are practically above the law in many parts of the world. It would be a mistake to assume that some of them wouldn't assault an escort in the not inaccurate belief that they can do whatever they want with impunity.
> I'm not sure that's true.
It is backed up by the author's analytics, though. Perhaps there are valid criticisms about her sampling methodology and the sample size at the very high end, but it's a good start.
Re: Overly analytical guide to escorting
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was an article about prostitution in Germany (legal) where Eastern European women will offer services for as low as 10 EUR. Race to the bottom?
One must be really a hopeless ugly German to pay a woman from EE for sex. They hope for a relationship anchoring them in the country and need a guide through the ruthless rules and bureaucracy, you receive sex free of charge. Bulgaria, Romania, Moldavia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine - you pick the flavour. Historical justice... not.
> One must be really a hopeless ugly German to pay a woman from EE for sex.
Not really, if you are interested in obtaining paid sex you don't have much choice. Most of the brothels are staffed by EE sex workers, been that way for well over a decade. German sex workers are rare in brothels, they work mostly escort and camgirl stuff.
The problem at its core is extreme poverty in EE - not many job opportunities that pay decent wages, so many people from there come to the nearest wealthy country aka Germany. Men go on the construction/agriculture gig job scene, women to prostitution... it doesn't pay much and the conditions both of work and living are extremely bad (just google "Arbeiterstrich München" if you want newspaper reports on the construction gig workers), but even this is better than life in their origin countries. As a result, German workers simply can't afford to work in this environment.