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on class, marketing, beaver shots, and being unique as a companionIn many escort advice articles one thing they seem to all stress is not to have any beaver shots on your site. The more you’re dressed, the classier of an image you project, apparently. One thing I was apprehensive about when deciding to do this type of work was how my image was going to be perceived in regards to my work in pornographic films or the IShotMyself self portraits that I decide to post on my blog. I’m not really sure for the most part how people perceive my actions in doing this, if this makes me “low class” or “trashy” in some people’s eyes. Where’s the room for art or artistic exploration of one’s intimate body parts? At this point I’ve decided I don’t care. There are many routes I could have taken with this work, I could have posted nothing about it on my blog, I could have worked under another name, I could have blurred my face in my photos. But at the end of the day, I feel as that the sex worker activist movement could benefit from more transparency and less hiding behind blurred faces and marketed personas. I get tired of hiding who I really am because the public masses just can’t handle it. There is very much a risk to my actions. Not everyone that reads my blog is my friend or has good intentions for me and I’m very much aware of this. Legally, this could be devastating and I’m very much aware of that as well. But what kind of political change was ever created without a lot of risk involved? I’m prepared to risk that for sex work because I really, truly believe the world could use more great, skilled, educated sex. I often wonder how this industry could blossom if given half a chance. What types of brothels and bordellos would spring up? What new markets would appear? I’ve often fantasized about what sex work in utopia would look like. Its very apparent that because this industry has been so squashed that there has been very limited room to grow, creatively. Marketing schemes are often the same, boring, lines churned out over and over again. I’ve found very few sites that actually jump out or make me feel like I would like to hire that particular companion. At one dinner party, last year sometime, a discussion about escorts arose and one guy’s idea of a cool escort agency was for hired actor’s to play different roles. His reasoning was that if you were looking to impress your cronies with your date or stand out in a crowd, what better way than to bring a “Scarlet O’Hara”? Or “Marilyn Monroe”? One marketing aspect of the escort world that bugs me a lot is the classism and pretentiousness that reek from many sites I’ve checked out. Yet this is supposed to make the woman a classier choice as a companion. How classism suddenly became classy, I’ve no idea. A lot of them seem liked canned websites and phrases like “I’m a classy-elite-vip-courtesan seeking a generous-discreet-discerning-gentleman” abound. I wonder what type of woman the average client searches for. Does he look for someone intriguing or the average “classy-elegant-VIP-courtesan”? What if someone could play both roles? I know a lot of men seem to have a problem with women that transverse stereotypes because they wonder “who she really is”. This is especially evident in porn where hair is concerned, personally I prefer to not shave, but I get ancy when someone tells me not to shave, to stay exactly as I am. That leaves zero room for evolution and is the same exact mentality that men have when they want you to shave everything. I’ve also come across many cool escorts, like this lady for example: The Dolly Mopp Files , she didn’t used to blur her photos, but did so recently. I love the different costumes she wears in her portfolio and the design of her site all around. Her personality is very apparent, but I wonder how a prospective client would read it? Do they really place so much emphasis on class? Is it all about what she looks like? What really is class, anyways? On certain escort discussion boards, “hobbyists” will rate and review escorts on what types of sexual acts they offer. An escort is not allowed to score over a ten if she does not offer one of the following: is really bisexual, anal sex, bare-back blowjob, or kisses with tongue. The majority of activities listed include unsafe sex. Is that considered classy now? Another thing that bugs me is the gross misuse of the word courtesan. Does anyone actually have an understanding of what that word means anymore? Veronica Franco was not just a prostitute, she was also a poet, a mother, a novelist. She had opinions, she was brazen in many ways and the Venetians loved her. Today it seems, if you were to assume this just from the way escorts/courtesans/companions market themselves, there is more emphasis on being the same type of woman…something that resembles pop culture’s idea of “classy”, a word that has lost all meaning in this industry, in my opinion. If you’re a client reading this, please share your mind. What do you look for when hiring? Are you as bored as I am with the general marketing practices in this industry? WGARN9WKTQXG 13 comments to on class, marketing, beaver shots, and being unique as a companion |
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there..." -Rumi
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Christy Panties, Trixie Fontaine. Trixie Fontaine said: Reading this while uploading promos: RT @SequoiaRedd: new blog post:on class, marketing, beaver shots, [companions] etc. http://vb.ly/6ry [...]
I like real, natural women. I really dig a woman that doesn’t put up a facade. If the companion has to play up the “class” angle, then I know it’s forced and ruins the experience. I like the fact that you listened to me, and seemed interested in what I had to say. I know that you don’t know me well, but you were willing to listen. Companionship to me is more than the sexual act, the conversation and the ability to share some of my thoughts add to my experience. I wish that some companions were willing to talk more about themselves, I’m not a stalker or a predator, I may be interested in what is going on in your life and offer something that you may find interesting. I also wish that business is set aside prior to the meeting, and a long-term client relationship should be built on trust, that the client recognizes the value and importance of the companion’s services, and the companion recognizes that the client likes the services and companionship of the companion.
Bob
Hi B,
“If the companion has to play up the “class” angle, then I know it’s forced and ruins the experience”
I’d be curious as to what led you to this conclusion.
“I wish that some companions were willing to talk more about themselves”
I find myself shying away from this at times as well, simply because I cannot predict how my personality will be perceived at the other end, I would love just to be able to lay it all out there, but from past experiences it seems its better to always remain unknown. Also I feel strongly that its not really my place to show up and gab about myself so much, rather than let the client speak their mind, usually I’m being compensated for an escape and that’s the type of service I’m looking to provide
Class is in the eye of the beholder. If the companion has to offer “class” as a differentiator from the competition, then I’m skeptical.
but Bob, almost every single escort out there uses class as an angle, read River’s comment, its a perfect example of why.
I’m not really a candidate client, but in general, I definitely prefer the quirky and individual and authentic to any generic expectation of what I’m supposed to want. One nice thing about the internet is that you have a vast potential audience, and someone, somewhere, is sure to be into whatever personal quirk it is you’ve got. I don’t know if this can really generalize to the escort business, since your audience in that context is much more limited, but I’d certainly hope it would.
You didn’t say how you felt about opinions from other sex workers, so I hope this isn’t unwelcome.
About normalizing the sex industry – I think it’s important to note that normalizing is the opposite of valuing. When every woman is a whore, our value is significantly decreased. Same with everyone knowing a whore, reading a whore blog, having whores in pop culture, etc. This happened in stripping a few years ago, suddenly booty shaking and casual sexuality became normal and there were a zillion more strippers. At the same time, guys valued strippers less because they could get the same things and more at parties, when before they couldn’t. Veronica Franco was respected for being something that most woman wouldn’t dare to become, yanno?
About the classy thing. My experience has been that my best escorting clients (the ones I had the most personal connection with but also the ones that spent the most) were worried in seeking out an escort that they would be supporting someones drug habit or pimp, or worse becoming a part of their self destructive behavior. I’ve always tried to put something in my ads to indicate that I’m basically sane and healthy and coming at this from a place of being in my own power.
But it’s also true that when you appear to have more money, people perceive your time as being worth more money. When I was in SF I put up two ads, one saying I was some kind of classy travelling doctorate student looking for a guy to show me the city in style and then go back to his room for 1k, and one saying I was a hippie girl on the road looking to finance my travels to alaska for 200/hr. The first ad got a much better response. When changing how you market yourself can get you so much more money, it’s hard not to do it even if it is stupidly pretentious.
haha, I would love to talk about this kind of thing for hours.
Hey River,
No, everyone’s opinion is welcome, I was just hoping some clients might be reading this and be willing to ad their 2 cents.
I see what you mean about normalizing, I was more or less talking about legalizing, or at least decriminalizing or some type of legal status that means when we decide to do this work we don’t have to worry about getting arrested, raped by the cops or being ostracized on national television.
Its cool that you did that experiment, how lame of the clients though. I get that they don’t want to support someone’s drug addiction or whatever, but how does consigning to the masses generalized idea of “classy” help out either? Cocaine is a yuppy drug afterall
In a lot of ways I get why people change their marketing strategies to something that has been proven to work, I just wish it made more sense or something and wasn’t so lame.
How did you pull off being a doctorate student? hehe
(with you, I mean)
What do you look for when hiring?
I’ve never yet paid for a professionals service, emphasis on the ‘yet’ as it is something I look forward to doing one day… So I can’t talk from experience. In the times in the past (20 years ago when I was 20ish) when I’d been unable to pick up in a bar / beach / dance club / party etc for a few weeks and frustration was building I’d check out some of the working girls on the street and on several occasions I’d visited some of the local brothels but the girls I cold afford didn’t turn me on and the ones that I lusted for due to some combination of the things I looked for in any casual encounter – tall, athletic, small breasted, lighter colored hair / skin, attractive happy face, my age or a bit younger, university educated and great to talk to – were all way way out of my price range. I didn’t want to go through the net (not so big back then) or an advert in the paper because I wanted to see what she would look like. I wanted to feel the stirrings of lust before I spent my coin.
So what I was looking for was something not too much different from the reqular chicks I used to casually hookup with. Most of them I met through surfing, rock climbing or at uni. I was a uni student back then, raging hormones but no money. There was just no way that I could afford anything much more expensive than what regular sex costs – a few beers and a decent Chinese meal.
I was fairly good friends with a sometimes escort and club dancer. Had a hard hard crush on her. Took her out to dinner a few times too. No joy tho’. She never took her knickers off for me.
Can someone help me understand what Stephen said?
@ Shaman >
Basically I’m a cheep scumbag.
I love this post, and also River’s response.
(only addressing a tiny portion of points you brought up and I know it’s stuff you already know from experience)
A couple of things I try to keep in mind about the way sex workers market themselves: a lot of us type out a bunch of shit without really thinking – the text is one TASK in a long list of things that need to be done in order to make money. Even if we’d like to be more creative or represent ourselves in more nuanced and whole ways, sometimes we just don’t have time or are just starting out and mimicking other people thinking it’s Standard Operating Procedure therefore it must work. A lot of girls see other people’s sites and think, “I could do that too” and one generic stereotype of what’s desirable becomes a template for the horde. On top of that a lot of us can ENVISION awesome websites, etc. but we don’t have the start-up money or skills or time to make that happen, we just need something that works NOW.
Also, kind of like what part of what River said, sometimes recognizable language (and/or design when it comes to web stuff) really DOES work, or works BETTER than being creative/different. I am constantly learning that the hard way (example: my new blog layout not converting as well as a generic and familiar porno-site tour) and bouncing back and forth between “I should do it the way everyone else does it so people know that I’m selling something and how to buy it” and “why am I doing this like everyone else when I could be highlighting what makes me ‘special’”?
As the years have gone by with my site I’ve dropped or de-emphasized some of the classist bullshit (college-educated, not-your-average webwhore language, etc.). Not to focus on being more unique or creative (and not because I originally said them falsely or with conscious pretension), but because I recognize there are hundreds of girls with sites who can say all those things too. I am not “special”. On the other hand, I think it worked better to highlight those attributes regardless of whether they were real (college-educated) or total nonsense (not average). The truth is that my site (used to, at least) attract and retain a demographic (older men with more than average amounts of money) that made me more money than if my stats looked the way other porn sites (poor 18-25 year olds) look but without the benefit of all of their traffic.
It can be a huge conflict trying to decide between being creative/honest/personally/politically provocative and trying to make money NOW. I think a lot of us get into this line of work, especially with the webwhoring, thinking it’s going to be a vehicle for expressing ourselves and provoking change but discovering we can’t afford to do it that way most of the time.
I know I’m ignoring a lot of good points you brought up and maybe getting off topic. Anyhoo . . .