Tag: money

  • Evolution of an escort

    Evolution of an escort

    Click here for enlarged image of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch.  *Image information at the end of this post. I have been interviewed about being an escort a couple of times in Australia many years ago and not so long ago in New Zealand. I personally love to hear stories of how things…

  • Can sex workers and clients stay afloat in a recession?

    Can sex workers and clients stay afloat in a recession?

    A Dutch pinnace in a rough sea (1625) By Cornelis Verbeeck License: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons So the recession is due, suddenly, or maybe gradually, paying for sex will be a struggle for some. Some will settle in with some popcorn and porn and let Mrs Palmer and her five daughters take care of things.…

  • Is sex work a profitable business?

    Is sex work a profitable business?

    A diagram of Michael Porter’s Five Forces based on an image from Porter M. E., Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (New York: Free Press, 1985), page 5. I once had a lady come and visit me for the day in Christchurch from Wellington because she wanted to interview me to figure out whether…

  • Sex work after lockdown

    Sex work after lockdown

    You can’t please all of the people all of the time. You’ll need to login to enjoy this anonymous phone message It seems not long ago that Covid-19 broke out and we were forced into lockdown, and now we are nearly into level 2. According to the government business website, in level 2, non-medical massage…

  • Not About The Heart Of Darkness; Whoring As A Profession At The End Of Capitalism*

    Not About The Heart Of Darkness; Whoring As A Profession At The End Of Capitalism*

    This is a guest post by Christchurch escort Clio** the Whore. ‘You live in a fantasy’, says my client wistfully. He is lying on my bed in a state of post coital triste, having expounded to me his marital problems. He looks around him, at the beautiful room bathed in golden light with its fin…

  • Sex Workers Starting With Why

    Sex Workers Starting With Why

    Roy Lichenstein We Rose Up Slowly (1964)   Why do sex workers do what they do? I’ve been enjoying the fabulous book Start With Why by Simon Sinek after a recommendation by someone I respect a lot and who has had an amazing career in their (creative) field. In fact I listened to the audio…

  • Ways to do sex work – part two (touring)

    Ways to do sex work – part two (touring)

    Beautiful Kaikoura on the east coast of the South Island, view from the beach during a brief train stop Touring sex workers are a not-so-modern phenomenon but since the Prostitution Reform Act (2003) in New Zealand we are able to tour and sell our services in a much more organised manner. I personally love to…

  • Ways to do sex work – part one (cam work)

    Ways to do sex work – part one (cam work)

    My occasional series about selling sex originally coincided (until my blog was rearranged) with the impending release of a film about cam models (ladies who interact with paying and non-paying internet customers via web cams). It is kind of like live porn, being largely user-directed and featuring a solitary actor (it is quite complicated to…

  • Lady on lady sex work adventures

    Lady on lady sex work adventures

    Golden Head by Golden Head, illustration by Dante Rossetti for Christina Rossetti’s Goblin Marketand Other Poems(1862) Golden head by golden head, Like two pigeons in one nest Folded in each other’s wings, They lay down in their curtained bed – Christina Rossetti in Goblin Market It’s not just men who enjoy sexy times with sex…

  • Must we mature sex workers still lie about our age?

    Must we mature sex workers still lie about our age?

    A guest contributor on my blog last year wrote in favour of mature ladies, acknowledging the benefits of more experience and knowledge of the wonders of a woman’s sexuality. While agreeing with this, as an “enlightened” (or I could say mature) woman who now feels okay about being real about my age – and a…

  • What’s a nice girl like me doing in a job like this?

    What’s a nice girl like me doing in a job like this?

    So people sometimes ask me, “what’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Well – First of all, the place I work is really rather nice and I can honestly say, I am in the best working situation I have ever had.  I set my own hours, my own rates, and…

  • Men’s fantasies – Other Woman Experience (OWE)

    Men’s fantasies – Other Woman Experience (OWE)

    I’ve seen the OWE (other woman experience) happen a wee bit in my time doing sex work.  Last year a working girl friend of mine had a year long (in his eyes it was an affair) series of bookings with a regular client who declared his undying love, promised exotic holidays which she turned down…

  • I can’t make you love me

    I can’t make you love me

    It is probably safe to assume that most of society, even those who pride themselves on thinking progressively, in their heart of hearts, looks down on sex workers, but are mostly too polite to say so to our faces.  In the media, society’s attitude toward sex work is reflected often, even in the supposedly more…

  • Lurking and Peering and the Culture of Complaint

    Lurking and Peering and the Culture of Complaint

    The day I visited my friend and fellow sex worker, Clio, at her house*, I was wearing my (non-sex worker-like) day clothes of jeans and a plain, dark woollen top and carrying a large, black art portfolio, as I was visiting to show Clio some sketches from a creative project I started at university. As…

  • A Way to Spend Money

    A Way to Spend Money

    Sex work is about sex and money, so I often think about money and what to do with it.  Money is just a tool with which we build our freedom, but not having any of this freedom-tool is not much fun at all.  And yet I am surprised at the drama that surrounds so much…

  • Fond Farewells

    Fond Farewells

    This is a final blog post, by my friend, Clio the ex-whore, recently retired. Retirement only sort of suits me. Only a couple of weeks ago an ex colleague and I were reminiscing over a few cocktails. We don’t miss it, we said, isn’t great to have a straight job and be proper respectable women…

  • Sex Workers’ Supporters: Please take a bow

    Sex Workers’ Supporters: Please take a bow

    Sex work: sometimes it really is fields of daisies and buttercups.  Painting by John William Waterhouse. Frequently during discussions about sex work, the subject is raised of bitches and bitchiness among sex workers.  Perhaps images of girls pillow fighting while wearing skimpy underwear is tantilising, and often there are suggested scenarios of “professional jealousy” causing…

  • Selling sex

    Selling sex

      It seems that a few sex workers I have spoken to get a bit funny about the bit where clients hand over the money, and I can’t for the life of me see why.  To me, it is one of the most exciting parts and it is what differentiates us sex workers from the…

  • What it’s like to be the only one

    What it’s like to be the only one

    Stephanie Hunter – Australian Escort I’ve been in touch with a few escorts from Australia as well as one or two kiwi escorts now working over the ditch.  It seems that even though our laws are similar, that is, that penetrative oral sex must also be covered, in recent times, in Australia sex workers have…

  • Exit: Stage Left

    Exit: Stage Left

    There comes a time in a sex worker’s life when, despite the lovely harem of men who are her willing clients, she sometimes thinks that she has had enough of fucking for money.  It may not be a feeling that comes on suddenly, like an epiphany, instead it may be a slowly evolving feeling of…

  • Safe Sex (Play) for Clients

    Safe Sex (Play) for Clients

    (life as art) This long post was originally written for a sex industry association with the brief How Not to Pick the Wrong Sex Worker and the tagline “warning signs for clients”. It has been adapted for my blog Is there a wrong type of service provider or only a wrong type of service provider…

  • Safe Sex (Work) for Sex Workers

    Safe Sex (Work) for Sex Workers

    I have to say we’re pretty darned lucky in countries like New Zealand where sex work is 100% legal because it means that if anyone tries to harm us, the cops are on our side. Absolutely fabulous situation, it means exactly that because there is the threat, of the long arm of the law who…

  • High-class tarts versus low-down whores

    High-class tarts versus low-down whores

    Portrait of a Courtesan (c. 1520) by Palma Vecchio I always find it interesting to hear opinions on the classes of sex workers and who fits where.  As I mentioned in my post about ship girls, we ship girls were considered pretty darn low-class for having sex with sailors, yet I found that the clients were…

  • OUT!

    OUT!

    The Scream by Edvard Munch One thing sex workers seem to fear most is being outed, or an aspect of their lives being outed, and interestingly it is probably the most well-used threat some sex workers make against others. However, quite often sex workers let things slip, for example by their lifestyles or in conversations…

  • Advice from a Client

    Advice from a Client

    Les Nymphes et le Satyre by William Bouguereau. 1873, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts. I welcome contributions from readers and clients, and while the contributor below has never been to see me, I gather he has chalked up quite a bit of experience seeing working ladies in his time.  Over to him: I have been…

  • Why would you want to be a sex worker?

    Why would you want to be a sex worker?

    Veronica Veronese* by Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model.  It is believed to represent “the artistic soul in the act of creation”. I’ve always liked new beginnings although of course generally they are nothing more than a mental reset. So the start of a new year is as good a…

  • Loving relationships: can a sex worker have it all?

    Loving relationships: can a sex worker have it all?

    “I loved you since I knew ya, I wouldn’t talk down to ya”…* I’ve known sex workers since I began working as a teenager who have been in long term relationships with people since before they were sex workers, as well as relationships which started while they were sex workers with their clients and with…

  • Dear Baby Hooker…

    Dear Baby Hooker…

    Congratulations!  You’ve recognised that you can put a value on something that there is a bit of a demand for and decided to become a sex worker.  Here are some things that I’ve gleaned over the years, or that I wish I’d known way back when. Once you’ve been a sex worker, you will always…

  • Are you old enough?

    Are you old enough?

    Still from the music video of Dragon’s Are You Old Enough?   The legal age to be a sex worker in New Zealand is 18 and most sex workers will not accept clients under 18.  According to my (light) investigations, there is actually no age restriction for sex workers’ clients other than the age restriction…

  • Where to from here?

    Where to from here?

    Amber O’Hara not ready to turn her back on sex work … yetIt’s hard to believe that it’s almost a year since I embarked again on the sex work journey with certain financial goals in mind. My very first blog post, my personal yet public record of the events related to becoming a sex worker,…