I’ve recently had more clients asking for reassurance that I like my job or find them attractive during bookings, and I have some thoughts on it.
For a number of clients, I think this desire for reassurance does come from a good place. There’s a lot of messaging about sex work that paints all escorts as being victims, being desperate for money, and hating our clients. Especially with so many organizations referring to escorting as “paid rape”, it makes sense that johns wish to reassure themselves that they aren’t committing sexual assault. The issue is that when they ask me whether I like my job, whether I’m genuinely enjoying myself, or how I got into it, they must know that I’m going to lie.
As far as they’re concerned, I either enjoy my job and the sex I’m having with them, or I dislike it and therefore they’re doing something wrong. Problem is, I’m not attracted to my clients and I’m only doing it because I need money, but I’d never tell them that. I don’t owe them that information, and it would also be terrible for business. I wouldn’t get repeat clients, because it would ruin their experience and fantasy and the fantasy is a part of what they’re paying for. All these questions do is put me in the awkward situation where I have to put effort into lying and making them feel better. If they’re so worried about sleeping with someone who won’t enjoy it (and in 5 years, I can think of maybe 2 clients where I might say I “enjoyed” a session somewhat), they shouldn’t be hiring sex workers. The entire point is that we are selling sexual services and will make it good for them, not for ourselves.
Recently, a client kept asking me questions about what I liked sexually. I respond to these questions with the acts I dislike the least, or the acts I think will make the client finish fastest, and pretend that those things are sexually titillating to me. We did some of those things, at which point he started asking me whether or not I liked various other sex acts. I asked if he wanted to do those things, rather than answering directly. When he said he wanted to, I said I enjoy them and we did them so he’d be satisfied with them booking. I’ve gotten very used to doing this, often in more subtle ways, where I work out what the client wants and pretend I also have an interest in that.
Further into the session, he started asking me questions about how long I’ve been escorting and whether I enjoy the job. I said yes, at which point he complained about how easy things must be for me to have sex I like and get paid for it. I don’t enjoy the sex I have with clients, I often actively dislike it, and it’s so frustrating to be asked questions they know I’ll need to lie in response to only to throw my answers back at me.
Before he left, in between various personal questions that I dodged, the john asked me if I’d had a good time with him and whether I’d like to see him again. What struck me about this was the way he asked:
“Would you like to see me again? I feel like we had a good time, did you enjoy it?”
“You can say no if you don’t want to, but I think we really clicked.”
“Are you sure? Do you really like doing [redacted] and [redacted]?”
He probably asked me similar variations of these questions about whether I really enjoyed myself 5 or 6 times before I finally got him to leave a couple of minutes past the end of his booking. Either he knew I was lying and was trying to pressure me into admitting that I didn’t enjoy the booking, for reasons I cannot fathom, or he just wanted to sufficiently reassure himself that he wasn’t a bad person. Some of this might be because I allowed some pain-play in the session (spanking, some light hitting with a belt) and he felt particularly guilty about having done something painful to me after the endorphins were wearing off.
I often wonder whether clients even think about the position they’re putting sex workers in when they ask these questions. Especially because the situation above was my second client that day who asked for such reassurance, and I don’t think my behaviour has changed or that I let my distaste or reluctance show through. I’m good at acting, at this point.
If I were honest when asked these questions, would clients ask for their money back and leave? If they ask me after we’ve already had sex, are they likely to get violent or argue that I did enjoy it and refuse to believe me? Will honesty get me a bad review on one of the many escort review sites, so that I lose customers in the future?
So much of the effort I put into sessions is pretending to enjoy myself, especially with clients determined to make me orgasm (which I have to fake several times in a session to stop them jabbing at me in ways that are deeply unpleasant). When I’m already pretending to enjoy it and actively making positive comments and giving verbal affirmative consent, these questions about my authenticity are deeply frustrating. It’s worse that these questions also never line up with clients who are respectful of my boundaries.
Questions like: “Is this okay?” “May I touch you here?” “Can we do this position?” are all good questions to ask someone you’re having sex with, whether they’re a sex worker or not.
Questions like: “Do you actually enjoy that?” “How do you actually feel about this job?” “Do you really find me attractive?” are useless, because there’s only one way I can respond without risk to either my safety or income.
Frankly, clients might as well just tell themselves the answers they want to hear, rather than filtering their own answers through me.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 