Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (36 page)

While call girls appear to offer more intimacy than street prostitutes, the data suggest a surprising amount of time and personal service may be offered by the latter to some clients, especially to their regulars or those they see in motels rather than cars. The qualitative data we collected are limited, and we know more about call girls than street prostitutes because we interviewed them in off-street environments that allowed more time and comfort to elaborate answers. Had our interviewers on the street been instructed to collect qualitative data, we might have found fewer differences between the two groups on some of the questions.

Use of diaries was experimental, and we cannot offer detailed analysis from more than a few call girls; however, they yielded enough interesting data to support their use more extensively by future researchers. In particular, diary
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data and our informal talks with informants are better suited than our survey data to answer this important question: Is the intimacy offered an illusion, or does real intimacy develop over time?

Our limited qualitative data suggest that not all the call girls are being

“phony” or acting all the time. Most women we asked said that they really like some of their clients, especially those they have seen for years. As one informant said: “You cannot know someone that long without it being a real relationship.” Some claimed to be genuinely interested in being updated on a regular client’s life. As in other commercial relationships, the likelihood of intimate exchange typically increases over time and is one reward of customer loyalty.

Call girls should be added to the list of “listening occupations.” Several women described what is known as the “stranger on a train” phenomenon where the talker can be more openly revealing because the listener is not part of one’s social network. Or perhaps it is the lack of reciprocity and controlled environment that encourage some clients to reveal more to the call girl than they do to friends and family. Encounters with sex workers may offer the

“instant intimacy” that some men say they find in bars.

A woman’s reaction to sexual stimulation can sometimes be real.

Although we know this intimate detail only from one of the women who kept a diary, she noted that she orgasms with some of her clients. But she noted that when busy (it is not uncommon to see three men over a short period of time when business is good), she fakes orgasms, too—a clear-cut example of emotional labor. Another woman’s diary entries, also documenting emotional labor, describes how the “affect” during sex may be in large part for show or ego boosting. Her diary included notations like “I did the usual moaning thing” or “I made typical ‘into-it’ sounds and ‘that feels good’ remarks.”

Our qualitative material includes one example of a call girl’s self-conscious preparation for emotional labor. One informant described “psyching herself up” from the moment she takes off her blue jeans to take a shower, put on her makeup, and get into her sexy miniskirt and halter top (if she’s going to client’s place) or her lingerie (if he’s coming to her place)—both costumes for her fantasy performance. Sex workers have to conjure up the “feminine”

demeanor of “niceness” and “sexiness” even when they are not in the mood.

The blanket notion that these men owe no reciprocity because a woman’s services are paid for is also called into question by one informant—a well-educated, upper-middle-class 29 year old—who continually calls her lawyer, doctor, and accountant clients for help with her personal problems. And some clients desire a real and reciprocal relationship with a call girl. While many enjoy the lack of responsibility in a commercial relationship, other men either
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have not been able to find intimacy elsewhere and fall in love with a call girl, or they indulge real-life “Pretty Woman” rescue fantasies and try to save a woman from “the life.”

Is emotional labor involved when the prostitute is male? Applying Nieva and Gutek’s notion of “sex role spillover,”19 one would expect that the emotional requirements of the job are greater for women than for men doing the same personal service work because “stroking”—supplying socioemotional support—is a gender-based role. West reports minimal expectations for emotion work by male prostitutes in London, who mostly have an aloof attitude, or by their clients, most of whom are seeking nothing more than sexual release.20 However, some of the young men—especially those who work for higher wages through advertised services—view clients as friends and see conversation as part of what they do with clients. Just as some call girls in our study observed, one male escort noted that “sometimes it’s like giving therapy.”21 But in general, emotional requirements are minimal for men.

Caukins and Coombs suggest that clients of male prostitutes tend to seek out masculine types who cater to the client’s fantasy of having sex with a super-masculine male.22

Understanding the personal repercussions of the emotional component of the job of prostitute is beyond the scope of this chapter. Wharton and Erickson describe how women with emotionally demanding jobs suffer negative psychological consequences, including “burnout” and detachment, that can diminish their ability to be emotionally available in their personal relationships.23 When thinking of “burnout” in doing sex work, researchers are far more likely to focus on physical fatigue, repercussions on self-esteem, or loss of attractiveness. It is possible that more call girls than street workers experience burnout and alienation that involves the toll of coping with the emotional demands of clients. Not only do our data suggest call girls perform more “emotional labor” but that they also perform it less anesthetized by drugs and alcohol, compared to street workers. More research on the emotional dimensions of sex work would heighten the appreciation of the many interpersonal skills required of the women in this occupation, while yielding a more multidimensional portrait of the male client population.

N OTE S

This chapter is based on the Los Angeles Women’s Health Risk Study, a RAND project supported by Grant R01-HD24897 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The authors are grateful
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to David Kanouse and Sandra Berry, the principal investigators, for sharing their data, and to Sally Carson for technical assistance.

1. Alfred C. Kinsey, Wendell B. Pomeroy, and Clyde E. Martin,
Sexual
Behavior in the Human Male
. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1948; Charles Winick, “Prostitutes’ Clients’ Perceptions of the Prostitutes and of Themselves,”
International Journal of Social Psychiatry
8 (1962): 289–297.

2. Ads quoted in Elizabeth Bernstein,
Temporarily Yours: Intimacy,
Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex
, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007, pp. 128–129. See also Viviana Zelizer,
The Purchase of Intimacy
, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.

3. Teela Sanders,
Paying for Pleasure: Men Who Buy Sex
, Portland: Willan, 2008.

4. Arlie Hochschild,
The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling
, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983, p. 7.

5. An “escort” is anyone who can be reached by calling escort or outcall services that advertise in phone directories, newspapers, magazines, or on the Internet. The “call girl” can only be reached via a referral system, most typically through a madam, another call girl, or a call girl’s other clients.

6. Zelizer,
Purchase of Intimacy
; Christine Overall, “What’s Wrong with Prostitution? Evaluating Sex Work,”
Signs
17 (1992): 705–724.

7. Hochschild,
The Managed Heart
, p. 46.

8. Bernstein,
Temporarily Yours
.

9. For sampling methodology, see David Kanouse, Sandra Berry, Naihua Duan, Janet Lever, Sally Carson, Judith Perlman, and Barbara Levitan,

“Drawing a Probability Sample of Female Street Prostitutes in Los Angeles County,”
Journal of Sex Research
36 (1999): 45–51.

10. Janet Lever and David E. Kanouse, “Using Qualitative Methods to Study the Hidden World of Offstreet Prostitution in Los Angeles County,” in James Elias, ed.,
Prostitution
, Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1998.

11. Stephen R. Marks, “Intimacy in the Public Realm: The Case of Coworkers,”
Social Forces
72 (1994): 843–858.

12. Kinsey, et al.,
Sexual Behavior
.

13. Winick, “Prostitutes’ Clients’ Perceptions.”

14. See Martin Monto’s chapter in this book, and Matthew Freund, Nancy Lee, and Terri Leonard, “Sexual Behavior of Clients with Street Prostitutes in Camden, N.J.,”
Journal of Sex Research
28 (1991): 579–591.

15. Edward Laumann, John Gagnon, Robert Michael, and Stuart Michaels,
The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States
, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994, p. 98.

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16. Lillian Rubin,
Intimate Strangers: Men and Women Together
, New York: Harper Perennial Library, 1984; Catherine Riessman,
Divorce Talk: Women
and Men Make Sense of Personal Relationships
, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Press, 1990.

17.
Washington Post
/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University, Survey of Americans on Gender. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, CA, March 1998.

18. Riessman,
Divorce Talk
.

19. Veronica Nieva and Barbara Gutek,
Women and Work: A Psychological
Perspective
, New York: Praeger, 1981.

20. Donald J. West,
Male Prostitution
, New York: Harrington Park Press, 1993.

21. West,
Male Prostitution
, p. 247.

22. S. E. Caukins and M. A. Coombs, “The Psychodynamics of Male Prostitution,”
American Journal of Psychotherapy
30 (1976): 441–451.

23. Amy Wharton and Rebecca Erickson, “Managing Emotions on the Job at Home: The Consequences of Multiple Emotional Roles,”
Academy of
Management Review
18 (1993): 457–486.

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H A P T E

C

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9

MALE AND FEMALE ESCORTS:

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Juline Koken, David S. Bimbi,

and Jeffrey T. Parsons

Research on sex work has often reflected society’s perceptions rather than those of sex workers themselves.1 Street-based female prostitutes continue to dominate the discourse on sex work,2 neglecting the diversity of venues and differences among the workers themselves.3 Moreover, there are very few studies that systematically compare male and female workers who work in the same sector of the sex industry. This chapter explores the experiences of men and women who work as escorts, a form of indoor sex work that is done independently or with the aid of an agency providing client referrals. We draw from the findings of our research on independent male and female escorts, as well as other studies.

Escorts and escort agencies have been described in the literature as far back as the mid-20th century.4 In an effort to avoid legal prosecution, escorts often frame their services as providing dinner or travel companions or dates for corporate functions. While sex is often implied or assumed to be included in the services on offer, escorts and escort agencies typically avoid any explicit mention of sex for sale. Escort agencies, which serve as referral services connecting escorts with clients, typically operate in large cities (with some exceptions).5 Escort agencies seek to lend an aura of sophistication and glamour to their services, and escorts are often portrayed as providers of “high-class”

companionship.

Many women and men move from escort agencies into freelance independent prostitution, reaching clients directly through advertisements in
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print media, phone chat lines, or the Internet.6 Some enter sex work independently, bypassing third parties such as madams, agencies, or pimps.7

Independent escorts range from those casually involved in sex work on an as-needed basis (for example, placing an ad on a message board when rent is due) to career-oriented escorts who maintain their own websites. Many adult film performers supplement their income through escorting, and may have fan clubs and constitute a niche market within the industry.

The business of escorting requires skill in marketing, building, and maintaining relationships with clients, as well as responding to the needs and variations of the market. While some previous studies have described a period of training and apprenticeship within sex work—typically brothel-based sex work—independent and agency-based escorts often learn the ropes through trial and error. Occasionally, other escorts or friends in the industry offer guidance to newcomers in the business.

The art of screening potential clients appears to vary widely by agencies and individuals. In our own research, we have learned that escort agencies typically collect much less information about clients than independent escorts do. But regardless of whether they are affiliated with an agency or work independently, escorts must possess the skills necessary to recognize clients who are potentially dangerous or law enforcement agents as well as how to negotiate their sexual boundaries in sessions with clients.

The process of acquiring the skills to maintain their safety and well-being is often complicated by escorts’ efforts to shield themselves from the stigma of “prostitute.” The need to maintain secrecy places a heavy burden on the escort and also limits their ability to network with others in the business who may offer support and guidance.

The advent of the Internet has led to a significant shift in the escorting industry. Prospective escorts may easily learn about advertising and client expectations by reading escorts’ online profiles and reviewing sites where clients discuss their experiences. The anonymity of the Internet also provides a forum where escorts may share information about the business through message boards, websites, and private listservs. The increasing popularity of Internet sites where escorts and agencies post profiles has increased the ease of entry; escorts no longer need to depend on third parties to provide introductions to potential clients.