Sex for Sale~Prostitution, Pornography and the Sex Industry (37 page)

R E S E A R C H M E TH O D S

The data presented here on Internet based, independent male and female escorts is comprised of two samples.8 The first study (“The Classified Project”)
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was conducted in the fall of 2000 and aimed to explore the experiences of gay and bisexual male escorts who advertise on the Internet. The topics explored in this project included entry into sex work, sexual negotiation with clients and other partners and recommendations for programming and services aimed at male sex workers.

To identify potential participants for the Classified Project, email addresses of potential participants were identified through advertisements in local gay publications, user profiles on a popular online service, several escort websites and an escort review website. A letter describing the project was sent to these email addresses, and men were invited to call to be screened for the study. All men were assured of anonymity and confidentiality. Snowball sampling also occurred when a description of the project was posted on private escort listservs by men who had completed the study. After subtracting the number of emails that bounced back from invalid addresses, as many as 370

men may have received and read the invitation to participate. Criteria for enrollment in the project were: (1) at least 18 years of age, (2) use the Internet to find clients in the last 3 months, and (3) identification as gay or bisexual.

A total of 60 phone calls were received and 46 men completed the study.9

Men were not asked to identify themselves and no contact information was collected. After informed consent was verbally reviewed with the participant, an in-depth interview was conducted and tape-recorded in a private setting, followed by a brief survey that the participant completed alone. Each participant received $75 for his participation.

The second study (the “Lady Classified Project”) was a partial replication of the Classified Project, and aimed to explore the experiences of independent female escorts who advertise on the Internet.10 The purpose of this study was to investigate women’s coping strategies for managing prostitution-related stigma as well as the emotional demands of the work. Eligibility criteria were: aged 18

and over, currently advertising on the Internet as an escort, and primarily working independently (women who earned most of their income through escort agencies, brothels, or other third-party affiliations were not eligible).

Between September 2007 and February 2008, personalized emails were sent to women using the working names and email addresses they posted on their Internet advertisements. Thirty women agreed to participate in the research. Two interviews were conducted by telephone, seven in a private office at a university, nine at the participant’s homes or hotel rooms, and twelve at the research center directed by the third author. After the interview, women completed a short survey assessing demographic characteristics and work-related burnout. All were compensated $100 for participation. No contact or identifying information was collected.

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All interviews were audio-taped and transcribed, removing any identifying information from the transcript. The development of a qualitative codebook and subsequent coding of the interview data followed a modified form of team-driven analysis.11 Team-driven qualitative analysis was ideal for this project, as it expands the potential range of interpretations of data through the addition of others’ perspectives, and the inclusion of a sex work community advocate in the coding team enriched the possible range of views on interview themes. The coding team was comprised of the first author and two trained coders, a research assistant and a member of the sex work advocacy community. Following an initial round of structural coding by the team, the first author performed additional rounds of coding, identifying emerging meta-themes and relationships between codes.

Participant Characteristics

The Classified Project

The mean age of the male participants was 39 (SD = 6.27) and ranged from 22 to 47. The sample included 35 white men (70%), seven Latino men (14%), five African-American men (10%), and three Asian/Pacific Islander men (6%).

The majority (82%) identified as gay and 18% identified as bisexual. For self-reported HIV status, 80% reported testing HIV negative, 16% reported being HIV positive, and 4% reported never having been tested for HIV. A total of 17 men (34%) reported having a primary male partner or boyfriend. Overall, the men were well educated, with 64% reporting at least a bachelor’s degree.

The median income range reported from sources other than sex work was $10,000 to $19,999 with a median income range from sex work of $20,000

to $29,999. The average length of time the men reported working as escorts was 2.7 years (SD = 5.03), with a range from 3 weeks to 25 years. About half the men (N = 23) reported spending at least 12 hours a week escorting or performing escorting-related activities (such as answering phone calls or communicating with potential clients online); 26% spent more than 20 hours a week escorting. The majority of the men (70%) charged $200 an hour, with a range from $75 for “body work” to $250 for “full service.”

The Lady Classified Project

The sample roughly reflected the demographic characteristics of women advertising online and working in other indoor sex work venues.12 The majority of women identified as white (70%), five were African-American or
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Caribbean American (17%), three were Asian or South Asian (10%), and one identified as multiracial (white-Asian). Seventy percent of the women were born in the United States. The women ranged in age from 21 to 57, with a mean age of 34. The sample had high educational attainment: 23% were currently enrolled in a college or graduate school, and over one-third had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Nearly all (90%) had some college experience.

E S C O RT A G E N C I E S

Escort agencies originated as brothels that sent sex workers out to clients, to call centers that served as the connection between clients and escorts without offering onsite services. The introduction of widespread private telephone use following WWII enabled escort agencies to become viable as venues separate from brothels, and eventually came to dominate the sex-for-sale market.13

Today, agencies range from a single booker operating with a cellphone to an established office where escorts wait during their shift to be sent to clients.

Some agencies even offer temporary housing to escorts and become informal social spaces for escorts to network, discuss clients, and give and receive social support.

Historically, some brothels and agencies have offered workers a period of apprenticeship where men and women new to the sex industry could “learn the ropes.” An ethnographic study conducted in the 1970s of the training of

“house prostitutes” (novice female brothel workers) describes the importance of transitioning between the “straight” world and “the racket” (the business of prostitution) through a period of intensive training by an experienced madam.14 This madam taught novice prostitutes sexual techniques, methods of extracting higher fees from clients, and the social norms guiding interaction with other house prostitutes and managing clients. More recently, a study of male and female escorts identified the ways in which becoming a skilled practitioner of safer sex has become an essential component of modern prostitutes’ professional identity.15 For men and women who work independently or through escort agencies, learning the normative beliefs and practices of professional prostitutes may be much less formal and acquired on the job through trial and error.16

Escort agencies are frequently an entry point for prostitutes who are new to the business. Agencies ease entry into the sex trade by providing a link between the novice escort and an established base of clientele, fielding new clients and screening them, and educating escorts about the “going rate” for time and services offered. In exchange for the services offered the escort by the
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agency, the escort splits his or her hourly fee with the agency, typically in a 50/50 or 60/40 split. In the Lady Classified Project, many of the women reported entering the sex industry through escort agencies, which they felt would be safer than starting out independently; other women, however, reported being unaware of ways in which escorts might work independently.

While some of the men in the Classified Project reported having worked with agencies, more men entered escorting as independents. Our data indicate that many independent escorts are far more intensive in their screening process than agencies (discussed further later).

Agencies typically collect the client’s full name (to be verified in person through an ID check) and verify the client’s phone number and place of residence or hotel room. A client paying by credit card will have the account verified as well. Agencies frequently also have lists of banned clients, which may be shared between agencies in the interest of keeping escorts safe.

Although police most frequently arrest street prostitutes, escorts are also arrested in sting operations where police rent hotel rooms and pose as clients.

In addition to the information collected from the client during his initial contact, phone operators at escort agencies must also be skilled in promoting their escorts while subtly screening the client for signs that he may be a police officer, prank caller, or dangerous. Finally, one safety advantage to working with an agency is having someone (typically the phone booker or manager) who knows at all times where the escort is and can potentially intervene if the interaction with the client goes wrong.17

In our own research on independent escorts, men and women have described the pros and cons of working for an agency. Some continued to maintain a reduced level of contact with escort agencies in order to supplement the income they gained from seeing clients independently. One woman described it this way:

I still work for an agency just to supplement, because they have more volume of calls and they’re a little more consistent. Of course I get paid less, but it’s good to have that fall-back in case I don’t have a call for two weeks. I still do that sometimes . . . usually they take a 50/50 split. . . . Sometimes they try to make you work when you don’t want to work . . . You don’t know who you’re going to. They tell you his name, they tell you all the information, but ultimately you don’t get to speak to the client before you get to them. So you don’t know what they’re like. They could be someone who you normally would not have made an appointment with. I’ve had few bad situations with that. . . . So, I have that on the downside. You have to sort of trust the person on the phone too, so I only work with certain phone girls [booking agents].

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Another woman commented on how working with agencies advertising on the Internet led her to independence:

I went on and off contacting madams or higher-end agencies. I figured maybe she has very high-end clients that are not looking online. But if they’re just advertising online, why would I share my money with them? Why not just do it myself?

Some of the men who participated in the Classified Project viewed escort agencies as a useful starting place for entering the business but later transitioned into independent work, often due to dissatisfaction with business and labor practices. One man described his experience: I started out . . . at an escort agency. I did that routine for about 2 years, but I found that I was not getting along well with the guys who run the escort agencies. They’re mean and you cannot make your own schedule. A lot of times people call at the most inconvenient times. It’s always when you can’t do it or don’t want to do it. . . . But if it’s your own ad, you can say no.

Another man objected to how his agency treated clients: I had been working with agencies for a year and a half and finally just realized that they were not going to get me as much work as I wanted. . . . I also didn’t like certain things about the way they did business. I didn’t think they treated the client very nicely. I didn’t like the way they clocked it. You call when you get there and they call right when the hour is up. That’s not how I want to work with the client. I don’t like to clock people. I like it to be fun for them and for me.

Other escorts saw agencies as inherently exploitative and refused to work with them on principle, and described the advantages of being self-employed.

One woman stated:

I’ve worked with other people, but I’ve not worked with an agency. . . . I don’t want to give somebody half the money I make. And I take much better care of myself than any escort [agency] would, because I’ve had some really close friends work for escort agencies and they were absolutely miserable.

Interviewer
Tell me more about that—how is independent different?

Everything is in my hands. I pick who I feel I can get along with in person and feel safe with. I screen them myself, and I get to keep all the money. I pick my prices: I lower them when I really need the money or if I like the guy, or I raise
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them if I feel like I can get away with it or if the guy has a lot of money . . . and I know he’ll pay it. I call the shots all the time.

These narratives reflect the advantages and disadvantages of working with agencies. Agencies may reach a broader client market through advertising than most independents do, and also have a base of repeat clientele who rely on the agency as a resource for a variety of new escorts. Thus many escorts report that agencies are a valuable source of clients, especially when one’s own independent business is less busy. At the same time, escorts working with agencies have little control over which clients they are sent to see, potentially leading to uncomfortable situations.