Escorts...Raising the Bar

LOL Bonded?

I once hired one to landscape my garden for me.

I used to be an escort. I stopped because it made my partner in SL uncomfortable, and I moved on to other things... however... escorting now seems to be on several levels, as has been discussed here.. voice, cam or just text etc...

I was just text (and bloody good at it, though i says it meself)

I would not do voice or cam, because that is just too close to being rl. I am better in text than voice, and IF... (so big an IF that its not going to happen) i were to do voice or cam, i would be charging REAL money... not L$ scale rates... to do that sort of reality i would expect the guy to pay real life rates.. I am not going there..

Imogen

PS... think what you like about double standards, moralities, cheap whores or whatever you want to say about SL escorts... Heard it all before, dont bother.

That's sick!

/me purrs, "if you think that the cabbages were fun, sweetie, wait until you see what I do with this carrot."

Ahh, yes, if Elliot had found Second Life, he would still be governor of New York. Or at least he would have looked better in the photographs...

So would Senator John Edwards.

I find the escort business in Second Life particularly sad.

The real life sex industry is primarily one based on exploitation anyway. Ideally, the sex industry could exist in such a way in which all sex workers could be involved because they just enjoy the work. For that ideal to be realized, though, everyone should have enough education and employment opportunities open to them that they could choose between professions based in large part on how happy they would be working in those professions.

The reality of the situation is that many sex workers are in the sex industries not because they had the opportunity to choose between, say, becoming a lawyer, doctor, or Nevada prostitute. Many sex workers are in the industry because they never had a chance to go to law or medical school, and are doing the best that they can. (And many sex workers are in the industry just as a way to pay for law or medical school.)

At least in the legal, regulated sex industries, sex workers can actually make a living wage with a certain degree of safety. Certainly not the money that, for example, a lawyer makes by sitting at a desk all day. Certainly not the money that, for example, professional athletes make by selling their bodies to violent sports. Certainly not the kind of money, I think, people's bodies are worth. But at least living wage that beats flipping burgers or waiting tables.

Now, the real people who are Second Life escorts are making peanuts (a few real dollars at a time) spending a lot of unpleasant time doing work. Of the Second Life escorts I have known, most tell me that though sometimes they enjoy their clients, far more often they are just enduring clients they don't like.

So is that how worthless some people's liesure time is? Liesure time is so devalued that one might give up a half hour of it for a couple of dollars? That, to me, is sad.

It would be different if the Second Life escorts were mainly just enjoying their time, and the money was just a token. That would be positive sexual expression It would be different if, even if they didn't enjoy escorting, they were at least making minimum wage to do it. That would be supplemental income.

However, what I know of the escort business in Second Life makes me think that a large part of society really devalues their time and sexuality.

I think that more people involved in the SL sex industry enjoy it then they let on.

They know there is a stigma attached to admitting so.

There of course are also people who just see it as a game and don't really care what they are doing.

There are no basic SL necessities. The whole concept of having to sell sex to feed oneself in SL is odd.

It could be some have a limited perception based on their RL experiences that they feel they "have to" but I don't think that can be as often the motivating factor as much as people claim.

I couldn't tell you the number of times someone has said to me "I was cybering strangers for free, I figured I may as well get some L$ for it."

Most give it up pretty quickly - I think in part its an aspect of the whole sow your wild SL oats that a lot of people participate in.

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As far as the webcam escorts - most of these are also webcam girls around the net. They are doing it for the same reasons webcam girls there do it. Thats quite a bit different I think.

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Voice/Phone sex workers seem be in between. I used to know some ladies who did RL phone sex who also do voice sex in SL .. But there are a lot of others who just think of it as a game too.

Amity may have a point.

The escorts that I've talked with enjoyed their work, for the most part. Certainly they enjoyed the money! But I am sure there are others like Amity describes.

True, there's no need to be an SL sex worker to put bread on the table. However, *in the context of the SL economy*, there are not all that many good-paying jobs.

At the lowest end, we have campers. Unskilled labor

Then we have dancers and escorts. Low entrance requirements (a good appearance) and the only skill required is a talent for erotic texting.

Everything else requires significant skill at something, and/or a significant up-front investment. They also require some business acumen to market yourself or your products. Occupations like DJ, photographer, landlord, club owner, builder, clothing designer, scripter, animator, live musician, land baron.

For someone who wants to make all their money in world, and is not willing to spend a few bucks to buy some L$, escort may seem like the only game in town. I think that's shortsighted...like campers. Why spend your leisure time doing something you don't enjoy? Spend a few $US instead, and have a fun Second Life.

Second Life is here for your enjoyment. If you enjoy being an escort, then that's great! More power to you. I admire and respect people with the talent to do good erotic texting. But don't be an SL escort, or anything else in SL, because you feel you "have" to.

I've always found it significant that Second Life, upon opening, represented something of a brand new, almost completely free market economy. And what were the first two huge industries to spring forth and flourish in a brand new free market economy? Two of the classic exploitation industries: Sex and Gambling.

Worlds may change, but people don't. In Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress", the protagonist lists the major interests of the average citizen of the lunar colonies as "Beer, Betting, Women, and Work". In SL, we can't drink, so Beer is out. We don't *have* to work, although many do. Guess what that leaves?

I wont take quotations from all of the above just to "save space" but I agree with much of what has been said. I do think that SL offers a venue to openness and a chance for happiness for many. I freely admit that sex here has been stimulating and safe for me.

In my experience, an escort offers many women and men a chance at happiness, a sharing that means something more worthwhile than a "wank on the floor". And also a chance to be a little "wild" that would have negative ramifications in the reality-world .There is no shame in making love for two consenting adults in any situation. The real world often persecutes lovers in many situations for moral, political and social reasons. SL has dropped many of those barriers and offered a deeply appreciated service by providing opportunities for human sexuality to develop and flourish.

/me gives Jig a BIG hug and a kiss.

Right on, sister.

Have you found the army yet? We've got our logo and everything...

Free your mind and your ass will follow.

Maybe I am being close minded here but I don't think that a lot of bi or les women go to escorts. I think that they have better taste than to pay for it. I totally do not get the appeal of the biz, but that is just me. I won't get into my opinions, since the lovely Amar scolded me cuz this is a PG board! LOL
The whole rl woman thing is kinda silly IMO. SL is illusion. If we stay in chat, rl gender is not important. I met a really hot woman once and would have stayed interested had she not TOLD me she was a man IRL. I think that she thought it would turn me on. It didn't. Illusion is illusion, don't mess with mine!
I just got here and cannot say a lot about sex as a biz but I can say that SLex is pretty tasty without voice. I think voice cheapens it and turns it into boring ol' phone sex with a cartoon. I can do that anytime.
Pricing - there are two dollar whores and there are $2000/hr call girls. You get what you pay for. Personally, if I were to buy sex, I would pass on the crack whore.

Damn straight! If they are going to turn it into phone sex, they need to pay phone sex rates with the cartoon bonus.

I very much doubt that very many of the escorts in SL are in it for the money. I think it has to do with what Colette said: sowing the wild oats, behaving like a wanton sexual free-agent in a rules-free, consequence-free environment (or so we think) -- it's kind of the heady side of that freedom for some people. And to be honest a goodly number of women have some sexual fantasies about being a hooker (for a night .. as a fantasy, not as a reality in the least). I do think that most of the time, the amount of time spent as an escort is very brief, as the shine wears off fairly quickly from that surge of freedom, empowerment and fantasy, and it becomes more about hustling customers -- which is something that has a much less broad attraction. But I don't think that most of the "girls" involved in the sex trade in SL are doing it, strictly speaking, for the money, because there just isn't that much money involved in it for the vast, vast majority of people who are doing it (or who try to).



Yes and no.

Yes, SL does provide an outlet, if you will, for people to experience things that they may be intimidated from experiencing in RL for various reasons. That's certainly the case for many people, in both sexual and non-sexual areas, but in the sexual area yes it's certainly the case. In the lesbian community in SL, for example, the vast, vast majority of women there are not identifying as lesbian in real life -- many are married mothers living in the suburbs who may have always been curious about being with another woman, or who may have had fantasies or even more concrete desires about it, but who are not willing to do it in RL for various reasons, because of marital commitments or family ties or what have you. So in a very real way, SL is an outlet for them to experience what they are curious about, or what they desire, in a fairly safe way, or at least in a way that does not as directly intrude into their established patterns in RL.

The "no" part comes in when one realizes that what happens in SL, despite what we think, nevertheless has moral, social, political (perhaps) implications for us in RL as well. Although many of us keep a wall of separation between SL and RL by design (and I am one of these people), nevertheless, I am one person and not two. What I feel in SL has consequences on me in RL ... what I do in SL has consequences on my thoughts, feelings, beliefs in RL as well as vice versa -- that is, my RL beliefs, etc, impact my SL as well. There's no getting around that. So while SL allows people an opportunity to experience things they may not do in RL, those experiences nevertheless have RL consequences -- those can be emotional, they can be physical, they can be relational. Marriages have cratered over SL, as we all know, even when the participants *started* by using SL as a way of experiencing other things, as an outlet. The tricky part is that we are unities, we aren't two people, despite whatever mask some of us may wear when we are in SL. If you are an escort and are burned emotionally or psychologically by a couple of people in SL, those wounds are with you in RL, too. If you are married in RL and have an SL relationship that is of any emotional depth, you will eventually feel some moral stress about that in RL, regardless of what you may have thought on the way in, and regardless of how well you separate RL and SL. We're unities, and the experiences and consequences of experiences in SL carry over into RL in one way or another.

Both. I know of escorts in SL who are in it for the money, some even for RL money to add to their wellfare, since they don't have good opportunity for r/l jobs. I've known collegues who escorted in SL to pay for their school even. Many escorts just escort to pay for their pretty SL clothes and such.

Some escorts really just do it for fun, and like to cyber with various people, and ask for money since that places a nice barrier against some of the more clueless cyberers. Just go shopping in a newbie zone, as a girl, you'll have little trouble getting the attention of some guy with an oversized organ hanging out his closed zipper who's only grasp of English is formed by the question: "Sex?".
Well, just his form of presenting himself leaves little imagination that it would be a mediocre encounter at best. The money requirement means an encounter may still be mediocre, but at least you get a new dress (of your choice) or 2 weeks rent out of it. Some clients may become regulars, which is nice, since those clients generally (sadly, there are always exceptions) do get better with each encounter, even if they started out as mediocre.

There are plenty of reasons why girls escort in SL, and the combination of reasons and their respective importance is endless.

Similarly, there are lots of styles to escort. Just limiting things to cam/no cam/onehand typing doesn't do justice to what's available. Behind each escort, there's a real girl (well, okay, sometimes a man too). Differences in personality and tastes will make a difference between encounters. With one girl, things might be all about sex, while with another, things might be more like a girlfriend experience. Some of us just want to finish a client as fast as we can, others love to just talk for an hour about whatever mutual interests we may have, or sit and listen to whatever you want off your chest.

In the end, it's all about what the client wants and what he's willing to pay for it. If clients return, you must've been doing something right.

You rock - that is dead on!

I've cut down that quote to save space...but that is SO right on, Victorria. May I use this little mini-essay as a jumping off place for an "SL Relationships" discussion group that we're getting started?

Who is 'we' and where is this discussion and can anyone take part?

intrested

imogen

"We" is me and kelley griffith, the owner of GQ Start, and "where" is GQ Start. Last week's discussion was "Is Having Sex in SL Cheating on Your RL Spouse?" I don't know if kelley has set up a regular time for this group on the class schedule yet. We're still tossing around ideas and formats 'n stuff.

That would be a very interesting topic for discussion!

/me grins