This is Mistress Matisse’s May 18th Stranger column…there’s a lot that’s valuable here for both the new and seasoned sex worker.
1. Yes, there are ready-made jobs in sex work, like massage studios and escort services, where all you have to do is show up. But the people who run them take a cut of your money, so you wind up paying just as much for convenience as you would to have your own business, and you sacrifice some control.
2. Greed and not thinking clearly is how most women get into trouble. Don’t work stoned or drunk, and don’t get so hungry for money that you ignore warning signals.
3. Not many people do sex work for a short while and then quit. It is very hard to give up the money and the free time.
4. Most clients are just regular guys like you’d meet anywhere. You probably aren’t going to get a call from Charlie Sheen, but you’re also statistically unlikely to meet the next Green River Killer.
5. You will not get a pension, and if you don’t pay your taxes, you won’t even be eligible for social security. You are going to get old, so either provide for yourself or plan on having a shopping cart as your retirement home.
6. Don’t trash other girls to your clients. Those tactics were unbecoming even in junior high school and they’re contemptible now.
7. If your doctor or your dentist or your cleaning lady or your auto mechanic gives you any shit about how you earned the cash you’re paying them, take your oh-so-dirty money somewhere else.
8. If either a potential client or an employer offers you a deal that sounds too good to be true, assume that it is, and ask yourself why he might be lying and what you’ll do if he is. If you’re okay with all possible outcomes, then try it, but if any of them are unacceptable, walk away.
9. You’re likely to be making more money than your lover or your friends, so it’s nice to buy dinner or a round of drinks sometimes. But if you spent more on your Fendi sunglasses than your best friend spends on her rent, keep quiet about it.
10. It’s less work to keep a good regular client happy and calling back than to short them on service and have to keep attracting and processing new guys.
11. Pissing off the neighbors or landlord of your workspace always leads to trouble. Pay the rent on time and strive to be as pleasantly invisible (and inaudible) as you can.
12. E-mail is a boon to unhappy losers who bolster their egos by sending snarky anonymous notes. Amusingly, they often make their place on the evolutionary scale quite clear in doing so. “Yuor a whoore and yu’ll birn in hell for all eternitee!” However tempting it is to deliver an electronic riposte, such people are unworthy of your attention. Don’t respond, just delete.
13. On the subject of photographs: It is accepted practice to remove a few lines or a few pounds through the magic of photo editing. But those fuzzy, extreme-angle photos on your website are unworthy of you. If you’re a voluptuous woman, or a mature woman, show it clearly, and get clients who want that. It’s better for your self-esteem than having guys show up and be obviously disappointed.
14. Clients often prefer someone who is warm and friendly to a chilly bitch who can get that extra inch down her throat.
15. You’re likely to get stiffed for a fee at some point during your career. Vent, be pissed about it for an hour, and then let it go. Don’t seethe about it for days, and don’t take it out on your good clients.
16. Yes, buying your own health insurance is expensive. But unless you’re disciplined enough to put money away every month in case you get sick, you better get it.
17. If a client offends you so deeply that you have to fire him, do not take him back, no matter how much money he offers you. The fantasy is unrecoverable.
18. It’s possible to sustain a long-term lie to friends or family about your job, provided they aren’t too inquisitive. But try to have at least one friend in whom you can confide all the charming, the annoying, and the absurd encounters that you will definitely have.