Joyful_Jillian

Pot of Gold - you totally rock. I love your openness. My website isn't up and running yet so I communicate online by email or chat with every prospective client, quite extensively. I am a message board maven of sorts - been around other boards (not SP related) for years. Any prospective client serious enough to subscribe to and follow a message board is my kind of guy. Pot of Gold is right; this is a community and it's great we can have a place to interact and share our opinions. The introductory email I send to prospective clients' alternate email address includes a LOT of detailed information, pictures, physical description, ground rules, and services. As questions come up, I refine my advertising piece in a way that attempts to leave no questions unanswered and no details unaddressed. I do appreciate communication beforehand because, as stated previously, once the door closes and gift has been noted, there should be no more negotiation required. Here, may I help you out of those clothes? We won't be needing them where we're going ... then it's up the stairs to nirvana ... under the big silk sari canopy over my bed, where we can let the games begin.

Julie, you rock.:p Good answer. I'm a smoker --- ewwww, I know but hear me out. My home is non-smoking - it always smells good. I don't smoke before appointments or after in the presence of my n/s clients. My hair and breath never smell like smoke because I shower and am a nazi about oral hygiene beforehand. Are we talking about smoking in clients' presence? Smoking in general, i.e. not doing a good job of masking it? I would appreciate some clarification, as a smoking (but not stinking) SP. This is an illuminating topic.

To clarify, I said by-laws were "tacked on to" or around the criminal code. For example: the criminal code doesn't state that people who are taxi drivers can't get taxi licenses if they have an offense, however, some jurisdictions will not allow a prospective taxi driver to get a license if they've been charged under the criminal code for an offense. In the town I am referring to, it was never an issue until one of the taxi drivers in town got caught selling drugs from his cab. Town council then quickly enacted a new by-law to cope with this one-off situation. No, you can't go to jail for a by-law offense, but I guess my whole point was that these by-laws make it difficult to operate. They're aimed at what an individual municipality views as a "problem". The thrust of my response was meant to speak to the idea that municipalities frequently enact by-laws willy-nilly in an attempt to create a mine field for what they perceive to be a "nuisance". Frankly, I'm offended that my profession is still considered a "nuisance" - I wish as a society we were more mature as a whole.

Thank you! This is a nice board, and you're a good Moderator. We live in Canada where the laws are clear. If people play by the rules, and don't invite trouble by recruiting underage girls and pimping them out, we all get to play another day. I don't personally give a rat's ass what's happening in the US -- I know their laws are different and rather byzantine if you ask me. But let's be honest, it's a society with unimaginable double-standards on everything else. Does it really surprise us THAT MUCH that they're still as puritanical about sex as the day the Mayflower landed? ;) Jillian

Knowledge is power. Don't stick your head in the sand - ask questions and know the difference between an STD and an STI - that's a great beginning. Dummpy's advice is spot on - ask questions relevant to your local area, from those with the most reliable, not to mention confidentially collected information. They WILL give you the straight facts. It's their job. The folks who work on the frontlines in the anonymous walk-in testing sites are pros. Frankly, my experience is that family doctors just aren't that plugged into the front lines when it comes to delivering factual information about your local area. They don't communicate with one another for one thing. I wouldn't necessarily go to my family doctor for information on STDs or STIs. Going to a clinic is safe and anonymous. Folks (like me) campaigned hard for anonymous testing sites back in the 80s when the worst of them (AIDS) arrived on the scene. I wasn't working in the industry at that time, but I did have a number of gay friends who succumbed to it. It was no longer enough to reach into my pocket and make a donation when someone died, so I got busy as an activist with the AIDS Coalition. We're lucky in this country when it comes to protection of privacy and access to information too. Not like Cuba, where if you're discovered to have AIDS (and other less complicated STDs) you're shipped off to an island to spend the rest of your life like a leper. STIs incidentally are very easily passed around - if guys all of a sudden find themselves with an STI, they shouldn't necessarily rush to blame it on their SP. It's too easy to blame us for every little pimple or blister (usually from fucking us too enthusiastically) on your dicks guys. Yeast infections, for example, can be transmitted in the washing machine if a person washes their clothes together either with, or even AFTER someone with a yeast infection has done their laundry. Even bleaching clothes doesn't eliminate yeast. It's insidious. Candida infections are common in our society - we have poor diets rich in too much sugar and yeast. They're very hard to avoid. That's just one example. There are more. Knowledge is power. Use it. :D Jillian

I'm with you girl.

So I guess you won't be recommending her to the neighbours....

I'll weigh in.... In my experience, the cops aren't THAT interested in us ladies going about our business .... unless someone complains. If we're discreet and don't draw a lot of attention, the cops will never bother us. Where they WILL get involved is if they suspect there are underage girls underage drinking and taking drugs, which raises all kinds of red flags and will result in things like sting operations. So relax if you're doing it right. Fortunately it isn't against the law in Canada to be in this business. It's certainly against the law to transact in public. Behind closed doors, however, as I'm sure we all know, in Canada it's our own private business. Cheers, Joyful Jillian