SamanthaEvans

Three people know that I'm a paid companion. All of them are very close friends. None of them lives in B.C. My friends in Vancouver don't know anything about what really pays the rent and I intend to keep it that way. I have two sons. The entire time I've worked as a companion, first one was, and now the other is, a teenager. I think that teens have enough to do when it comes to figuring out sex and relationships that they shouldn't have to deal with their parents' sex lives. My younger son is very open with me about what goes on in his life, his interest in girls, what he's doing in the hope that this one might pay attention to him, or that one might think of him as potential boyfriend material. He also says, very clearly, that as far as he's concerned, I'm not a woman; I was never a girl; I don't have sex, never have had sex and have no interest in or plans for having sex in the future. I'm his Mom. Period. That works for me, particularly since he came up with it on his own. I date, a bit, now and then--nice men who are usually between relationships. I tell them a lot of true things about myself: I make a great transitional girlfriend, but my primary focus is my children and after that, my painting or my writing. I'm not easy to be with. I need a lot of solitude. I'm moody, sometimes. I'm frequently preoccupied with things I can't express in words. I'm a great listener when I'm ready to listen; the rest of the time, not so much. I don't think I want to be a wife, or facsimile, anytime soon. This works, too. I just tell the truth but I leave out the part about being other men's paid companion. I'm not ashamed of what I do but, in addition to wanting to keep this out of my sons' lives, I do notice that most men don't share very well. I have a lot of friends, I do volunteer work in the community and I'm on the board of a charitable organization. I have no trouble filling up my time in meaningful ways. Sometimes I chafe a bit about compartmentalizing my life, but I continue to feel that it's the right thing for me. If I were to "out" myself to other people, not only would I have to spend a lot of time dealing with their uninformed thoughts, prejudices and feelings, but I would also have to be concerned about what they might do with the information. That's not something I want to deal with. This reminds me of a great blog post I read a couple of years ago, Born Whore's It's You I'm Afraid Of.

Nachosanchez, if you're going out with your chosen companion, then dress in a manner appropriate to your destination, as you would with any date. If you're staying in with her, the most important thing is to be freshly-showered, clean shaven and tooth-brushed. Wear clean, comfortable clothing. If you're a smoker, I'd suggest you wear something fresh from the laundry that you haven't worn while smoking. Go easy on the cologne and aftershave, too. And plan to have fun!

I'll say, once again, WiT, that this is such a valuable thread. Thank you for putting the time, care and attention into summarizing the Himel decision for all of us. I know I learned some important things and I'm very grateful for it!

My parents are both dead and no one in my family knows what I do. I have another line of work that requires meeting with clients and that's a good cover for paid companionship. I'm not ashamed of what I do, but I don't want it to be an issue for my children. As for greeting clients in public, I never do it and I try to remember to tell everyone who sees me that I won't greet or acknowledge them in public. Their privacy is important and so is mine. If a client were to break the rule without my agreement, he'd get moved to the "former client" list immediately!

Oh, trust me! Meeting and working with people, enjoying sex and having the ability to be financially independent are the very factors that made this business attractive to me when I really needed a way to turn my situation around, absolutely! This just was never on that list of potential career options that I filled out in high school! Nonetheless, if you don't have a good head on your shoulders and if you can't take stock of the market and your place in it, it's extremely difficult to have any lasting success as a paid companion. Cat often says that only 20% of independents are able to make a go of it. I think she's right about that. This is a job: it's a lot of work. It's also work that's worth doing!

I appreciate hearing the other ladies' stories--thank you very much!

I know that we've talked about this in different ways, in various discussions over time. Something that mrrnice2 said in the Legal thread about prostitution laws prompted me to bring this up again, directly. The general stereotype is that a woman becomes a prostitute, or paid companion, or escort--whatever one calls it--because she's drug-addicted, trying to scam the welfare system, involved in other criminal activities or simply underhanded, immoral or irresponsible. While the 8-15% of women in the sex trade who work outdoors generally have multiple problems, frequently including addictions, the great majority of us are no more likely to be addicts or alcoholics than anyone else in the population. So, why did we take up this profession? I'm not looking for detailed stories or for anyone to compromise her privacy. I just thought it might be helpful for us to say something if we feel we can. Me, first: I ended an abusive marriage and had two children to raise. My ex has litigated every aspect of our divorce and the children's custody and support for a decade. I had no way to support my sons adequately on my own and the legal costs I have been forced to incur have been devastating. With no family or friends who could help me, becoming a paid companion has been the only way I have been able to keep our heads above water for a long time. My children are doing well and so am I. I'm not a victim; I'm a survivor.

I just received a link for this event. Unfortunately, I'm in Vancouver, so I won't be there. But I hope that everyone in the Toronto area will do what they can to support this action and to complain about the police attitude toward sexual assault. Women should be able to dress in whatever way they like and have no fear of being assaulted. http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/

Thanks, everyone. You all make this board a great one to be part of. I'm proud to know you!

I always have coffee, tea and water available. I will offer red or white wine in the evening. If a client brings a bottle of wine, that's a lovely gift. I will open it, and may pour myself a glass to have along with him, but I find I rarely drink more than a couple of sips. I never drink anything from a bottle that's been opened before I see it nor do I drink any homemade wines. One never knows what might be in them!

I'll admit that I do them, once in awhile, but only with clients I know and trust. No FS, mostly just CBJs and some groping. They usually happen at night, after a late meal or the theatre when we can't go back to my place together. Even so, it's not legal. I wouldn't set up a car date with a stranger, though, for the reasons WiT gives, above.

I do kiss. But if I'm not well, I have no hesitation about cancelling appointments. It's very rare for me to get sick, though. I get flu shots. I eat a very healthy diet. I take vitamins and generally take good care of myself. But I may get a cold once every 12-18 months and so I don't work that week. I've had clients arrive at my place, very ill. I've sent them away. Okay, sometimes I make them a cup of tea, first, but we don't play together that day. I'll juggle my schedule to give them another appointment as soon as possible, but I won't risk getting intimate with them. I was very surprised, last fall, when I had my gall bladder out, to find how many prospective clients wanted to see me very soon after the surgery. I took four weeks off work. My regulars all knew about my hiatus. But I got e-mail from guys who wanted to meet, even when I said that I was recovering from my surgery and not available. I didn't see any of them. If their needs somehow trumped mine when I'd been clear about the situation, I was pretty sure that we weren't going to be compatible at all.

Wow. What a great party that was! I'm very jealous! Seriously, Chavez, you might consider taking the Sybian on tour if only for the interest, education and edification of Cerbites across the country! It sounds like you put a lot of thought and work into this event. I'm really glad that it went so well for everyone who was there.

Maybe we could get a group-purchase discount? Advance copies to review? :icon_cool:

I went to a conservative private school when I was in elementary school. When I was in grade 4, the girls got to see an ancient, grainy film from the late 1950s, hear a talk from the school nurse about breasts and pubic hair and then receive a pamphlet published by a feminine hygiene company. It was all about menstruation, nothing about sex, nothing about boys' bodies. We were told that nice girls, good girls didn't spend time alone with boys, with the implication that anyone who did would get pregnant immediately and her life would be ruined forever. When I'd asked my mother about where babies come from, she told me that you get married and then you sleep with your husband, and that I should never sleep with any guy I wasn't married to or I could get pregnant. She never explained what it was to "sleep with" a man. I thought for the longest time that actually being sound asleep next to a guy was all it took to get pregnant. A couple of years later, some girlfriends told me the real story about sex. Surprisingly, they actually gave accurate information! What I learned was that adults couldn't be trusted to tell the truth about things like this.

Great advice from everyone here, already, as usual! I'd just like to add that if you're reasonable, clear and willing to give some personal information to your chosen companion, be confident that you and she will work something out without too much fuss. You may not need a cell phone, so you might wait and see how things go in your discussions. Speaking only for myself, if someone was coming in from out of town and took the time to send me a couple of e-mails, discussed things politely and gave me his hotel information when he arrived, I'd see him unless for some reason I didn't feel right about him. That could just be my imagination or intuition, not something grounded in reality or in what the guy had said to me. I could be completely wrong. I'm sure I've turned down plenty of great guys through no real fault of theirs. Other ladies will have their own ways of doing things. But if you're stuck for ideas, you might consider inviting her to have lunch or dinner with you before anything else, meeting you in a public place instead of your hotel room or her incall location, first. Expect to pay her for her time. Some of us have "social" rates. Some of us have a flat hourly rate regardless of what the activity is. I know that many of us would happily agree to meet you this way, all other things being equal. If this is what you do, pay your companion when she arrives (give her a card with the money in it and leave the envelope unsealed). Have dinner. She'll let you know if she's comfortable enough to see you in private after dinner, or at another time. And relax. Guys like you, who make the effort to put everyone at ease are great. Plan on having a nice time. I'm sure you will!

So much of pricing is subjective, in the end. We make generalizations because they work for us in nearly every aspect of our lives, whether they're always accurate or not. There are some wonderful companions out there who may charge as little as $100 an hour. They're caring, compassionate and beautiful women who give fabulous, individualized service and enjoy what they do. As long as they're enjoying their work and are treated well by their clients, I'm happy for them. I can well understand why it may appear that some of us charge too much. I hear this, myself, occasionally. I'm almost 45 years old. I'm not as beautiful as I was, say, 20 years ago. Isn't it arrogant of me to has such high rates? Surely no one really pays them! I can probably be convinced to take less and be glad that I got a meeting, right? No. If someone can't afford my fees, I tell them they can see someone else, now, or they might wait awhile and save a bit of money until they can afford me. I have clients who say they're happy they did that. Other men have opted for someone else. I'm in this to make a living. If I can't find enough clients who will pay what I ask, often enough, I won't succeed. I'll need to figure out what's wrong. Maybe I'm not advertising enough or in the right places. Maybe I'm not available at the times that prospective clients can see me most easily. Maybe the quality of what I offer isn't good enough to bring in as much repeat business as I'd like. Maybe there aren't enough potential clients out there whom I would like to see and who can afford me. Maybe my rates are too high. I've been in this business for quite awhile. I'm earning what I want to be earning both because I seem to appeal to a particular demographic--older men who want the company of a woman my age--and there are comparatively few companions my age to compete with. An abundance of purchasers seeking a relatively rare commodity does tend to translate into a higher price. It helps that I'm very good at what I do, too, if I do say so myself. :biggrin:

Try not paying your lawyer or your mechanic and see what happens. They may send you demand letters, get a collection agency to call you endlessly, take you court, put a lien against your house or your car or make a report about you to the various credit bureaus. But if you don't pay me, what can I do? I could try to let others know what's happened. The chances are that I know more about you than you think. But will I? Probably not. Because in a conflict between me and a client, the man suddenly turns into a fine, up-standing man, a pillar of the community, admired by friends and strangers and a fine example of all that it is to be kind, conscientious, thoughtful, charitable and deeply good, not to mention the best and most faithful husband in the world. At the same time, I will rapidly turn into a lying, conniving, home-wrecking, desperate, likely drug-addicted bit of trash with nothing going for me but my probably-fading beauty and thinking too much of myself to do anything but lie down on a soft bed and expect men to shower me with $100 bills. Even more important than all of that, if I go after the guy who decides not to pay me, I have to "out" myself, not Samantha Evans, but me. Realistically, after that, my landlord could evict me and my ex unquestionably will act to take away the children that he refuses to support now. :tresmauvaisehumeur: Okay... I'll calm down a little bit. Let's put it this way. We screen our clients. We do the best we can to decide whether a prospective client is safe for us to see. Not just to see, but to have into our homes, into our beds and into our bodies. Those of us who don't have a pretty well-developed intuition don't do very well in this business, but none of us is perfect. We all take calls that we wish we'd turned away, sometimes. We're concerned about compatibility, for sure, but mostly we want to know that we're safe, that we don't have to worry that we're going to be harmed or outed publicly. A client's first meeting with a companion is the last step in the screening process. How that meeting goes will determine whether she's willing to see him again. If you show up and don't pay me before things get underway, you fail my screening test. Period.

These kinds of studies always fascinate me. They're full of assumptions and they lead to so many more questions. For example, what do the researchers think the total monthly or annual earnings of an escort at each stage might be? While we tend to charge by the hour, that's hour-with-the-client, and doesn't include all the time that goes into getting that client to come in through the door and hand us the envelope, or the time it takes to do the laundry and tidy up after he leaves. My hourly rate averages a bit over $300 an hour for the meeting, but I might have put four hours into the advertising and correspondence, etc., before I ever see the client and up to another hour after he leaves. So, that $300 translates into $50 an hour. I only start to make significant money when the client re-books. Then, I might spend 5-10 minutes in correspondence or phone calls, have the meeting and then tidy up afterward. My $300 could translate into $150 an hour. Obviously, the best thing for me is to have a steady group of regular clients and not have to rely on new ones to meet my basic expenses. My four hours' time focused on my advertising and correspondence could land me three or four clients--in which case, my actual earnings go up significantly--sometimes, but there are also times when I can put in that much time or more and not book anyone, so my hourly income drops. This is all pretty obvious, I know. I guess the point I really want to make is that I don't make $300 an hour, 20 hours a week or more. But usually when we talk about hourly rates, we tie them to a notional full-time week or month. The ages of the escorts in the survey may or may not be all that important. Certainly, there's a much, much higher demand for beautiful young women than for those of us over 35 or 40. Younger women have an easier time finding clients, no question. But older women don't make it in this profession without both some pretty outstanding social skills and business acumen. In fact, many women quit escorting (as independents) after only a few months because they discover how much more work they have to do to have any success and they're not able, or willing, to put the time into it. People are often very surprised to learn that most of us spend more time on the computer than we do in bed!

I'm not sure what I think about monogamy these days. I can appreciate it as an ideal, but in practical terms, I agree with Berlin: it's hard to imagine that any one person can meet all of my needs, or that I could meet all of what someone else needs. I go for open relationships, now, and that's working well, but it could be that it works because none of my partners lives in the same city as I do. I think monogamy is different from commitment. I can be committed to someone even while being involved with others. The killer in any kind of relationship, though, is dishonesty and the erosion of trust.

What is it like to be "gruntled"? Why do you have to turn down the radio in the car to find a street address? If matter can neither be created nor destroyed, where do babies come from?

Thanks for posting that, WiT. Does this still leave it open for Maggie's to launch a Section 15 challenge in the future? I know that Charter challenges can be very expensive!

I take the dog for long walks, either by the beach or in the forest, every day. It helps clear my mind to get fresh air, some exercise and to watch the dog having a great time, exploring, meeting other dogs and humans, too. In my "other life" I'm a painter. Spending time with a sketch book is wonderfully relaxing for me.

:bigclap:So did I! Seriously, I refinished the floors in my house when I lived in Toronto. It's a big job and more incredibly messy than I expected. I'd get a flooring company to do it for me next time, for sure.

AJR, I apologize that it seems there is something hostile in that line of my post. I didn't intend to implicate anyone or anything by using that exclamation mark and I'm sorry that it appears that I did. I'm also sorry that you feel we are in danger all the time. I know that many companions feel this way. I don't feel under significant threat, myself, but that may be more a reflection of where I am, my experience, or simple naiveté Wellie, of course you're correct about the Federal Government. I seem to have thought one thing and typed another! Thanks for catching my error. Scott, I agree with everything you said in your post. I would add that many companions feel that, even if they work strictly within the limits of the law, seeing clients in their homes or hotel rooms, they are not as safe as they would be if they saw them in the companion's own incall location or a hotel room she has rented. We may feel better able to make a police report if we're hurt or threatened on an outcall, but the simple fact is that we're just a lot less likely to be harmed in a place that we control. I always know how many people are in my place, how to get out of it, and whether anyone might arrive unexpectedly. I don't know these things if I go to someone's home.