Eric Northman

I was just disagreeing with the proposal that men are more often psychopaths than women. I believe the proportion of the general population is similar regardless of sex. The article was stating that the SYMPTOMS of psychopathy were often different for women which leads to different diagnoses.

Intermittent replies to gmail.

That's a great answer Amber. When you put it that way, it actually makes me reflect on the YMMV aspect of my own performances. Thinking back, my encounters have ranged from stud to dud and a lot of that is really related to chemistry. A younger, more foolish me would have thought, "Beautiful woman, giddy up" but older, wiser me has learned there is so much more than just the physical. Really makes me cherish those few ladies with whom I really click.

This was kind of what I was getting at. Unfortunately, screening, security, safe place to work or even the ability to pass up a 'date' are luxuries that not everyone has. It's kind of a chicken and egg thing. The very fact that you have those things makes predators more likely to seek out softer targets. This here is the biggest single argument in favor of legalization/decriminalization. Remove any requirement to work 'in the shadows' and it suddenly becomes so much safer because there is less overhead in acquiring basic security. I also feel that social safety nets play a big part too. Canada isn't perfect but I think our relative lack of crime, poverty and desperation makes it much easier for women to be able to put safety ahead of money. Additional Comments: For some reason these days I keep taking every comment/thread in a serious/political/social issues direction... What a buzzkill! So, in conclusion, I would like to state, for the record: Boobies!!! Back in keeping with this thread, here's a real question. Might be classed under trade secrets but how much YMMV is there in your service? Do you notice a very big difference in how you perform in an encounter when the chemistry isn't there or are you able to power through and put on a good performance regardless?

I don't know what the exact stats are but intuitively, I suspect that there is a VERY big difference in the odds of an 'escort of quality' running into a bad encounter vs. someone working in, shall we say, less optimal conditions. I bet that most predators are bottom feeders and go after street workers or very obviously inexperienced newbies working out of crappy hotels. Not to say it can't happen but simple risk analysis suggests that there is far easier prey than most of the ladies who would be posting here.

From what I've read, most escorts have a drop-down panel above the bed that houses an automatic gun turret. In case of emergency, the turret descends and warns the gentlemen that further aggression will be met with lethal force. I understand robot dogs are becoming popular as well since their exercise and feeding requirements are minimal.

Don't be "Russian" too much or you will get friction burns though. Bwahahaha...snort...

In another thread someone was commenting about the high rate of violence, sexual and otherwise, suffered by women. This article is pretty scary. Apparently women whose partners are police officers are twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence.

In the technical sense, the big difference is that Lyla is moderated and BP isn't. If you're into that sort of thing, BP is to Lyla what 4Chan is to something like Reddit. It isn't that one is BETTER per se but the barrier to entry and rules of Lyla are more challenging so you're more likely to have quality postings. From the client standpoint, you need to be LESS careful on Lyla because presumably everyone here is legit. Not to say a Lyla date is a sure thing but there's less of the wild west up in here.

This! I imagine if you put a fair bit of technical information about best practices for things like screening and other business matters, it might save someone having to figure it all out on their own. Like the lady I mentioned above. I told her that there were a number of 'new to the business' type threads here on Lyla but if your book had a bit of getting started advice, it might be a big attraction. I wonder. Controversy sells. If your book was on some level a howto guide to getting started with escorting, would that be scandalous? Would people potentially criticize it as encouraging young women to become escorts? If you want to sell a million copies, having a bunch of people angry with your book is potentially a really good start.

I think there might be a large female market for it. I was meeting women on Ashley Madison for a while and had a 100% honesty policy so often the subject of escorts came up. I was quite surprised by how fascinated all of them were with the whole subject. One even started speculating about doing it herself, picking my brain about getting started and stuff. I had to point her to Lyla because I didn't want to pretend to be an expert but it was quite interesting to see how intrigued they were.

Happily married. The occasional bit of fun with one of the lovely ladies here is all I was missing and now my marriage is better than ever. Having an outlet for my excess sexual energy takes so much pressure off the relationship. She doesn't need to satisfy all my needs and I don't get frustrated when she doesn't.

I think this is great fun. Truly, I'm not trolling but it's very interesting to have these provocative discussions. There seem to be very intelligent and thoughtful people here on Lyla and hearing all sorts of different opinions is what makes us rounded individuals. I do apologize if I've offended anyone. It's rarely my intent but I do type faster than I think sometimes.

Not according to the articles I read. They may present in different ways but fundamentally, the diagnosis is the same. That is an ad hominem attack. I've not said anything supporting violence or implying that I don't want to hear about it. I'm not deflecting, merely sharing an interesting thought I had. These are how discussions work. Conversations flow, people think of new things. I was merely wondering if, like CEOs, surgeons and salesmen, there might be some aspects of psychopathy that are particularly suitable for sex work. Again, don't read anything more than what was said. The question was about representation and whether there might be either more or fewer psychopaths amongst SWs than in the general population. See this is where I disagree but it might be we have different definitions of what psychopath means. Wikipedia talks about many traits including boldness, dis-inhibition, lack of empathy and remorse, etc. To me, those might be traits that could actually be useful to someone in the sex work field. And yet once again, don't take it as anything more that a topic for discussion. Not suggesting you or anyone else in this field is a psycho or even more likely to be one. Only pondering the question of whether it might be USEFUL to be one. Almost all the ladies I've met have struck me as warm, personable and empathetic individuals. But might not a psychopath be particularly good at faking that?

Hey man, we've moved on...now we're talking about psychopaths and scientific studies of screening methods. That full name disclosure stuff? That's so yesterday. Stay with the tour dude. ;-)

That is definitely something I can believe. Unfortunately a lot of psychos are VERY good at appearing normal until it's too late. There's a very interesting book called The Wisdom of Psychopaths that talks a lot about the psychopaths living among us. It actually makes the argument that there are some traits that are actually very useful, particularly in our modern world. It makes sense really since purely negative traits tend to evolve out of a population.

I'm sorry that you keep interpreting my responses as a personal attack. I'm not suggesting your methods don't work and I'm not suggesting that your success is better than random chance. What I'm saying is, what if it just so happens that you have managed to come up with the very best of all possible screening procedures? Whether by luck or by the fact that you're a genius, it just so happens that your methods are superior to all others out there. Furthermore, suppose that if one were to statistically analyze these methods, it turns out that 4 of the 5 things you do are really effective, but 1, as it happens, isn't effective. It just happened to wind up in the list but doesn't actually contribute anything to the results. Wouldn't it be cool to have that kind of insight? This is really just a flight of fancy. There's no easy way (and potentially not even a hard way) to analyze this. But wouldn't it be cool if there was? Conduct experiments using different screening methods in isolation and combination, measure the results, perform statistical analysis, etc. Science!! This kind of thing is done in many different fields. The movie Moneyball was all about doing this kind of analysis in baseball and much of psychiatry is simply about statistical analysis of many seemingly unrelated bits of data. Imagine what that kind of serious research could do for your profession?

Oooh...this is a fun one and again, off topic but yes, I've heard that before. Many psychopaths out there but more of them are CEOs and salesmen than murderers. I think the violent ones might be 1% of the 1% or some such. But I notice you use the word "men". Heh. It's not just men...female psychopaths present with the same frequency as men. So here's a question for you. Do you think female psychopaths are over-represented, under-represented or more or less on par amongst sex workers? I know that at least one woman I met was a complete sociopath but my sample size is very small. Additional Comments: Really? I think this debate has been VERY civilized from the standards of internet forums. There have been a few ruffled feathers but nobody has gotten particularly out of line.

Thanks Genevieve. That was really informative. You're right, this thread is definitely expanding past it's original scope and I for one am quite satisfied to let it drop. I really appreciate the insight you've given here though. I can't say I envy your position. I certainly have never had to worry about my safety in my day to day life.

Whoa! I never said anything about getting in anyone's business. I'm only stating the following: 1) Every lady has her own screening methods and, obviously, believe they work. 2) We don't really have any hard evidence (studies, etc.) to suggest that any one method is better than any other. 3) Because, as we've already agreed, violent men are in a minority, it's difficult to determine which methods are ACTUALLY effective and which are merely superstition. It's an interesting subject and I think worthy of better responses than, "Shut up, you're not an SP, you don't know anything." Scientific methods can be applied to many things and I believe that actually studying the effectiveness of screening methods could be very helpful and actually improve the safety of sex workers. I don't believe any real research has been done in this area.

We're splitting hairs here and I think we should probably put this argument to bed. Yes, I do think 1% is a very high estimate for the number of men that are dangerous violent psychopaths but that's neither here nor there. As I said, your screening methods are up to you and if some dude don't like them, then too bad for him. Now if we wanted to have an interesting debate, we could discuss the efficacy of asking for real names. Is there any evidence to suggest that it's effective? Is there any reasonable way to know if someone actually gave their real name short of asking for ID at the door? Somehow I suspect that the host of other screening methods are far more effective. Things like polite communication, respecting of rules and generally 'not giving off a creepy vibe' style gut feelings, etc. The problem is, there's no real way to know if your methods are effective one way or another because what you think is good screening may just be good luck in not having hit the 'jackpot' of running into one of the rare monsters out there. In any event, that would be getting off topic. Please ladies, stay safe and do whatever you need to in order to avoid trouble.

Nicely put Berlin. Extortion is a losers game and I seriously doubt anyone in this industry would try it. I expect it's mostly in the movies and even then, it would be in cases where someone is specifically targeted because of who they are or what they do. I especially like the bit about getting caught. Let's be real...how many guys get caught because of something the lady did? Or was it because of their own stupidity leaving a text on their phone or not using a burner or some such thing?

Argh...this is super racist but in U.S. cities it's MLK blvd. that is supposed to be the one to avoid. :-P

Absolutely fucking tragic. Can you imagine being put through that?

Genevieve, I totally emphasize with you. I get that it's much more dangerous and scary to be a woman in many contexts. I have a huge amount of respect for the women who choose this profession in spite of the risks. I'm not trying to minimize or marginalize your experience or your need to be safe. My problem was with this: This statement certainly seemed misandrist to me and made me feel like men were being painted with a particularly broad brush. I get that it probably wasn't your intent but we 'clients' are certainly subject to a lot of stigma. In some ways, ours is worse. It may be offensive for you to be seen as victims or sluts or whatever but many of the stereotypes applied to you are positively benign to how much of the world views clients. Pathetic, desperate losers at best, predators or victimizers on the other end of the scale. Yes, there is a lot of male privilege but we also struggle with sexism. How many men would walk away from a lost child rather than trying to help because of all the pedophile branding that seems to happen these days?