"Johns" Were Once Escorts??

[OneFinger]

A former escort recently posted the following on a social network:

I look to the day when sex work is no longer a rite of passage for a young man in the gay community. Unfortunately, it is passed down. Most johns were once escorts themselves. How can we break this cycle?

I'm totally surprised by his claim. I've been a client for years but have never been an escort. Are there other clients here that were escorts?

 

Any other thoughts?

 

FYI, I apologize in advance for starting this thread and then running. But, I leaving the country in a couple of days but will revisit responses when I return in a couple of weeks.

[AdamSmith]

Seems to reflect much more his own unresolved issues than external reality.

[Lewis H]

OT, but I'm snickering because I looked at the OP's profile pic, and I thought it said underneath:

 

OneFinger

Cunt

[Guy Fawkes]

No, No, No most Davids were once Johns. (how soon they forget)

[jawjateck]

A businessman made an "offer" back when I was in college, and silly me, I declined. If I knew then what I know now, I would have had a helluva lot of fun as an escort.

[AdamSmith]

A former escort recently posted the following on a social network:

 

I look to the day when sex work is no longer a rite of passage for a young man in the gay community. Unfortunately, it is passed down. Most johns were once escorts themselves. How can we break this cycle?

 

Or put it this way...

 

[Inkeddudefla]

I was an escort in my late teens and early 20's. Now I hire, but mostly g4p men.

[Steven_Draker]

A former escort recently posted the following on a social network:

I look to the day when sex work is no longer a rite of passage for a young man in the gay community. Unfortunately, it is passed down. Most johns were once escorts themselves. How can we break this cycle?

I'm totally surprised by his claim.

 

 

I can somewhat relate to this. I've been with several clients who have been escorts in their youth. Others say that they would have loved to do it if they could have or if they had the attributes/qualities.

 

I think that if you have been an escort in your youth you have more chances to use the services of an escort later in your life.

 

[Nvr2Thick]

I'm not surprised that some escorts become clients later in life. I know of five escorts I'd hired in the late 80's who now hire. Hiring escorts is not for everyone. Some men will never hire because they believe that it is unacceptable behavior. If a man has escorted he's probably past that stigma at least.

 

I can profile two former escorts in slightly different scenarios. Both men are oversexed and enjoyed both the income and the random, frequent opportunities for sex with new men. One of the guys was so repressed in his teens that he said his sexual activity starting in his early 20's was a blur for more than a decade. During that period he told me that, hypothetically speaking, if any average to decent-looking man were to knock on his door and invite him to fuck at any time he would be all for it. He said that escorting was kind of like that; his phone would ring unexpectedly and he'd be fucking within a few hours. On a slow night he'd call another escort and try to arrange a courtesy exchange of service. When business tapered off in later years he started to hire guys, and that continued after he stopped escorting. Escorts fill in the dry spots between relationships, and he'll hire out quietly even if he's seeing someone if the sex has been routine.

 

The other guy is someone I've mentioned before. His escorting was tainted by desperation and self-loathing. He always loved the anonymous hookups, but he was perpetually stressed by a feeling that he was damaged or pathetic to be selling himself for money and to have to hide this secret life from his friends. He could tell me the hottest stories of terrific sex with rich and famous men, or just average guys who turned out to have been exceptional clients. Later he'd be shaking his head and complaining that he was so fucked up because he couldn't quit the business. He later transition into a life outside escorting when he got into a healthier relationship with an accepting man, and he retired from escorting. I caught up with him recently and found that he had been through a few relationships and now, in his mid-50's, is kind of desperately surfing Grindr, Craigslist, and A4A. He's desperate for hookups, and if he goes for a month or so without anything decent he'll hire out. He has about the same degree of self-loathing as a client as he did as an escort.

[+ sync]

I caught up with him recently and found that he had been through a few relationships and now, in his mid-50's, is kind of desperately surfing Grindr, Craigslist, and A4A. He's desperate for hookups, and if he goes for a month or so without anything decent he'll hire out. He has about the same degree of self-loathing as a client as he did as an escort.

 

That is a very sad commentary. If he is open to it, perhaps some professional counseling would benefit him.

[RyanDean]

I was never an escort but I did pay my bills for most of my twenties by doing phone sex. I also worked for a time as an attendant at a private sex club. In both gigs, I had a fair share of offers to take things to the next level but my 'modesty' (ie. low self-esteem) kept me from making the leap.

 

That said, my early experiences as a "provider" in those corners of the industry definitely informs how I approach things as a client.

[+ quoththeraven]

The other guy is someone I've mentioned before. His escorting was tainted by desperation and self-loathing. He always loved the anonymous hookups, but he was perpetually stressed by a feeling that he was damaged or pathetic to be selling himself for money and to have to hide this secret life from his friends. He could tell me the hottest stories of terrific sex with rich and famous men, or just average guys who turned out to have been exceptional clients. Later he'd be shaking his head and complaining that he was so fucked up because he couldn't quit the business. He later transition into a life outside escorting when he got into a healthier relationship with an accepting man, and he retired from escorting. I caught up with him recently and found that he had been through a few relationships and now, in his mid-50's, is kind of desperately surfing Grindr, Craigslist, and A4A. He's desperate for hookups, and if he goes for a month or so without anything decent he'll hire out. He has about the same degree of self-loathing as a client as he did as an escort.

 

My take is that escorting may have exacerbated his problems, but it was not the cause. He would likely have had issues around sex and self-esteem even if he had never escorted.

[curiousnomore]

A businessman made an "offer" back when I was in college, and silly me, I declined. If I knew then what I know now, I would have had a helluva lot of fun as an escort.

Good to see you back, jawjateck. Love your tumblr page, btw.

[+ Charlie]

I find it easy to believe that a lot of escorts become clients, but quite improbable that most clients were once escorts.

[OneFinger]

Wow, some interesting responses and insights. At first I thought it was his own "demons" in the closet. But, I can see where some escorts could "graduate" into hiring after giving up the business. Lots of food for thought.

[+ dutchmuch]

I think we have all whored ourselves out at times.

[Nvr2Thick]

The other guy is someone I've mentioned before. His escorting was tainted by desperation and self-loathing. He always loved the anonymous hookups, but he was perpetually stressed by a feeling that he was damaged or pathetic to be selling himself for money and to have to hide this secret life from his friends. He could tell me the hottest stories of terrific sex with rich and famous men, or just average guys who turned out to have been exceptional clients. Later he'd be shaking his head and complaining that he was so fucked up because he couldn't quit the business. He later transition into a life outside escorting when he got into a healthier relationship with an accepting man, and he retired from escorting. I caught up with him recently and found that he had been through a few relationships and now, in his mid-50's, is kind of desperately surfing Grindr, Craigslist, and A4A. He's desperate for hookups, and if he goes for a month or so without anything decent he'll hire out. He has about the same degree of self-loathing as a client as he did as an escort.

 

That is a very sad commentary. If he is open to it, perhaps some professional counseling would benefit him.

 

My take is that escorting may have exacerbated his problems, but it was not the cause. He would likely have had issues around sex and self-esteem even if he had never escorted.

 

Even he admits that he has been screwed up for his entire life and unable to ever really handle being gay. He was raised in an extremely conservative typical mid-century midwestern family. He never could reconcile the expectations of that upbringing with his life as a gay man; probably because he did remain close to his family. And he has been in and out of therapy and counseling for decades. He joked to me when I first met him that he needed to escort to pay for his psychologist.

 

As I look at these two former escorts I find it interesting that sexual compulsion was the primary driver toward escorting in each situation. In one, however, the compulsion is much darker. I don't believe that such compulsions are the motivator for all escorts.

[Lewis H]

I think we have all whored ourselves out at times.

 

Note my screen name.

[+ stevenkesslar]

I was never an escort but I did pay my bills for most of my twenties by doing phone sex. I also worked for a time as an attendant at a private sex club. In both gigs, I had a fair share of offers to take things to the next level but my 'modesty' (ie. low self-esteem) kept me from making the leap.

 

That said, my early experiences as a "provider" in those corners of the industry definitely informs how I approach things as a client.

 

Now that's an interesting contradiction. Care to say more? You were too modest to accept offers to be paid for sex, but you were paid to talk about sex on the phone. Kind of makes sense to me, but still ironic.

[RyanDean]

Equal parts ironic and neurotic.

Add some body dysmorphia and a splash of substance abuse and you've got quite the cocktail!

 

And, yes, I could (and would) talk about ANYthing and, in the "attendant" gig, would happily help folks get any kind of scene up and running. Those years definitely opened me to my gifts of erotic empathy & generally open-minded/non-judgmental approach to all things sexual...

 

When it came to other people, that is.

I'm still learning -- thanks, in part, to gents like yourself -- how to share those gifts with myself.

[+ honcho]

I think we have all whored ourselves out at times.

 

I have never explicitly been offered money in exchange for sex by somebody I otherwise would

not have so engaged with.

 

I have done things for (or to retain) my day job that I didn't particularly enjoy and thought were useless or wrong-headed, and some people would have described that as "whoring oneself out", for shock value.

(My day gig is in computers, not sex).

 

I have on a very few occasions (and very long ago) accepted modest amounts of money to appear in a magazine and to have sex in a distributed video (and am proud to have done so and saw it , in part,

as consciousness raising).

[+ Chris Eisenhower]

I was never an escort but I did pay my bills for most of my twenties by doing phone sex. I also worked for a time as an attendant at a private sex club. In both gigs, I had a fair share of offers to take things to the next level but my 'modesty' (ie. low self-esteem) kept me from making the leap.

 

That said, my early experiences as a "provider" in those corners of the industry definitely informs how I approach things as a client.

 

If you'd like to call me up to talk about it sometime—my phone line... is open.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Equal parts ironic and neurotic.

Add some body dysmorphia and a splash of substance abuse and you've got quite the cocktail!

.

 

I'll drink to that, sailor!

 

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/01_06/images/toasts_hdr.jpg

[JDXXX]

I'll drink to that, sailor!

 

http://www.moderndrunkardmagazine.com/issues/01_06/images/toasts_hdr.jpg

 

Now, this is a good way to look at the positive side of being a "John". I'll drink to that. Cheers.