Psychology of a former working girl

Recently I had the chance to engage the mind of a young, sharp-minded woman who used to sell her sexual companionship on Craigslist. The most unique element to her is that she doubles as a clear-headed and successful person in the ‘real world’ who may not have needed the extra money brought-in via meeting men via Craigslist ads posted by those men.

(***note: Craigslist no longer allows "business personals" that are blatantly ads for prostitution)

The woman shared unaltered viewpoints about her time selling sex which both disappointed me a bit, and at the same time seemed so in-line with every logical and psychological bit of understanding I’ve ever known on the subject, that I wanted to document them here.

While telling her about time I spent a while back with a particular young woman, this other woman told of having felt "really, really sad (for the girl)". She told of having been reminded of herself as a very young teenager, and of the young woman having sounded "like a scared little girl".

Something about the seeming innocence in the young woman in the story is what made this older, former working girl especially sad. The former working girl then shared the following:

"I just remember how awful and absolutely dehumanizing it felt for me during my first "trick", because I just felt utterly worthless as a person, and I can’t imagine those feelings at such a young age."

She then added: "(I’m) just sharing my perspective… I don’t write much about the negative feelings I had during my time in the "business", but they were definitely there"

Most significant of all was this addition: "I will say that during that time, the thing that made me feel the most disgusting was when a customer would run his hands all over me… sort of felt like I was getting pawed-at and handled like a piece of meat (even if he meant it as foreplay or nice touch or whatever). Letting a guy fuck me was no big deal, but having to pretend to enjoy myself with a stranger’s hands all over me… reading your description brought some of that back for me".

Wow – those were heavy words to read!

Even so, I responded: "oh geez, now that is so (expected by me)… and it so figures that while I am just cherishing the nearest thing to ‘closeness’ (with a female human) that I ever get… it is "the worst" for them".

The woman then went on to add that her present boyfriend, doing the same touching, … "feels great" and "for a customer to do it made me feel absolutely dirty and awful".

She then compared her paid experiences to those of past one-night stands: "with a one-night stand, where we’re kind of on "equal" footing, if I want to leave right after fucking I can. If I don’t want to get cuddled on, I don’t have to. It was the customers who wanted to touch me and just lie down with me that felt like a violation because I felt like I had no way out of it".

I then responded: "here again, the trend of those who become sort of used to being taken advantage of… just being taken advantage of over and over again… where once someone wants to show appreciation of them… that’s when it gets dicey for them"

She added: "I understand where you’re coming from with the appreciation, but from my perspective it never felt like appreciation when men would touch me like that… it kind of felt like: ‘I paid for you, so I own your whole body and you have to put up with this’ or something".

Next I pointed out that "It doesn’t feel like paying for the seeming ‘raw material’ that is sex… but instead, paying so I myself can ‘approach’ with confidence I never otherwise have".

She then said: "yeah, but if you approached someone and there was no money involved, then either person feels free to say "hey, I don’t like that" or "don’t touch me there" or whatever. When one person has paid, that person clearly has the upper hand, and the paid person kind of feels like she has to just take whatever he wants to dish out".

Then I added: "I appreciate that in the context of the extremes relating to what he might dish out, but I never felt like I was demanding, or inappropriate considering the situation".

She countered: "You weren’t. The guys who wanted to touch me like that weren’t demanding or inappropriate either, but I felt like I had no way to make it stop, without kind of invalidating the transaction or something. And I can fully appreciate how nice and comforting it is to be touched like that… by someone I care about, but some guy I don’t know… it just feels WAY too intimate".

I then noted our differing perceptions: "In some ways, what if women always have the upper hand with regard to all things sex-related… and what if the fee only helps to alter that balance? (now of course feminists and all won’t agree with that whatsoever… but it is pretty near to the way it plays-out in society)"

She then offered: " I don’t think I ever had the upper hand when it comes to this particular topic, though. I mean, money has changed hands, the man expects certain things for that money, and in most cases he is a good deal stronger than me, so I definitely never really felt "the upper hand" once we were already in the moment" before adding: "The girl only has the upper hand during the "negotiating". Once money has changed hands, the man definitely has the power".

Here is where I should have pointed out that most of male-female interaction is all about "negotiating" for sex. Just think of how much time you could save at singles’ bars by refusing to do any of the routine "negotiating". Men simply don’t have any interest in women with whom they don’t see themselves as "negotiating" for sex in some way.

She later added: "as much as I kind of hated my time as a hooker, I do sort of hope that I was at least one guy’s

‘favorite’ ".

Before long I said: "I sit here, dwelling on this topic, and feeling such a void

in terms of how much I’d adore the chance to be ‘close’ to someone… and it just, really, isn’t likely to be in the cards for me"

Another highlight was when she said, about her boyfriend: "I can comfortably spend hours just lying in bed with him and talking while he runs his hands over me".

To which I responded: "… and yet, this makes you most uncomfortable when in the context of (‘the biz’ )"

She added: "with him, it just feels right. I don’t know how to explain it well" 

I later said: "the part you said about the clients touching you being the worst part, fits so steadily with the idea that you’d balk at sincere guys, and be more comfortable with guys who have a bit of an edge to them".

This person basically represented in some detail the ‘norm’ for a young woman in the business, but she has the extreme fortune of no longer being a part of it while also being considerably young as well as being articulate enough to offer clarity where so many with like experiences seem to have only additional internal battles lined-up. It surely helps that the woman with whom I shared this dialog didn’t have any drug addiction to feed as she looked back on her time in the world’s oldest profession.

I have long understood, logically, that it is likely the deeper intimacy that is most troublesome to women whose life experiences to date have pre-qualified them for a life of prostitution. It remains the society all around us, as a whole, which "pre-qualifies" young people for such a life, and then we as a society inflict "double jeopardy" upon them by rendering it unlawful for them to do the work that we as a society pre-qualified them to do.

Our society’s answer for this is to somehow blame the customer… blame the John, who in nearly all cases came along years if not decades after the point where society had a chance to alter a young person’s fate. There is some guy in the midwest who takes it upon himself to drive all over his city filming prostitutes having sex in cars. What would happen if he put the same energy into catching the child abusers who are first victimizing future prostitutes? He could at the very least vote for the hard-liners who would enforce stringent penalties for child abuse.

Solving a symptom is impossible while simultaneously paying no mind to the underlying problem. Some circles endorse decriminalizing the sale of sex, while simultaneously applying stronger penalties on the purchasers of sex. It might look compassionate on the surface but it too equates to an attempt to make a problem go away by ignoring half or most of the same problem.

I am grateful for having had the chance to know a clear and sharp female mind share very personal feelings which were right in the center of the bullseye of human psychology. That in regard to what was first a very difficult childhood having paved the way toward an early adulthood which included prostitution and a personal vibe which described gentle physical touching being more unnerving than is a raw fuck.