Earlier this Summer, I celebrated my third year as a companion and reflected on the ways in which I've changed since entering this world.
Some of these changes have to do with sexual desires that were once just distant fantasies that I've since gotten to fulfill. Also, I've acquired or fine-tuned some outside of the bedroom life skills.
My personal reflections got me thinking about what shifts others may have noticed whether you've been a client or companion for a short time or decades. How has the demimonde changed you?
Originally Posted by Lena Duvall
Wow, that's an interesting question! I doubt that I can answer it very completely on short notice. "I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks, Madam Speaker ..."
I've been in the
demimonde just a bit longer than you have; the end of October will be my fourth anniversary. I'd say that how I've changed can be summed up as the loss of various illusions. To start with, sex workers have been "de-mystified" for me. I imagined them in a couple of ways (completely conflicting, of course -- who says illusions are supposed to be logical?). I imagined them as some sort of hypersexual supernatural beings who kind of float in and out of bed, without their feet ever touching the floor. I also imagined (and this was prominent in my fears, after I finally made my first appointment but before I went to it ... and that was a period of about three months, because I assumed her calendar was so full I needed to make my arrangements THAT far in advance) that she'd turn out to be unbelievably crude and brassy, uneducated and pretty stupid, undoubtedly a smoker no matter what she claimed in her profile, and that while I'd be having intercourse with her, she'd be popping her gum and saying, "whassamatter, honey, ain'tcha done YET?" I might add here, for those of you who've ever met Elisabeth Whispers, how waaaay past ridiculous
that picture is! So, you realize very quickly, if you have a pulse and an IQ above room temperature, that sex-working women are, first and foremost, "regular" women. Women who have children, sometimes real-world significant others, bills to pay, aging parents, and, you know, the same issues that face me and pretty much everyone else. I've often thought that I've undoubtedly seen and met a lot more sex workers than I know about, just because I've spent time in public places. I bet more than a few of the nice ladies for whom I've held the door open at the coffee shop either are doing or have done sex work. They don't have glowing signs on their foreheads, saying so, that's all.
Other illusions that have bitten the dust include the idea that people are naturally monogamous, and that monogamy is the proper state for everyone. Also, that sex always leads to love -- it can, but mostly doesn't. And, generally, I'm more aware that there's a whole big long continuum of pleasant feelings that a man can have for a woman, going from casual friendliness and appreciation, through many different temperatures of affection, to "in love" type love. All of which are good, and all of which are compatible with having sex.
[Added by edit: another illusion that's gone away is that women doing sex work are swimming in wealth. Uh-uh. Just the opposite, sad to say.]
And that's what comes to mind after a few minutes' thought.