Chapter 5 - Prologue
March 28, 2008
So, you’re probably wondering what made me decide to go down this path, right?
For the past three and a half years, I’ve been a dancer, or stripper if you prefer that term. I got into dancing at the behest of my girlfriend (Nikki) who began dancing on her 18th birthday (while she was still in high school, no less). Once I did, I never looked back, though; the work was interesting and financially rewarding. I was never one who considered taking your clothes off for a living “degrading,” “dehumanizing,” or “objectifying” as many other women do – it was just another line of work to me. We started out in Nashville, dancing there for a few months, and then made the decision to move to Florida.
The move to Florida in 2005 came about for two reasons really. First, we’d been down here several times on vacation and just absolutely loved the place – warm weather, the beaches, the culture here – what’s not to love (except for the occasional hurricane, of course)? Second, the work environment was much more, shall we say, robust. The regulations for clubs are not as stringent here (that’s code for “people aren’t as uptight about naked bodies here”) and there are literally dozens of places to work.
We found work in an upscale club where we could make a comfortable living, pay our tuition at a private university, and put away a good bit of money in savings accounts and investments for the future. The working environment was much better here than in Nashville and the club was “clean” – we didn’t have to do “extras” to make the good money. Stripping literally made my undergraduate degree possible – to this day, I have no student loan debt. With an annual tuition of around $30,000 a year, that’s saying something.
When I changed schools, I changed my major from Business Administration to Psychology, while my girlfriend continued her pursuit of a BA in Business Admin. Because I changed majors, I spent an extra year in college – Nikki graduated in May of 2007, while I was to graduate one year later. The change in majors was prompted by a change in the direction I wanted my life to go. I had originally wanted to be involved in some aspect of international business, but now I was interested in doing some work in some other area.
Long ago I had decided I wanted to pursue a Master’s degree in a subject that interested me. And, one of the subjects that had interested me considerably since I was in my early teens was, not surprisingly, sexuality. Not just “sex” but the entire range of experience that constitutes sexuality – the collective physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual experience set that formed an individual’s sexual identity, and the broader societal constructs that came about as the result of cultural shifts in sexual expression.
When I’d changed my undergrad major to Psychology, I already knew that I wanted to pursue further education in human sexuality, and had begun investigating several colleges that offered graduate programs in that subject. San Francisco State University had one of the most widely known and respected programs in that field, and that is where my research led me in the pursuit of even higher education. As a bonus, Nikki could pursue her MBA there as well. With the exception of having to move temporarily from Florida, it seemed like a win-win for both of us.
As my graduation date approached, we began to look into our options with respect to moving to and working in the Bay Area. So, we scheduled a trip to the area to scope it out and see what we could find. In January of 2008, we flew to the city to look around for a place to live and some place to work.
On the trip, however, it became quite obvious that the potential to earn a good income from stripping was going to be drastically reduced compared to where we were. There were a variety of reasons for this. First and foremost, the dancing climate in SF was very slow at this point. No one knows for sure why this is, but the average dancer makes considerably less in SF than she might in other cities. In fact, many dancers fly to Las Vegas each weekend to work and make far more than they ever would on their best days in SF. We even looked into working at the infamous O’Farrell’s Theater. And, in researching these places online, and talking with some of the dancers who worked at the local clubs, it became clear that, in order to make any decent money, you’d pretty much have to perform sexual services for the customers as well.
Little was done to inhibit this because, as you probably know, San Francisco is a sexually liberated city anyway, and enforcement of anti-prostitution laws was largely non-existent. In fact, in 1996, a task force even recommended that the police stop enforcing prostitution laws altogether within the city of SF itself. With this in mind, unless someone complained (or a local politician was up for reelection), sex in strip clubs goes on largely unabated.
As fate would have it, in one of my earlier college classes (which, ironically enough, was a human sexuality class) one of the girls I befriended told me that she worked as an escort to pay for college. Escorts are, for all intents and purposes, high class prostitutes. And, though they tout themselves as “paid companions,” it is generally understood that that companionship usually includes sexual services. In our conversation she indicated that she thought I’d make an excellent escort. While I appreciated the compliment(?) at the time, I never saw myself as one who could do that kind of work. I was doing well dancing, making all the money I needed to attend school and just didn’t see what I’d get out of doing escort work as well. Not only that, but as I indicated, I just didn’t have the time to devote to it.
The working environment in San Francisco, however, forced me to examine this option in a different light. If I was going to have to suck or fuck the customers to make any money in the clubs, why not just work as an escort, making more money and being able to pick the clients I wanted to service? It seemed like a no-brainer to me to at least give it some serious thought.
So, I evaluated the pros and cons of escort work. The pros basically boiled down to:
- I’d be making outrageous sums of money, far more than I could make dancing, even if I was fucking customers in the club.
- I could set my own hours/work schedule
- Unlike hooking or performing sex on club customers, I could screen and select my own clients
- I’d get to meet interesting people, and perhaps travel some
- I’d get to explore other peoples’ sexuality
There were, of course, some cons as well:
- The stigma of being a whore (not that stripping was much better, but at least you weren’t seen as fucking your customers by most people).
- A greater risk of acquiring a disease (somewhat abated by the required use of condoms)
- Working in a field that could be interpreted as illegal, though as I pointed out above, there is little enforcement of these laws in the city.
- The prospect of being out with someone on my own where my security and safety was less guaranteed than it was in a club
I spent a couple of months researching the work and everything that it entailed. I initially thought I’d like to go with an agency. This would allow me to have other people schedule and vet the clients, keep track of everything, etc. I had several agencies tell me I could make (seriously) hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short period of time because of my looks and personality. But agencies require you to be on call for periods of time, and take a good chunk of your money from each of your appointments. Alternatively, I could work as an independent escort. This would allow me to control my own destiny and I’d be able to keep all of the money.
After having researched and discussed the subject with several people in the field, though, it seemed as if going independent would be the best arrangement for me. Most experienced women suggested it was best to go that route if you could handle it, and I felt that I was bright enough to be able to take care of everything that would be involved. So, that’s what I decided would be the best approach.
The next step was discussing the subject with my girlfriend. Nikki and I had been an official “couple” for a good three years. We had a semi-open relationship – we allowed each other to experiment or play with other women, but no men (more on this in a future post). Doing escort work, of course, meant that that rule would need to go away. One of the things that attracted each of us to the other is our very liberal approach to sexuality and, fortunately for me, Nikki was open to discussing me working as an escort (we’d had a conversation about it before when it was brought up to me by the girl in my class).
As luck (or, perhaps, fate) would have it, Nikki had gotten a job as a business analyst at a huge Miami travel agency – a job she absolutely adored. She had already begun to waver about whether or not she wanted to move to San Francisco and work on her degree at this point. The fact that dancing in SF wasn’t going to be as a good option for work helped reinforce that option for her as well. So, my being alone in SF (and its attendant lack of an outlet for sexual release), dancing not being a good option, and the need to continue paying a mortgage on our house in Florida plus the cost of living in SF all coming together mandated that I would have to work at something while I was there. Nikki agreed, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that she’d be okay with me working as an escort for the two years I’d be in California.
So, this summer, I will begin work as an independent escort in the San Francisco area. You’re invited to follow along. It may be a short journey – I may have a couple of dates and decide it just isn’t for me. Or, alternatively, I may find it as exciting and rewarding as I think I will and it will be an interesting two years. Either way, my experiences will be chronicled here for the world to see. You’re invited to comment, ask questions, and generate discussion.
Posted by Alexa | Filed Under Alexa, Work
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