Olympiad

The Chess Olympiad (held in Dresden) just completed; actually two separate events, men’s and women’s.  (Technically the first was the “Open” since some women did play in it, but it was overwhelmingly male.)  Both the U.S. men’s team (seeded 10th) and the U.S. women’s team (seeded 7th) tied for 3rd place and took the bronze medals on tiebreak.  In the men’s case, it required an overwhelming (and unanticipated) 3.5 – 0.5 win over the team from the Ukraine (seeded 2nd) in the last round.  Great results by the U.S. teams!

A lot of fantastic games over the past couple of weeks.  I think most of the world chess elite were there, except for V. Anand, still exhausted from his successful World Championship match.

OK, I know y’all aren’t interested. But this is really exciting to chess nerds everywhere.

Secrecy

I ran across an interesting discussion in the newspaper yesterday.  About secrecy, and how we all have them.  More importantly: About how the need for secrecy amplifies the effect on us of what is being kept secret.  About how, sometimes, the secrecy can even be a part of the attraction.

And since P4P is something we usually have to keep secret from family, friends, colleagues . . . it makes one wonder how, and how much, the need for secrecy affects us: both the ladies and the clients.  Do we obsess about P4P more than we would if it were legal and carried no societal stigma?  Are we more attracted to it than we would be to civilian relationships, because of having/keeping the secret?  Something to think about.

Some brief excerpts:

How to run a P4P board — conclusion

Well, it’s been over seven months since the last installment and nothing else has occurred to me to add.  But yesterday I did run across a succint statement of what I think is a fitting summary/conclusion:

“Authority is responsibility. Authority is accountability. It is not power.”

It came up in a different context, but I think this mindset is also appropriate for staff of a P4P board and, indeed, managers or leaders for a wide variety of organizations.

And with that, the series officially comes to an end.  (At least, I think so.) For which many, who are terminally bored by any discussion of P4P boards, will be profoundly grateful.

Identifying bad clients

In response to my earlier blog entry about dealing with bad clients, a reader emailed to point out that it’s not that easy to protect themselves.  True, some ladies omit to take appropriate precautions that could avoid some of the problems.  They don’t check the envelope before the client leaves.  They ask for screening information but then don’t follow up with the references provided or check with the screening service.

But they’re also hampered by limitations on the information available to them to identify bad clients ahead of times.  In a couple of ways, that are somewhat opposite of each other.

Offer

I think I’ve mentioned before that the stats function on WordPress lets me see at least some of the search terms that lead people to my blog.  And occasionally those search terms are for the stage name of a lady whom I or someone else have mentioned here.  In some cases, a lady who’s still active, in some cases a lady who’s retired.

Most of those searches may be by the lady herself, just checking for any mention of her on the Internet.  Others may be by prospective clients doing research on her.  On occasion they might be by someone looking for her whom she’s trying to avoid.

I’m not sure if it would do any good simply to know that someone has been searching for her stage name — I would have no idea who, so what would she do with that knowledge.  But any lady who’s been mentioned here (or has posted here) is welcome to request either:

• that I email her if/when I notice someone has searched for her name, or
• that I modify references to her here (for example, by adding an asterisk to the name) so they don’t come up when someone does a search, or
• depending on circumstances, possibly remove her name entirely.

(Of course, there are always archives out there of what was on the blog before — one particular name has cropped up recently, indicating someone was lead to my blog by the search, even though I changed the post to “private” and thus not accessible to anyone but me.)

I assume that if there were a problem, a lady would already feel comfortable requesting that . . . I’m pretty reasonable for a curmudgeon. But it never hurts to make the offer explicit.

NJAC — clarification

I’ve referred frequently to the idea of being Not Just Another Client (although sometimes using different terminology, such as “P4P friend”).  It’s something that, at least at times, is a significant concept in my approach to P4P, although likely not as significant/important as it may seem at times.  It is a very individualistic concept, in the sense that NJAC probably has as much variety of meaning, from person to person, as just about any terminology in P4P.  That leads to a huge potential for misunderstanding.  I usually try to explain in passing when I refer to the concept (whether using that particular terminology or other), but not always and I don’t always explain it very clearly.  And some additional thoughts occurred to me this weekend.  So . . .

Slow

My participation in P4P has slowed drastically recently.  A grand total of 3 trysts in the past 2 months (and almost a month since the last one).  Some of that because work (or other commitments) has been more hectic lately; of the primary factors, $$$ hasn’t been a significant constraint but time has.  It’s hard to get away without attracting unwanted attention in the best of times; lately it’s been hard to get away at all. 

In part because some of my regulars have retired or disappeared over the past year or so and I’ve struggled finding the right replacements for them.  There are a lot of ladies with whom I may enjoy my time, but fewer whom I feel a strong interest in seeing on a regular basis.  There is, after all, a lot of “click” and WALDT that affects that.  There are some exceptional ladies whom I enjoy seeing but with whom I just don’t feel as much of a connection.

The ladies’ reactions

Catching up on my blog reading — I fell way behind — and ran across an interesting blog entry over on Peridot Ash’s blog.  She asked for three things the escorts liked abou sex work and three things they hated.  Certainly some of it was predictable.  And there’s no telling if all the ladies felt free to be completely truthful.  (If they’re still working, could an honest answer hurt their business?  Probably not much if any, but would they be confident of that?)  But definitely some interesting comments.  A few excerpts after the jump, to whet your interest, but I highly recommend that you go read the whole thing.

“The kind of men who visit escorts”

I’m starting to catch up on blog-reading, and just ran across an interesting entry over on Nia’s blog about the kind of men who visit escorts.  Her conclusion:

Do I think there is a type of man who visits escorts?

Well, no is the short answer. I thought at one time, that some men who worked in certain professions would not, but I have been proved wrong, with some of these men crossing my front doorstep.

When I started escorting, I assumed men who visited escorts were all sad and lonely. That is not the case, in my experience.

And a link to an interesting story, which included this sad observation:

Dealing with bad clients

A recent ASPD thread here about the difficulties new escorts face dealing with clients.  Some examples she gives:

* extending your time with the lady (w no compensation) “uh…she’s new and probably won’t bring it up”
* shorting the lady by $20 or more. “uh…..she’s new and probably won’t say anything”
* saying to the lady “well……so-in-so always let me do this…..or let me do that”. What’s the mentality here? That she beleives SHE has to do the same to become a good provider?

And, for those who browse Dallas ASPD a fair amount, it seems likely she’s talking about problems experienced by a friend (whom she’s mentoring) as mentioned here.

I must admit, when I read things like that, I have mixed feelings.