Inexperienced

I ran across this statement in a discussion thread over on TER about “taking one for the team”:

It is especially fun seeing young and / or inexperienced ladies just starting out – Excellent sport, that!

A definite case of WALDT/CASG!  *shudder*

Motivation?

When I see the comments saying that a lady’s rates are too high, I wonder sometimes about the motive for making the comment.

Not their decision that they don’t want to spend that much; I understand that.  Hell, there are certainly ladies I don’t consider because their rate is higher than I want to spend to see them.  That’s everyone’s individual choice; WALDT and we all have different budgets.  What puzzles me a little bit are the negative comments that posit that poster’s personal preferences as the norm . . . and disparage not only the lady’s “worth” but also the intelligence of the clients who see her.

Curious

Most P4P review boards design the reviews so that only paying (or otherwise contributing) members can see the entire comments.  ASPD does it; TER does it; Horndogs does it; ECCIE does it (although “contributing” is still not enforced very harshly ).  And implicit in that seems to be that the ladies will not be able to read the detailed comments.  There are arguments that they should be able to read them (see here and here and here), but most boards think on balance it’s best that they can’t.

It’s also practially an article of faith on most P4P review boards that the ladies do read those comments, at least for the reviews about themselves.  Personally, I doubt whether all ladies do so; I suspect some don’t really care that much.  But in general, sure.  Hell, if my clients are discussing my work for them with other prospective clients, I would sure want to know what was said.  Why wouldn’t the ladies?  Not to mention knowing which reviews are the most helpful to include in their advertising.

All of that is pretty much conventional wisdom.  But when I was thinking about this the other day, there was one minor point that aroused my curiosity, concerning which I’ve never seen anything more than pure speculation: what method do the ladies most often use to obtain access to that information?

Strange reasons

Before I get started on my semi-rant, yes, absolutely I recognize that there are several good reasons ladies might be offended by someone trying to negotiate a discount for P4P:

• It’s done in a tactless and insulting manner — “you’re not worth X” rather than “I can’t afford X”
• It’s done too early, before establishing a history with the lady that might make her more likely to assume good intentions
• It presumes her business is slow, without determining whether that’s true; this may in turn imply you think she is “middle of the pack” versus the competition (not all ladies find their business affected to the same extent by a slowdown)
• It’s done as a subconscious (or deliberate) power play, to try to put the escort in her “place,” regardless of whether he thinks her regular rate is appropriate
• If a client is seeking a connection and “bounded authenticity,” haggling — indeed, any focus on the financial side of the transaction — is unlikely to put her in the mood

And I realize that, whether they should be or not, many ladies are offended by the very idea.  So, while I think theoretically it could be OK if done respectfully, I don’t do it because the odds of an unpleasant reaction are too high. 

But some of the reasons given occasionally for not negotiating just strike me as . . . strange.  Some also carry implications that the proponents of those arguments may not have thought through entirely.  I ran into an example the other day, on TER.

Well, of course, if you think about it THAT way

One frequent comment on review/discussion boards by the guys is that we engage in P4P because we get to have sex with women who would never sleep with us in civilian life.

Certainly that is accurate some or most of the time, particularly when there is a large age difference.  It’s not the case always, though.  But it just occurred to me part of what may be underlying that assumption we guys sometimes make – a different perspective on attraction.

Jaded?

There was a recent ASPD thread about whether guys were “jaded.”  The perception seems to be that they are, based on that thread.

I suspect that “jaded” is being used to refer to a couple of slightly different types of clients.  The first may be clients who are cynical or pessimistic; who assume that the ladies think of us only as “walking ATM’s; who distrust excuses and explanations offered by the ladies for problems; etc.  There are certainly some clients like that, and I certainly understand that the ladies would find it less than ideal to deal with them.  It fits with the third definition my dictionary gives for jaded: cynically callous.

What interests me most is the first two definitions in my dictionary for jaded: (1) worn out; wearied; or (2) dulled by surfeit; sated.  I suspect that, for at least some of the ladies, that’s a concern as well.

A distinction

I ran across a new blog the other day, and just saw a post that struck me as (intentionally, I think) very funny:

How is a john to know if a hooker who advertises on Craigslist is more upscale than her competition? What virtually makes her a courtesan among her reference group?

She can spell.

I thought in particular lehuh and Carrie might enjoy that as much as I did.

“Over zealous reviews”

There’s a discussion over on TER about over zealous reviews.  It’s a fairly common complaint on review/discussion boards — Client reads review, sees the lady, and did not enjoy it as much as would be expected based on the review.  Or specific things mentioned in the review were not available when he saw her.

Some of that, of course, may be shill reviews or a White Knight attempting to curry favor with the lady or a deliberate distortion, perhaps to make the reviewer look like more of a stud.  But mostly I think (hope?) it has innocent causes.  Sometimes it may be an honest mistake.  Some of it is WALDT or CASG.  Some of it is relative inexperience.  (There are some reviews I wrote early in my reviewing career, after I started seeing Dallas independent ladies, that now I might write differently as I’ve encountered several ladies whom I enjoyed even more — but at the time, I was very impressed, comparing them to other market niches. )  Some of it is YMMV.  Some of it may even wanting to be polite.  There’s an interesting analogy, by the way, in the TER discussion:

Quote of the day

From an ASPD thread concerning at what age guys were “too old” for P4P.  (More precisely, when they would be “too old” for the lady to enjoy the tryst):

There’s no hanging it up, if you’re basically healthy. What does happen is the object(s) of a man’s lust become more select, more particularized. If the electricity’s there your lightning rod’ll recognize it.

(emphasis added)  I love the imagery. I may be becoming more selective, and the lightning rod may be a little worn and dented . . . but it still works.

A new term

I ran across a new term relating to P4P (although not exclusively) today.  Well, not necessarily new; a lot of people are probably already familiar with it; just new to me. 

It’s somewhat similar to something I’ve tried (with limited success) to discuss before, under descriptions like “connection” or “FWB$” or “P4P friend.”  A professor of sociology who has studied prostitution and the changes in recent years came up with the term, I think.  It’s a bit clinical-sounding, perhaps, but in a way it does capture what I’ve been thinking about: