A client’s perspective

About a month ago, Sarah posted on her blog a story of one man’s journey into P4P, as written by that client.  (I read it awhile back, and I’ve been thinking about it, but I kept forgetting to mention it here.)  How he first made his way, tentatively, through the unfamiliar surroundings.  The exhiliration.  The dawning realization of the dark side.  The difficulties of connecting with a lady while also maintaining the necessary distance.

The discussion of his relationship with his wife was, of course, of particular interest to me.  I also enjoyed, though, his description of finding the right balance:

The psychology (physiology?) of porn

It’s not what you might think.

Here’s a quote from an online article about a recent study:

A favorite/regular . . . and other clients

Of course, a lot of P4P clients don’t have favorites/regulars.  They see a lady once, maybe twice, and then are on to someone else.  It’s primarily about variety for them.  And a lot of clients who have favorites/regulars are not members of any organized P4P community; they’re not members of, and may be no more than vaguely familiar with, any of the review/discussion boards and similar sites.  Obviously they know that their favorite/regular has other clients, but it’s all hidden from their view.  They don’t have any in-your-face reminders of those other clients or know anything about them.

But clients who are members of an online P4P community, and see one or more favorites/regulars on a recurring basis . . . will also see reviews of their favorite/regulars by, or their favorites/regulars flirting online with, those other clients.  How do such clients usually react to that?  The conventional wisdom is that they shouldn’t react at all.  After all, it’s fundamentally a business relationship.  They have no claims to exclusivity and no reason for jealousy. 

But how does it really work?

Trust and blind spots

I just ran across an amusing illustration of the question of trust in P4P, and typical blind spots that some people have.  This particular one came in the context of a discussion of whether a new client should be willing to pay a deposit for an overnighter.  OK, obvious trust factors — in both directions.  Can he trust her?  If he pays the deposit, will she show up as promised?  Can she trust him?  If he doesn’t pay the deposit and she sets aside that block of time, potentially turning down other dates, will he show up as promised?  And of course there are other scenarios in P4P that involve trust.  Does the client pay before or after the session?  If he puts an envelope on the counter, does she count it before they start?  How much information should the lady request, and how much should the client be willing to provide, for screening purposes?

Anyway, here’s the comment I found amusing:

If your references are good then she should have no problems trusting them that you are a legit hobbyist who will show up.

Just starting out

I haven’t been very timely sharing this with you — keep forgetting — but Sarah Summers had an amusing entry on her blog awhile back about why women go into sex work.  Well, it started out there, and of course a lot of the reasons are familiar to others in this life, although not necessarily understood well by civilians.

But then the blog entry segued into a fascinating account of women who decided to try P4P despite it being a rather poor “fit” for them.  There was a comment in passing near the beginning of the entry that captured the primary mistake made by women considering this:

Priorities

From a survey of about 12,500 recent travelers in a dozen countries, commissioned by a hotel chain:  Which would you prefer, a good night’s sleep or great sex?

51% of respondents would prefer a perfect night’s sleep to great sex. Contrary to stereotype, more men than women picked slumber over a roll in the hay. Canadians were the only group to favor sex over sleep. (When a Westin survey asked the same question a decade ago, just 31% picked sleep.)

And we’re getting worse!  Up from 31% to 51%. 

I can only hope that the results were limited, perhaps subconsciously, to “while traveling out of town.”  Putting it off for a few days until you return home might not be so bad.  And perhaps the results were limited further to the extent that tose surveyed may have been traveling by themselves while the SO stayed home, and felt it inappropriate to choose sex.  If not . . . *sigh*

The article is here.

Rant of the week — terminology

I’ve expressed before my distaste for the term “clockwatcher,” my belief that “MILF” should be dropped as essentially meaningless, and my confusion about why the P4P community happened to choose “MSOG” as a metaphor.  I’ve talked about how participants in the P4P community refer to each other.  And, although I may not have mentioned it, certainly a common topic in the P4P community is the lack of a consensus on what “GFE” means and why it is used misleadingly. 

But in recent months another acronym (OK, technically an “initialism”; see the distinction here) has cropped up that has become, I think, my new “least favorite term used in P4P.” 

GPS.  In civilian-speak, that would be “Global Positioning Satellite”; in P4P, “Golden Pussy Syndrome.”  Used to refer to escorts who have an over-elevated opinion of their desirability to clients and who, because of that, behave in ways that other escorts do not and/or that P4P clients find objectionable or offensive.

Variety?

I ran across an interesting article about why men stray.  It (and the related comments) mostly explored the question of whether evolution explains infidelity.  Well, that’s an old question that is discussed often — most often by guys seeking to justify/rationalize their infidelity.  That wouldn’t make this article worth reading.  But the article did include a few items that I found more interesting.

Names

Something interesting occurred to me last night.  It concerned a fundamental principle of P4P: escorts normally use a stage name, and guard their real name carefully for security/privacy/discretion reasons.  In recent years, the same has started to occur with the clients as well.  It’s been a few years since I’ve had to supply my real name to a lady whom I wanted to see.  Within the P4P community, I’m also known by a “stage name,” and that — combined with references from other ladies I’ve seen — is usually enough for a lady to screen me and feel confident accepting me as a client.  I may share my (fairly common) first name with a lady I’m seeing, but I don’t need to share the rest.  Most of us prefer not to, for similar security/privacy/discretion reasons.

That standard background isn’t all that interesting.  But the exceptions are.

Flexibility

I’m running into another one of those times when the biggest impediment to playtime is neither budget, nor time (the normal hectic mode around work has subsided), nor ladies I’d like to see.  It’s the difficulty of matching my schedule with a lady’s schedule.