That's not unusual -- the Johns regularly wind up merely wanting to talk, and so one of the hardest parts of the job isn't dealing with the hardest part of the client; it's making (or faking) an emotional connection with another human being for an extended period of time. Meredith found the whole "feigning intimacy" thing to be even more draining than sex:
"There's this belief that sex workers really love sex. But it's not sex, it's work. After seeing a client, I wouldn't feel like 'I just got laid.' It'd actually make me want to be with my partner more, because I knew what I had with him was real."
Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images Not having to keep one eye on the clock is nice, too.
In other words, the clients have needs that, for one reason or another, they can't get filled anywhere else. For example, Luke got into the business expecting to mainly service the San Francisco gay community. But he estimates that 50 percent of his clients identify as straight. No, they're not all gay men living in denial -- sometimes married straight dudes also like to get a little strange on the side. Once, while in the middle of sex with a client:
"... he gets a call from his wife, calling about their son. And he mouths 'keep going.' So he and his wife have this conversation, and the whole time, I keep plugging away."
Marili Forastieri/Digital Vision/Getty Images "Every good parent knows how to multitask."
Feel free to be grossed out by that story if you want, but who's the bad guy there? The client, for being unfaithful to his wife? Society, for stigmatizing his urges to the point that he has to break the law to satisfy them? Society tends to blame the sex worker, but why? Luke was doing nothing more than proving a service paid for by a consenting adult, and prostitution runs on the same unspoken rule as any other business: The Customer Is Always Right.
Robert Evans has some friends carrying out a sustainable living project in the desert, and they would appreciate your donations.
For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Bizarre Things Taxi Drivers Know About You and 6 Weird Ways the World Looks Different When You're Asexual.
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