Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 14 Comments

longer tweeting II

Created Nov 15, 2010
I’m going to name my next escort persona Betsy. She’ll offer golden showers and be Betsy Wetsy.

After a long private discussion on creating a test-persona for international work, I was stumped on a name. Many suggestions were made and then I came up with this one. I thought it was funny enough to Tweet and strangely, it actually grossed some out. I’m not sure why, doesn’t everyone remember the Betsy Wetsy dolls? I never had one but the name has always stuck in my head.

I still think this is funny. Escorting doesn’t have to be all serious, all the time.

Created Oct 30, 2010
Dudes — don’t wear your “No Money No Honey” t-shirt when you’re out with your girlfriend and into heavy PDA.
In Singapore, the phrase “No Money No Honey” is synonymous with prostitution. While I feel the phrase is self-explanatory, it’s popularity seems to be mostly due to a book written by an English journalist describing the huge prostitution scene in Singapore. Yes, I saw several of these t-shirts for sale and wanted to buy one but never did. However, I think my Tweet speaks for itself (the kids mentioned in my Tweet were teens and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a hooker and he wasn’t a client).

Created Sep 26, 2010
@EroticPreview Try London, Rio, Tokyo, Hong Kong or Singapore for serious shopping! 🙂
I was responding to another escort who wanted tips on great places to shop. This innocent Tweet sparked a semi-argument because she wouldn’t go to Asia because she was black and feared prejudice. She took offense that I wasn’t taking her ethnicity into consideration when I made my suggestions (I hadn’t realized I should).

Let me reassure everyone, especially black people, that Asians generally dislike anyone who is not from their specific country. I really don’t know that American blacks would get worse treatment than, say, Bangladeshis. Being Western gives some status, though being female lowers your status more than your race will.

Created Sep 27, 2010
In case you ever wondered: my breakfast every day http://bit.ly/b3ygwe and my favorite poster in Singapore http://bit.ly/bcfV3r

I still miss kaya toast and muddy river-water tea (one write referred to it that way and he was corrrect). My favorite place offered this breakfast for $2SGD, which is less than $2USD. A great, tasty deal no matter where in the world you are. [Since the first link no longer works, here’s photo of the kaya toast breakfast set like I had.]

Kaya toast is served with a giant pat of butter on each piece of toast. I always requested it without butter and rarely could they understand my insanity. When I ate somewhere other than my usual place (the counter ladies had become accustomed to my weirdness), I often got butter anyway, or toast with only butter, or toast with nothing. Once, I watched the counter boy remake my toast three times in an attempt to get my order correct and when he finally gave it to me, it had butter on it. He was exhausted and stressed, I smiled and said “Thank you” anyway.

Yes, they strained the tea through a long piece of pantyhose (the “sock”). It worked well and was always fun to watch. A street-level art form, I never got tired of the ritual of preparing the tea. The tea always perked me up in the mornings. My heart needed the extra push to be able to pump through the sludge of kaya blocking my ateries, I’m sure.

Oh. A word on eggs. While the Chinese have had chickens for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, they have not yet figured out how to boil an egg. The first few days in Singapore I was confused when I hungrily cracked open my breakfast eggs. Then I learned to simply ask them to “boil” for 6 or 8 minutes instead of their usual 2-4. “Boiling” means they put the eggs in a small container of very hot water, cover it with a plate and let it sit. I never got an actual boiled egg in Asia but I learned to live with the yolks just hard enough to pick out when I broke the egg. It does take some time to get used to the texture of semi-warmed whites. I’ll just leave it at that.

Created 21 Nov 11
@Ishfery Coming soon…serious work begins in Jan 2012. Finally.
That was in response to a question about Book 3. Ahem.

No, the serious work did not start January of 2012. Sorry.

Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 14 Comments

review: legal tender

I’ve finally gotten all my stuff out of storage. The greatest joy has been unpacking my books. Legal Tender was bought in Vegas a few months before I set off traveling. It sat in my “read” pile until it was boxed up. Now that I’m working through my unread books, here it is.

First, my disclaimer. I’m personally prejudiced against the whole idea of brothels as practiced in the US. Giving 50% of my money from every booking to someone just for the privilege of renting a one-star hotel room doesn’t sit well with me. Being told what to do doesn’t work for me either (ask any former boyfriend about that). I’m a control-freak about my working environment and brothels go out of their way to wrest control from the girls working there. Then there’s the whole being-an-employee-without-the-legal-benefits, i.e. Nevada brothel-style “independent-contractor” status that’s accorded to the working girls. If I’m going to work within a heavily-regulated legal system then I want my legal benefits retained. The book looks at a lockdown brothel, so that’s what I’m going to be discussing here.

Rebuttal to my disclaimer is that I personally know several girls who have worked as indies and in Nevada brothels who thoroughly enjoyed their brothel experiences (though most still dislike the flouting of legal employee status and most were in non-lockdown brothels). They were happy with the money they made, happy with their working environments, happy with the brothel customers and overall have a positive impression of working within the strict bounds of their chosen brothels. I do not know any who worked in the brothel I did and had a positive experience. There is that.

I picked up my copy of Legal Tender when I attended a presentation given by the author Laraine Russo Harper. I said nothing, clapped at the end and purchased my book. I disagreed with a lot of what she said but I hadn’t read her book yet. So now I have.

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Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 27 Comments

longer tweeting

I came up with this idea months ago, which is why it’s appearing here in my usual timely manner.

While I was traveling, I Tweeted quite a bit, sometimes more than others. A lot of those Tweets were more notes to myself about that specific moment in time. So for fun, I’m going to share some of these Tweets here and the little stories behind them. Not sure what I’m going to call this series yet. This is more just expanded notes for myself and for a few people who have asked a lot of questions about “the little differences” I found when I traveled.

wanker

Created 2010-12-30 02:58:56 -0500
I don’t save client numbers on my phone. But if yours is saved, it will contain “Wanker” in your name and there’s a reason I don’t respond.

Though this was shortly before I returned to the US, I started using the term “wanker” with complete familiarity soon after arriving in London. I also quickly learned how to save numbers into my world-phone. Though I do not save client numbers in the US because I don’t post my number, my work in rest of the world operates differently. Good clients sometimes were saved (upon request) with first name and initial. Wankers got designated by their special way of being annoying. So in every country, I’d have a list like:
Wanker Married (an Aussie bloke who texted me for sexy pix while sitting on the couch with his wife)
Wanker Anal (another Aussie bloke who failed to understand some basic concepts about anatomy, consent and women)
Wanker Timewaster 1, etc. (I usually had to number these wankers)
Wanker Beer (English guy who spent a lot of texts trying to haggle down my rate because he didn’t want sex, then proposed that we meet in a pub to drink beer, got offended when I declined and ranted about my materialism and greed)
Wanker Rich (well-off Singaporean who seemed to just want a party companion and would make appointments just to cancel at the last minute)
Wanker John (no defining feature to his wankery, so was stuck just using the name he gave)

…and so on and so forth. (I have a whole number of saved wanker SMS conversations, debating whether or not to post it.)

Anyway, creating phone wanker lists is apparently something every escort does in every country. Which is why we like phones with room for a gigantic number of saved contacts.

Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 2 Comments

dec 17 in hk

Today I’m spending the day with Zi Teng in Hong Kong. This is a pre-scheduled post, I likely won’t write about today’s events for a while (as usual).

Today is December 17, The International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (IDEVASW). For the history behind this relatively-new memorial day, please go to the official Dec 17 website, part of SWOP-USA.

I’ve written about Dec 17 here (my fave) and here. I’ve written about the shame, silence and death foisted upon American sex workers without our consent. Deborah Palfrey was a Dec 17 memorial victim and perfect example of how shame kills. I’ve written about survivors (that piece is offline right now) and some other scattered thoughts around Dec 17.

It’s just a calendar date, but the real meaning behind it is never too far from the front of anyone’s mind. Not if you’re a sex worker. Especially not if you’re in a criminalized country. Within the first five minutes of telling my mother I had decided to become an escort, she was predicting my death (actually, she predicted my dead body being found in a ditch, not the moment of death). I say this not to make fun of my mother — because I’m not — but that violence against sex workers is so endemic that it’s as an enduring stereotype as high heels and short skirts. This desperately needs to change. No sex worker I know considers violence part of the job description.

Sex worker deaths aren’t something that “happens”, it’s something that someone does.

Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 39 Comments

my advancing decrepitude

As some of you noticed (thank you!), I just turned 35. If you haven’t noticed, well, now you know. I didn’t think much of it, actually. Was just surprised the date rolled around so fast, October 2009 was really only like 2 months ago, right??? (My mom, always good for a thought, cheerfully reminded me that I’m halfway to 70. I’ll have to put that in my ad text.)

What I didn’t expect was the little “ouch” of putting that extra year into my ads. Unlike many and unlike what I used to do, I don’t lie about my age right now. I certainly could — I could easily get away with 8-10yrs younger. But why? I don’t fake orgasms, I am how old I am. I really don’t have a lot of choice in the matter (I’m either this old or I’m dead).

I experienced ageism back when I was a young and tender 33. At the advanced age of 35 I think people are just throwing their hands into the air and giving up (I found an escort today who won’t exchange links with anyone over 33). In Asia where everyone looks very young and the most common escorts are young, it can be difficult to be honest about age (very difficult to be okay being an XXL in local clothing sizes, which translates into a US size 6-8, depending.)

There have been potential clients who have passed me up because I’ve gone around the sun too many times. Then there are younger guys who seem to expect me to literally be a cougar: pin them to the bed, open my claws and have my way with them (this is my style about as often as the planets align). I present myself honestly on my website and ads, yet guys are still often surprised by me one way or another. I look just like my photos, except that I’m not as tanned right now (the French Riviera was good for that, if nothing else).

I’m not a MILF — I have no children. I’m not a cougar — I feel I’m just barely out of girlhood, really. I’m just 35. That’s all. It’s how old I happen to be.

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