Posted on by Amanda Brooks

10 signs a very professional hooker is staying at your hotel

#1 She has no life
#2 She never leaves the hotel
#3 Her room is pathologically neat and the bed is always made hotel-style
#4 She drinks gallons of water
#5 She goes through an enormous amount of towels (but they’re all accounted for when she leaves)
#6 She has no personal toiletries out
#7 The “Do Not Disturb” sign is always out
#8 She settles the bill in cash — all large bills or a huge collection of mid-size notes — all in perfect order
#9 She always knows when the Internet goes down
#10 She knows the maids’ schedule and tips them well

Okay, maybe the title should be amended to “10 signs Amanda is staying at your hotel.” Ladies, feel free to add to this list! It’s just a starter list. 🙂

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

no

A few weeks ago I Tweeted: Afternoon w/Zi Teng. The power and ability to say “no” defines privilege – it has nothing and everything to do w/money. (Zi Teng is a sex worker rights group in Hong Kong. I will be writing more about them and you can see some photos of their office in my album.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about that enlightening day with Zi Teng (I’m still in contact with them but obviously am not physically close). Power and agency are two very big words sex workers and the antis in the US like to toss around. I can’t define how anyone else uses/abuses these words. I like to define power and agency as a self thing. Power over one’s life and one’s body; agency over one’s life and how one chooses to work. It’s a very loose and open definition. Sometimes I feel like I have a lot of both, other times not so much. That’s all part of it.

Meeting with the HK sex workers and learning about their main style of working led me to think about the word no. There’s so much power in it. It’s taken mostly for granted in the US. It’s not for these sex workers.

In this case, the myths are correct: what we sex workers learn in childhood echoes into our sex work. The power and agency learned in childhood by applying the word no leads us, as adults, to believe (or not) we have the right and ability to say no in any other situation. I have no studies to back this up but I’m guessing that children learn far more from being able to apply the word no to their own lives than saying yes.

Even the ultra-paranoid child-safety programs believe this. They teach children to say no to inappropriate touches, to say no to strangers, to say no as a way of protecting their physically-vulnerable selves. Female adults are taught that yelling NO! is a way to prevent rape or assault.

No is a powerful thing.

The HK sex workers, by and large, have their power of no taken away by how their sex work is structured by society and by their clients. I don’t know much about how HK society raises its girl-children but I’m going to guess most of them are not given the power of no.

If you can’t say no, you can’t set boundaries with clients. You can’t demand payment up front. You can’t demand condom-compliance. You can’t say no to doing something that disgusts or physically hurts you. You can’t demand your rights because you cannot say no to societal practices and laws that cause you harm.

The lack of no does not render these women helpless victims. The sex workers I met were spirited, fully-aware adults. They were not different from the sex workers I know in the US except they spoke a different language (and had a different work situation). Their lack of no erodes their rights, their strength, and causes them harm.

Nor do I believe that society must give one the right to say no before it can be said. Obviously not. A society which values the word no does make it easier to say. A society which believes that at least some people are allowed to say no makes it easier to say. It’s not that one be must graciously allowed to say no before it’s said, it’s only worth being said if it’s heard. I think part of Zi Teng’s mission (and the mission of sex worker orgs around the world) is to get no to be heard and acknowledged.

Having your no trampled on is deeply painful.

Some might think the word no is completely negative. It’s not. It’s far more powerful and positive than yes. Ask any sex worker which of those two words she wants her clients to hear when she says it.

disclaimer

I’m just musing on this one word and its meaning for sex workers. I’ll get into detail about HK later on. I don’t want anyone reading this to think I’m talking of victimization or exploitation. I’m talking about inequality. That does not always and automatically equal victimization or exploitation. I think suggesting such things to the women I met would get their “Are you an idiot?” response. It would be offensive to them that I assume they are victims just because their work situation is different from mine. All I’m commenting on is what I noticed. (I’ll get into the money/class/status thing later on too.)

The big chasm I noticed between their work and mine is that I can say no almost with impunity. They cannot.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

bits and pieces 5

— One of the tracking services I use for my book’s site gets some hits for odd search phrases. I only read the summary and do not log into the control panel to see if there was more than one hit (one hit is enough to go in my stats, of course).

For the person who wants to know if putting in a tampon is like having sex — no, it isn’t.

Here are a few suggestions for the person who wanted some “tips when ordering an escort.”

When ordering an escort, make sure the delivery service wraps her up in a foil blanket so she stays warm on the ride over and will be hot and fresh at your door. Make sure she’s made up of only the bits you like best, no sense in throwing in some extra intelligence if you always ignore it anyway! Always ask for extra cheese or sauce, you never know, the kitchen might be in the mood to throw that in. Tip the delivery person if the escort arrives early. Don’t bother to tip the escort — that’s just silly! Always have your coins counted out in advance, no one likes to wait at the door while you pull pennies out of the change jar. Make sure the escort ordering service offers a “30 minutes or it’s free” guarantee just like every other pizza kitchen in town (since a pizza and escort are exactly the same thing, of course). Most importantly, make sure to announce you’re using a coupon when placing your order! Coupons can usually be found in the local papers.

On the other hand, maybe the person wanted to know how to order an escort to do something. Good luck with that, pal.

— I went over to Europe with a set of photos that showed a lot of personality, not a lot of skin. I liked them, US guys liked them, but they didn’t impress many over there. I resolved to do ultra-sexy (for me, at any rate) when I got back. So I did. Irony of ironies, these new photos are generally too sexy for US advertisers working around 2257. So I can’t use many of the ones I’d like to. (Obviously this one has been sitting around for a while in the Drafts folder.)

— Did you know that Angelina Jolie, Eva Mendes and I are all way over the hill for highly-discriminating escort agencies? (At least according to their stated hiring policies.) I did find one agency in London for whom we’re all almost 20yrs too young — which was refreshing.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

new book possibilities

People keep asking me if I’m going to write a book about my travels. Honestly, I’d rather not. If you want to know why, here are some possible working titles I’ve come up with in case I did decide to write a book about it, whenever I’m done, whenever that is.

A Case of Bad Timing: Sex Working the World During a Global Financial Crisis, Burgeoning Flu Epidemic and Various Natural Disasters

Alternatively, I might title that one Plan Better Than I Did: How Not to Be a Successful Escort During a Global Financial Crisis, Burgeoning Flu Epidemic and Various Natural Disasters

I could also pen Hotel Rooms Around the World: They’re All Basically the Same, With Rare Exception.

Or I might write the ultimate travel-guide: How to Miss Places, Events and Things of Importance: All the Places and Things I Did Not See or Do Before I Died

This doesn’t mean I’m having an awful time — quite far from it. I just think my day-to-day experiences are meaningful only to me and completely lack broader appeal.