Posted on by Amanda Brooks

a quick update

I added a little update at the bottom of my burnout post. After even more time away from life as Amanda, and other positive life changes, I’ve made a decision based on many personal revelations and much thought.

The comments are turned off on this blog from now and forever. I will Tweet every now and then, but am never going to engage with anyone on Twitter again. If you have my email address, you can use it, but I probably won’t respond. I’m not interested in mainstream media, not unless an exceptional opportunity arises. By “exceptional”, of course I mean “paid” and by “paid” I mean “well-paid” which means it probably won’t happen at all.

I’m in the process of gathering materials (and thoughts) for a few more escort-related books. I can see a minimum of two and a maximum of six coming out over the next year or two, depending on several factors. Ebooks, produced as professionally as possible, perhaps with POD options. I’m not going to bother doing print runs again. It’s more hassle than I feel like doing, certainly more upfront costs for me, though I know sex workers love to build actual libraries (I’m one them). That means I’ll be forced to buy myself POD copies too. 🙁

Speaking of print books, I’m selling out the last of my copies of Book 2. Haters are encouraged to buy out my remaining stock at full retail price to hold a bonfire or whatever. I’m both a sex worker and a writer. My type of people like getting paid.

Book updates/news/notes will posted on Twitter, of course. I’ll finally use it as book promotion like I should have been doing all along.

I’ll do my best to publish helpful information, because sex workers certainly deserve to have options, and the experiences of others in order to make decisions. I’m even going to write a book for clients and it’s probably not going to be anything like what you’d expect from me, for good or ill.

I’m aware my acknowledged audience is tiny, I’m also aware that I’ve helped shaped this industry, whether acknowledged or not (usually not, and usually while being completely ripped off, sometimes by people who claim to be of higher ethical standards than I). I’m also aware all of this is spectacularly bad timing, but my life has been nothing if not badly-timed, so this is completely on-brand.

Whatever comes, there will always be men wishing to indulge in paid sex and/or companionship, and there will always be women wishing to offer it. And the concepts of providing are eternal, even if current society or the technology changes.

And then I’m done with producing books (as Amanda).

There are other things I’m working on and places I see myself going that don’t involve any of you, or Amanda. I like that.

I’m sure there will be one final concluding essay to all this before I go, for those who have followed me this long. My story arc will be concluded, as it were, as gracefully as I might be able. It may not be nice but it will be honest.

There is so much clarity that comes with distance and time.

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

Sex work burnout: a very long journey

Burnout. Every career has its version and sex work probably has higher rates because the work is so much more personal, because sex workers shoulder such a huge portion of the work individually. A stripper cannot outsource her work and make a living. An escort can outsource some of her administrative work, but has to make more money in order to pay for that luxury. We cannot clone our selves to go meet clients. Scaling up or out is impossible. At best, we can make and sell content for passive income, or raise our rates. We still have to do the actual work though, whether writing, photographing, interacting, and showing up.

This is a novella-length essay of my journey into and out of burnout. I’m still in the process but am through the worst and on my way out. Take what you find valuable, if anything, and I sincerely hope it helps you. This is not a “poor Amanda” essay, some of these issues have been self-caused and it has taken solid moments of clarity to realize this. Avoid my mistakes and do better.

There are many ways to organize this and I felt chronologically would be best for you. It’s not how the feelings and experiences are organized in my head, but you don’t live in my head. I’ve done my best to make the steps of the journey clear to both of us.

Read more
Posted on by Amanda Brooks

face or no face?

Vanessa D’Alessio wrote a great piece over at TitsandSass around the issue of showing your face in conjunction with your online escort work. My response got eaten by the Intertubes, I think. Instead of reposting, I decided to expand on it a little here.

This article has been at the back of my mind since I read it last week. My arc has been slightly different than hers. When I started stripping, I was fairly out and allowed myself to be photographed, topless, for one of my club’s websites (back when the Internet was indeed tubes that connected computers using gerbils and string). They never removed the picture despite repeated requests, even after I left stripping and began escorting. (It was later removed only because they redid their site.)

Read more

Posted on by Amanda Brooks

hobbyists in the mist

Over the years, I’ve run into hobbyists online in non-escort settings. EBay, various message boards about real hobbies, non-escort blogs, dating sites and the like. It is proof that hobbyists do have something of an Internet life outside of posting on discussion/review boards. It’s also proof that an experienced escort can smell them through the computer screen long before they’ve made a complete ass of themselves.

It’s the grossly-entitled reek they emit that gives it away. They see women as inferior and expect that anything they say is gospel. They forget that the rest of the Internet is a free world and my livelihood doesn’t depend on catering to their flagging egos. I love to enrage them because it’s so easy. They never twig that I’m an escort and recognize what they are. They only know that I’m keeping the pussy away from them, not doing what they tell me to do, and not falling in love with them. For free, of course.

They lust after any semi-appealing female who crosses their radar, seeming to think that every woman will react with the same enthusiasm that working escorts do. They’re shocked when I tell them to fuck off (and it is so, so much fun to do this). I’ve even caught them attempting to rate and review me and other civilian women on whatever site. Why do they think women want to put up with this for free? Oh, right. Hobbyists.

Sometimes they’re even smart enough to not use the same handles on every board. Certainly not always. I’ve no doubt if I went searching for specific phrases I’d probably figure out their escort board handles pretty quickly but I’ve never had that much curiosity.

They find out that challenging me with money doesn’t work (like the out-of-state dating site guys who want to meet me and take me to dinner, but only with the guarantee of sex because they don’t want to waste money on me) and it blows their minds. They rage and whinge about how I set my boundaries during whatever short bout of contact we have online. I find their other online profiles (“travel dating” sites are now popular) with pictures and hilarious self-description, I pass the links around for others to laugh at. In my experience, real clients rarely leave such an Internet trail of stupidity. Hobbyists usually do, spreading all over the Net like a viral outbreak. The stupider they are, the better. They readily oblige.

The most fun is getting to act offended and enraged at every little sexist thing that they write, threaten to have them reported and/or banned from the site, get to tell them where and how to get off (certainly not with me), etc. They have no idea where I’m coming from, and they discover they really can’t do anything to me. They have no power over me. I’m just some random chick, probably a Nazi-feminist, who thinks all men are sexually harassing her, and causing a big stink about their attitudes. They go in search of easier prey. I’m sure I’m responsible for some of the beliefs among hobbyists that American women are emasculating men. (Don’t be so easily emasculated, is my response.)

Oddly enough, I’ve yet to personally interact with an online male jerk who wasn’t a hidden hobbyist. I’ve sometimes been able to sniff out a client (though none of mine) and they behave themselves. I’ve interacted with quite a few civilian men and they behave themselves, more or less, within a range of normal male behavior. The outright, miserable assholes are always hobbyists. Always. I think it’s because hobbyists are MRAs who admit to paying for it.

I would love to tell hobbyists to behave themselves when interacting with women who don’t care about earning a “10” from them, but then, I doubt any of those read this blog. Nor would they get it. Or care.