What Working on Escort Websites Taught Me About Self-Love
Looking at women’s profiles every day was a weird way to learn, but it was a first step
I was the quiet one in girls’ school who scored As, gave little trouble, and kept all my topics of interest and self-loathing well hidden. “Imposter Syndrome” wouldn’t be in my vocabulary for 3 decades yet. Some years after graduating from college with a degree in Journalism in the year 2000, it felt like my quiet pervy self had hit jackpot — I was hired to work in a little media company in North Carolina running websites that featured escort profiles and agencies city by city.
OnlyFans wasn’t a thing yet, and the content subscription model for dotcoms was still in its early days. I was hired for my HTML skills but the history nerd in me did cartwheels because the “oldest profession in the world” had always been one of my topics of interest. When asked if I was comfortable with adult content during the interview, I didn’t even bat an eyelid. How many people could work in an role where what was NFSW for most people was normal, paying W?
The work actually wasn’t very demanding. There was a lot of vetting of photos and profile texts to meet our guidelines. In the days before widespread spellcheck and photo apps and filters, the women who wanted to be on the websites needed to send proof of age, profile photos, and text. Email was the usual method of content submission, but some photo prints would also make it to our office to be scanned manually. Payments were usually by credit card and confirmed through phone calls before we charged them for the service of publishing their profiles online.
I wasn’t meant to work in the customer service department at all, but stuff happened, and a bunch of us got trained to interact with clients along with our usual tech duties. Employees like myself had been hired for this work because we were nonjudgmental and open-minded. Answering their questions, protecting their identities and privacy, and conversing was a further step in recognising their humanity. This was especially because the company had a policy of allowing us to stay on the phone with our clients as long as they wanted — because chances were we were the only safe and accepting people they had to talk with about their work.
I sometimes wonder if this had been where the first seed was planted for me to become a counselor.
I Used to Hate Talking with Strangers
It’s weird that I had even gone into Journalism because talking to people was not my thing (at the time). What I had always done well was read and comprehend long texts quickly. I usually chose books over people. So putting me in customer service made me grit my teeth; I was just so certain that I’d f*ck up customer service calls. While I did on one or two, our clients were overall warm and understanding people with lovely bedside manner. (Go figure, right?) After all, these were people people, and I gradually lost my phone call phobia. Curiosity won.
The Diversity of Women was Amazing
Behind the websites, there was offline storage for all the photo ID, and photos, profile texts that we received, filed behind client code names. There was much more that company employees got to see than the over-21 public did, because not all the photos would be accepted and the women knew to swap out their photos every so often for better visibility — updated profiles appeared near the top of their categories. Or, an escort could pay extra to keep their profile in the Top 5.
What kinds of women did this work? All sorts: Big, small, younger (but legal) and older. Those who looked like your girl next door, those who would dress up for you like a vamp, those who were transitioning (and would say so), those with professional photos, and those more amateur. All body types were represented and celebrated. Some of the profiles had sparse text, while others read like excerpts from steamy romance novels.
It was not unusual for us working in the office to have our favorite profiles and clients, and to find out how well their profiles were working for them. And it was eye-opening to learn that there were customers for every body type and category. When you were working the phones, you never really knew who you were speaking with until they gave you their code name. Sometimes, recognition would dawn, and I would find myself gushing: “Girl, your photos just rock.” And I would mean it.
It wasn’t strictly the beautiful girls who stood out on the websites, it was their confidence and gaze, and yeah, good photography.
Body confidence had been an alien concept to me before this job. Sometime in my teens, I had realised with disappointment that my body wasn’t going to get any more womanly (ie. I was stuck with A-cups), and I did not have the delicate build expected of “exotic” Asian women; I was tall and built like a tank. Not having a lot to prop up my self-worth and esteem, and lowkey depressed that I hadn’t inherited my mother’s looks or bone structure, I had thought my physical shortfalls put me in the “ugly for life” category. But the success of our diverse clients made me question my beliefs. (This may be sad, but it’s true.)
And yeah, I know: My self-worth should never have been based on appearances. Thing is, I hadn’t grown up with assurances of good traits or any innate worthiness. Constant criticism and misogyny had shaped me to be envious and insecure around those more physically blessed. But working in this job, this changed.
I didn’t see other women as competition anymore. They were simply people with insecurities too, but some of them just knew how to bring it to the camera.
I Found Role Models
Some of the city websites had a fetish or BDSM category. Laugh all you want, but growing up Gen X in Asia, the only strong, dominant women in Asian dramas tended to be the villains: The shrewish mother-in-law or unreasonable boss, or the slutty and conniving huli jing (fox spirit). Assertiveness made you bad. Owning your sexuality made you evil. Like, supernaturally evil.
The dominatrixes (dominas? Dominatrices?) held a magnetism that was hard to define but we all loved them in the office. You could tell they were perfectionists: Their photos were bomb. Every detail, every shine and curve in their black leather was chef’s kiss. Their writing was also impeccable. And their conversation on the phone was… warm, chatty, and funny.
I found many of them to be delights to work with.
I wanted to be them when I grew up.
They Taught Me About Value and Boundaries
Some clients really had it all figured out. Every bit of their profile would be calculated to showcase their selling points and personalities. Some of them would call us often to make tweaks to their self-descriptions. They knew which qualities attracted which customers, and they also knew what they would or wouldn’t do. If those boundaries didn’t please some, these women still weren’t worried that business would stop.
This was amazing to me. At the time, I merely chalked it up to their confidence. Now, as a recovering people-pleaser, I can see this was boundaries in action. These were women who knew their worth and their attractive qualities, and who were using them to the hilt.
I had a lot to learn from them: My experiences growing up had installed a codependent self-critic in my psyche. Working with women who recognised and highlighted their best traits — traits that I sometimes shared with them — I learned that I actually had plenty of my own to offer the people around me. I could learn to play small less often.
Vulnerability, Compassion, and Solidarity
It should be clear that not all these women were vulnerable in a way people might expect: Many took precautions and were empowered in their work, forming connections and collaborating with other women (sometimes men), and having clear boundaries. But, like any other business, there were down times, and those of us taking calls would hear about it. Some of these calls could stretch to hours, and as I said, our company allowed and encouraged this. It was a feature our clients loved.
These long phone calls were a privilege. Of course, the customer service reps were in no position to advise (other than category placements or extra-visibility spots on the websites) and it was clear that many clients just wanted a space for verbal ventilation. Their work was tough, so it was easy for us to be kind, and often, the stories were worth it. We wanted them safe. We wanted them to do well. We wanted them happy. Every single one.
Turning It All Around into Self-Love
Hindsight is 20/20. Before this job, my experiences with female friends had been rather shallow and far between. In many ways, working with escorts threw me into the deep end of what women had to face, and I got a crash course in providing emotional support to women who were doing potentially dangerous work. It was also my first work environment in which respect and compassion (in an objectifying and stigmatising industry, I know) was important in customer service and in the office itself. When our clients were treated with respect and dignity, they showed warmth, strength, and intelligence that made interactions a joy.
I know I had grown up in a conservative culture that put me around insanely critical and judgmental people. I’d never aligned myself with them, but until this role, I had missed out on supportive connections and unabashed, authentic conversations. These interactions finally fleshed out for me, what safety, connection, self-acceptance and kindness could look like.
No matter what someone does for a living.
