Three Nine Seven: Curriculum

 Yes, I know. I spend too much time reading tweets at Twitter/X by high-end ("FMTY") escorts and trying to imagine myself as one of their clients...or at least imagine myself as someone who could be one of their clients. 

When I read tweets by Fly Me To You girls I do feel a sense of...well...not quite despair, but maybe a sense of anger at myself. Those tweets offer up thanks to some "Mr. B." or "Mr. C." for lovely dinners or exciting weekend escapes, and while I understand that it's politic of the FMTY girls to thank their long-term clients, I keep thinking that I'd never be a client who'd be found worth thanking.

The FMTY girls all agree that the best thing they can hear on a date or a trip is, "Don't worry, it's all taken care of." I can't imagine a girl-- professional or not --ever thinking I'd be able to say that to them. I lack the skills or the knowledge to arrange things myself, and I lack the skills and knowledge to have hotel or restaurant staff say that on my behalf. 

Please note that this is not about money. I understand the power of cash and the (greater) power of the black AmEx card. I understand all that. What I'm talking about is my own lack of any social skills that would cover a date with a high-end escort.

I've written about this before, but it still gnaws at me. What are the skills needed to be a good client? What are the social rules for an evening or a weekend with an FMTY girl? What skills would I need to make her feel that I was worth her professional skills?

Let's not just say "money". I'll agree with Bryan Ferry on that-- "money talks, it never lies". I've said all down the years that I've written at this site that I'm "genteely impoverished". That's still true. I have a flat, and I have the money to buy books and the occasional dinner out. But there's no black AmEx in my life. I don't own a suit, let alone a bespoke one. I have no knowledge of finance or business, and it's been a while since there was a new stamp in my passport. 

Let's not just talk about money. Let's talk about social rules. Every social transaction has its matrix of rules. Every social transaction has its class markers. I'd have no idea what items are on the checklist or how I'd be expected to behave with an FMTY girl.

If you're reading this, if you're out there over the aether, I hope you'll offer some suggestions. FMTY are skilled professionals, and at the high end of their profession. They pride themselves on that, and on their knowledge of the world. Many of them have post-graduate degrees that are at least as good as mine. They have a knowledge of restaurants and food and wines that I'll never have. Several of the FMTY girls whose tweets I follow have multiple languages and know about which spas and resorts are worth visiting. I of course am too afraid ever to go to a spa. When I'm alone, I'm never intimidated by menus and wine lists-- but with a date, let alone an FMTY girl, I'd be utterly paralyzed when the time came to order dinner.

I'd want to be someone whose own skills and knowledge would be good enough to make an FMTY girl feel as if it would be worth it for her to be there with me. I'd want to be someone she'd think could appreciate her skills. I would not want to be someone who'd make her feel...bored. Or contemptuous.

If I were young enough to be callow, if I were even thirty or thirty-five, I could offer my lack of knowledge up as part of the evening-- having an FMTY girl teach me things could be the evening's kink. I'm too old for that now. I'd never be able to ask an FMTY girl to teach me things about the social world. I'd never be able to admit that I don't know...anything. 

If you're reading this, I hope you'll offer me list items. What are the social rules with an FMTY girl? What would I be expected to know and do? I know that I'd always be de bas en haut around her, but I'd at least like to be someone who wouldn't make her feel as if she was wasting her skills-- or worse, that being seen with me would cost her social points with colleagues and/or potential clients. I wouldn't want to be the reason that hotel or restaurant staff didn't give her the service she deserves.

Anyone out there-- what should I learn? What skills should I try to be proficient in? All suggestions are appreciated. 

Three Seven Nine: Berlin

Last evening I discovered a new FMTY girl's channel at YouTube. She calls herself "Lucy Huxley" and her channel is called "The Whore's Bedroom". 

She's a Vancouver girl, an ex-ballet student who's ended up as a Berlin-based escort. Her YouTube videos all begin her sitting cross-legged on her bed in Berlin and talking about her life and career:"My name is Lucy. I'm a whore, and this is my bedroom." She talks about how she sees her job and her clients, and she tells stories from her life. 

Lovely girl-- auburn hair, maybe not quite thirty, lovely eyes, wry sense of humor. If I sound like I have a crush on her, well...of course I do. I like her voice, and I love the deadpan introduction: My name is Lucy. I'm a whore. I do like the way she makes the word sound. My own parasocial voices whisper to me that while I'd never have the money to book her, she'd be very likely to be someone I could have a conversation with. 

Huxley, she says-- she chose Aldous Huxley's name for her own work name. Well, I do like that. I like a few of Aldous Huxley's books ("Crome Yellow" and "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" and "The Devils of Loudon") rather a lot, and for whatever it's worth, Aldous Huxley died on my birthday. How's that for a connection?

She explains in her first video that she has a firm policy-- any booking of three hours or more has to come with lunch or dinner, since she's a girl who gets hungry easily and becomes irritable when hungry. My first thought was...steak or Szechuan? It's all too easy to imagine booking her for four hours and spending half of the time talking over dinner.

She says that she prides herself on her Girlfriend Experience talents, and I have no doubt that she'd make a wonderful companion. Again, this is all very parasocial, but listening to her stories makes me believe that I'd feel secure enough with her to explain what my interests are and ask for the things that would give me pleasure. The sense of humor she has in her videos is dry as the Atacama Desert, and that's exactly to my tastes. 

I did follow the link to her Twitter feed, and she has excellent legs and a very knowing smile. That may well be all GFE marketing, but that's fine. I'd love to be able to talk with someone again, to be able to talk to a lovely girl who'd be willing to listen to me. She says that she's always liked older men-- ever since she was a budding ballerina --because, yes, they have financial security, but also because their stories are better. She says that she's never laughed at or mocked a client, and that she understands that many of her clients are just a bit afraid. Well, that's something that did make me sigh. You've read my last several entries. You'll understand that here in this grim and charmless year 2024 I am anxious and afraid of the idea of telling a lovely Young Companion anything at all about myself and my interests. 

Now one of her videos explained that she's based in Berlin and can visit clients all across the EU, and that she could certainly visit friends and family in Canada-- but that she's excluded by law from ever going to the US. Apparently, if you're a sex worker the US won't allow you entry (even though sex work is legal in Germany). I hadn't known that. Yet one more thing about US law that makes me shake my head in disbelief. It makes me very uncomfortable, too, that US Border Control monitors social media to help identify sex workers (even nude models) who might be trying to enter the US, even as nothing more than tourists. 

Well, I could never afford Ms. Huxley, but I do enjoy her YouTube videos, and I wish I could look across a table at someone like her and just say, This is what and who I am, and this is what I enjoy. Is that something you could work with? 

Here I am tonight, listening to hard rains falling over my city. In some better world Ms. Huxley and I would be talking over Campari-sodas about games and kinks and flirting shamelessly. I really would like to have a girl in my life and bed whose judgment I'm not afraid of, and whose skills and discretion I'd trust.

Three Seven Three: Guidelines

 Last time, I wrote about my anxieties over the idea of FMTY Girls. Please be very certain that I'm talking here about hypothetical situations. I'll never be in a financial position where I could afford the services of one of the FMTY Girls on Twitter. I'll never really be in the geographical position to access the services of an FMTY Girl. My city is off the tour circuit for FMTY Girls, and I'd never be able to afford the fees necessary to persuade an FMTY Girl that I'm vaut un detour. This essay recognizes those facts very clearly. This is about a hypothetical world, not about this one.

Please don't think that I spend my evenings obsessing over the Twitter feeds of FMTY Girls. My Twitter reading is largely about history, architecture, and literature. But I do see feeds by lovely passport-ready escorts and I recognize my own failings. I might-- might --be able to afford the professional services of a local escort, but I wouldn't know where to begin. And, yes, I'd feel many of the same anxieties.

Last weekend I did what everyone does about needed information these days-- I went to YouTube and looked for information on how to seek out paid companionship and how to behave on a date with a companion. In case you're wondering, there are videos devoted to exactly those issues. I'm rather impressed with that. YouTube videos have taught me how to open an Opinel knife (i.e., how to do the coup de Savoyard), how to properly cook a veal chop, and how to reset the oil warning light on my vehicle. And now I could, at least in theory, learn how to behave with a high-end escort.

Companion. My apologies-- the preferred term is companion. I understand that. It's the same usage as the ancient Greek hetaira-- which is companion also. I like companion as a term, and it certainly catches a very large part of what I'm looking for. And I have to laugh here. What I'm hearing in my head is a moment in "The Rings of Power" where Adar corrects Galadriel when she calls him an orc: "Uruk. We prefer uruk." (Oh, yes, I liked "The Rings of Power; Adar was my favourite character) 

There was one video that I liked a lot. It was by a woman with certification as a sex therapist and a graduate degree in psychology. She talked about how paid companionship could have positive effects for some male patients, and she gave very good, very practical advice about being with a Companion. Let's be clear that I have no problems with her video. Be polite, be respectful, pay your fee up front, be honest about what you're looking for, treat a Companion just as you'd treat any skilled professional. Simple things, and practical. But again, not something that addressed my anxieties.

There was still no advice as to what to do about Impostor Syndrome, about the feeling that you're not good enough for an FMTY Girl, even if you could afford the fees without blinking. I keep looking at my wardrobe and thinking that any FMTY Girl would be ashamed to be seen with me. My thought is that being seen in public with me would lower her reputation in her own profession and might put off potential clients. 

Videos put up at YouTube by working Companions are all designed to allay male fears. The male viewer is assured that with a Companion he won't be judged or mocked for his performance or his body. The Companion is there, the male viewer is assured, to provide services. She doesn't judge, and her skills include making the client feel like he's appreciated. 

That may or may not be true. But while I'd certainly meet certain requirements for behavior-- personal hygiene, of course, and treating my provider with respect --I'd never be able to move from dinner table to bedroom. And I'm not sure I'd know what to do at dinner. I know which fork to use, but I'm not a gourmet and I'd panic at the wine list. I'd be terrified that my provider would instantly assume that if I didn't know what I was doing at dinner, I wouldn't know what to do in bed. I'd assume that she was sighing to herself and lamenting that I was going to  require effort on her part.

Be honest with your provider; tell your provider exactly what you're looking for.  That's excellent advice. But I'd be too afraid to take it. Any fantasies or tastes I might have would be either too boringly vanilla or too annoyingly strange. In any case, my provider would have to expend thought and effort on me. I'd be desperately ashamed to be thought either too boring or too pervy. I'd never be the kind of challenge that might make her want to deploy all her skills. 

Yes, I know. I'd be a paying client; it would be her job to provide services. But any skilled professional, from accountant to zither-player, wants to know that her skills are properly appreciated. I wouldn't be someone who could do that. 

I suppose that it might never get to the dinner date, let alone the bedroom. Even if I had the money for her fee, dinner, hotel room, and tip there's still the "screening" hurdle. I'd never make that. I'm not even sure what "screening" would entail. Whatever it is, it wouldn't be good. It would be too revealing in too many ways. 

The days of CraigsList are long gone, as the days of Nerve.com personals. The same anxieties would apply there, too, mind you. Let's be clear on that. I'd never pass the screening. And I'd feel like the girl across the table had sought an Adventure and had only found...me. Well, at least a girl from a personals ad would feel free to just walk away. Painful and humiliating for me, yes, but at least it would be done quickly. A Companion, a provider, might feel that since she'd accepted the fee, she was obligated to grit her teeth and go through with the contract. I'd probably be able to tell, and I'd feel both humiliated and ashamed to have ruined the working evening for her.

I do have copies of my briefing document. Yes, I did draft one. And of course the preference points all come with inbuilt apologies. I'd never have the courage to ask for what I'd want, even if I were paying for it. I'd never know how to behave with a Companion, never know how to behave so as to help her keep up the experience of the evening. 

The YouTube videos were all very practical, very useful. But they don't address my fears. I have no idea how I'd be able to get through an evening with a Companion without disappointing or annoying her, and I'd never be able to ask for the things that might give me pleasure.

Three Seven Two: Invitations

 Let's think for a minute. Let's go back to the FMTY girls. We're almost a month into the new year, and at Twitter the FMTY girls are announcing their spring touring schedules. 

I live in an older city, one that lives on its reputation for food and music and a certain louche attitude. It has its charms, and it has a fascinating history, but it's usually off the FMTY tour circuit. In some ways I suppose that's best. 

I have an idea about the fee schedules for the FMTY girls, and I have an idea about what the incidental expenses would be-- the restaurant, the wines, and the tip. But purposes of this essay, let's assume that I could pay those amounts with the snap of a finger. Let's assume that tonight I'm sitting at a good restaurant with an FMTY girl who meets all my criteria of desire. Let's go a bit farther and assume I've passed her screening procedures and that I've been dressed and groomed to be socially presentable. 

So, here we are. Dinner has been ordered, wine has been poured. I was brought up to be polite in a quietly old-school way, and her professional skills include making her clients feel at ease. So she and I are making conversation. And then...what happens?

This could become an issue-- which of us moves the conversation into the realm of seduction? Which of us gently nudges the evening toward a bedroom? I have no idea how that would work. I've read FMTY girls' Twitter posts where they've noted that it's irritating and annoying to have a client openly press for leaving the restaurant for the hotel room. The girl has been working hard to establish herself as a Companion, as someone who can create an elegant scene-- a client just saying something like, "Well, it's half past nine, let's get naked" is simply brushing off her professional skills.

But how does this work? I've had dinners with young ladies who've been seductive. I've had fingertips traced over the back of my hand while she talked. I've had a slender bare foot traced along my leg under the table. I mean, that's been a while, but it has happened. Somehow I wouldn't expect the FMTY girl to nod towards the street door and say, "Let's see your hotel room" (let alone "Come see the rooftop pool where I'm staying"). Yes, there's the issue of the ticking clock. There's always that. My fee covers her presence at dinner and in the bedroom, and the evening's clock is ticking. But reminding her of that is crass and vulgar. It sounds...entitled. This is the third decade of the new century, and entitled is just about the worst thing a person of the male persuasion can be seen as being. 

I have no idea how I'd raise the issue of going to bed. We'd both of us know that a hotel bed is supposed to be the climax of the evening. She may even have been provided with a briefing document about my interests and tastes. But I have no idea how to get from table to bed. 

Last Saturday I had my hair cut. My cutter has known me since we were both young. We even dated briefly back in the depths of the Long Ago. I trust her skills and professional knowledge absolutely. When I go to her home studio to have my hair cut, we have coffee or tea and talk books and films, then she moves me along to the various stops in the process-- shampoo, cut, a brief demonstration of her future plans for my hair style and of what I need to do to maintain the style. I make conversation; I have input into the music she has playing (last Saturday: Morcheeba). But she moves me along very efficiently, and with practiced ease. I have to admire that.

I wouldn't know what to do on an evening with an FMTY girl. I'd like to put myself completely in her hands and rely on her to guide me through what would be a learning experience. Being with an FMTY girl would be something I'd do for the experience, for the taste of a better world. It would be something that I'd do for the chance to be guided through the mazes of class and style around sex, decor, restaurants, and social presentation. I'd be terrified of showing myself to be incapable of being part of that world. I wouldn't want to be seen as failing at a sentimental education. A beautiful, skilled demimondaine is not someone I'd want to disappoint, and certainly not someone whose mockery I'd want to risk.

Right now I'm thinking of the last girl whom I walked from my sitting room into my bedroom. That wasn't hard. We'd met one summer Saturday. She'd just graduated university, and we ordered lots of classic cocktails and laughed and flirted. She came back to my flat, went out to the courtyard swimming pool with me, and drank with me in my kitchen. At some point we looked at one another and I nodded to my bedroom. It all felt effortless. She was in a mood to experiment with things, and as her first Older Gentleman I counted as that. And it was a Saturday late afternoon-- I think that mattered, too. Again-- it all felt effortless and fluid. We laughed about that, about one thing flowed into another that afternoon. But it wouldn't be like that with an FMTY girl.

Yes-- the FMTY girl would get a briefing document about my interests. And the document would note that while I always encourage young ladies to avoid underwear and to always sleep naked, she would never see me naked. That would break the spell of the evening. Whatever skills she might have, however open about bodies she might be-- she'd never see me naked. That would break the spell. Her body would be there to be admired, caressed, valued. But I'd never want her to have to tolerate my body. I'd never want her to have to grit her teeth on the walk from restaurant to bedroom.

I'd never know what to say to an FMTY girl. I'd want the evening to feel seductive, to be about mannered seduction. I'd want the sex to be stylized and its transitions to feel fluid. I'd be terrified to end up sitting there staring at my plate or at the wine bottle, frozen with fear of doing this wrong, of getting it wrong. I'd be afraid of disappointing a skilled demimondaine. I'd be terrified of not being good enough to understand the nuances of her skills. I'd be terrified of looking like a rube or a yokel. I'd be ashamed of wasting the FMTY's evening. 

Whenever I've engaged the services of a professional-- a tax accountant, a successions lawyer, a physician --I've always felt able to explain very directly what I wanted, and I've felt entitled to ask questions. But I couldn't do that with an FMTY girl. I'd feel far too judged. 

Now it's possible that I could carry on a conversation. I have stories to tell; I was trained to be a decent dinner party guest. I might even be able to discuss topics that wouldn't bore her. But I couldn't negotiate the shift from dinner to bedroom. I wouldn't even know how to bring up the topic. 

Any of you out there over the aether-- whether or not you know anything about the FMTY demimonde --if you're reading this, what do you think? If we assume that I had the money and the decent attire and that I could  pass an FMTY girl's screening protocols... If we assume those things, then-- what should I do. However do I end up able to transition back to the hotel? How would I avoid sitting there staring at an empty plate in a conversational void? How would I avoid the girl's contempt as the clock ticks down?

Three Six Three: Narration

The 10 April 23 online edition of "Paris Review" has an article called "On Fantasy" by a woman who's an escort/gallery girl/ conceptual artist who calls herself Sophia Giovannitti. It's about how boring and exhausting male fantasies are, and why all fantasies are pointless and annoying. Consider this incredibly depressing passage:

This client also wanted our time together to be cinematic. I suppose all clients do. The first time we met, I was struck by his impulse to narrate what was happening, as though by speaking aloud how good something is one could will it to actually be so. It’s not that it wasn’t good, or was bad—it was just mundane, the way formulaic excess often is.

The "impulse to narrate"... Well, there goes my entire life. Narration and curation have been my life-- things written, things lived. If those things are just mundane, I have yet more reasons to stay here in the lakeside flat with my books and my DVD collection.

The author of "On Fantasy" also uses song lyrics from Cigarettes After Sex in her article. I like the band a lot, and I like their music. Now of course, having read her article, I've been looking at my iTunes and feeling a bit wary of listening to them. I hate losing bands I've liked, and Ms. Giovannitti's article has just taken away Cigarettes After Sex.

Now I do have to ask myself a couple of questions about Ms. Giovannitti. Is her disdain for male fantasies something that derives from her sex work or from her time in the art world? There are two possible kinds of disdain here, and I wish I knew the backstory.

More to the point, though-- 

In SoHo, there is a boutique hotel whose rooms are blue. Blue carpet, blue ceiling, blue-patterned sheets. I met a client there several years ago, when I still had short bangs. I wore a vintage skirt-and-top set—black, with colorful flowers—and black lingerie from l’Agent, the now-defunct, less expensive little sister brand to Agent Provocateur. My client wanted our time together to feel like a movie. He didn’t say this, but his behavior made it clear. He booked me for only an hour but wanted an experiential arc: he sat me first in the small living room area of his suite, presenting liquor he had put on ice for me. Music played softly through the room’s sound system: “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” by Cigarettes After Sex, a song that I’d only ever heard as the background of a bad television show. He moved me into the bedroom, bantering, as though he had to charm me. I have absolutely no recollection of what he looked like or what his name was. This isn’t because I was seeing so many clients I couldn’t keep track, but because it’s useless information to retain after the fact. I remember how he behaved—the only salient thing—which was annoying, and also standard, fine. I overstayed our appointment because the sex refused to end, as happens often with older men who want to paw at a young woman but don’t quite care whether or not they finish, and certainly not in the allotted time. “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby” returned to the playlist; it was looping, as was the experience.

And that's deeply depressing. 

We live in an age where The Discourse tells us that male fantasies are by and large boring and that male sex is inherently mediocre. I've been writing down the fantasies I have these days and trying to analyze and critique them. I keep looking for the weak places, for any places that don't seem like they'd interest a partner. I'm inside the fantasies, though, so my views on them are flawed and suspect. But I am and remain afraid that any desires and fantasies I may have would be mediocre and boring. 

It's always possible to ask a partner what her own fantasies are. I do that, and I'll always try to act out what she likes. But I am increasingly afraid to tell anyone what I like or what I want to try.

I played the song for myself after, alone in my own room. A user called “i’m cyborg but that’s ok” had uploaded it to YouTube along with a compilation of scenes from Lost in Translation, a movie I’d never seen but that I knew was about a relationship between a washed-up older man having a midlife crisis and a beautiful young woman. The video compilation looked like an escort advertisement: in the opening scene, Scarlett Johansson sits in a hotel room window wearing only a large men’s shirt—blue—looking down at the wide expanse of Tokyo beneath her; in the next scene, she dives into an enormous, empty hotel pool, at night—the pool and the surrounding windowpanes all blue, too. The images spoke of money and alienation. The song captured the affect of a certain type of client: slightly flat; grasping toward a Daddy-esque certainty but falling short; single-mindedly offering reassurance, but of what he hardly seemed to know. I grew oddly attached to the song and to cyborg’s music video for a period. I would watch it on my way to work, flattening my own affect, compacting myself into a version of a girl aligned with the lyrics:

Whispered something in your ear

It was a perverted thing to say

But I said it anyway

Made you smile and look away

Nothing’s gonna hurt you, baby.

I have no idea what fantasies are acceptable these days, or how male sex can be anything other than mediocre. I remain convinced that the girls in my past were probably contemptuous of any sexual desires or fantasies I may have had. I have no idea what fantasies will seem well-crafted enough not to be mocked. I have no idea why I should try to develop any fantasies, let alone actual physical techniques. Rising above mediocre seems to be a fading hope.

Three Four Eight: Signposts

I have been back at Escort Twitter, looking through feeds by FMTY Girls.

One thing I've found to think about is this. I've never liked lingerie. I understand, or at least think I understand, the semiotics of lingerie. When I look at the FMTY Girls' feeds, I understand what they're trying to say with photos of themselves in expensive lingerie or photos of the gift boxes expensive lingerie came in. 

Part of it is very simple, of course. Gifts of expensive lingerie symbolize luxury. They're a marker for the client "spoiling" the girl. Things like Agent Provocateur symbolize both luxury and "decadence"-- they symbolize upper-class lifestyles and what is always taken for "decadence": champagne for breakfast, willowy girls in nothing but lingerie at noon. High-end lingerie stands for a certain kind of sex, and it also stands for a life where the girl has nothing to do on any ordinary day but wear silk thongs and garter belts and be ready for sex in an elegant setting.

And yet...lingerie never meant anything to me. I am old enough to remember Helmut Newton's photos from the later 1970s and early 1980s, with all the models in black silk stockings and lace bustiers or bras. I thought of those things even then as a kind of obsession not with sex itself but the idea of "European" sex-- chateaux and castles, four and five-star hotels in Paris or London. Of course I'm attracted to the idea of decadence, but stockings and garters never seemed to be the markers to attract me.

You know this part. I prefer my girls to avoid lingerie. I prefer them to avoid undergarments altogether. I prefer girls who'll sleep naked-- or just in one of my shirts --to ones in silk teddies or camisoles. I have no idea what I'd say to a girl who wanted to wear a nightgown in my bed...except to explain that there's nothing sexy about sleepwear for beautiful girls. I'd offer her one of my dress shirts, but I'd hope that she'd sleep naked. 

I remember the early '90s and lots of Prince videos-- girls in very short skirts that left their stocking tops and garter belts clearly on display. That was a brief fashion moment, and my young ladies of the day were encouraged to forego stockings altogether. I'd much rather caress or kiss tanned, taut, sleek bare flesh than be kissing fabric. And I suppose, too, that stockings do run. Active sex is hard on stockings, and you'd have to replace them far too often.  Bare legs are always best. 

I'm fine with slender, toned girls in black leggings, but it's dark-tanned bare legs in short skirts that I prefer on my dates. In the Southern summertime, sundresses should never be worn with stockings or lingerie. Sundresses go next to the skin. If a girl tells me that she has summertime fantasies of "getting railed in a sundress", I always point out that there should be nothing at all under that sundress to get in the way. 

I'm not sure where I want to go with this. What I'm thinking is that I'm not sure what signs and symbols appeal to me. Lingerie, even the most expensive and most well-designed or made, isn't a symbol for sex-- at least to me. In the FMTY world, expensive lingerie has its own ritual justifications, both for companion and client. But those things don't speak to me.

The girl in a man's dress shirt. The girl in a very tailored, half-unbuttoned white blouse. The expensive sweater worn next to the skin with a pair of very short cut-off shorts. The girl in a man-tailored blazer next to the skin. Those things all appeal to me. Collarbones, hipbones, long bare backs, long slender legs-- those things excite me in ways that girls in Agent Provocateur or La Perla never can. 

I'm not sure what the social messages in my preferences are. They're more...what? Model Off Duty looks? And things that suggest Comparative Lit co-eds who are living out fantasies of being a Muse or Learning About The World from an Older Lover. 

But I just don't fit into the FMTY world. I can't afford its rituals, and I have far, far too little of the particular kind of social capital I'd need to ever have a dinner date with an FMTY Girl.

Three Four Six: Menu

One of the FMTY Girls at Escort Twitter posted a partial list of her fees. I'd known that the world of FMTY Girls was far beyond me, but I hadn't known any of the numbers. The girl in question is Toronto-based, and she posted a list in both $US and $CDN. I'd never seen anyone on Escort Twitter cite their prices before-- for obvious reasons --and so this did catch my eye.

I'm thinking that she posted a price guide because she was trying to move towards fewer but longer dates. Which is fine-- that seems very efficient. What I noticed was that a dinner date (specified as 4 hours) was...$US 1200. That brought me up short. That's a much higher hourly rate than I get in corporate life. And it's not all-inclusive by any means. The $US 1200 is just the provider's fee. Dinner at an appropriate venue is the client's separate responsibility. And of course there's a customary gift (lingerie, wine, gift cards, art books) when the client meets the provider. Of course there's the inevitable tip as well-- several hundred dollars at least. So the entire experience is likely to cost more than two thousand dollars.

And because I'm naive, provincial, and unlettered-- a rube --I have no idea  how the mechanics of the evening would work. A 4 hour dinner breaks down...how? Say, two hours at dinner and then two hours at the hotel? If so, you're adding the cost of the hotel room to the cost. I'd be afraid that the provider would tag me immediately as a clock watcher, and I'd be too ashamed of that to enjoy either dinner or time at the hotel.

Another FMTY girl at least offered in-call dinner dates. You appeared at her flat or hotel room and there was a catered dinner delivered. I'm assuming that the dinner and catering fees would be added to the provider's fee up front. But that would at least help defuse my fear of making a fool of myself at the restaurant. An in-call dinner also seems more intimate, and I'd hope that I could trust the provider to handle the wine list. 

On a 4 hour dinner date, I'd never be able to suggest that we move from restaurant to hotel room. I'd be too paralyzed to make that suggestion. I'd never be able to escape the feeling that any illusion of intimacy we'd created at dinner would evaporate during the walk/ride to the hotel. 

Two thousand dollars for a dinner date, even with a sexual encounter built in, is a daunting prospect. I could I suppose save up money to have one provider encounter a year-- spending two thousand dollars on an annual vacation isn't outlandish at all --but I'd never get over the feeling that I was wasting the provider's time. She'd see that I didn't know how to appreciate what I was paying for, and so much of what I would be paying for is the illusion that I did know, that I was the sort of person who could appreciate the world she'd be serving up.  As I've said before, I'd be hiring an "independent companion" to be a life coach as much as a sexual partner.

Escort Twitter is something I can appreciate as a kind of art exhibit. It's not a world I could ever be part of. If ever I needed a provider (or, yes, okay, a provider/life coach) I'd be better off finding the inevitable co-ed or grad student in Comparative Lit or French Lit who'd charge a fraction of an FMTY Girl's fee. I'd be better off with a hip girl whose performative role would be to talk obscure bands or films at a small bistro. She could make me feel like I still had some connections to academia and hip culture. I suppose that's my world, anyway. Expensive lingerie and Michelin stars aren't my world-- I'd never fit in there, even as part of an arranged performance.

Three Four Four: Boxes

I have been going through Escort Twitter these days. It's springtime, and the FMTY Girls are going on spring/summer tours. I do envy them: a working vacation in a posh resort or a four-star hotel is still not a bad thing. I suppose I do wonder, though-- is it hard to enjoy yourself when part of your job is enjoying yourself-- being seen to enjoy yourself  --in a swank setting? 

These things are beyond me. I take no pleasure in travel, since I'm likely to be traveling alone these days and of course since I'm a gentleman of very limited means.  I have to wonder if I'm even capable of pleasure when traveling with a lovely young companion. I'd probably spend my time being far too anxious to experience pleasure. If I were with a lovely, long-legged, panty-free young companion, I'd compulsively worry about all the things that could go wrong while traveling. I'd worry about whether she was having anything approaching a good time, about whether I'd reveal myself as a provincial-- a rube --in my choices for a hotel, for dinner, for wine. I'd be far too likely to paralyze myself with those anxieties. 

The FMTY girls post photos of gifts clients and patrons have given them. So many of the photos show the gift boxes as well as the gift. I can recognize some of the brands-- usually expensive lingerie. I understand that Agent Provocateur is an expensive line of slinky lingerie, although lingerie is never a gift I'd choose. I'm not fond of girls in lingerie. I prefer girls panty-free, after all. The stockings-and-garters look hasn't appealed to me since the start of the Nineties. Long, sleek, taut, tanned bare legs attract me more than silk stockings. I'm far more attracted to a girl in just a man's dress shirt than in lingerie, and of course I prefer my young companions to sleep naked. All I can do is look at the boxes and try to gauge what the price might be and what statement each gift-giver is trying to make. 

I'll admit that I do like some of the boxes-- elegant things. 

I have limited resources, so I'm not likely to give Agent Provocateur lingerie or jewelry. Books-- I do give books. And I have been known to buy my young ladies men's shirts or pullover sweaters. My gifts have been hand-delivered in New Yorker tote bags, but never in boxes from exclusive boutiques in NYC or London Town.

One of the FMTY girls did hint at her fee schedule. A gentleman admirer, she noted, was flying her somewhere for a long weekend. The fee, she noted, would pay her rent for two months. Based on rents for the city where she makes her home, that's probably half again my salary for that same period. Far and away out of my league. 

Well, I wouldn't know what to say to a high-end escort anyway. I know nothing about business-- and so many girls at Escort Twitter do say that they love talking about "entrepreneurship". Many are basketball fans, too. I know nothing whatsoever about sports. And I'd be far too scared to attempt anything with a menu or a wine list. 

These days, I'd feel the same about some young companion here. I'd be too anxious to go anywhere outside of a few small, hip places. I'm not even sure I'd risk a good sushi bar. I'd certainly never risk anything with a wine list. Doing anything where I can be seen to fail in public, where I could be seen to fail at being the person I used to believe I was, is far too much of a risk these days.

Three Four Zero: Education

 I have been thinking more about the idea of paid companions and FMTY girls. There's something to be said for an essay looking at the difference between a GFE companion and the FMTY girls at Escort Twitter. And that's a difference that goes to something in my own life.

GFE girls exist to...what? Well, they exist to make their clients think they're not with a paid companion. Or at least they exist to make people who see their clients think that the client isn't with a paid companion. Does that sound right? 

The bios of FMTY girls seem to stress that they have the social capital to be in Michelin-star restaurants and elegant settings, that they know how to perform the role of someone used to such settings. What they perform is...class. And that does leave me just a bit melancholy.

I have always thought of myself as having social capital. I know that I suffer from what David Brooks called the "income/status disjoint"-- I have advanced degrees and I'm reasonably well-read...but I have no money and I don't have the accoutrements of the monied classes. As someone who has managed to project the idea of genteel poverty most of his life, I've been able to function on the edges of the social world. I can function well at small hipster cafes and restaurants, but I'd never risk a Michelin-star restaurant or a high-end hotel. I'd certainly never risk going to a resort. And I'd never, never risk a conversation with a beautiful woman who knew anything about business, finance, or the mechanics of politics.

A friend asked me the other evening what I looked for in relationships. I wasn't sure how to answer. What could I say? Someone lovely, long-legged, a fraction of my age, and averse to underwear? Someone with a Comparative Lit degree who likes obscure books? Someone who'll call me late at night and talk about wonderfully random things while flirting shamelessly?

What I do know is that I'd be really, really at sea across a table from an FMTY girl. From what I can infer, part of the arrangement between an FMTY girl and her client is that they go out to high-end venues. Part of what she gives the client is the chance to show off his social skills and his knowledge. She markets herself as someone who has the beauty and social capital to be shown off, and part of what he gets is the opportunity to feel like he belongs in her company. I'd be awful at that.

I think that what I'd look for in an FMTY girl would be someone to be a kind of life coach for me. I'd be the one who wants to be taught how to fit in. Look-- I know which fork to use, and I can read the French on a menu. What I can't do is feel like I fit in. Walking into a restaurant with a Michelin star would trigger a massive case of Impostor Syndrome, even if I had on my magical class ring from New Haven. Checking into an elegant resort for a long weekend with an FMTY girl would make me instantly feel like I was adrift in an alien world. 

I'd be asking my companion to...make me feel like I fit in. I know how to hold a conversation at an "Asian street food" restaurant in a hip neighborhood near a university. I know how to walk through a serious museum. But being at any of the places the FMTY girls post on the Twitter timelines would leave me anxious, depressed, and empty. Yes, the terms of the arrangement might ensure that I'd be having sex with a very beautiful, sexually skilled companion, but I'd nonetheless feel that I'd botched the part of the evening devoted to seduction and flirtation. And, yes, I'd feel like I'd failed. I'd feel like I hadn't lived up to the skills my companion relied on in her clients-- like I didn't have social capital enough to understand and appreciate what she was offering me. 

A life coach. That's what I do need-- a life coach. Someone who could make me feel less anxious. Someone who could teach me to appreciate what she's offering. I can read the French on a menu, but I won't understand what the dishes are. I have a couple of tailored black blazers, but I don't own a suit. I have no idea how to hold a conversation with someone who talks about things that aren't obscure books and films. I have no idea how to be with someone like an FMTY girl, and I have no idea whatsoever how to have an evening with someone who's at home in the social world. I have no idea how to perform outside of a very well-fortified niche.

I'd make an FMTY girl feel like she was wasting her time, whatever fee she was getting. I wouldn't even know what kind of gift cards to send her. I'd be a disappointment from the moment she met me at the aerodrome or in the hotel lobby.

Three Three Nine: Gates

 Here in the new year, I'm still reading along with Escort Twitter. 

I'm still amazed by many of the FMTY girls, and I'm envious of some of the travel photos they post. I read their Twitter biographies and find myself thinking about what kind of evening I'd have with a "champagne bubble about town" or a girl who describes herself as "your breathtaking dinner date". These days, dinner dates are rare enough for me, even those that aren't highly-skilled and highly-compensated professional companions who'd be at home in Michelin-star restaurants. 

The question remains, of course-- even if I could afford a professional companion's fees, why would someone at their level of skill want anything to do with me? Here in the new year, I am aware of some things. It seems far too clear to me that I'd never make it through a FMTY girl's first round of screening.

Over the last few days, I've been reading Twitter threads about the screening process. I understand the need for screening. Please don't get me wrong about that. An escort, even at the level of FMTY girls, faces risks to her safety. Screening is something necessary. And I have no problem with that. I could pass a basic screening using official records. I am not, as they used to say on "Law & Order", in the system. If my fingerprints are on file anywhere, it's only because I once went through the opening rounds of applying for a State Department job. 

What I'd be afraid of, though, is that somewhere, somehow, there's a long blog post by some now-forgotten ex telling the world what an Awful Person I am. That would be exactly what an FMTY girl would find when she was vetting me. I've no doubt she'd find something like that-- something that would raise a whole Comintern annual congress worth of red flags. And somewhere out there over the aether there would be long-ago blog posts or social media threads I'd made with a train of hostile comments in response. She'd find that, too. Here in the new century, hostile social media comments would be damning. That seems to be the way it works.

We won't talk about financial vetting. I'm unclear about exactly how that would work, but the idea of it terrifies me. A year and a half ago I bought a new vehicle, and the dealership looked at my credit report and was willing to finance a respectable car. But I have no idea what a credit report would turn up now-- that's not the sort of thing I'd ever check out about myself. I might well have saved up cash for a professional companion's fees-- perhaps at least once I could leave that elegant envelope full of $100 bills on the bathroom counter in a stylish hotel, or perhaps I could slide an envelope with a $500 gift card at some high-end lingerie boutique across a table. Maybe. Maybe. But I'd never survive a credit check...or at least I tell myself that. I could never risk letting a potential companion have the information they'd need for a credit check on me. 

I tell myself that I have credentials. I do have post-graduate degrees. I am reasonably well-read. I have some-- some --social capital. I know which fork to use, and I can appreciate gallery hangings and classical music. But my credentials would never be enough. I'd never know what to say.  A high-end professional companion would feel her own talents wasted around me. 

I would not do well with a professional companion-- I'd certainly never survive even a cursory vetting. There's the soul-crushing vision where I contact an FMTY girl and then-- always after a few pleasant initial DM exchanges, or perhaps after a meeting for coffee --I'm screened out. I can't survive a critical analysis. And of course what applies to Escort Twitter applies even more rigorously in civilian life. 

Three Three Six: Carpet

 I've brought the story up here before.

My friend Jill in NZ told me once that she'd once been naked in the passenger seat of an Aston-Martin Vanquish going at speed up the coast highway along the Tasman Sea. I don't find that wholly implausible. She grew up in a moneyed family, she works with successful businessmen and wealthy shareholders in her corporate life, and she tends to sleep with men who are substantially older and wealthy. So I can see her in that Aston-Martin, bare feet on the dashboard, stretched out naked and tanned while her older lover tested how fast his car could go. Or see her curled up naked next to him while the sea is there on one side and she bends to take him in her mouth.

That's not implausible. How likely is it? That I can't say. But it is plausible.

When I told a certain friend in London Town about that, she countered with her own tale of having been naked in the cabin of a (married) lover's private jet, bound for somewhere in the Mysterious East. Nothing, she said, could quite top being naked and drinking champagne in a private jet. 

Plausible? Maybe...just. She has entree to the worlds of art, law, and Oxbridge academia in Britain. She also has a history ("has form", British detectives say on TV) of older, married lovers who pay her rent and fly her places. One of her lovers, she told me, was one of the leading global figures in international arbitration law; another was a notorious and famous art auctioneer. Private jets aren't out of the question. Though I'm not sure how one handles the logistics of having a mistress naked in the cabin while remaining undisturbed. Would there have been an aide or two to dismiss to...somewhere? Would you get on the intercom to the crew and tell them not to leave the cockpit? So-- just plausible, but much less likely than Jill's Aston-Martin adventure. 

You'll note that I'm not assigning percentages here. As someone who's never seen an Aston-Martin in real life, let alone been a passenger on a private jet, all of that is as alien to me as the FMTY world I've been writing about.

I conveyed the story of the private jet back to Jill, and she snarked that being naked thirty thousand feet up on the way to Dubai or Singapore was all well and good, but what about the cabin decor? What if you had to walk barefoot or kneel to give head on...shag carpet? How...Seventies! How...bad Shopping & Fucking Novel! How, Jill asked, could any girl maintain her self-respect if there was shag carpet there?

Now I do love the idea of a response born from envy, and maybe she has a point. Though I can't recall what airliner floors are covered with. Not something I ever paid attention to. I can call up the visuals of Jill in the car seat fairly well, but the private jet cabin remains just out of imaginary reach. I can't even imagine what kind of plane a private jet would be. I'm sure that Lear Jets are passé; I don't even know if they're still made. The same is true for Gulfstreams. In my head, I take it for granted that the window shields would be raised. What would be the point of covering a window at thirty thousand feet? But imagining the cabin, let alone the carpet, is beyond me.

It is Christmas season, and the FMTY girls at Twitter are posting photos of the gifts their clients/patrons have given them. Lots of elegant gift boxes. Lots of gift cards to very high-end shops in London or Paris or NYC. Lots of photos of hotel lobbies and elegant dinners. The photos of gift-boxed lingerie do nothing for me, of course. I've never been a fan of girls in lingerie. I prefer girls to sleep naked and to wear nothing at all under dresses or tailored trousers when out with me. I understand lingerie as a class marker and as a symbol for high-end sex, but it does nothing for me as an erotic lure. A girl in just one of my dress shirts is far sexier than one in the most expensive Agent Provocateur or designer lingerie. 

The Aston-Martin, the private jet-- those things do belong in some "erotic thriller" on late-night cable or a Shopping & Fucking novel bought in (of course) an airport bookshop. Question-- here in a time of global pandemic, global economic uncertainty, and a new, critical attitude towards late capitalism, are there still Shopping & Fucking novels? We're a long way from the days of Judith Krantz or "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" here in 2021. "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams" doesn't sit quite so well when you live in a country that survived an abortive armed coup not even a year ago, a country where the pandemic has killed something like eight hundred thousand people since early 2020.  It's possible that, as a good leftist, I can't see the erotic possibilities of an Aston-Martin or a private jet any more.

I can still see the erotic possibilities in places, mind you. Being naked in an office after hours. Being naked in a classroom after all the teachers and students have gone home. Being naked in a university library. Or (like Liberty and Levin) in galleries and studios. Those are all things I can imagine having a beautiful girl do. Some of them I have done with lovers in the past. 

Places still have their own rank-ordering. A beautiful young companion being naked for you in a hotel pool is good, but only really counts if it's a rooftop pool. Extra points if it's an infinity pool cantilevered out over the city. Sailboats and private pools? No real points. Girls skinny-dipping off sailboats or in backyard pools is something very ordinary. Ditto girls like Liberty being naked while camping. Though I suppose a girl standing naked at sunrise (or just in hiking/climbing boots) on the slopes of some famous mountain would have some point value. Jill in Wellington hinted once that an older, moneyed lover wanted to take her to Everest Base Camp and have sex there. Some hip magazine-- Outdoor? Wired? --noted once that Everest Base Camp had become "a real sausage-fest" as soon as it became a tourist draw, with tech bros bringing their latest model/actresses there. But in general...the outdoors isn't really a place for nakedness, or for beautiful girls to have sex. Nature, at least in my mind, has never been erotic.

Though I will note that I've seen a couple of very, very alluring fashion nudes shot in the desert. I haven't quite figured out why deserts are sexy and forests or hillsides aren't. That bears thinking about.

I try to think about the sound of the Aston-Martin going north along the eastern shore of the Tasman Sea and I can't. I can't imagine the cabin-- let alone the carpet --of a private jet. I haven't even seen porn with a private jet cabin as a setting. I certainly can't imagine what champagne my friend claimed to be drinking.

Trains, now. Just as a passing thought, there's always point value in sex aboard trains. That at least has been proven in both porn and film noir.

 

Three Three Five: FMTY Part Two

 A lovely Young Companion tells me that she's in a band these days, something post-punk. She plays bass guitar, and she strikes a pose on stage. Her band members all have a stage persona, and hers is a pretty gay boy named Lou. She slicks back her hair and wears a suit and tie on stage, something very tailored, very early-1960s with narrow lapels and a narrow tie. The effect is amazing. She looks like...well...a more aggressively sexual version of the young Donna Tartt. She and I were at dinner the other night, and she asked if she should dress like that to go out with me some evening. Well, of course. However not? I'd love to go to some elegant restaurant with her and raise eyebrows. She's deliciously queer in any event, and I love her ability to play with gender and fluidity. 

She and I had a long conversation about things while we drank Japanese whiskey and held hands. She looks brilliant in a suit and tie (and, yes, I will give her one of my good neckties very soon), but she also rocks a miniskirt and has excellent legs-- which I caressed with two fingers all through dinner and drinks. 

We talked about the world of FMTY escorts on Twitter. She agreed with me that the FMTY world is something alien. She and I both have spent our lives in small, hip enclaves. We're not Michelin star people. She understood my own fears of trying to book time with an FMTY escort. I told her that I'd feel like someone with an ordinary car crash case taking his legal problem to a high-end law firm-- I'd be wasting their time and skills. She agreed with me on that. 

She told me that being an escort at that level would be something she'd love to do for a year or so, and she sighed over the stories I'd told her about my NZ friend naked in the Aston Martin and my London friend naked aboard the private jet. She'd love to do both things, she said. But that all seemed like something that could only happen in some other, alien world. Though she opened her shoulder bag and took out a Moleskine I'd given her and  made notes-- a list of cities she'd love to go as an FMTY girl.  I took her pen and wrote down my own list under hers-- cities where I'd love to fly her if she was my FMTY escort. She took the pen and wrote: Anytime, darling. Good cities! Love, Lou. I hope she'll keep the notebook and open it in a few years and remember me...and remember why I'd love to fly her to Dunedin or Rabat.

One of the FMTY escorts at Twitter did a thread the other night about how simple it really is to book an appointment with an escort and have a cultured, charming companion for an evening. I had to disagree with the thread. Even if I could afford an escort, I wouldn't know how to book an evening or an overnight. I could certainly understand how to use an online method, but I remain afraid that I'd never pass the screening. I told my Young Companion about that, and she shook her head. I'd passed her screening, she said. Despite my age and my being male, and despite her friends and housemates all telling her that it was just "too surreal" to imagine her out with me, let alone staying overnight, she was there at the bar with me and enjoying the things we did. She kissed me and said, Surreal is my favourite real.  That matters a lot to me. 

She did tell me that I just needed to go on line and book a companion. Maybe not a FMTY experience, she said, but so many of the girls of Escort Twitter seem to go on tour-- I could see which ones were coming through the city where my Companion and I live. I'll come along and be your advisor, she said. I had to laugh at that. My Young Companion is twenty-three and fearless. I'd love to have her along...either as Lou or in a tailored miniskirt. 

The FTMY world is still beyond me, though I certainly see a role-playing adventure coming up. But on a night where my Companion brought me a belated birthday gift (a memoir by Patti Smith) and shared Japanese single-malts with me, I did feel better. I'm not flying someone from Manhattan to Vienna or from L.A. to a Pure Pod in the Otago hills, but at least someone lovely and wicked found me worth driving across the city and staying the night.

Three Three Three: FMTY

I am still unsure about the social rules at Escort Twitter. I understand that "luxury companions" go on tour these days. They set up a list of cities and book appointments with clients in each. And of course there's the FMTY idea-- Fly Me To You.  I understand the basic idea, of course. Just not the attendant procedures.

The client is screened, and then he provides an airline ticket (first-class or business class, obviously) and the escort flies out to see him in his home city. The assumption is that the girl will be staying at a high-end boutique hotel to joining the client at a resort. Several of the Escort Twitter girls have posted photos of airline gift cards sent them by clients. A couple have shown photos of gift books they've been sent with $100 bills placed at random between pages. I do like that latter idea, although it's not something I'd ever be able to do. One girl did tweet: "FMTY deposits tucked inside cloth-bound art books *chef's kiss*." The idea is lovely, but forever out of reach.

Gift cards seem quite efficient, mind you. They keep the airline tickets from appearing on any married client's billing statement, and I'm assuming they can't just be cashed in.At least I'd hope they couldn't be cashed in. What could be more humiliating than waiting at the aerodrome arrival gate and slowly realizing that your Muse & Luxury Companion has flown off to Paris or Tahiti by herself...on your gift cards? 

I do wonder about the screening process. How would you as a client be vetted? What would the escort actually do about that? I'm aware that there are blogs in the escort world  where escorts talk to one another about clients both good and bad. Is there a Red Flag List for escorts-- men whom no one should meet?  Would a potential FMTY girl use a credit rating service? I have no idea if individuals can sign up to check creditworthiness with the various credit bureaus, but again...that's a scary thing: sorry, but your credit score is only a 710... Worse, would a FMTY girl insist on your real name and run a Google search? I'd like to know how the vetting works. I remember the anguish I went through the last time I purchased a car. That was only allowing a Honda dealership to examine my life and judge me. Having a lovely, high-end escort do it would be much, much more terrifying.

I've written about my hotel-room door fear-- the moment when an escort would knock at my door, then recoil in anger and derision when she saw what I looked like. That's a nightmare that always includes hearing what angry things she's telling her booker over her smartphone as she stalks away to the elevator. Wouldn't it be worse at the aerodrome arrival gate? And wouldn't it be worse still to get a text or an email from her curtly denying your FMTY or dinner date application?

I have always thought of myself as a gentleman, and as at least marginally cultured. I was brought up to the standards of a very old-guard city and educated at a university with a reputation stretching back to the early 1700s. I do know which fork to use, and for a long time I thought I was capable of making conversation with elegant and charming companions. I haven't believed that in rather a while now, mind you. A very lithe and leggy and clever escort in London Town posted a photo of where she'd gone on a dinner date and commented that: Wonderful evening with the best company, at The Wolsey. Thank you, Sparkling Heart! I of course had to look up The Wolsey. It seems like a restaurant worth trying. And yet...and yet...I wouldn't know how to order, let alone dress to London Town standards. I can't imagine what I could do at The Wolsey or its equivalents in other cities that wouldn't mark me as unfit to be seen with a high-end Escort Twitter companion. 

I have faced down my PhD exams and the Bar exam. I have walked alone at night through cities where the local werewolves are afraid to go out after dark. I have lectured to classes filled with military officers and foreign officials. I have done those things. But standing at the aerodrome waiting for a FMTY arrival is beyond me. Surviving the vetting process for an FMTY encounter is something that's very probably beyond me. 

Here in the latter part of my life, I have come to fear that certain things are beyond me. Ordering and discussing an elegant dinner, making flirtatious and intriguing conversation, knowing how to first take an FMTY girl's hand or brush a fingertip over her bare leg-- I really can't do any of that.

Three One Zero: Escorts

 I've never used an escort service. Writing that down tonight, I'm not sure how to feel about it. The simplest thing to say is that I could never afford it. I'd be hard-pressed to pay for even a street girl, and using an escort service to find a sex worker would be (and has been) far beyond my means.

I remember a decade ago, when escort blogs and sex bloggers talked about the idea of sex workers who could provide a GFE, a Girlfriend Experience. I saw the film with Sasha Grey and the cable series with Riley Keough. Fell a bit in love with Riley, too, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you? Twitter still has accounts run by women who market the GFE idea--- that they're socially presentable, knowledgeable about wines and food and current events, well-bred, stylishly dressed, and serve as "companions" as much as they provide sex. I would like very much to believe in them, even if only from a distance. 

The GFE idea will always attract me. What I'd be looking for is a companion who'd have the professional skills to shape an experience for me. I like the idea of negotiating with a high-end escort over creating--- if only for a night and a morning ---a world where I'd feel at home, a world that would be like the films I create in my head.

I like the idea of having someone who'd have the skills and intuition to perform with me in films-in-the-head. I like the idea of negotiating or specifying a wardrobe for her (yes, leggy, yes, all worn next to the skin), of providing her with a basic sketch of my interests and likes and dislikes, and then putting myself into her hands for the evening. 

It's catalog shopping, yes--- select a girl from a set of photos and a biography, then brief her on my tastes. And I'd be under no illusions about actual romance or intimacy. But at least I'd feel...safe. I'd know how to be a character in the films-in-my-head. I'd know how to do my own performance. I'd be able to be what I've wanted to be.  At least for a night and a morning.

We've come to this. Hiring a GFE escort and meeting her after a briefing session is the only way I can think of to feel like I could get through an evening of flirtation, an evening that ends in a sexual encounter, without feeling like I was at clear risk of humiliation and disgrace. I have no ability left to believe in my own body or my own ability to hold a conversation, to flirt, to feel like I could be desired. I think that a high-end GFE escort might-- might ---not laugh at me. I have to believe that professionalism would hold her back from that.  That's all I can really hope for.

Needless to say, this is all speculative.  The sort of high-end escort service I'd need is beyond my reach. I've known a few girls in my life who worked as escorts for a while. We were friends, but I never trespassed into thinking they'd take me to bed. I knew their fee schedule, and I knew they were beyond me. Asking for anything--- a reduced rate, let alone a free night ---would've been disrespectful. I wasn't going to do that. 

Well, I will continue to believe that high-end escort services exist. I will continue to believe that such a thing as GFE-skilled lovely escorts exist. Those beliefs are my only way to believe that I could have sex again where I wouldn't be ashamed or afraid.

Three Zero Two: Organization

The other day I found a wonderful blog--- TheOrganisedEscortBlog.com. It's a delight. It's one of those random discoveries that can make your whole morning. So...The Organised Escort Blog is exactly that. It's a blog by an escort working in Australia about, well, professional issues. She says that she began her career working in legal brothels in the Australian states that have legalized sex work, and that's she now both a fairly high-end escort and a business coach for other sex workers. Her blog is filled with entries that are Lists, and...who doesn't love a List? I immediately sent links to some of the better entries there to Jill in WLG. I'd love her comments on the Lists.

The Organised Escort--- Amelia, she calls herself ---introduces herself this way:

I’m a sex worker, just like you.

I inspire and educate sex workers who are looking to grow their business with unique marketing tools and proven strategies. I understand the struggle of trying to build a business as a sex worker, so I deliver resources that will help you live more and work less. 

Sex work is hard. 

I’m here to make it easier for you.

I like the whole TED Talk atmosphere at her blog. And I like her Lists--- e.g., My Escorting Capsule Wardrobe, My Tour Packing List: Essentials You Need, How I Prepare For An Escort Client, or 3 Surprising Items You Need In Your Escort Kit. I sent links to all of those to my friend Jill in Wellington. The brands Amelia recommends are pretty much all Australian, and I do want Jill to let me know what she thinks of the brand selections. She seems to spend time flying off to Melbourne or the Gold Coast, and she has access in NZ to Australian brands as well.

In case you're wondering, the "3 Surprising Items" are--- a tongue scraper (bad breath is totally a disaster if you're an escort); boric acid pessaries (okay, I had to look up "pessaries", too); and...hemorrhoid cream. On that last one--- it's not for what you think it is. It's for closing up any small vaginal tears, which does reduce the risk of STIs. And, too...you can use it under your eyes to reduce puffiness. That's an old beauty pageant trick, in case you're wondering.

There's also an entry that's My In-Call Essentials You Need To Know About and one that's What’s In My Outcall Bag--- two entries that immediately appealed to my whole obsession with Lists and Kits. I love the idea of planning and organization, and I love the image in my head of a lovely girl in her apartment, assembling a kit for her weekends as a part-time escort, or just as a party girl. Jill in Wellington tells me that over the years a few men have paid her, or at least mistaken her for a working girl there at WLG or Auckland bars, and that the idea of an envelope of cash on the bedside table is exciting. I do love to think of what she might take with her on nights when she thinks she might be doing hotel sex or at least sleeping in a bed yet to be determined. 

If you're reading this, do go by the Organized Escort blog and let me know what you think. If any of you have your own Kits, either personal or professional, please do let me know. Send me Lists if you can. I'd love to read about what you take with you on Adventure nights in cities out over the aether.

Two Four Seven: Handbags

I do have that SXSW story to tell. My friend did send me her handwritten account--- good stationery, good ink. We'll think of that as a gift to me. After all, paper and fountain pen ink have always meant a lot to me. The story itself is worth saving and recounting, and she writes well. It's something I'll try to get to over the weekend. It's something I would like to find comments on, too.

Let's go back to an entry I posted here not a few months ago, and entry about what girls I've known carried in their handbags on nights when encounters and adventures were a possibility. I began with this:

A lovely blonde friend down in the Land of the Long White Cloud told me once that from her teens into her later twenties, she habitually carried a flask with her. She'd have it in her backpack or her messenger bag, and it would be filled with Belvedere vodka or Maker's Mark bourbon. The flask itself was engraved, though I forget the exact motto. It may have been Ad Alta, To the Highest, the motto of her posh school, or Semper Paratus, Always Ready, which I suppose goes with the flask. I always admired her for that, and I rather envied her the flask and the party girl life it went with.

My friend told me about the flask, but I never asked her another party girl question. Did she carry condoms with her? She may not have. She once told me that she'd had so much unprotected sex in her teens and early twenties without any complications that she was afraid that she wasn't able to become pregnant at all. It is something I should ask her, though. I've known girls her age who carried a couple of condoms with them at all times--- just in case, they'd say, or you never know what you never know. I've known other girls who always regarded a condom or two as something that was an essential thing for going out. An ID card, $20 or $30 in emergency cash or taxi fare, a debit card, a lipstick, and a condom or two--- those things would be all they'd need for a night at their favourite local bar. 

My friend in Wellington did get back to me to these issues. She agreed that her basic list, her basic Hook-Up Kit in her purse on a Friday night, would contain

--1 travel pk. of condoms (3)
--1 travel pk. of wet wipes
-- Small tube of lube
-- Travel toothbrush/toothpaste

That seems very minimalist but functional.  I'm assuming she'd already have basic make-up (lipstick, at least) in her purse. She almost never spent the night at a hook-up's place, so minimalist would work: she'd be on her way home well before morning.

Those things would work for her on a night out downtown in Wellington. I did wonder what someone a bit more professional would carry, though. If ever you do wonder what escorts carry in their purses, well, there are lists to be found on-line.

Karley Sciortino at the Slutever website once interviewed a former high-end escort  in Montreal whose carry list included:

-- 1 pr. clean underwear 
-- A good book
-- Dry shampoo
-- Lube
-- Condoms (multiple sizes)
-- Phone and charger
-- Band-aids (in case you've been wearing stilettos all night)
-- Toothbrush and make-up
-- A sex toy (bullet vibrator or butt plug)
-- $US 500 cash

Other articles about escorts and their lives point out that the phone has a dual purpose--- enabling an escort to check up on her bookings  and offering a way to be safe when with a new client. One article suggests chewing gum as well as a travel toothbrush; another suggests latex gloves.

Of course, escorts have to have a much more professional set of concerns than someone like my NZ friend on a night where encounters might happen. She wouldn't have the problem of using cash so as not to leave a paper trail of any locations or deposits. I can see my Wellington friend carrying a small dry shampoo, though. She has always liked the concept of dry shampoo. I know her well enough to know that of she carried a bullet vibrator, it would be a Lelo Mia. She is always brand-loyal. A Dutch website for escorts also lists something called an "action tampon"--- something I wasn't familiar with. It's basically a sponge, designed to allow a woman to have sex during her period without ruining the sheets. The website suggests it's also useful in case there's any bleeding after rough sex or a more well-endowed client. Again, the lists for professionals tend to be much longer and more problem-focused than the Hook-Up Kits I've been asking girls about.

I do have to smile, mind you, since there's no equivalent for men. I suppose a gentleman could carry a condom or two, but that does look a bit predatory. Also, there's the problem familiar to teenaged boys throughout the last sixty years or so: where to keep a condom? I've never really dealt with condoms, but be damned to keeping one in a wallet like some hopelessly optimistic Grade 10 boy. And a condom case (yes, they do come in brass or sterling silver) is far too 1970s for words.

In any case, I do want to find out more from girls I know. I love checklists and inventories. I'll always go through any list of what's in purses, wallets, backpacks, briefcases, travel bags. Details always matter, and there's nothing like looking at lists and inferring lives from them.

Two Zero Five: Casual Encounters

I read today that Craigslist has shut down its Casual Encounters areas. I have to say that I'm saddened by that.

I was never a user of Casual Encounters. I've never been someone who uses hook-up apps. I've never been at Tinder or Match.com or any of their kin. For all the obvious reasons, I've always been too afraid to go to use hook-up apps. It's hard--- impossible, really ---to imagine that anyone would swipe whatever the direction is to show any interest in me.  Tinder and its rivals aren't places where whatever strengths I have can be brought to bear. The things that I've spent a lifetime working round--- age and looks ---are on immediate display there, and none of my strengths show up in a profile photo and a two or three sentence biography.

Back in the days of my own lost youth (or at least back at the end of the last millennium), I did visit Nerve.com a fair amount. I've no idea if Nerve.com still exists, or if it still has a Personals area. I'm actually wondering if Personals style ads are still done, here almost twenty years into the new millennium--- if a world where even text messages seem like a lot of trouble to do, does anyone under, say, forty have the energy to sit and construct a Personals ad? I also wonder if the corporate panic that's caused Craigslist to shut down Casual Encounters will spell the end of Personals sites (where they still exist).

Nerve.com marketed itself as an erotica-for-intellectuals site. You were encouraged to talk about your interests in books, films, politics, art. I suppose that did encourage a bit of pretentiousness (cf. the old New York Review of Books personals) but it also gave someone like me a chance to be seen as useful. It also brought out a fair number of lovely undergraduate and early twentysomething girls who prided themselves on being both bookish and sexually adventurous.

I did meet a few interesting partners there. There were telephone encounters, and one or two webcam encounters. One girl--- a lovely girl in Cincinnati who went on to joint degrees in Law and Library Science ---did become deeply important to me. I've only come close to marrying a bare handful of times in my life, but she was very much on the small list of girls I'd have been proud to marry or partner with. I remember exchanging messages with her at Nerve.com (she called herself SmartChick in those days), and I remember that first night when we spoke by phone. We stayed on the phone for hours and hours, and for almost two years we never slept (together or apart) without long, long conversations in the dark.

Casual Encounters was always something I'd read for amusement more than any thought of placing an ad. The ads were a strange mix of the hilarious, the hopeless, and the grimly earnest. There were disturbing ads that could've come straight from a novel about serial killers and affecting and sad ads that had such obvious backstories of loneliness and empty days. I'd read Craiglist Casual Encounters sites in cities all over the world and try to gauge what the sexual tastes of the lonely, the adventurous, and the desperate were out there across continents and seas. I read the ads the way I'd read short stories, and I'd laugh or sigh or just try to build up an image of who the characters in the stories were and what they were life in what's known as Real Life.

I've seen a couple of eulogies at on-line magazines for Casual Encounters. One girl now in her late twenties wrote about her freshman year at university and realising that she could summon sexual partners to her residence hall and never have to leave the building or put shoes on. Another girl wrote about how Casual Encounters could produce scary results and dull ones both, but how the ads let her finally accept that sex could be adventurous and exciting, let her experiment with all the half-formed hopes and fantasies and dreams she was having. Casual Encounters, they both argued, allowed a belief that there was a world of sexual (and, yes, romantic) experiences and partners out there. The Casual Encounters ads let you believe that there really was someone out there whose interests would mirror yours.  That's no small thing, really.

Anyway... I will miss Casual Encounters. I'll miss the possibilities it offered, the sense of adventure implicit in the idea of following up the ads.  For all that so many of the ads were silly or stupid or incoherent, Craigslist Casual Encounters did make the world seem more open to experience and pleasure and excitement. Those ads made sex (and romance) seem more accessible, more possible. Our world will be a bit less delightful without them.

One Nine Two: Negotiation

I'm still thinking about "The Girlfriend Experience" and what one might expect from a professional companion. I do remember some years ago--- maybe eight or nine years ago now ---and a blog by a girl who called herself Debauchette.  She had one of the first (and one of the best) escort blogs. She was clever and witty and literary and a fine writer. I miss her blog. Debauchette always called herself a professional companion. I liked the usage--- back to hetaira, of course, back to the idea of providing more services than just sex. Acquiring the services of a professional companion is about being able to afford the fees, but it's also about a certain kind of compatibility. You're paying for high-end services, but you have to be able to let your companion know what those are. You have to be able to provide a script outline that she can work with.

You'd be working with someone who comes with her own talents and background. I'm imagining it as like hiring a name actor.  You give someone like that a basic outline, and then rely on their own talents. If I were to hire someone like Riley Keough's character, I'd be trusting to her interpretation of the film script in my head. That ability is what justifies her fees.

Yet I'd still have to sit and look at her across a table and explain what I wanted. That's an awkward thing, a terrifying thing. It risks being judged boring and jejune--- much worse than being judged perverted. And it requires you to be able to put what you want into words. That involves self-justification--- again, obviously. There's the temptation to explain and over-explain, to try to show that what you want isn't a bad thing, that you aren't a bad person. Any attempt at explaining what you want is all-too-likely to turn into selling yourself, with all the anxiety you'd feel at a job interview. Explanation also requires that you be very sure about what you really want and that you be willing to admit to yourself that you do want these things.

That's likely to be the hard part. This is what I am; this is what I do. That's hard enough to say into a mirror about perfectly ordinary things. Think about admitting that to a high-end professional across a table: This is what I am; this is what I do. She's probably heard it all before, but would you ever believe that? Would you want to believe that? Would you ever fully believe that she wouldn't laugh or recoil in disgust?

It's much easier to get the envelope of cash ready than it is to put together a clear statement of what you want and what you need. I need you to make me feel like this. I need you to do these things. I've always agreed with the old, old saying that if you know someone's sexual fantasies, you know what the person really is. That's one of the more terrifying things I've ever heard.

Sitting across the table in the darkened bar at the four-star hotel, trying to explain what you're looking for from Riley Keough's character--- can you do that and maintain any sense of yourself and your self-worth? And, too, do you know yourself well enough to ask for what you want?

One Nine One: Judgments

I spent some time last weekend watching a cable series called "The Girlfriend Experience"--- watching the first season all the way through. Well-written, though with some soap-opera touches that weren't necessary. The actress who was the star--- Riley Keough ---was wonderful. My type, of course: tallish, painfully thin, cold and calculating. I enjoyed watching it, though I suppose that it did leave me sighing not only over Ms. Keough, but over the idea of high-end escorts.

My own version of a Girlfriend Experience would include the things I think you know about. The girl would be dressed for a role in my films-in-the-head, with all the class markers I look for. and with a very clear set of scripts. I'd be paying--- I'd be more than willing to pay ---for certain kinds of attitude and conversation. The girl would probably need a syllabus and a reading list, which says so much about my own past and about my desperate need to feel like sex and books can be combined.

I'd be willing to pay for a girl who could perform as my leading lady in my films-in-the-head. I'd certainly be willing, although it's clear that I could never afford someone who has the skills I'd want.

I'd certainly be deeply afraid of disappointing whoever I'd paid. I'd be afraid that she'd feel like her skills were being wasted, that her talents far exceeded my ability to appreciate them.

I know that there are websites for clients of high-end escorts to rate their providers' skills and performance. There seems to be a whole set of polemics about the sites, about "hobbyists" using the sites to punish escorts by harming their business. Some of the sites seem to be infected by the whole Yelp Era attitude--- demanding, arrogant, and all-too-ready to take offense...and looking for a way to extort extra services. That's all very ugly.

There are also sites now where escorts can rate their clients. Fair's fair, I suppose, and escorts have a very clear need for a place for exchanging information about clients who might be violent or obsessive. Let's take that as a given. Yes, by the way, I am thinking of Wodehouse stories, of the huge ledger where Jeeves and other valets write down their judgments about their employers. Still, though--- there's something frightening about being a client and being rated.

A small parenthesis--- what is the correct term for someone who pays for an escort's services? Apparently there's a discussion in the demimonde about whether "john" is acceptable these days, though I don't know the details. I suppose I'd be okay with "john". It's  a usage that goes back a long way; I grew up hearing it. "Customer" or "client" would be a bit antiseptic, but fine as well. It's "punter" that I hate rather a lot. I think I hate "punter" almost as much as I hate "wank"/"wanker". Working-class British slang always manages to be cruel and dismissive and offensive. "John" or "client", then, but never never never "punter".

I would be terrified of being a client and finding a website where escorts rated clients by performance or looks. Please understand--- a site that discussed clients by the difficulty of their requirements or their tipping levels wouldn't be a problem. That's just business. It would be a site that rated clients as people that would be upsetting. Again, be very clear. I'd never use a rating site to rate escorts. If I had a problem or a compliment, that would be between the girl and me, or at most between the me and the girl's booker. I'm not a Yelp Reviewer type. And site that rated clients would leave me afraid ever to book an escort again.

After all--- let's be clear. One of the underlying things about booking and escort is that you aren't being judged as a person. Both parties negotiate a price for a certain specified set of activities and for a scripted scenario. It isn't about you at all.  You don't have to be afraid or ashamed of your looks or skills. You're paying to be part of something: the script matters, the exchange of money for services matters, not you.

There's an old, old (very male) saying that men don't pay prostitutes for sex; they pay them to leave after sex. I've never quite understood that, but I do know that part of what I'd be contracting for in any arrangement with an escort would be freedom from judgment. My preferred scripts have some level of difficulty, some level of complexity that requires skills worth so much.  That's fine. I'll pay for professional skills. I'm paid for mine every day at work. But I'm also paying to be treated with a cool professionalism. I'd be paying so that I wouldn't see contempt or derision in the girl's eyes. To be part of a set of scripts is one thing. To be judged as a person is another.