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 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 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 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 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 Four: Companions

 It's been a while since I've heard from my friend in London Town. So much since the spring of 2020 is just lost. I know she spent lockdown time at a friend's house near Oxford, and that she was doing virtual lectures for a university in the States.  There are so many things I'd like to talk about.

She is the closest thing I know to an actual FMTY person. She has spent time on the edges of the demimonde, and men, meaning older admirers, have flown her to hotels and villas in Europe and Asia. She understands envelopes of crisp new bills left on a bedside table, and she understands how to fly in Oligarch Class and deal with bookings at Michelin star restaurants. She is the person I should talk to about my FMTY fears.

I had lunch last weekend with a very lovely girl here. She's young, tallish, deliciously queer, bookish, and bright. We sat outside at a hipster ramen restaurant with drinks and talked and shared ramen. A very lovely autumn afternoon, crisp and sunny. I enjoyed the whole afternoon, and I never felt out of place. I'm sure a few people raised an eyebrow at the age difference, but I'm used to that and she's indifferent to it. It took me a while to process you, she said once, but I'm okay with it all.  I suppose that's all I can ask from any young companion and any affair. Sitting there with her and holding hands and talking was wonderful. More to the point, I felt very much like I belonged where we were. I felt...safe. I knew how to order drinks, I knew how to deal with the menu. I never felt like I was being judged. 

I could never do that with any of the FMTY girls whose Twitter accounts I follow. 

I scan over the FMTY girls' biographies and note the descriptions: charming dinner companion, upscale dinner date. One NYC girl's biography reads Art student, lingerie collector. Take me around the world, and let's start with dinner. Another one reads: Over-educated and under-satiated. Your next dinner companion and co-conspirator. I can read those things and feel my interest stirring...and becoming overshadowed by my fears. Discreet, seductive thrill seeker. Passionate for dining, art, music & culture, London and beyond. I would have no idea what to do or say around any of these women.

Sitting at the hipster ramen bar or at the little South American-inflected restaurant where I spend so many afternoons with starters and a drink, I feel like I fit in. Aging, genteelly-impoverished roué is a role that goes with both places. They're places where twenty-somethings and the inevitable Comp Lit co-eds go. They're places where there's no expectation of being on stage.

I have no idea how to perform at a Michelin-star restaurant. I have no idea how to deal with the menu or the waitstaff. I know how to do gallery openings; I know how to sit at a concert. But fine dining remains beyond me. I enjoy wines, but I'd never dare go through a wine list with an FMTY girl. 

I have to wonder whether part of what I'd be paying for with a high-end escort would be her skills with a menu and wine list. I'd have to hope that she'd be willing to be the guide, the psychopomp. I'd have to be able to smile and say that I was placing myself entirely in her hands. I couldn't be self-confident or be the self-assured client they'd be expecting. I'd have to be able to give up my fears that she feels her own professional status is being questioned because she's with a client as hopelessly provincial and inept as I'd be. I'd never be able to do that, though. I'd never be able to feel I was good enough to be a FMTY girl's client. 

Sex is aspirational or it's nothing. I wrote that here a long time ago. It's something I've felt since I was in my teens. A key part of sex for me is the set of class markers attached to it.  Classy international companion based in Brussels. Speaks 5 languages and loves cocktails, fine dining, dark humor and books. You see how easily I respond those a description like that-- it offers access to (or at least proximity to) the world I always wanted to live in. 

Perhaps I should re-focus. What I need might actually be a muse, someone who's using her own undoubted professional skills to show me how to handle a menu or a wine steward. What I know I need to do is to not let the world of FMTY girls become the world behind impenetrable glass that reminds me of all my failings.

Three Three One: Companions

 I have discovered Escort Twitter, and I've been following along with various accounts there. I want to be clear that I'm not communicating with anyone at any of the accounts. I'm just...an observer. The quiet figure at the next table. I will not be sliding into anyone's DMs. At most, I click "like" on some of the more elegant photos. Finding a photo stylish or alluring isn't a personal approach. It's about the photo, not about the person. I'm all too aware of the dangers of the parasocial here in the social media age.

What have I learned from Escort Twitter? If nothing else, I've learned the term FMTY-- Fly Me To You. That's simple enough. You can make arrangements with an escort to send her an airline ticket and arrange a meeting. Far, far out of the realm of my financial possibilities, but a straightforward enough idea. You contact an escort, establish your bona fides, and once you're vetted, you pay her way to a rendezvous at some elegant hotel or resort. 

I do like the way many of the escorts describe themselves: private paramour, luxury companion, libertine in search of adventure, provocateur, fine dining enthusiast, hunter in the forests of desire. And of course muse. Always muse. Lovely descriptors, mind you. The little Twitter biographies never say escort or sugar baby or courtesan-- there's  a fine line the girls get to walk. I'll assume that The Algorithm searches out accounts that are a bit too obvious. The girls creating the biographies have to be able to say that they never promised or offered transactional sex, that they were just describing themselves as affluent travelers or devotees of high-end food and wine and hotels. Well, that's understandable. They're marketing to an upscale clientele and trying not to be kicked off Twitter.

And...please. I wish all the girls at Escort Twitter well. I wish them professional success and lots of elegant gifts from gentlemen admirers. I have no intention of mocking anyone or treating her with disdain. I'm just there as a flaneur at Escort Twitter-- I'm just there passing through and nodding. My aim is to leave not even footprints and to take away only memories.  I have no wish to interfere in anyone's profession. 

The world of Escort Twitter is marketed as one of fine restaurants and elegant lingerie. Given my own thoughts on what I prefer my Young Companions to (not) wear under dresses and jeans and tops, the lingerie is superfluous. As for the rest, whatever happens at Escort Twitter happens in worlds I'll never see. I suppose I do regret that. I'd like to be able to afford both the services of a Luxury Companion and settings-- the restaurants and hotels and resorts --that go with the FMTY world. I'd like to think that I could be at home in those places. I'd like to have the skills and confidence to be an acceptable escort for an Escort Twitter girl. I'm afraid that I don't have those abilities, though.

I know how to be polite and courteous. I do know that. I can tell halfway decent stories, though in these latter days I don't seem to be adding many new ones to my repertoire. But despite many years of post-grad education and an Old New Orleans upbringing, I have a deep-seated fear that I'd lack the skills and confidence ever to be an acceptable client for an Escort Twitter girl. 

And of course I'm terrified of the idea of being vetted. Not just at Escort Twitter, mind you. I'm terrified of potential dates polling their friends on my value just as I'm made deeply uneasy of anyone at all looking at or my social standing. I'm a Gentleman of a Certain Age, but one who has no social standing. If I somehow contrived to have an FMTY experience with someone from Escort Twitter-- or arranged a rendezvous with an Escort Twitter girl while she was "on tour" --I'd feel shatteringly anxious about whether I was good enough to be a client. I'd worry that being seen with me would erode her own professional standing. 

This is all I suppose face-pressed-to-the-window regret-- standing outside the expensive restaurant or shop and realizing that you can't go inside-- or that you could, but you'd only make a fool of yourself and embarrass the Muse or Luxury Companion you'd be with.

There is a girl at Escort Twitter who's based in NYC and advertises herself as Over-educated and under-satiated. Your next dinner companion and co-conspirator. I do find the tag amusing and appealing. But I'm all-too-aware that I'm unlikely to know what to do with anyone over dinner these days. I lack the confidence these days to know what to say to a potential co-conspirator. 

My thought is that if you're dealing with a professional companion, you have two kinds of obligation. You pay for her professional skills and services. Obviously. You tip well, too. But you also have an obligation to fit into the world she's trying to create for herself and clients. I no longer know how to be a co-conspirator, and I certainly don't know how to be a worthwhile client. Melancholy thoughts.

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.

Two One Nine: Kink

There is such a thing as kink-shaming.

Kink-shaming is not something I know much about, mind you. It's not something I've ever done to any of my young companions, and it's not something I can imagine doing.

The circles I moved in for most of my life took experimentation and certain recherché tastes as a given. Now I'm not naive. There were certainly social rankings and unspoken rules. It couldn't have been easy for many friends to be gay or bi back in the days of my lost youth. There was always that. But I remember being in my twenties and taking it for granted that certain things--- a taste for at least s/m fashion and poses, say ---were perfectly ordinary. I took it for granted that girls with whom I was involved were fine with blindfolds and candle wax and riding whips. I took it for granted that most of the girls I knew at university or in grad school had at least tried three-ways. I certainly took it for granted that part of sex and romance was adventure and experimentation--- risky places, new positions, new roles, new toys, new costumes. I remember that seductions and flirtations were very much about exchanging fantasies and seeing how you'd fit into one another's fantasies. There was a certain thrill in seeing what each of you might think about trying.

That feels gone these days.

In my university days and into my twenties and thirties I had no problem at all telling girls what I liked. I had no problem with that, and certainly no problem listening to a lovely young companion explain about her own tastes and interests.

Not so very long ago, a friend said off-handedly that she couldn't imagine me ever being shy about telling a lover or a potential lover what gave me pleasure. Well, not with her. That much is true. But it's harder and harder for me to admit to any particular tastes or interests.

I'm not sure what I'm afraid of. That I might horrify a young companion with the sheer depravity of it all? Probably not that. A girl with whom I'd discuss those things has already decided to be close to me, and just in being with me at all she's shown herself to be willing to defy most of the usual strictures against depravity.

Maybe I'm afraid that male desire is now regarded as shameful tout court. Maybe I'm afraid that any male sexual interests, even the most vanilla, are regarded as gross and disgusting and threatening. That's always part of it, I suppose.

Maybe it's that I'm afraid that if you say you like a particular kink, that'll define you permanently. I may be afraid that you're not allowed under the current social rules to experiment, to try things and then move on. So much nowadays has to be authentic--- interests and kinks have to speak to some underlying permanent truth or identity. You can't say you really like X on Thursday and then prefer Z on Sunday.

Maybe it's that I'm afraid that there's a social rank-ordering of kinks, that certain kinks are regarded as more pathetic or lower-class or less stylish than others. That might be it--- fear that any kinks or fetishes or preferences won't be good enough, that they'll mark you not so much as depraved but as a loser. That may be  a real fear on my part.

You'll note that I rarely talk here about the details of interests and adventures in my life. That at least in part is based on a fear of having the wrong interests, having ones that don't fit with the life and image I've constructed for myself.

If I had to guess, I'd assign most of my fears to the idea that desire, male desire, is now regarded as dangerous and gross rather than alluring or passionate. It gets harder and harder to imagine telling a young companion what I like or what gives me pleasure. I'm always willing to try whatever pleases my companions. However not? That goes with being the Older Lover, the roué. But I'm now increasingly uncomfortable with talking about my own desires and increasingly unwilling to discuss what gives me pleasure. I'm afraid of being kink-shamed on any number of fronts, and I do find myself becoming increasingly silent and withdrawn around lovers.

Two Zero Four: Weinstein

A story that remains a mystery---

A friend of a friend, someone who teaches Law and History at one of the non-Oxbridge British universities, is as they say "taking advice" in a post-Weinstein matter. He's consulting his solicitors over what amounts to a forced retirement at his job.

He's sixty-ish, I think, so he'd have had another ten years of teaching. Right now he's been suspended and the university administration is orchestrating a forced retirement. He's resisting and is, as best I can tell, planning to sue over the university's failure to follow its own procedures and give him the process written into his contract. My understanding is that it's all based on accusations of "inappropriate conduct", though I have no specifics.

He's at a British university and he's a bachelor, so the first thought his friends here had--- that I had, too ---was that this was about handsome young undergraduate males. That would be the usual British thing, no? But I suppose it could be girls. I know nothing of his preferences or kinks. He's a private enough man, and he did practice law for a while, so he's been trained to discretion. My friends and I agree that it's not particularly relevant what his tastes are, and it doesn't matter to us which team he plays for. We'd probably like to know, though, if only for purposes of gossip.

We have no clue what the specific accusations are. Part of his legal argument is in fact that he's never been given specifics or a chance to refute them.  I can't comment on what he's supposed to have done.  He seems ready for a legal action, for whatever that's worth. All I can do--- all his friends can do ---is watch from the transatlantic sidelines.

I note the story because this is the first brush I've had with the post-Weinstein era.  I was once a mid-semester replacement for a faculty member who'd taken to showing up drunk for his lectures and who'd drunkenly crashed a university vehicle while driving to some official meeting.  But I've never known anyone who was accused of "inappropriate conduct", whatever that might be.

The person in question should be financially okay even if he is forcibly retired. My understanding is that he'll have a pension from his university and that he has a fair amount of land and investments in Pennsylvania (where he's originally from). I'm not so much worried about him as I am intrigued with what the accusations are and what level of process he's entitled to under British law and his own contract.

I've always said that my own love life has been based on conduct as inappropriate as I can manage for these last few decades.  I'm not surprised that in the post-Weinstein world I'll have yet another level of  social disdain attached to me.

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.

One Five Three: Madison

I don't think I could define what an "affair" is any more. I'm not sure at all what counts as an "affair" these days. Life is short, the Ashley Madison tag line runs. Have an affair. There's the question, though, of what an affair is these days.

I'm old enough to remember when some writers (John Fowles, I seem to recall) still wrote affaire de coeur when describing what their characters were doing. I remember being young--- in my teens, in my undergraduate days ---and reading novels where it seemed that "having an affair" was one of the clear markers for adult life, at least in educated professional urban circles. I can recall sitting in my rooms at home and reading--- Updike, Cheever, Anthony Powell, Louis Auchincloss ---and believing that in the cities and social circles I longed for and aspired to that it was simply taken as a given that educated professionals, married or not, had affairs.

Now I'll take a moment to note that I grew up far away from those cities, and probably a generation removed from the settings of those books. But I did grow up in a house where the shelves had all those novels, where there were comedy albums by Nichols & May and the young Woody Allen on the hi-fi.  That world--- Fifties and early Sixties New York or London ---was the world I always thought was just outside my windows, just over the horizon.

I've never had any particular reverence for the institution of marriage. I always assumed that it was an institution that had clear and concrete purposes--- passing on property in a given bloodline, a mechanism for raising children and training them in cultural norms. Nothing wrong with that, and those two things are necessary in any society.

I'm a life-long bachelor, but I never had any particular feelings one way or the other about marriage as an institution. It was a necessary thing, but I was outside it. I suppose I still see it as a social marker I can't claim, a social expectation I haven't met. Whatever marriage did for society, I always saw myself as a bit apart. When I was in my teens or early twenties, I saw marriage as something one would probably do for a while to establish a certain claim to be thought a serious adult (and, yes, to establish a certain clear hetero status), but I don't think I ever ascribed any particular value to the married state itself. I'm sure it suits some people (my own parents were, as best I could tell, happily married for half a century), but I never had any reverence for marriage as such.

You've been reading along here, so I'll assume you know that I always say that I was Ruined By Books in exactly the way the Victorians feared. I did read Cheever and Updike and Auchincloss in my teens--- read books about worlds as alien as those in the sci-fi I used to read as well. In my undergraduate days I read Stendahl and Flaubert and the Big Russians. By the time I was ready to come down from university, I think I took it as a given that "having affairs" was something that gentlemen did, that "having affairs" was a customary part of the social worlds I wanted to inhabit.  I don't know how to explain that any other way.  By the time I was twenty-one, I took it for granted that in the professional classes, among people who lived in what they'd simply call The City, discreet affairs happened as part of the daily social landscape.

Alas, though. Despite my advanced years, and despite the credentials on my wall and the initials tacked on after my name, I don't move in circles where people have affairs.  The closest I think I've come to an affair was in my middle twenties, with a married fortyish woman who was a food-and-wine critic. It was all very discreet and reasonably clandestine. I remember that she borrowed a place from a female friend for us to use for rendezvous--- a converted carriage house in what we'd have called Uptown, or "out on the Avenue". It lasted a couple of late-spring months, and the key thing I remember is how adult it all felt. Or at least literary. But that's as close as ever I've come to an affair. It's been liberal arts co-eds since then, not women of the professional classes, married or not. And there's a clear distinction between dating or hooking up and an affair. Whenever I read Anita Brookner or Louis Auchincloss about the very discreet and civilised affairs their characters have, I know that I'm out of the loop.

I don't know what counts as an affair these days. It also seems that, as the Ashley Madison hack is showing,  the moralizers and shame-wielders are all-too-ready to attack the very idea of an affair. I miss the idea, of course. I miss the formality of it all. Like I miss the classic idea of the mistress, too. If you're following this, tell me what you think about the definition of affair and what the semiotics of the term are. And tell me what's happened in the last generation or so to give rise to the ranting (and rancid) moralizing and shaming that have boiled up since the Ashley Madison hack.

One Three Seven: Cubes

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Forty-Two: Procedures

The latest round of gender wars began, I'm told, in an elevator in Dublin some months ago--- perhaps even a year ago. The story is simple enough. A woman with something of a reputation as a blogger was speaking at a conference. One night very, very late, she was returning from a party, and there in the hotel elevator, a man, presumably another attendee, told her he was quite taken with her work and asked her for coffee in his room. She declined and went on alone to her own room. End of encounter. We know nothing about the man; there's some doubt that he existed at all. In any case, no one has ever named him, and he's never come forward. But the invitation in the elevator has unleashed a whole scorched-earth campaign in the gender wars on line.

I'd have thought the moment in the elevator was simply a small and rather polite social moment. The assumption is that the man was propositioning the blogger, though, given the conference setting, it's quite possible that he was just a fanboy offering coffee and gushing conversation to someone famous in the conference world. Nonetheless, so far as I can tell from the original story, the entire encounter was brief, calm, and courteous. The man asked her for coffee--- whatever that may have meant ---and when she declined, bade her goodnight politely. Somehow the account of the elevator moment immediately became a tale implicit with danger and overtones of violation. One can hardly blame the man for never coming forward. He's been portrayed all over the web as "Elevator Guy", a presumed harasser and attempted rapist. The blogger and her allies have certainly not hesitated to make the story one about an escape from danger. Needless to say, I didn't think he'd done anything wrong.

Would I have asked a girl for coffee in an elevator? Yes. Certainly. If I'd found myself in an elevator with someone I fancied, or with someone I simply hoped to have a conversation with over coffee, I'd have no problem with a polite invitation. And if she happened to be someone I'd wanted to ask out all night, the elevator would be a place with a lot to recommend it. There's always a clear chance of rejection, and the elevator at least isn't public. Being turned down in public is humiliating enough, and all the more so since the rejection would affect any chances one might have of flirting with other girls. What girl would choose to go out with someone who'd already been humiliated in public and rejected by other girls? The elevator is safer ground.

I'm told that part of the gender wars rants growing out of the elevator incident ("ElevatorGate") is a cold assertion that any male who'd try to get a girl away from a crowd or her friends to flirt is obviously one step away from being a serial killer/rapist. Once again, what should be ordinary social interaction and courtship ritual gets turned into open hostilities. I can't imagine trying to flirt with a girl in the midst of her friends. There's competition for attention, there are distractions, and what group of girls anywhere ever has told one of its members to go off and have fun and make out with a new male? Call that an attitude based on either envy or social solidarity, but it's there. The group won't tolerate a solitary outsider. An equal-sized group of other males, quite possibly. But not a single male, not someone interested in one of the group members. I've been reading blog posts and articles about how any male who'd try to ask a girl to leave her group is dangerous and evil. The word "creepy"--- implying dangerous ---gets used with increasing frequency. And not just for the lone male seeking to separate a girl from the group, but for almost any male engaged in open flirting.

The incident in the elevator has led to a long and bitter series of attacks on the idea of flirtation and on the idea of sexual interest itself. The idea of the courtship dance itself has been attacked and determined to be an affront to any ideals of "social justice".  To be in favor of seductions, flirtations, or offers is to be deemed an enemy of womankind and social justice. Lines are being drawn, and of course the argument is no longer about a polite offer and a polite rejection in a Dublin hotel. It's all about violence and oppression and a disdain for anything like sexual interest and sex as ritual and play.

I believe in courtship and mating rituals, and I always believe in courtesy. I believe that sex and flirtations shouldn't be battlefields, and that there should be a sense of play and delight between men and women in social situations. Any social setting, any interaction, always has the potential for flirtation and exchanges. I do like that--- the rituals of flirtation, the recognition that any moment can become the first moment of a flirtation or seduction. Courtesy, yes, always. And politeness. Take those things as givens. What I don't like and don't understand is the hostility out there, the idea that social rituals are really a kind of battlefield, a place where any sexual interest is some kind of hostile and oppressive act.

The current age claims to be sexually open, or at least sexually knowledgeable. I have my doubts. Desire (and especially male desire) is regarded as suspect. Any social interaction must be purged of anything that might be sexual, any social interaction at all is...suspect. I'm assuming that any conversations and introductions are now regarded as hostile acts. I suppose that striking up a conversation now is an act regarded as oppressive and tantamount to violence.

I will not give up a sense of ritual, a sense that the social world has the promise of romance and flirtations and even physical passion threaded all through it. I will not give up introductions and the eighteenth-century kinds of conversation and flirtation that I admire. Strange thing, mind you. I'm a social-democrat by belief, and I've always thought of social justice as something political worth supporting. The term has been stolen, really, by people who want to turn any possible interaction between men and women into a skirmish, into part of a no-quarter-given war. I won't give in to that. I won't give up a world where desire and play are valued, where a polite offer or introduction may or may not be accepted, but is nonetheless not regarded as an attack.

Thirty-Two: Hostilities

I was following an on-line discussion about sex work and sex workers and followed a link to an article at Jezebel.com about the clients of escorts and prostitutes. The thing that amazed me was the level of hatred and contempt in the comments for any male who hired sex workers. The commentariat took it for granted that any man who hired an escort or a street girl was a monster who'd be violent with a girl in a heartbeat. That's certainly the way clients are portrayed in moral-panic journalism, and it's certainly something taken for granted politically by a large swath of feminists. I suppose I expected that--- it's certainly the message that the Scandinavian view of sex work puts forth: all sex workers have been "trafficked", all clients are violent abusers.

I wasn't, I think, expecting the depth of personal contempt for anyone male who left a comment saying that he'd been a client.  The men who wrote in wrote to say that they weren't violent, that the girls they hired weren't heroin-addicted girls brought in from Belarus. Some wrote to say that because of their own lives--- physical disability, social awkwardness, lack of attractiveness ---their only access to sexual partners was via sex workers. That brought out far more contempt and anger  than even the standard political claim that all clients are, by definition, violent abusers.

The hatred was directed at the men for being...failures. If the men couldn't get sex because of their looks or awkwardness or disabilities, then they didn't deserve to have sex. They were told to go masturbate and then mocked for having to do that.  The target of the contempt and derision shifted across the comments from being about the idea that sex workers could be abused to being about the idea that men could be awkward or graceless or unattractive and still want sex.

I didn't join the discussion. I can't afford to hire escorts or even street girls; I can't support a sugarbaby. But I have no problem with the idea. My own tastes are quite niche-specific, and if I had the money and lived in a city where there were services that had the resources to cater to my tastes, I'd have no problem using the services.  My interests are very specific, and I'm well aware that every passing year makes it harder to find what I'm looking for. Find a service, specify what I'm looking for, negotiate a price. That just seems very straightforward. And treat the girl who'd arrive at a rendezvous with the respect one gives any professional. I'd be hiring a girl as much for her skills as an actress or in conversation as for what she could do in bed, and I'd always offer up clear professional respect. She'd be someone hired to be a character in my internal novels or films, and I'd be well aware that I was paying someone with skills and knowledge to create a role with me.

I'm still someone that the commenters are Jezebel.com would despise, though. It's hard to grasp that their contempt would be based not on anything I might do to a girl I'd hire, or on anything I might feel or think about her. Their contempt would be based on the idea that I might need to hire someone, that I wouldn't be good enough to have a potential partner find me desirable--- and based on the idea that I might want something that would be above my station.

I can't afford a service of the kind I'd need to use, and I don't live in a city where such services exist. So all this is theoretical. I am amazed, though, at the depth of contempt the Jezebel commentariat have for men who might have only the options of involuntary celibacy or hiring a sex worker. I'm beginning to sense a contempt for any male sexuality, too--- something I must discuss with young companions or my acquaintance.