Anonymous - The Strange Things Men Pay Prostitutes To Do

I know there are always going to be men who will pay women for sex - whether it's because they are single and lonely, or want to do things their wives or girlfriends won't do, or whatever. It's called the world's oldest profession for a reason.

I guess none of this should surprise, and yet it does - or more to the point, it saddens me. This woman sells her body for drugs and the guys are so lonely or addicted to sex . . . . so many attachments we get caught up in and then we suffer.

The Strange Things Men Pay Prostitutes To Do

When I worked as a street prostitute, men paid me to do things you'd never imagine - like pretend to be their girlfriend and take me on all-expense paid trips.

July 14, 2010 | Anonymous

Photo Credit: Rodrigo della Favera via Flickr

Editor's note: This is Part III of a series in which the author chronicles her life as a street prostitute. Read Part I here. Read Part 2 here.

The lives of women who trade sex on the street for survival is very different than the idealized Hollywood treatment of sex work: less Pretty Woman than Monster, the story of Aileen Wuornos, for whom hooking was a kill-or-be-killed situation.

Survival prostitutes are the most easily and frequently killed of all women. They lack the glamor of call girls and the “victimhood” of trafficked women since their pimp is their drug habit itself. They have been abandoned by their families, their communities and the other people on the street. Even law enforcement and social services slighted them until recently.

The author spent time as a survival prostitute driven by her drug habit until she found recovery in a 12-step program. This is the second excerpt from a diary she kept while getting in cars.

A Lexus stops. The guy is dark haired, maybe 40, a little too distracted for my comfort. I go with him to a room though I worry he is a nut. We get to some small room on the West side and his thing is making me wear a negligee and act like I enjoy it. Why does he pay for this? I don't relish this silk, lace, oohing and ahhing routine but there is nothing perverted about it. You'd think he'd get a girlfriend. He says he's single. He is a medical supplies salesmen and I let him pay me in syringes.

It's like the guy who comes to my apartment Saturday mornings with bagels and lox. His thing is setting up the brunch spread and having sex before we eat it. Where is the trick? Sure this food makes me sick, especially because I am a speed freak, but there is nothing inherently tricky about this. Not like the extremely icky guy I had yesterday whose house I had to go to. Even though he had a nice house and seemed like he might have a normal wife, he wanted me to strap on a dildo and tell him how tight he was. I could not do this work straight.

Another one that makes me sick is Jim W who operates out a roofing office in uptown. He actually created a peephole so his buddies could watch while I was working on him. He is missing digits on his fingers. He says you was and yeeewww for you. He's the kind of person you would cross the street to avoid.

I have had two trips out of town. Dick K. who is a client of my printer took me all the way to California with him on his business trip. I can't figure out why. He doesn't touch me though we sleep in the same bed. Does he think I have a disease? He moved his seat on the plane on both trips and wouldn't even talk to me. Why did he bring me? One night we went to a party with normal kids my age who were watching videos, eating a stir fry and barely drinking. I felt like a ridiculous idiot in my hooker garb, all dressed up with no johns in sight. I couldn't even manage the most basic small talk with these kids. I didn't fit in with the wholesome set even when I was straight. I got really drunk and he conveyed he was disgusted. He has a New York accent and is cute.

Then my printer Keith took me with him on an all expense paid trip he was given by his paper mill. It was in the middle of the woods, very pretty but very stinky from the wood pulp. There were a lot of people there in a lodge and we all ate elaborate meals together. There was also a pool table and an open bar. I didn't bring enough speed and began crashing. I drank too much and began saying and doing embarrassing things. He told the group I was ill and he was going to put me to bed. I thought when we got the room he was going to hit me but was amazed that he didn't. In fact he was really nice to me and we even did it. Now I like him.

None of these johns make any sense to me. Some of them are paying for things a girlfriend would do. Many have told me if they were a girl they would be doing just what I do. They know all the hookers and know who is charging what. In fact many see as many hookers a day as I do johns. They're just as addicted but not getting paid. Most are more polite than guys I've dated either because they respect someone who makes more an hour than they do or because they know they're going to get it so they don't have to be defensive. I sometimes think they pay so they don't have to feel guilty about just lying there and making someone else do all the work and not returning the favor.

I was starting to get ahead economically and then they cut off my phone and electricity. I had a leech line to keep the lights on but they found it and yanked it. George said I could use his phone but the johns have my phone number not his. So I have lost a lot of them unless I see them on the streets. It is very hot and the bugs are really coming out. They are even eating the toothpaste.

I am trying to think of better ways to make money. Danny, a very cute dude who tends bar on the corner, also tends bar at Big Daddy's and said he could get me a gig there. I went to check it out and it is very depressing. You've got some wastoids at the bar and girls on the stage picking up Coke bottles with their vaginas. You get some pathetically small commission on each drink you can get the john to buy you and the house keeps most of it. If the john springs for a bottle of champagne you go in the back with him and have sex with him and get to keep more of the money. This whole routine could take an hour or more and the john has paid a huge amount of money and you get little. Worse Danny says they were busted last week so losing all that money to the middle man doesn't even make it safe.

I had my own run-in with the police two days ago which was very humiliating. It was a night off and I was with one of my few girlfriends at a bar. Her name is Sean. We barely know each other. We were in the bathroom doing a line. The bartender called the police saying there was a city ordinance against two people in a bathroom at one time. The real reason is he's in love with the other bartender who likes me not him. I wasn't worried because I thought I could flirt my way out of it and I was very drunk. But the city's finest were two gigantic female cops and they took my money, my drugs and threw me in the squad car. I was pleading with them to just let me pee because my bladder was bursting so they created a torture for me. The took me to the city park and said I had to walk all the way through it without stopping to pee or they would book me. They trailed right behind me the whole time probably doing my drugs. I don't think they had any idea what my day job is. I think they just hate me because they think I am street trash.

As soon as the squad car disappeared and I peed, I got in a car. I felt it was like getting right back on a horse again after you fall off.

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