SUMMARY:

Are you moved and inspired by connecting with others in a physically intimate way?
Do you love what you do for work?
Is your true love out there waiting to be found?

You are Sarah.

Mentioned in this episode
Supporting A Face Project: Contribute
Join the conversation: A Face Project: Community
Music: Aureroc
Photography: Natalie Jennings

NOTES:

EXPLICIT CONTENT

[1:00] Explicit content warning
[2:20] YOU ARE SARAH.
[3:00] Natalie talks about being in Hawaii & the mic setup (again)
[4:15] Intro to the episode
[4:30] What MY aim is with doing this podcast thing
[5:20] What I’m so excited to share this and other stories
[5:50] See photos of Sarah
[6:12] Get a FREE copy of our magazine!
[7:45] Sarah’s story
[8:30] How she found her way into the industry
[9:10] What she thought might happen when she started escorting
[9:30] First time she met with someone
[12:40] Why she still felt willing to keep going after a bad experience
[13:30] Her favorite type of client
[14:50] The number of clients Sarah guesses are married
[15:15] Clients who love their spouse but hire Sarah
[16:20] Why appearance loses all meaning
[17:20] “…some clients out there…are just amazing”
[18:00] Most common time for clients to visit
[19:10] The apartment where clients visit
[20:15] Talking about favorite books with a client
[20:45] What Sarah learned from The Stranger
[22:10] Her favorite kinds of appointments
[23:15] Limits
[24:24] Boundaries
[25:35] When a client asks about unprotected sex
[27:15] Safe sex practices
[31:00] Thoughts on sexuality in society
[32:15] Male privilege and sexuality
[33:40] “I wish there was a word other than ‘escort’…”
[35:15] On police
[36:12] Different types of escorts
[37:00] “The main thing I want to tell people…”
[39:15] Credits
[39:30] JOIN our FB COMMUNITY! 
[40:00] Help support AFP

READ THE TRANSCRIPT:

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I started in college, I was kind of a late bloomer. I didn’t have sex until I was 22, maybe? Ever since I entered into my sexuality and started having sex, I always wanted to have sex. I would run into this problem where I would go on dates with people and I would have sex on the first date, which for me, was fine. I didn’t see a problem with it, but I would never get calls back. It got to the point where it was frustrating and it was like, well if I’m gonna be doing this, I might as well make some money doing it. I might as well get something out of this if I’m gonna keep sleeping with people and not getting a callback or anything.

When I started doing the sugar daddy websites, I still had a notion that I was going to find a man who was rich and who could take care of me and that we were going to fall in love. It’s a shortcut to climbing the social ladder.

The first time I met with somebody I was, I think 23 or 22. I would say maybe he was maybe 35. He was handsome. He wasn’t the biggest social butterfly. He was more reserved, kind of business-like. He picks me up, we go out to dinner and the first indication I got that something was going wrong was that he claimed that he worked in the government and in intelligence. That was a field that I was interested in going into and that’s what I was studying for. He dismissed what I had to say and wasn’t really willing to talk about it and just kind of, yeah he was just dismissive, which I thought was a little rude but I wasn’t about to turn down whatever money I was about to get. We went back to his place and we … I think he wanted me to dress up in a maids outfit, which I had never done and I thought was silly but I was like, “Whatever, man. You do you.”

We started to have sex and he started saying things that freaked me out. He was saying, “How are you doing in school?” I said I was doing well. He said, “So, if you don’t go back, no one’s going to really notice or no ones’ gonna miss you.” And I was like, “I don’t know about that.” And he was like, “What if I just kept you here?” I was like, “[inaudible [00:05:01] maybe.” It escalated to the point where he was like, “Well you know if I’m gonna keep you here, I have to make sure you’re not to leave so I’m going to have to tie you to something.

I actually no … It got to the point where I told him, “Dude, if you don’t get off of me right now, I’m going to call the cops. I am going to call the cops on you. I don’t give that shit. I know what I’m doing. I know the law’s on my site are not, I don’t care. I am not afraid to call the cops.” And he got off and was like, “Oh, I was just role playing. I was just kidding around.” And I start crying and he actually enjoyed the fact that I was crying. He started smiling and was like, “Well, I’ve never made a girl cry in bed before.” Which I thought he was just a jackass and so he drove me back to the airport and gave me 250 or something ridiculous, which now, is a very … You can hire an escort for 250, but you’re not getting a great one.

Well, I always thought it was interesting that I could have that almost traumatic experience but still have the willingness to go through and meet other people and that actually turned out to be … My first experience doing this was one of the worst but I just kept pushing through, because it was exciting. It’s exciting to meet people who they … It’s every connection is a possible love connection, maybe. If it’s not, I still get money so everything’s okay, you know.

There are clients I see who I may enjoy, but that I don’t necessarily want as repeat clients all the time. If they’re either a lot of work, or they are into things that I’m just not into sexually, or we don’t have similar sexual energy, but there is some clients who the sex is amazing. Those are the clients that I want to see me. We may, in our time together, we may fall in love, we may be best friends, we may have the best time together, and there are clients who I genuinely like … If there was a word between like and love then that would be the word.

I see one or two clients a day. I would say 70 to 80% of my clients are married, if not more. When we talk about value systems, when I talk about values and morals, I, of course, have my own values and morals, however, having sexual relationships with men who are married really doesn’t rub me the wrong way. I’m not having emotional affairs with them I don’t feel like, and I don’t even know if I would have a problem with that. I really don’t feel anything about having sex with married man. I feel like this is a way for them to get … Kind of purge themselves of that pent up sexual energy and then go home and treat their wife nicely. It just doesn’t bother me, I guess.

One of my longtime clients, he has talked to me before about his marriage and how he, with his wife, they just had a couple of babies and he was telling me how he feels with his wife, like she’s his partner, she is his teammate, she is his partner in crime. All these things and he just doesn’t … The sexuality is missing from the relationship and it’s not through the fault of either one of them. It’s just that he sees her as more of a partner and less of a sex object. Whereas, when people are coming to me, they’re looking for a woman who is oozing sensuality and sexuality and that wants to have sex and do all the things and …

Being somebody who has sex as often as I have sex with as many people as I have sex with, appearance really loses all meaning. I don’t really care if you are short or tall or fat or skinny or classically beautiful or not classically beautiful. The only tactile thing that matters to me is smell. I can tell right away if somebody didn’t shower before they see me and that grosses me out. But most people do, thank God.

I have met people who I have been super attracted to when they walk in the door to the point where it makes me nervous. I feel like I’m on a first date, and I feel really awkward and like, “Why did you call me?” There have been people who I saw and I wasn’t necessarily attracted to them right away, but then when we started getting down to the business and the clothes started coming off, our … Just they way they kiss me, or the way that they’re pacing in terms of foreplay and things like that. There are some clients out there who are just amazing. One thing that differentiates me from a lot of escorts I know is that I probably orgasm about half of the time. Whereas with other escorts, I know it’s almost zero. Like 0%. Like never.

Most of the people I see choose to visit me during the day, usually they’re at work. They come from work, take an hour or two off from their job and they come to my apartment. Then when we’re done, they go back to work. I get people who come in suits, I get people who come in dressy clothes and not everybody, some people show up in jeans or whatever. The average age I would say is about 40. Yeah, because I’ve seen people as young as 23, which was weird. I’ve seen a client as old as 85, while those two ages really aren’t my preferences, the average age is about 40 or 45 and that … I’ve always had a thing for older men when I was … My first boyfriend when I was 22 was 37 so I love it. I love getting men in their 40’s or early 50’s. I think that’s the sweet spot.

I decorate my apartment not for myself. The items that are in my apartment that I use for this, which is not where I live, by the way. The items in my apartment, they’re not for me. They don’t serve me. I don’t decorate my place so that it’s visually enjoyable to me. I decorate my place so that it looks like it’s my own the world that they’re walking into when they come into the apartment.

It’s like taking a vacation. I have sea shells and I have mirrors everywhere and I have flowers and that kind of thing and just things that are visually appealing, so that when somebody walks in and they do feel like they’re exiting their life, and they’re coming into mine.

That’s all part of it. It’s the seduction before, it’s the sex, it is the cuddling afterwards, the talking afterwards. I had one client who, once we had sex, he and I talked about our favorite books for probably about half an hour. Every book that I loved, that he knew. He gave me some suggestions for books that I would like, some authors.

Well, the book that changed my life was The Stranger by Camus and it’s funny because when I read literary criticism of it, it’s like … Or critiques of it, it’s like … Sometimes when I read them, I’m like did I misread that book? Did I get the wrong message out of that? But what I learned from The Stranger is that you can be in the worst situation, you can be hopeless and you can have … You know, you can be like on death row and you can get to a point, mentally where nothing matters and it’s not … It sounds depressing but it’s not … Like to be able to let go and to be able to just understand that things are gonna happen and you can’t do anything about it and to just let go of attachment is really important to me because it means that no matter what situation I’m in, no matter how much pain I’m in, no matter how scared I am, whatever, I can detach and I can not have to dwell and live in that pain.

My favorite appointments are the people who we can start off slow, we can build up, we have sex, it’s amazing, and there’s … I have some really good sex with clients. Then afterwards, I have my head on their chest and we talk and we cuddle and we kiss and we spend time together and I’m not a washcloth. I’m not a rag. I’m a human being and I want to spend overnights with people who understand that and who just genuinely want to cuddle with me and sleep with me in their arms and …

I don’t think … I think that based on the way that I write my ads and that the copy that I have on my website, I think people do understand that I have a brain. I don’t think that it’s 100% of the time appreciated, but about half of the time, I’d say people really do enjoy hearing what I have to say.

I don’t do sexual things that I don’t enjoy, because that’s not why I’m there. I’m not there to be a doll. I offer more than that and I think that’s why I’m not like an ex-model. I’m not the skinniest or the prettiest of all the women in the world, but that’s why I can command a higher rate, and the rate that I do ask for, and that’s why I get business on it is because I’m not just a stand-in vagina. I am a human being who wants to have sex with a client who wants to make out with them and who wants them to like pin them up against the wall or do that kind of thing. That really shows through, so for me to do things I don’t want to do sexually, that I’m just not into sexually, or that don’t turn me on sexually, that goes against my whole vibe of being into it. Any client who would push for those things is not really the client I want to see because I have very few boundaries in terms of what I will and won’t do. I don’t have unprotected sex, I don’t have anal sex, those are pretty much the two things.

I absolutely think that the fact that I enjoy having sex and that I enjoy exploring somebody’s body and I just love touching and kissing and tasting and feeling and all these things, that absolutely affects people’s experience with me. I do think that they can tell. That’s where my regulars come in, that’s where they know that I enjoy myself. They know that I am having real orgasms, that I am just fully enjoying their company. I think that’s where I’m retaining a lot of the clients that I want to retain because the kind of client that is turned on by me being turned on, that’s the kind of client I want.

I had a client recently who was … He had never seen an escort before, and he seemed nice and everything, but about midway through, he kept asking if we could have unprotected sex, and I swear he must’ve asked me about 10 times while having sex if he could take the condom off. It finally got to the point where, not to get too graphic, but he stood up, took the condom off, so I started giving him oral sex and then he climbs on top of me and I’m like … I’m not really scared of him, he doesn’t give me that vibe, but I immediately lock my legs to show him, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but to essentially, give him the clue that no, we’re not doing this, and he asked me again if we could have sex like that, and I literally had to be like, “Dude, we are done. Our time is up.”

He immediately apologized. Immediately was like, “No, I’ll put a condom on.” But again, with me, it’s like, if I’m not into it, I’m not doing it. I told him, “I don’t want to have sex anymore. You asked me 10 times if we could take the condom off and I said no, very clearly, every single time. I’m not into it. Have a good day. Don’t worry about it. Just be respectful of boundaries next time.”

I always have safe sex so I use condoms with partners and there’s some things that you learn that go along with that. For example, I make sure to always have lube on hand because if I’m having sex and someone’s wearing condom and there’s not enough lubrication that, that makes the condom break a lot easier. I learned that to always make sure that that is taken care and that there’s lubrication and all of that, because that is the last thing I want for myself and for the client to worry about what’s going to happen now that the condom broke.

If someone wants to see me and they don’t want to use a condom, I don’t want to see them because that means that they don’t want to use a condom with anybody. If they’re willing to have sex with me, an escort, without a condom, who are they not willing to have sex with without a condom. The people I see, if I were to not use protection and if I were to have unsafe sex, I would lose probably 90% of my clients, and I would gain all the clients I don’t want to have. There is a community, the escort world with the people who see them and the escorts themselves, like they are definitely a community, and it gets around who has sex unprotected and who doesn’t. I go to the doctor once a week and I get tested for all the things you can get in your throat, and I haven’t contracted anything in my tenure as an escort, which I consider myself really fortunate for that.

I remember, I had a client recently, who, he was great in bed, he was … Like we had similar sexual energy, it was fantastic. I loved it. Loved the sex, and I mentioned something to him afterwards. I was like, “That was awesome.” And his comment was something like, “Oh, I’m sure it was.” It kind of made me sad, because I genuinely had an amazing time but because of this notion of this preconceived idea of what I do, that he would think that I was just trying to flatter him. That’s not what I do, I don’t fake orgasms. I tell people, like I don’t have orgasms during sex. I’ve never in my life had one. From oral sex, yes, but not from just regular intercourse, because I don’t fake it. It’s too much energy, it’s not what I’m about. I’m not interested.

When I get a sense that the client has a hang up about the kind of relationship we’re in or that they feel embarrassed or ashamed about what they’re doing, that doesn’t make me feel good in turn and it’s a shame for that client who I had such good energy with, that he didn’t believe me when I said I had a great time.

I was talking with a woman recently who, she … I was asking some questions about how to do all my accounting with my money and things and she made a comment to use my mind and not my body, and I thought that was a really interesting statement to make. I thought that that was coming from a good place but it was perpetuating this idea that using your body and having pleasures of the flesh, that that’s something that is looked down upon, and I feel like, especially with women, being able to be sexual, and being able to be openly sexual is not only as something that’s looked down upon but that it’s a danger thing.

Rape is something that happens and it happens in my industry, and this idea that while I have no qualms about calling the police if something like that were to happen. I’m sure that many woman would because of the situation they were in and not wanting to feel judged, but I just think it’s a shame that my openness with my sexuality and my comfort with it and my wanting to express it with many people is something that is looked down upon by the majority of society. I am the kind of person that I enjoy having sex every day and I enjoy having sex with different people. Because when I’m having sex with different people, every time it’s different and it’s new, and it’s exciting.

It’s something that I believe that men have had the privilege of doing for so long, this idea of going out to a bar and hooking up with a stranger or picking up some lady at the library or that kind of thing, and yet when we talk about women having sex with different people, it’s a completely different story. My experience as an escort and as somebody who has a lot of sex with different people, is a turn off to men. They want somebody who it’s their first time going wild or something like that and that’s really frustrating to me. It’s really frustrating to me to have to tone down my sexuality when I’m talking with people. To have to hide the parts of me that I feel so strongly and that are so important to me. It’s difficult to, in the average world, to have to either flat out lie about what I do and what I like to experience, and to have to defend it, or to be rejected. It’s not unheard of for an escort to have a partner, and so I’m not saying that it’s not possible, it’s just, it comes with a million times more barriers than a standard person walking on the street trying to get a date.

I just wish there was a word other than escort, or other than provider that people were familiar with, because the first thing people to say to me if seeing a counselor, or if I’m talking to somebody and I let them know I’m an escort, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is, do you want to get out of it? Do you want to stop? Do you need help? That is not the case at all in what I do. Escorting fulfills so many needs for me, and it makes me so happy, and it gives my life purpose, and it gives me the connection that I seek with people.

I get frustrated that when I tell somebody I’m an escort, I have to go into this long explanation of how much money I make, of the kind of clients I see, the fact that I don’t see people at 2 AM, the fact that I am not in seedy motels, that I actually have a nice … I have two apartments. One I live in and then one I work out of that’s a nice apartment in downtown Minneapolis. I hate having to prove myself that this is something that I enjoy. I wish there was a different term for it that differentiates between the sad realty of survival sex and then my reality of being a, in essence, a business woman who is running my own business.

Police really don’t care what I’m doing with my time. I’m not hurting anybody. They, to a degree, they know that. I’m not trafficking anybody, I’m not selling drugs, I’m not doing any of that. With getting references from people, I am weeding out the people who would be more scary, to a degree.

Thank God for black listing websites. I’ve had somebody call me and talked with me on the phone for maybe 20 minutes. Then when we hung up, I ran his number through one of the databases and he came up as a very scary person. If somebody doesn’t give me references right away, if I don’t have a lot of information to go off of, I will run their information through a black list website.

There are a lot of different types of escorts. There are girls that are doing it for survival. There are girls that are doing it because they are addicted to drugs, which I’m not naïve. I know that that happens. There are girls that do it because they have trauma. There are girls that do it because they love it. There are girls that are a combination of some or all of those things or whatever and it’s so hard to talk about what I do without having to go onto a 10 minutes explanation of why it’s a good thing.

Because I’m really open with my friends. All of my friends know what I do. My roommates know what I do. My family knows what I do. My aunt is just very insistent that I save my money. I think the main thing that I would want to tell people would be that whether you want to call it prostitution or escorting or whoring, or whatever anybody wants to call it, it’s a big world. It’s a very big world. On one end of the spectrum, you have girls who went into it before they were 18, which is always considered trafficking and abuse. It’s never considered something that they consensually started if they were under 18. I think that that is a horrific side of the business and it’s a side of the business that I’m not happy that I’m in the same category as. But on the other end of the spectrum, you have women and men who are just so excited to be there and love what they do and enjoy every aspect of the encounter.

What I want to leave people with is when someone sees something in the news about a women being arrested at a hotel or being arrested on the street or that kind of thing, that is an aspect of my business, of my world, but it’s not the only part of it, there’s a huge variety in what experiences can be and they can be like that, but they can also be very loving, very fun, and very sensual. •