My New Friends  

Posted by H in

Or so it's how they're called on Facebook and other networking platforms. First of all, welcome to all readers coming from these horizons. Don't feel attacked by this post, I like you. I really do, otherwise I wouldn't write about you (would I?) and would quickly have removed you from my list of "friends". Though I cannot say we really *are* friends (no quotes). We're people sharing interests, thoughts, feelings, maybe convictions and perspectives. Takes on life. On our lives. On love, on sexuality, on tattoos, on poster-girls and -boys, on death penalty, on flying squirrels and apple pies. And maybe a little more...

We are good crowd, aren't we all? Though we would probably sell out each other for no particular reason if that was necessary huh, because after all, as Bad Religion would say (I Love my Computer), "[we're] just a picture and a clever screen name". A disembodied version of a human being; and a human without a proper body has no rights. It's disposable, it's a reflection, an ectoplasm, a mirage.

Paradoxically, virtual friends can be more reliable. Yes they go around poking each other (no laughing, no laughing), they virtually kill and kiss each other for no good reason, just based on a few good words and the compatibility of their profiles. But, because you are just a liability in their list of friends and can discard you anytime they want, they also tend to be more open and maybe sometime even more sincere than the real versions. You'll find the very fake real friends, the ones who pop up and comment on every single thing you do or say, invite you to every single thing, and know all the rules by the book. Follow me, I follow you. Hey do you know my contact, maybe he wants to be your friend (no that's a new concept of social ascension: it doesn't only work at the workplace anymore. No you can get promoted in absentia in friends circles...). Then you have the experts, the one that become your friends because they have a particular knowledge of something of interest for you, or vice-versa. They are your friends because you share this interest and you are transferring information.

And finally you have the true friend. That one is boring on social network. If you poke him/her, he/she'll just tell you bluntly "Dude, WTF??!", and possibly smash you right in the face the next day on the way to work.


Damn, that post has nothing to do with the sex industry so far... We must have lost ourselves somewhere on the way. Excuse me, I'm becoming social...

We're getting there, actually. Social networks are also a very primitive jungle. Primal, really. You see an incredible and unending crowd of parasites, lurking around to find a significant other. Here, "significant other" means someone to drool on, to corner into meeting for a ONS (either by using your own tendency to f*ck around, or by making you think Prince Charming or Belle awaits at the door). And there's the social element to it again. It's well-accepted that people who go after super-models-type of girls do not actually do it only because they are sexually attracted to them. They are, of course, but also they need the ego prop that walking hand in hand or with any kind of promiscuity with such a specimen can give them.

And it's the same with virtual networks. You don't go to the lame parties with the nerdz (or you don't admit it to your friends; the only ones knowing being the ones attending the party with you, and if they tell on you, you're bringing them down with you!), and neither do you stick around with the nerdz on Facebook (well, hard to tell. Facebook sorts of modifies the definition of nerdy and geeky itself... Alyssa Milano, George Clooney or Brad Pitt would be geeky if they were on Facebook, for sure. They'll poke you in the eye, invite you to the movie compatibility test, or buy you and invite you to vampire wars. Crazyness.) You just have an unconscious tendency to go for the attractive contacts. Come on, admit it, except if your presence on social networks is business-driven, just say it: when comes the time to click on "Add as a Friend", there's a mental mechanism taking care of the selection process for you. Hort or not? Real friend or not? Celibrity or not? More popular than you? After all, if we only used these things for their intended purpose - connecting to people of your network of acqaintances: friends, relatives, colleagues, sports-club and town or city quarter - it would be deadly. Boring.

So you prop your ego and though you just invited all these people who have your test, hmmm, maybe the hot chick with the black and white picture of her sighing in a cutsy way in front of her webcam deserves an add, doesn't she? Or the smoking hot one with a photoshopped picture of her in Bikini on a beach.
How what the hell, go for it. Click it, you know you want to.

I guess the pet name of these networks defines them perfectly. Viral. Viral networks, viral markets. It's a disease, really. But on the one hand, it's a disease you decide to go after: you get a mass-reaction from the herd that reflects your behavior on the portal. It's like catching a STD: you asked for it, at some point, by ignoring common sense and rules.

So you just don't hang out with the nerdz, except out of pity, throwing them a bone once in a while. Because after all they are fun, normal, loving and decent. More than the web-cam-girl and bikini-chick, or 6-packs-guy, soccer-star or cool-revolutionary-artist.

But it gets even more twisted than that, doesn't it. Poke you, poke me. Now let's move to the real poking, shall we? Social networks are what you want them to be. A sharing-interest thing. A dating portal. A whoring portal. A customer place, a feeeding ground. Its viral nature makes it the perfect friend of anyone launching a business. And back to our industry, what's more perfect than an hypocrit viral system to sell dreams? It just calls out to escorts, strippers, models, porn stars to make a name. Not that all the people there are valid clients. As said earlier, there are plenty of weirdos and psychos on these things. But it's just promotion, advertising, and good marketing: you keep in touch with clients, keeping selling the dream, even after the end of the night. Or after the out-call.

I wonder how many independent escorts use social networks, as a marketing booster. G. used to be completely tech-free. She was working for numeros agencies in different countries, just hoping from one to another depending onclients taking her everywhere, and then she'd take a job somewhere else to use her time. She cared about providing good services, having fun, making money, and building a reputation in each agency. But not a huge one. She had a different identity for each agency. In one way, it's a defense mechanism: you severe the link and this bad review does not hurt your other names. But it also limits your influence and glory. She didn't care about escort review websites, escort groups, sex-workers' unions.

She does now, a little. The funny thing is, she even joined some because of me. Make me sometimes wonder if that's a good or bad thing. We talk about her business, and I tell her about what I see online, and that I think she can learn from other people's experiences. Sure internet is again a twisted place: people exaggerate, they amplify. But there's a truth to everything that a mass believes in. I tell she can be safer if she follows the trends and practices, improve herrepertoire, customer base, and especially her skills for screening bad types and dealing with them.

She now follows escort review boards and forums, has joined escort groups. But she still doesn't use social networks bound to clients. She does not mingle. She hates it in real-life, she won't do it here. Though her job is all about it.

Some of her co-workers are from different horizons. Some wouldn't even know how to use a computer, some would ask "What the heck is Facebook?", some have a website, a profile, a blog, and use private and public ads to promote their own independent business.

I guess it depends on the nature of the escort's job: if she's working behind an agency acting as a proxy, then the social networks are not really business driven, they remain a matter of interest and sharing. If the agency still uses profiles and (fake) names to promote girls, she has some advantage to get in using it (for now... I guess soon that would be so common that won't be an advantage anymore. It will be a necessity). If she's independent, Hell yeah that's probably a good selling factor. Hope escorts pick some marketing tips and tricks and learn how to prototype their profiles and even their online behavior to study how it impacts customer base. Now that's really business.

And on the one hand, it's petty and sleazy and I hate this business, but on the other hand, everything that makes the girls safer is good for me. And though you can never know who you're dealing with online, you'll have a statistic distribution of reliable contacts. The Seichuan earthquake in China got famously reported faster on Twitter than on world news, so fast that US sismographic facilities did not even have had the time to pick the anomaly up. Similarly, you'll have more people who'll wonder online "Where is [...]? Did she just vanish?" It's a mass-morphing organism. There should be really impressive improvements any time soon (if not already here) in artificial and automated monitoring with these things.


Scary ones too.

Theft of identity, facial profiles, virtual property, creation of customer profiles, cross-checking of real-profiles to identify virtual ones. Be careful what you wish for, technology is a double-axe.

The same way as you can use the picture of a hotter peson with close-to-0 probability that person will ever know, just to prop your ego and get customer base, anything you write and upload is also potentially stealable by anyone else. Names don't identify anyone.

Hell, you can even use for crazy things. Think of prepaid credit-cards. Buy one at a gift shop. Some are completely anonymous, and you can do whatever you want with them, in real life and online. Some require some remote identification screening. Social Security Number in the US, driver's license number. Or just name, date of birth and address. Gee, where could I find that... Oh wait, I know. Facebook, look for some random name, here I am: Name, address, date of birth. Just don't pink anyone with a phony nickname. Pick a student for instance, that's young, innocent (less likely to have a record) and lies less about this sort of things online. There you go. John Graham, born 17 July 1987, studying at USC will be liable for you (NOTE: I'm making a common name up, if there's such a John Graham, whooppsssiiiess...).

Endless possiblities and dangers.


Think of it, and in the meantime, I have to poke back some people. I'll be back after some Vampire Wars and after having bought some random guy as my new pet. Craziness.

1 comments

I came across this blog and read a couple of them.I am in a different boat but on the same river as you girls. I am a boyfriend of a escort, I have been her boyfriend for 6 years, she has been a escort for almost 3 years. I am fine with it, She did it for the bills of course.Now We just came into a situation and I do not know what to think of it. I am not jealous of her with the other men. That is fine, sometimes I thought of it kinda kinky. I guess a little problem I have. We satrted out as swingers, Then with the bills said why not try it. At first she sayed she did not like it. And always said if she started enjoying it that she would quite, I am sure she sayed this to stay true to me?, But recently I haved discovered a sexual side of her(that she was doing with her clients) not with me. she was hiding this from me. i found one certain client that she has been seeing over a year now if not 2 years. She does have a few regulars so no big deal there. But she was doing things with him and not charging the extras for it. Meaning staying longer than a hour, doing greek and not charging extra. and having rough sex. Now when I caught her she explained that she does enjoy the way he f**** her and she wanted to try and experment with other sexual needs. And she did not feel like disclosing this to me. she is in nature a follower and submissive, She did say that she does not have feelings for him. it is just a client that likes to see. I feel so betrayed right now, because we always said we would confid with each other everything, I know that she does not tell me everything from her sessions to protect me I guess, But now I am Just not sure about us..Please help with some amswers. we do love each other, but she doescan not quite till after a few months..

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My Girlfriend is an Escort

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