By Nancy Media
When Melissa first started escorting, she signed with an agency within a week. It felt safer somehow, having a company between her and the clients, people who would handle the logistics and screen the men and take care of everything except the actual appointments. She stayed with that agency for two years before going independent, and now, three years later, she'll tell anyone who asks that both paths have their own particular kind of hell.
The agency took forty percent of everything she made. Forty percent. When she thinks about it now, about all the money she handed over during those two years, she feels physically ill. But at the time, it felt worth it. The agency handled all her bookings, maintained her online presence, paid for professional photos, and most importantly, screened every single client. She showed up, did her job, and left. Everything else was someone else's problem. For a nervous beginner who had no idea what she was doing, that structure felt invaluable.
What the agency also provided was a buffer against the worst of client behavior. If someone became demanding or inappropriate, Melissa could say the agency wouldn't allow it. If payment was an issue, that was between the client and the agency. If she needed to cancel or had a problem, she had management to back her up. "I was protected," she explained when we met at a quiet bar in the East Village. "Or at least I felt protected, which might be the same thing when you're new and scared." The agency also gave her access to better clients, men who preferred the perceived legitimacy and security of booking through an established company.
But the forty percent wasn't the only cost. The agency controlled everything about her work life. They decided which clients she saw and when. They set her rates. They chose which photos appeared in her profile and how she was marketed. She had almost no autonomy, and if she disagreed with a decision, too bad. She was replaceable, and the agency made sure she knew it. "They treated us like products," Melissa said bitterly. "We weren't people with preferences and boundaries. We were inventory."
Going independent was terrifying at first. Suddenly she was responsible for everything: her website, her advertising, her screening, her scheduling, managing client communications, handling payment, maintaining her own safety protocols. It was like going from being an employee to running an entire business overnight. She made mistakes. She lost money on bad advertising. She had a few close calls with clients she should have screened more carefully. But she also started keeping sixty percent more of her income, and that made an enormous difference.
The freedom of independent work is intoxicating, Melissa told me. She chooses her own rates, her own schedule, her own clients. If someone seems wrong to her, she can decline without having to justify it to anyone. She can take a week off whenever she wants. She can decide to specialize in longer appointments or eliminate short bookings entirely. She controls her brand, her image, everything. "I'm not making someone else rich anymore," she said with satisfaction. "Every dollar I earn is mine, minus normal business expenses. That feels good."
But independence also means isolation. When she was with the agency, there were other escorts around, women she could talk to and learn from. Now she works alone, making every decision by herself, dealing with problems by herself, carrying all the risk by herself. When a client crossed a boundary last year and she had to handle the situation alone, she realized how vulnerable she actually was. There was no manager to call, no company backing her up. It was just her, trying to de-escalate a dangerous man in a hotel room, knowing that if things went wrong, no one would even know where to look for her.
As Melissa ordered another drink, I asked her which she'd choose if she had to start over. She laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "Neither," she said. "Both options are compromises. With an agency, you're safe but exploited. Independent, you're free but alone. The perfect situation would be keeping all my money while having institutional support, but that doesn't exist. So we choose our poison. I chose freedom over safety, but ask me on a different day and I might give you a different answer. That's the truth nobody tells you. There's no good option. There's just which bad option you can live with."
Comments
Post a Comment