An escort screening her clients is the number one thing she can do to stay safe in this often risky business. You MUST know who you will be opening the door to. Its an imperative, it will keep you free and it will keep you alive. Devising a screening process and staying on top of that process and keeping it current and relevant is something every escort must do and those that don’t will eventually end up in jail, hurt, or dead.
Screening is important. I will shout from the roof tops and often have how important it is to screen. I will also be just as vocal and just as passionate about how you do NOT give the “how” of screening techniques to non escorts. How you do not make that very important process available to just anyone. The HOW of screening, the specifics of what we do to verify and know who it is that will cross our door is a trade secret. Its a complicated process and there’s the 100 ways to skin a cat element as well as geographical concerns among many other nuances that need to be taken in to account. Its information we trade among each other and do not give to people who are outside the trade. Its generally accepted that this is need to know information. There are private message boards, Yahoo groups, Google groups national and local boards that have ladies sections, escort only sections, where people who have been in the business a while can share what they’ve learned and pass that knowledge on to others who might need it. Where the prying eyes of shady people and government agencies don’t have free rein . They are closed forums you often have to prove your legitimacy as an escort to gain access to them and they are closed for a very real reason. To keep people safe.
Once you tell someone how you do something you then have opened up a way for them to get around that process and get around it they will and they have. Your process becomes obsolete, it no longer keeps you safe and you rely on that process to keep you out of jail and to keep you breathing. Your screening process is your number one defense. Your greatest risk management tool. Which is why i was so very upset when i came across a link to a blog on twitter. A blog that detailed screening techniques of escorts.
At the recent sex workers conference which was held in Vegas there was a panel on screening. Though i didn’t attend the conference many people i know did and many people i know helped plan the event. People put in a lot of hard work and still others got a lot out of going to the event. The moderator of this particular panel after the conference put up a blog post with the notes from the conference detailing some specific escort screening techniques as well as the full audio of the panel in question.I don’t know who the panel speakers were i only recognised one name of one current respected working escort. The moderator was himself not an escort. It wasn’t just about escort screening but also touched on other areas of legal sex work and screening for them.
Now i have issue with the blog post itself, as there is so much bad info mixed in with the screening techniques that it not only does harm one way but other ways as well and if it was posted in private escort only form i would have spoke up about the bad info and detailed why i felt it wasn’t viable and not to be relied on but it was public and not private forum where this trade info was posted and my main concern was to try to reason with the blog owner to take the info down or edit out the escort screening techniques specifics.
The blog owner decide to leave it it. This person who is NOT an escort decided he said with the input of some other people to leave the information available to all who wished to find it including LE, creepy douchebags who like to hurt women and blacklisted clients.
I suppose this person doesn’t field requests from law enforcement who try to book appointments and want to take people to jail. I suppose this person doesn’t have to field requests from angry men who think escorts are easy prey and targets because what they do is illegal and they think they can get away with robbing us, harming us and even killing us. But i do, my colleagues do, we do on a daily basis
On my website anyone can see what I ask my potential clients to provide, someone might think based on that they can tell how i screen but that wouldn’t be the case. Telling someone what info you need and detailing to someone what you do with that information are two very different things! We need screening to be a bit mystified for the general population. Its a trade secret, it needs to remain a trade secret or it puts all of us in danger.
Is this another case of someone who is not an escort knowing whats best for escorts? Possibly, I mean were to stupid to know our business and whats best for us… right? We need someone who is not in the business to tell us whats best for us. I don’t believe this person has malicious intentions but they are not self identified as an escort, they do not live it and breath it on the daily. They do not invite strangers into their room to fuck them for money, so they do NOT Know . Hobbyist and clients often think they know all about what its like to be an escort but they don’t they know what its like to be a client. bloggers know knows what its like to be a blogger and though we can all empathise and educate our selves to be as clear as we can about areas of sex work that are not specific to us when you start to think you know whats best for another sex workers area of expertise and actively do something to further YOUR agenda on the matter then you have crossed the damn line. A line has definitely been crossed here.
I get email from new girls to the business regularly and i always do my best to help them out if i can. I’m not the only one who does this. Many long time working girls when approached personally will share what they know. We reference other girls into private groups, just as we reference our clients to other girls. We help them them get listed with screening services , websites and forums. We give back but we do it privately because if you think Law Enforcement doesn’t have its finger on the pulse or that creepy motherfuckers dont scour the net for ways to get round the process we put into place you would be dead… ass…wrong. They do.
Are you willing to put someones life at risk because you think you know whats best for escorts and how they handle their business? Because that’s what we’re talking about here. Are you ready to be responsible for a working girl losing her freedom, her kids, her livelihood because YOU know whats best for her. Its not a bloggers ass on the line… its mine, its my colleagues its the hundreds of working girls who go out there every day and do the best they can to manage their risk so they can come home from work and enjoy their lives.
I thought long and hard before i decided to write this, i know not everyone will agree with me and that there is a small faction of escorts out there that think that putting this out there helps people get access to info they need and it does. It also arms those that wish to do those very same people harm with a way to do it. I know that info about screening has been leaked other places but this was information that was shared at a sex workers conference where it was supposed to be a safe place for sex workers and its now up on a fully search-able, googleable, indexed public blog and it was put up there by a panel moderator. I cant believe the short sightedness of this terrible decision. I’m floored by the irresponsibility of the whole thing. This isn’t keeping sex workers safe and its just plain wrong. I cant just stand by and be silent and let this pass. Remaining silent on the subject is the same as supporting it and i fully strongly and 100% do not support providing non escorts the details of how we as a group screen our clients to remain safe.
I’m not linking the blog because my readers are vast and this isn’t a closed forum but if you are a sex worker and don’t already know of which blog I’m speaking about email me jenny@goodtimejnny.com and i will mail you the link.
Hostess doesn’t tell you how they make Twinkies because its a TRADE SECRET but if the Hostess Twinkies recipe was to be decimated to the bakery community at large the end result would never be that a women lost her freedom or ended up murdered in a strange cities hotel room.
Update: 8/5/10 The blog owner of the blog in question sent me an email asking for a couple days to try to work this out and im hopeful that it can be.
I couldn’t read your whole thing, becuase I think your taking the screening part for escorts a bit out of context the panel discussed many things outside of escorting, and for some of us outside of the USA there is no standard screening proccess alot of men in Canada who visit escorts don’t want to screen and alot of the people who attended the panel were concerned of how to screen even if the person does not want to give out information.
I wasn’t able to attend the panel at the confernece I was pre-booked with a photo shoot so to have notes that I can refer to and be able to see how I can screen my clients without having them refuse to be screened helps and there is not something you can find in an escort only group.
This is nothing something you learn and many escorts out there do not help each other.
Canada and USA escorts and sex workers around the world have many different chanllenges and this panel was a way to educate others who do not have the same options
Minnie: i think you should read the whole thing before you make a judgement on what i wrote.
I’m not taking it out of context at all. I’m not taking about sharing the info on the panel at the conference. I’m talking about someone putting that info that was shared at the conference up on a blog searchable by everyone and anyone.
Jenny
As a hobbyist who doesn’t always want a hooker to know all my info, it’s good to have all that screening info easily available on the web. Now that I know HOW escorts screen, I can figure out how to get around it!
Thanks to that blogger for making it easier for someone like me to pull a fast one on some unsuspecting hooker!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jenny DeMilo, Jenny DeMilo. Jenny DeMilo said: New Blog post. Trade secrets http://bit.ly/bjoL9V Escorts are being put at by a blogger – GO read if you care about your community. […]
In a field of business that is, for the most part,unregulated in the USA,it is imperative for a provider to screen.The amount of info that she requires is up to her and the amount I am willing to give is up to me.
Fortunately, I found a great verification service which I use on a regular basis.I also have consulted with several of my regularly visited providers to use them as references to which they were kind enough to allow me to do. I cover most of the bases with these two options but it takes some time to build up a reference base. However, it is vital to have to ensure a smooth screening process.
A provider who does not screen makes me nervous,if she has that little regard for her own welfare,she has even less for mine or it is a set up,either way it raises a red flag to me.
There are limits to the amount of info I will provide and it has periodically put a date on hold or terminated the inquiry.I don’t fret,I just move on because everyone has a different approach when it come to screening and I can accept that,but it does not mean I am going to compromise my safety,it simply is just not worth it.
Good,helpful,informative blog Jenny,way to be pro-active,this blog will help some people,way to climb out of the crab basket! 🙂
mdrider
This is so fucked up, Jenny.
Willy: yeah it is fucked up.
That’s the problem with lumping all sex workers together. It’s not “trade” secrets, it’s trade safety tht is being compromised. I don’t care what country you are From, harm is as harm does- even to the smallest group, or the group not centrally focused on!
He needs to remove this. Jenny please emIl me the link. I will send to others I know as well. Perhaps if our outcry becomes louder, it will be recognized for being a legit concern, and not just brushed aside.
Xoxo
VC
The problem is that non sex workers tend to be dismissive about safety issues. The panel information you’ve described should not have been published because it would increase the risk of encounters with blokes who would normally be immediately rejected as a safety risk.
Thank you for exposing this.
Interesting stuff. I must respectfully disagree with much of your argument though, I personally don’t think there are that many trade secrets left in the world. Technology has changed our lives, information is developed, disseminated and shared with dynamic simultaneity in this day and age – There is a transparency in almost every facet of our lives. It used to be a question of not having the information at our fingertips, or not knowing where to get it. Now, it’s a matter of seperating the wheat from the chaff – the information is out there, but sifting through it to find the truth is the challenge.
For Example –
I have been a hobbyist now for over 25 years, in that time, I have developed a specific way that I book appointments with providers. My phone mannerisms, the brevity of my questions, the avoidance of certain phrases etc, was all born out of hundreds of hours of discussions with escorts on waht they look for when they are contacted for an appointment. My bedroom manner when I
Sorry – I fatfingered the wrong keys…My bedroom manner when I enter the room of a girl I haven’t met before is a practiced dance, one that was learned over 25 years interacting with women on the other side of the business.
I completely agree that as hobbyists and men, we will never know what the job is really like, but after so many years, I don’t feel that there are too many “secrets” to the screening process, especially when you are an experienced hobbyist.
Now..It’s important not to confuse my exegesis of this discussion with backchannel information that providers share about an individual or specific situation. I agree wholeheartedly with Jenny on that point – It’s a crucial part of the business, but the infrastructure of *how* that information is shared is not nearly as important as the fact that the information *is* shared.
If your designs on making an appointment with an escort go beyond a mutually beneficial appointment, and malfeasence is on your menu, then it is much, much more important that you understand that the women in this business are very, very adept at reading human beings, and while you may fancy yourself a bad citizen, don’t ever mistake a providers kindness for weakness. I have met very few women in this business who can’t take care of themselves, or who don’t have close associations with people who make their living physically hurting others without blinking an eye.
Is there much secret about how providers screen and share information – Nah..not really, but know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that providers do have highly honed instincts, very good avenues of backchannel information, and most providers are survivors, and not victims.
VC, Stepford, thanks for your input 🙂
Cliff, cliff, cliff, where do i begin? Let me just say this. Your assumptions are not all correct and though you know what its like to be a hobbyist for 25 years you do not know what its like to be a hooker. I can tell you my experiences but that’s not the same thing. You fucking whores and me being a whore are not one in the same.
also you seem to think that experienced hobbyists are the only people we wish to keep certain process and procedures out of the hands of. That also wouldn’t be correct.
Let me use a sports analogy for you hobbyists out there (you dudes like sports right?) why do sports teams have playbooks? Why dont they just tell the other team what play they are gong to run? Run the ball up the middle or fake pass to the tight end.. oh i know because if they do that then they lose. When escorts lose they end up in jail, hurt or dead not just 1 game down in the season.
Wow. That Word-A-Day calendar really paid off, huh, Cliff?
By the way, I couldn’t help but notice, buried in that word soup, that you insinuate that most hookers associate with thugs who make their living physically hurting people. Nice! So that’s what you really think of all those whores you’ve been fucking for 25 years.
So, if I take your reasoning as fact, all the more reason for me to use every means necessary to hide my real self from the escorts. According to Cliff, there might be a leg breaker hiding in the closet! Good thing I now know how to fool those whores into thinking I’m safe.