Vanessa D’Alessio wrote a great piece over at TitsandSass around the issue of showing your face in conjunction with your online escort work. My response got eaten by the Intertubes, I think. Instead of reposting, I decided to expand on it a little here.

This article has been at the back of my mind since I read it last week. My arc has been slightly different than hers. When I started stripping, I was fairly out and allowed myself to be photographed, topless, for one of my club’s websites (back when the Internet was indeed tubes that connected computers using gerbils and string). They never removed the picture despite repeated requests, even after I left stripping and began escorting. (It was later removed only because they redid their site.)

When I first began escorting 16yrs ago, I was full face, no tattoo-photoshop. No one ever popped up in public to identify me. I was extremely open about it to friends, family, and nowhere near as discreet as I usually am now. I knew it wasn’t harmless, I recognized that review culture was toxic, that I had to screen to avoid cops and bad clients. But I never felt unsafe with my face online at that time.

Was that naivete? Possibly. Or the world was just a little bit less connected then than it is now. The Patriot Act was only a few months old when I started, though I hated it then too.

But the more I’ve experienced and seen and heard, the more I keep my head down and do what I can to be a mystery to potential clients (and how to keep it vague in person with almost everyone). I can’t say I experience much backlash for hiding my face and other details escorts often share on their sites or social media. I reveal other things instead that are of no matter to me but act as fodder for those who want “more.” (A similar concept to my fake real name when I was a stripper.) I also screen like hell because the risk has just gotten worse. I get way more backlash for my screening requirements than my photo or social media gaps. I practice personal privacy assiduously in my real life too, though laws are making it tougher in that realm as well.

Anyone who knows me knows how much I’ve touted privacy, endlessly, even those who complain about how “complicated” it is. My life is my own and I’d like to keep it that way as much as possible, thanks. There is nothing too complicated when it comes to that.

I’ve long practiced personal online hygiene and have nearly zero trace of my personal self online. If it weren’t for this business, I would have almost nothing online at all. I saw the value of privacy long ago. I am often a contrarian. Back when everyone was touting “transparency” and joining every social media platform they could and splashing their lives everywhere, I asked myself what the obvious backlash from this would be. If the general populace was online, then where would the privilege and value reside? The answer to those questions was simple: privacy and zero online footprint. Good thing for us it’s not reserved solely for the rich, any poor person can have this luxury too by simply keeping themselves off the Internet.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that a microscope has slowly started being turned on us, both as sex workers and citizens living in the US. You have to be able and willing to cultivate double and triple lives/facades in order to be safe, IMO. You have to keep all this precisely compartmentalized.

But since you almost have to be online to be an escort, then keeping it strictly controlled under the boundaries of your persona is the only answer, keeping everything as compartmentalized as possible. This requires planning, research, and not posting when sleepy/drunk/high. It’s going to be worth it to your life in the long run.

For those who are afraid of Amazon revealing their home address via their Wishlists…why the fuck is anyone having anything delivered to their home??? This is Privacy 101. Learn it, live it, live it, live it. This is the only arena of my personal life where I’m comfortable with lying like a champ–to anyone who wants my actual, real info.

No, clients often have little clue of the value of what they’re asking for when they ask for more and more to be revealed online. Though I daresay the smarter clients are starting to want companions who keep a little online mystery as well. It makes them feel safer as they’re slowly becoming away of how many people can become connected if one person fails to log off their Facebook account (for example).

And yes, young sex workers often have little clue in the value of what they’re giving away. I wish more sex workers would shout from all their social media that they’re not going to reveal (whatever privacy lines they decide) and why. For more pieces like D’Alessio’s to encourage sex workers to cultivate the age-old sense of mystery the profession usually has. It’s seductive, sure, but it’s also such an important part of harm reduction these days.

PS: Despite what D’Alessio thinks, BBBJ was extremely common in Texas, and most cities I toured, well before 2008. Ironically, the majority of the ladies who offered it charged less than I did, who did not. I always thought that the greater the risk, the more you charge. That’s a Sex Work 101 lesson.

I see sex workers monetizing their social media, probably with that lesson in their head. I never think they charge enough.

3 thoughts on “face or no face?

  1. Hi Amanda, nice to hear from you again.

    Here in JustinTrudeauland, last bastion of the polar bear and Mounted Police, prostitution is decriminalized. We don’t fear FOSTA. But we do fear acrimony towards the profession.

    My real life is out there. My performer life is behind closed and locked doors. I’m well educated and well into the mature category. And it’s a small community. We probably rely as much on discretion as our guests.

    Those without the decades behind them are budding doctors, dentists, and lawyers paying off tuition fees in the $200K+ range.

    So when you are opening up somebody’s brain, it’s good to know that they won’t be calling you a whore too often.

    Guests know this. It’s a nice little arrangement. We aren’t professionals, but we sure could use some loving, wining and dining, just like them. Discretion is key.

    Someone who shows their face is a professional. You know it. They know it. And pricing aside, there’s always that fear that someone that obvious is hard core. It’s like asking the 401 for a date. We all know that they don’t really look like that, and that sets everybody up for disappointment. But the discreet charm of discretion is lost.

    The endless photos of elevated white bums wearing G Strings; the pneumatic titties in too-small bras; the “thank you for reading this” tedium. Doesn’t anybody like to be fresh, original, and wickedly funny? I digress. Everybody wants to be a fuck. Nobody wants to be a human being.

    The sloppy ones have phone numbers and gmail addresses. The smart ones are cloaked, and and cloaked again. So that when Jane Smith, Accountant shows up on his corporate email, nobody thinks twice.

    The upper echelons, like their guests, have private lives. Most of us would like to keep it that way.

  2. ThePinch — Canada does have different concerns, but they’re trying hard to change the laws up there too. And the fallout from FOSTA has reached into many English-speaking countries, unfortunately. None are as hard hit as the US, of course.

    I hear your gripe re: lack of originality. I’ve ranted about that one a lot over the years! On the other hand, as I’ve gotten older and my persona a bit more reclusive, I’ve found the value in hiding as a somewhat depersonalized fuck as opposed to putting my real self out for display. There’s a balance to be found, sure, but it is fun to cut through the air of pretension that’s often the other end of the unoriginality spectrum.

    Stigma never quite goes away, no matter the society. At least not in modern times, not yet. Australia is the most open of the English-speaking countries I’ve been to, it was so refreshing.

    “Sloppy” is exactly right. I don’t know why so many providers in the US don’t even bother with basic privacy, much less trying to learn some professional techniques. It’s getting to the point where they might as well announce they never use condoms–the analogy is nearly the same in my mind. Practice safe technology, everyone!!!

    “discreet charm of discretion” is the perfect phrase! Well put!!! That sums up everything.

  3. Hi, Amanda! Tonight I was watching the Smithsonian Channel (or was it NatGeo?) and they started running repeats from earlier in the night. So while switching channels, I came across a show called “Sex for Sale: American Escort” on Fusion.

    Let me back up a little…for some really strange reason, for the last few days I have been thinking about my first (and only) visit to an escort…more than ten years ago. It was in Atlanta, and she was this tall, awesome blonde with a fantastic smile! I was nervous as Hell, but she quickly put me at ease… and asked me to drop my pants. “Oh, good…a big one” she said with a big smile. She was great, the sex was great, you could tell she was really, really intelligent…and I’ll never forget her pretty face and beautiful smile.

    Anyway…I have been having visions of that encounter, and her unforgettable face and smile for several days now, and tonight, almost immediately after changing the channel…there she was, and it was YOU, Amanda Brooks!

    Strange things like this happen to me all the time, and I don’t mean running into former sex partners. Out of nowhere, I will find myself thinking about a person or event from my distant past, and then somehow, or in some way, something happens to bring it or them into my present in some way. As I’ve gotten older, it’s more often than not that I remember an old friend, try to find him or her on the web, only to discover they recently died. But this is one of the most different “deja vu” type moments I’ve ever had.

    If you never ever worked a day in Atlanta, then you must have a doppleganger…but surely no one else could have that exact same face, personality, and smile! In any event, it was great to see you again, even though that show was from 2012. I took early retirement and now live at a beach in Florida but who knows, maybe we will meet again some day.

    Sending positive energy…and good vibes!

    -Henry

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