An excellent book to read
"Thriving in sex work" by Lola Davina, published on July 15th, 2017.
This book was mainly written for providers, but some information are valuable for hobbyists too. I bought the book from Amazon.com.
On page p.256, "At the age of ten, I wrote in my journal, "I want to grow up to become a prostitute." Don't ask me why----"
I was shocked to read this paragraph.
After 28 years, Lola still remembered her first escort encounter in detail, and she has been friend with her first client for all these years.
I also learned a very important lesson from this book. Lola has very negative comments about reviews. Quoted from her book "Clients are entitled to explicitly describe, judge, and dominate sex workers. As if by offering ourselves sexually, we lose all claim to privacy. It is humiliating to have every aspect of our bodies catalogued down to how we groom our pubic hair. Our clients expect discretion, and yet the review boards strip that dignity from us. By detailing blow-by-blow accounts of our sessions, if we perform a certain act with one client, it's presumed that's available for anyone, undermining our authority to give consent."
I believed hobbyists need to read reviews as a reference guide before pulling the trigger. But, how much is too much in the review is the question. I had never look into this issue in providers' perspective, but I fully understood Lola's concerns. I also felt deeply sorry if I had ever offended any provider in my review while I was not intending to hurt anybody in the first place. The best way to solve this problem and to ease my mind is, I will not write anything to violate the privacy of provider's body nor any blow by blow activities unless the provider give me her permission specifically. However, hobbyists can always PM me with their questions, and I don't have to put providers' privacy under the sun for everyone to read.
On page p. 149 "Even if reviews are mostly positive, unkind criticisms can get under our skin, eroding our self-esteem, causing us to doubt ourselves. I used to get calls from my working friends in tears over some casual devastating comment they had just read. One friend checked the review sites obsessively, dozens of times a day. She couldn't stop thinking about what other people were writing about her. When someone said anything remotely negative about her, it kept her up at night."
p. 150 "The trap we fall into is believing we have to engage. Consider this: many athletes and actors never read their critics. Nasty little voices inside their heads undermine their excellence, so they don't give them that power."
It filled with heartfelt advice throughout her book. A very interesting read.
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