So You Want To Be Her Favorite Client: A Meditation on Consent
Picture, for a moment, a building under construction. The pouring of the foundation. The scaffolding, and all the little workers high in the sky, supported by metal beams and harnesses and OSHA protocols. Consider how this building would get built if not for this scaffolding, and for all the little supports entwined in that.
A relationship is a building. It is made up of many rooms that hold feelings, memories, experiences, and intimacy. Of course, no building sprung up out of the ground fully formed. Neither does any relationship. Every relationship is different – the one you have with your best friend is different than the one you have with your boss, is different from the one you have with your mother, your wife, your child, your colleague. Each relationship requires different rules – social contracts – and consent decrees. When these social consent decrees are broken, it can damage or destroy your relationship. Not legally binding, but certainly consequential.
Engaging a companion is no different. It is a new relationship, with a new set of rules. And like that building that holds so many fascinating rooms, it needs a foundation, and it needs scaffolding as it gets built. It needs rules, boundaries, and mutual agreements on the limits of the relationship.
The foundation of this relationship is the transaction. The building does not exist without a foundation. After all, how can a developer (companion) create a building (meaningful experience) without an investment (her rate)? Think of yourself as providing seed money for a fruitful return. When you initially reach out to a companion, submit screening, and pay the deposit, you are pouring that concrete foundation. Step 1 has been completed and all the investors are happy – our building is on its way! Our metaphorical construction workers wipe the sweat off their brows and go home for the evening. With the foundation set, we can begin to get creative. That happens during our dates, when we negotiate physical limits, try new things together, and embark on unique experiences and adventures. Those things are no less real or impactful simply because the transaction undergirds them. Again, they can’t exist without it. Those are the many rooms in our building, the rooms that are supported by scaffolding and boundaries.
I know many clients don’t like to think of the transaction; it can feel cold to put it so bluntly. However, it’s important to acknowledge that within this transaction is the first layer of consent within this social contract. When you reach out to a companion, you understand precisely that you are doing so because it is her job. The offer is time for money. You would not submit a booking form for a girl you met on Tinder, so it makes no sense for you to treat a companion the way you would as if you met on a dating site. That’s not to say that you should be disrespectful to those women, by the way, simply that the rules of engagement are different.
But if you can transform the transaction, and see it as that solid concrete foundation, see it as the stage that allows you to play freely, perhaps you can begin to see the beauty of its role. The transaction creates a bubble for us, a place we can romp around and be liberated from the normative social constructs we are beholden to in other places of our lives. The social contract we make together is often expansive, inclusive, and compassionate toward our more repressed desires. And just like BDSM and kink need rules in order to defy the norm, so do even the most vanilla situations with a companion.
The scaffolding – this is made up of the smaller, nuanced rules that a companion sets, that are often explicitly laid out on her ad or website. Which means that if you’ve reached out, you should know, at least in part, what is expected of you. Some of these rules may include: screening requirements, no chatting between sessions, deposit requirements, incall/outcall requirements, travel fees, and of course, the rate. Haggling a rate, trying to evade screening, or trying to usurp someone’s time without paying is a consent violation, and rips down the scaffolding. You cannot build a relationship without these things.
A companion’s job is not simple. Along with being hot, sexy, and entertaining, a companion is often also gentle, kind, listening, soothing, advising, planning, and often making second-by-second choices to recalibrate situations to make sure that the client is having the best possible experience. That is the job, and despite its complications and complexity, it can be quite enjoyable. And again, the companion is consenting to do her job based on the foundation of your investment. Just as you would likely not show up for work if your boss said “Hey I’m not paying you today,” or if your boss tried to talk to you about work on your day off, neither would a companion. That’s easy to understand.
Not to go off on too much of a tangent, but I wonder sometimes if clients resent that companions set their own terms. I would like to say that if your boss is rude, abusive, or takes advantage of you, that you would not go to work. But I know, having worked in many industries where that was the norm, that it isn’t always possible to forgo work where the conditions are unfair. I get it, and I empathize. What doesn’t help your work situation, however, is turning against companions for exercising the freedoms you wish you had. Just because you may be in a work situation that isn’t ideal does not mean that companions have to tolerate your bad behavior or disrespect. It’s not a situation of “If I have to tolerate abuse, so do you.” Many of us choose this work specifically because we crave the autonomy, and are willing to give up a lot of other valuable things in order to have it (if you’re envious of our independence, consider for a moment criminalization, stigma, and a complete lack of labor rights or protections. Still jealous?).
That being said, it is imperative that our boundaries are not just tolerated, but respected and appreciated. In any relationship, consent is a two-way street. Because consent is a two-way street, boundaries have to be enforced by both parties. The trouble starts when one person is slacking on their end of the deal. By far, my favorite and closest clients are the ones that not just check-in about physical touch, but also respect and help me maintain the boundaries of the social contract we both consented to. That means they tip me when they email me; they pay attention to what I like and try to offer it to me when they can; they never try to squeeze more time out of me than they’ve paid for.
When one person has to do all the work to uphold boundaries because the other party isn’t doing their job (like respecting my unpaid time), it means I am suddenly under the weight of two people’s workloads. I am responsible for maintaining both my own and someone else’s boundaries. What does it mean for me to be upholding boundaries by myself? Things like: a client excessively communicating with me between sessions without offering tips, overstaying in dates, or haggling my rates. In each circumstance, I am forced to reiterate the rules that we both already know exist.
It not only puts me in a terrible position, one that is both unkind and unfair, but it violates my consent. I’m not comparing that to other types of consent violations such as rape, assault. Consent is relevant in a lot more places than simply physical touch. Most importantly, the client needs to understand that I would not be here if I knew the boundaries were not going to be upheld. The entire relationship crumbles when this happens. Just like I don’t maintain personal relationships where the boundaries are broken, neither do I tolerate it professionally. If I tell my friend something that I ask to keep private and find out they’re telling people, that’s a consent violation and a reason to possibly end the friendship.
Of course, within friendships, the preference is to talk it out and see if there can be a resolution. But this is more complicated with clients, because there is an inherent power imbalance. When your livelihood depends on making someone happy, it can be extraordinarily difficult to tell a client that what they’ve done is upsetting, wrong, or a violation. I hate to say it, but many clients know this and take advantage of it. When I am in a room with a client whose behavior I need to correct, I am taking into account not just the potential loss of income but my bodily safety. Some clients know this, and take advantage of it by leaving it up to me to maintain boundaries, like a game of cruel chicken. I try to screen out these types of people from the beginning, but people move quietly and can have an insidious underbelly that isn’t always obvious. Sometimes, people aren’t self-aware enough to be manipulative explicitly, but I do think that they still know, deep down, that what they are doing is wrong on some level. A client who respects my time, for example, may set his own timer during our date, or vocalize his preparing to leave ritual, instead of asking for us to start a new activity 10 minutes before our time is over.
When a client enacts a consent violation, such as not respecting my emotional boundaries, my time, etc., it makes me think two things:
I’m worried for the people in your life if you are this careless with your relationships
Do you only do this to companions because you see us as less than human? As undeserving of basic human dignity and respect?
So many clients never think they’re part of the problem because they’re generous, or never touch without asking. And the buck stops there. They never consider how they would like it if they were in this position – if at their job, someone broke the social contract that allows them to do their job gracefully and efficiently. And I think a good deal of them would be horrified at themselves if they could see from a bird’s eye view. If they aren’t, then they probably do treat the people in their life like that, too, and that’s honestly terrible to think about.
It sometimes feels like clients think that the transaction means they can abandon rules altogether, in a sort of “I paid for this so I can have whatever I want.” That’s not how it works, and underneath it, they know this. One doesn’t go to an esthetician for a facial and then demand a bikini wax because they paid for it and they can do whatever they want. That would obviously be nonsense. So why, then, do clients think it’s ok to pay for a block of time and disregard all the other rules? The time in the room together is only consented to because of the rules. It seems to come down to a lack of care or respect for the fact that there is another human being involved in this relationship. If you consider yourself someone who is caring, compassionate, and empathetic toward other people, then it is in your best interest to uphold your own ethics and treat a companion with professionalism and courtesy, as you would any other professional providing a service.
I’m so grateful for the clients that respect me, that I have been able to form genuine connections with because of our shared interest in maintaining boundaries together, to be able to create something in a space with one another that is untainted by the realities and sometimes dreariness of day to day life. We form real attachments and connections because everyone is being respected as they asked for. Nobody is compromising themself or their autonomy. It is that sweet, and unique relationship that allows us to blossom forth, and begin to really know one another on a more intimate level.
For that is the beauty of the scaffolding: when both parties uphold their end of the deal, treasure each other’s consent and don’t take advantage of power imbalances, it allows the whole world to open up. I am free to do the most pleasurable part of my job, without having to maintain the boundaries for both of us. I can simply show up and provide a great time, and the client can simply show up and enjoy themself. What’s more, I am genuinely excited to reunite with these clients, and the shared intimacy we build because of the boundaries upheld is refreshing, real, and powerful. It can even be life-changing, for both parties. Having witnessed and experienced this has validated for me the importance of the rules of engagement, and the power of consent.
If you enjoyed this post, consider tipping me! Better yet, book a session where we can talk power, consent, and more as the ultimate foreplay.