I think what is being missed here is the cost/price of emotion/mental labour. Here is some information on it. The first link is an excellent research paper by Mary Pat Dutton and is a must read as it's all about our unique position, unlike the murky discussions of women's emotional labour in a personal/family relationship. It's a PDF but not a difficult read.
Faking it: Emotional labour and Prostitution.
Mary Pat Dutton
University of Montana
scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6351&context=etd
This is an excerpt from a short article on Medium.com. A good overview introduction...
"Sexual desire can put people in a place of extreme emotional vulnerability, especially if they harbor alternative desires that they’ve been rejected for in the past. When clients make that first contact, they are often blindly putting all of their sensitivities and shame in the hands of the sex worker. They’re craving acknowledgement, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and acceptance — even if they’re not introspective enough to realize it. When their proclivities are met with a subsequent lack of judgment, the sex worker establishes themselves as a “safe” person, and often unwittingly becomes the focal point for the client’s overall emotional unrest. This turns the interaction from one of sexual labor — a consensual, mutual agreement between client and provider where the provider is getting compensated for their advertised services — to one reliant on unpaid emotional labor."
https://medium.com/@HARLOT/what-s-it-worth-to-you-charging-for-emotional-labor-is-an-inherently-feminist-act-195e7b979300
This article is more mainstream but still some good insight on the emotional/mental labour challenges today...
"Emotional labor also includes helping others manage their emotions: providing relational support, listening, ensuring cooperation between other people, empathizing, and soothing other’s emotions. "
https://ldsmag.com/invisible-labor-valuing-the-unseen-contributions-of-women/
sempel, you seem to ignore emotional/mental labours existence and believe the only two aspects of the industry is time and services. That is an erroneous belief and times are changing. On the reread, that was what I was trying to say but the clarity wasn't there. Providers now realize they provide more than that simple time/services/money equation and yet most continue to be unpaid for their efforts. Thinking that a client who takes more emotional/mental labour but doesn't require more physical services shouldn't be charged extra even tho he is utilizing a much more costly service for us to offer is absurd and incredibly entitled. That is where the increased pricing come in in my case. A physically low energy client may in fact be an emotional energy vampire and leaves us feeling drained and unable to see other clients that day. The challenging client is called challenging for a reason, they make us work harder than we have decided to in our business plan. Why should we not charge for this type of labour just as we do for a la carte sexual services?
Before anyone jumps on the "other professions" that provide emotional/mental labour and their pricing structures bandwagon, remember that those professions don't suffer the marginalization or have to deal with the danger or stigma sexworkers do. There was a time when we were paid well for being society's sin eaters but those days are gone. Providers now need to ensure they are paid for all the work they do, all the services they provide outside of the sexual services/time paradigm because todays industry doesn't allow an income to compensate for the bullshit we go thru for doing this work with the simple time/services model because it isn't accurate to our work. That doesn't constitute price discrimination, it's simply getting paid for all the services we provide rather than what other people like to think we provide.
And, no where did any provider say they charge clients more just because they can afford to pay more in this thread. You need to stop trying to brand providers as gold diggers because we aren't. We are business owners and should be respected as such the same as any small business owner. Gold digging is a different category of behaviour and doesn't apply to sex workers in any way. You are attempting to boil this down into simplistic examples and that doesn't work. Your input doesn't take our reality into consideration in any way shape or form therefore it's not complete. You can't ignore factors that influence pricing then come to a conclusion that omit critical components. I realize this makes the discussion far more complex but it's necessary for your conclusions to be accurate on any level. Pretending this aspect of our work doesn't exist therefore shouldn't be factored into the financial equation doesn't make it untrue nor will it make it go away...
smiles, cat
Faking it: Emotional labour and Prostitution.
Mary Pat Dutton
University of Montana
scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6351&context=etd
This is an excerpt from a short article on Medium.com. A good overview introduction...
"Sexual desire can put people in a place of extreme emotional vulnerability, especially if they harbor alternative desires that they’ve been rejected for in the past. When clients make that first contact, they are often blindly putting all of their sensitivities and shame in the hands of the sex worker. They’re craving acknowledgement, encouragement, reassurance, comfort and acceptance — even if they’re not introspective enough to realize it. When their proclivities are met with a subsequent lack of judgment, the sex worker establishes themselves as a “safe” person, and often unwittingly becomes the focal point for the client’s overall emotional unrest. This turns the interaction from one of sexual labor — a consensual, mutual agreement between client and provider where the provider is getting compensated for their advertised services — to one reliant on unpaid emotional labor."
https://medium.com/@HARLOT/what-s-it-worth-to-you-charging-for-emotional-labor-is-an-inherently-feminist-act-195e7b979300
This article is more mainstream but still some good insight on the emotional/mental labour challenges today...
"Emotional labor also includes helping others manage their emotions: providing relational support, listening, ensuring cooperation between other people, empathizing, and soothing other’s emotions. "
https://ldsmag.com/invisible-labor-valuing-the-unseen-contributions-of-women/
sempel, you seem to ignore emotional/mental labours existence and believe the only two aspects of the industry is time and services. That is an erroneous belief and times are changing. On the reread, that was what I was trying to say but the clarity wasn't there. Providers now realize they provide more than that simple time/services/money equation and yet most continue to be unpaid for their efforts. Thinking that a client who takes more emotional/mental labour but doesn't require more physical services shouldn't be charged extra even tho he is utilizing a much more costly service for us to offer is absurd and incredibly entitled. That is where the increased pricing come in in my case. A physically low energy client may in fact be an emotional energy vampire and leaves us feeling drained and unable to see other clients that day. The challenging client is called challenging for a reason, they make us work harder than we have decided to in our business plan. Why should we not charge for this type of labour just as we do for a la carte sexual services?
Before anyone jumps on the "other professions" that provide emotional/mental labour and their pricing structures bandwagon, remember that those professions don't suffer the marginalization or have to deal with the danger or stigma sexworkers do. There was a time when we were paid well for being society's sin eaters but those days are gone. Providers now need to ensure they are paid for all the work they do, all the services they provide outside of the sexual services/time paradigm because todays industry doesn't allow an income to compensate for the bullshit we go thru for doing this work with the simple time/services model because it isn't accurate to our work. That doesn't constitute price discrimination, it's simply getting paid for all the services we provide rather than what other people like to think we provide.
And, no where did any provider say they charge clients more just because they can afford to pay more in this thread. You need to stop trying to brand providers as gold diggers because we aren't. We are business owners and should be respected as such the same as any small business owner. Gold digging is a different category of behaviour and doesn't apply to sex workers in any way. You are attempting to boil this down into simplistic examples and that doesn't work. Your input doesn't take our reality into consideration in any way shape or form therefore it's not complete. You can't ignore factors that influence pricing then come to a conclusion that omit critical components. I realize this makes the discussion far more complex but it's necessary for your conclusions to be accurate on any level. Pretending this aspect of our work doesn't exist therefore shouldn't be factored into the financial equation doesn't make it untrue nor will it make it go away...
smiles, cat