Susannah Breslin's Letters From working Girls Project

I just posted about Susannah Breslin's Letters From Johns Project. The online project began in 2008 and ended in 2009. Along with the Letters From Johns project Breslin created another online project entitled Letters From Working Girls. This project too, began in 2008 and ended in 2009.

In my last post I posted several excerpts from various letters from Johns. As a feminist I am not in favor of prostitution however I do feel it is necessary to examine both sides of any argument.

I've been fascinated with sex workers for many years as I feel they go through war zones. Street workers, high priced hookers, brothel prostitutes, rent boys etc. All make for interesting story tellers I'm sure. My heart goes out to sex workers. I do not shame the sex worker I am saddened by patriarchy.

Women who feel they are powerful or in control of their sexuality by selling it to another are influenced by patriarchy. Men who feel that controlling and dominating another through sex acts is an example of patriarchy. Women and men alike who compromise themselves in anyway through sex is an example of skewed logic.

Disclaimer: Stories contain sexually explicit material.


(source)

35 year old single mom....
I was a 35 yr old single mom who did not receive child support payments the court had ordered. I made money as a personal trainer, a yoga instructor, a bikini bar dancer and a stripper. After being injured and out of work long enough to go through my savings, I found my self in a desperate position. While placing my perishables in my neighbor’s refrigerator and freezer (the power was cut off in my apt. ) I felt desperate & ashamed, but thank goodness, I was pretty. That night, I left my son with my neighbor and dragged myself into the bikini bar. Once there I got dressed, hit the floor and immediately ran into a good looking, lighter haired, younger version of Richard Gere. He was my age, happily married to a beautiful woman who graduated from the university I dreamed of attending. He was a successful, upper middle class businessman. We had instant chemistry and an ease you usually reserve for close friends. I told him point blank, “I need $300 to get my electricity turned back on”. He made some silly joking response and told me he would cover it, I went further with him in the VIP than I’d ever gone before, allowing him to touch my breast through my clothing and feeling him up as well. By the end of the night, I had the $300 and his phone number. He left with the knowledge that I enjoyed sex and needed help financially. We started seeing each other about once a week, at my apt. when he was supposed to be on his way to work. He didn’t like to have a set amount, so I would let him know what I needed and for what and he would give me the money. In his mind, I guess that made me a girlfriend or mistress instead of a whore. His wife got pregnant and had a child during our time together. I moved to a better neighborhood and he helped with the move and rent. We talked like really good friends, but, toward the end, I was rude and mean just to get rid of him.


I figured what the hell (full story)
My introduction to the biz went down like this: I was boning this guy who would come up from Montreal every weekend and eventually I started seeing someone more local and so the last time that he came to see me I told him I didn't want to see him any more and he asked me if I'd considered ever doing it for money. At the time I figured, what the hell, I've already slept with this guy and now he wants to pay me. Works for me. It was such an ego trip. I branched out after that and started posting ads online whenever I needed money for anything. I discovered that I both enjoyed it and it was not what I had expected at all (sometimes it is exactly what I expected). Most of my johns are middle-aged men with beer bellies who are unhappy with their wives, or are out-of-town on business. They are, on the whole, pretty boring to talk to, but that is what they all want. To talk and then be seduced by a sexy twenty-something. And I am exceptionally good at making them believe that I am genuinely interested, that I'm not faking it (sometimes I'm not), that I really love it when you call me "sweetie" (this is probably my least favourite thing to be called during a session, my Dad calls me sweetie, not good associations). I really shouldn't complain, at $200 an hour you can call me whatever you want. My story isn't full of horribly degrading acts done in the desperation of drug addiction. I'm not from a broken home and my parents are still married. I take pride in doing my job well and leaving my clients satisfied. When I was reviewed the first time, for an online escort review forum, I remember being nervous knowing that the guy was going to write one and was thinking of all the possibly negative things he might mention, like that ingrown hair, or my calloused feet. I was totally obsessing over it. But the review was glowing, as were all the ones that came after it. It isn't a great feeling knowing that you are being evaluated sexually and that your looks, hygiene and even your location (of the incall) are up for criticism. I'm not sure my how my ego would react if I was ever reviewed negatively. It'd be a blow to my self-esteem to be sure. But my reviews speak of me as I wish I was (without acting). I often have trouble seeing what others see as positive in me (even in my personal life) and while the reviews do boast of my carnal skills and my good-looks, they also discuss my fun-loving personality and intelligence. Part of me does this to boost a self-esteem that isn't always there and the other part of me enjoys the power in it all. That is, having something that men want and then making them pay for it. Or alternatively, throwing their money in their face. Figuratively-speaking. I call the shots and if you don't like it, go elsewhere. That and I could never bring myself to work a legit, 9-5 job. I'm 25, I figure I'll do it for a few more years, prove to people that it should be decriminalized here, make some bank (so that I have something to show for it, if my parents ever found out) and get out before it eats me up inside.


19 year old...
About me: I am nineteen years old, good-looking, with a great figure, enough to do modelling now and again when I feel like it. Guys buy my drinks, drive me home and light my cigarettes. So why oh why, you might wonder, did a girl like me turn to being an escort? The reason is simple: money. I have a student loan and an overdraft to pay off, along with rather large phone bills (what being a sociable person gets you), and a miserable part-time job in a bar that has, up until now, paid minimum wage. Full-time work is near impossible to find, and there is no way that I can drink, smoke and get around on sixty a week; the taxi home from work costs ten alone. I know that might contradict the previous paragraph, but I do like to be independent sometimes. Another thing is that since becoming sexually active, I have become somewhat cynical of men and their motives. I’m good in bed, I instinctively know what to do and how to do it, and men love it. And after being used in the past, I have decided that I’m going to use them as well; might as well get something out of it, rather than waiting for the phone to ring!


Writer felt like she was born to whore...
Eventually, the glamor wore off and the stress of the job, the weirdo tricks, and the fear and shame took over and I had to stay mildly drunk just to get through the day. I got mugged by another pimp when I broke a cardinal rule about not getting in another pimp’s car. I talked my way out of it and started hiding out in hotel lounges instead of working. Woody threatened to drown me in the Pacific Ocean. By the end of the year, I had had enough, returned home, enrolled in college and got married. Flash-forward twenty-some years later. Divorced, mid-40s, single mom with two kids in a good career that just didn’t pay the bills. I started going to open mics with my poetry about my days as a hooker and met P. there. She, too, was an ex-hooker, and we became friends. In three years after my divorce, I fucked fifty-seven guys (almost all one-night stands), and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. P. and I started doing a lot of sex worker activism together, and pretty soon all my girlfriends were either former or current hookers, strippers and porn actors. P. decided to start escorting again, even though she was in her 40s like me. She was making money hand over fist, and it took a few more years, but I decided to give it a shot. I made a contract for myself that included such things as, "I will stay sober," "I will process my experience with others," and "I will never sacrifice my safety for money." I’ve been an internet escort now for almost three years. I’m approaching fifty, am forty pounds overweight, attractive, and am still somewhat surprised by how much money I make. I charge as much as the younger, "hotter" girls do, and I have a total niche. While the young chicks and I share a lot of the same clients, I tend to get the ones who aren’t comfortable with the younger girls, or who want a mature woman with sexual experience. When I’m in bed with a client, I often get a sense of total bliss. I feel so incredibly blessed and lucky. I was born for whoring, it’s my true life’s calling. Working as a whore has been an incredibly empowering experience for me, the money of which is not the least of that, and my only regret is that I struggled financially for so long as a single mom until I started escorting. I’m currently dating a former client who pays my bills, gives me a steady flow of cash and just bought me a car. He loves the fact that I’m a whore. It’s a turn-on for him. I’ll probably always work to some degree, whether I need the money or not. I just can’t imagine ever being chained to one penis for the rest of my life. It just wouldn’t seem fair.

To read more stories visit Letters From Working Girls.