For Successful Sex Workers, Brains Are More Important Than Looks

It’s a fallacy that sex work doesn’t require a woman use her brain.

It may look like sex workers only use their bodies to make money, but this is not true.

At least it’s not true for the most successful sex workers — the ones who have turned their jobs into careers that often earn them upward of six figures a year.

The idea that sex workers only sell their bodies is a fallacy perpetrated by members of mainstream society who project their own discomfort about sex onto highly sexual women.

Such individuals superimpose their own value system onto women like me, often believing we need to be “saved” and disparaging our work in general.

It never occurs to them that I might have freely chosen this job for its myriad of benefits as well as a way to explore my own sexuality.

Instead they put down women like me, saying we’re being used for our bodies and that our jobs don’t necessitate intelligence of any kind, when in fact our brains are very much a part of our success.

I’ll tell you a little known fact about the most successful sex workers I know: they are incredibly bright, and they use their intelligence as a competitive edge to earn them enviable salaries.

Being successful as a sex worker isn’t just about what you look like.

I can say from personal experience that the most successful sex workers I’ve known are often not conventionally beautiful.

One of the most successful escorts I’ve ever known is what most people would call overweight.

Another successful escort I’m friends with has a giant nose.

I used to work with a successful stripper who was over fifty years old.

One of the most successful dominatrixes I ever met had flat “pancake” breasts from giving birth twice, her butt was riddled with cellulite, and she had stretch marks on her stomach.

Still all these women often earned much more money than their more “conventionally beautiful” competition.

Why?

Confidence is more attractive than looks.

The older stripper I knew dominated the floor because of her personality. She knew how to talk to men, how to flirt with them and make them feel like they were the center of her world.

The dominatrix with the cellulite and the “pancake” breasts — when she put on her outfit you couldn’t see these “imperfections.” The most important tool she had was her brain. She knew how to get into a man’s mind, and she did it better than women who only had their looks to sell.

The overweight escort I know is savvy enough to understand exactly how to pose for photos so that her particular body type looks best. She’s created a brand for herself as a BBW, attracting clients who are after that specific experience.

Same goes for the heavily tattooed escort who markets herself as “exotic” or the older escort who markets herself as “mature.”

These women create brands for themselves, but they wouldn’t have known how to do so if they weren’t smart.

Many men seek sex workers who are their mental equals.

Many men are looking for more than just sex. They are looking for a connection and to feel special.

They are also often looking to have a great conversation. That means they don’t want a young woman who has nothing to talk about because she hasn’t lived.

For most men it’s enough that a woman has a “good” body. What’s considered a “good” body can mean a lot of different things. It definitely doesn’t mean a “perfect” body. It has more to do with whether a woman knows how to carry the body she has with confidence.

Sure, there are guys who just want a “Barbie,” but the men who pay the most don’t keep coming back if a woman isn’t smart enough to change up the experience she’s offering, to tease with new techniques, and to ultimately interact with a man like she’s his equal.

A sex worker’s looks can be enhanced.

A sex worker’s looks can also easily be enhanced. I call it increasing her curbside appeal.

Take when a homeowner wants to sell their house. It’s up to them to repaint the walls, landscape the yard, change all the fixtures, and maybe even redo the kitchen and the bathrooms, all to increase the overall appeal of the house.

But what the homeowner can’t do is rebuild the house; they can only work with what they have.

A sex worker can enhance her appearance the same way. She can’t change her body type, but she can get her nails done, her hair styled, and learn how to do great makeup.

She can learn how to pose in photos for maximum effect. In other words, she makes the most of her body type.

She can also wear clothes that look best on her and that hook a client in to become addicted to her.

She has to be smart enough to close the deal.

A woman who is conventionally beautiful might not have to do a lot to enhance her “curbside appeal,” but she often doesn’t know how to successfully close the deal.

Just like a homeowner can make his house look better to a potential buyer, he needs an astute realtor to get the buyer to sign on the line.

Therefore, even before meeting a client, a sex worker must know how to arrange a session that benefits her interests. She has to be smart enough to read through the manipulative practices that the worst clients try to pull and not let to them slow her down.

She has to always be one step ahead of her clients, knowing how to vet them to ensure her safety.

Once she has successfully arranged the session, then she must also conduct herself professionally when she shows up to meet a man.

Say they meet at his hotel. A woman must know to wear clothing that makes her look expensive — not cheap. She has to be smart enough to cover up in a long coat as she enters the hotel and not to just show up in a tiny dress.

When she finally meets her client, she needs to be intelligent enough to comport herself like a lady. She needs to have class.

This is why she doesn’t have to be conventionally beautiful or even young. She just has to smart enough to know how to enhance her looks and then to create an experience that will wow a client and keep him coming back for more.

Men want to feel like they’re the center of a woman’s world. They want to be spoiled and to feel like a woman is so turned on by them, even if she isn’t.

A sex worker sells a fantasy, and she has to be intelligent enough to do so without coming off as a fake.

To make money, she must run her business like a business.

A successful sex worker is probably also the webmistress of her own website. She has email lists, sends out newsletters to potential clients, and runs one if not multiple Twitter accounts.

She updates her members-only sites daily and has deep knowledge of SEO so that she can ensure the proper clients can find her.

So when people think sex workers don’t use their brains, this is insulting to women who find this line of work a way to secure financial autonomy in an often chaotic economy.

All such ignorant beliefs do is to further entrench prejudice toward sex workers and decrease their worth in the social hierarchy. Such beliefs also degrade highly sexual women in general.

The overall stereotype about sexual women is that they are stupid. These misconceptions are just not true, and they are harmful to women.

It’s time we do away with them.