Initial meeting with Ella and Ivy

Today I had my first meeting with Ella and Ivy. Although I consider myself very open minded, I was genuinely surprised by how normal both girls were. I went over the following with them, in an effort to gage how comfortable they both were discussing their work.

• Why women get involved, their motivations and the circumstances that lead them to working as escorts

• How did the women go about getting involved – through agencies or self advertising?

• What is the relationship like with your clients? Do they ever get the wrong idea and do you ever find yourself developing feelings?

• What is it like working as an escort? Is it as glamorous as portrayed on TV shows such as Secret Diary of a Call Girl etc

• How do you work alongside the law and how do the laws on prostitution affect the way you would like to work? Do you agree with the laws?

• How does it affect outside relationships?

They were both so chatty and intelligent, its made me so excited about recording! I wish that I had a camera with me to capture some of the comments, as they were put in a way that I had never considered before. Particularly interesting to me was how casually both girls talked about getting into the industry. They really did seem to see it as just another job, no more of a big deal than working in a bar. I think that this will definitely be an area that I would like to discuss when we record at our next meeting. I have discovered that the girls work both independently and through an agency, which really surprised me as I didn’t realise they would be allowed to do that. The business side came over very strongly, with both girls weighing up the benefits of independent work which they keep all the money from, and agency work which they pay commission on, but saves them time organising bookings, as well as helping to get their names out there.

The girls also told me about a few areas of the industry that I have not come across in my research. The first is the issue of internet forums, in which clients post reviews of the girls and discuss punting information. Apparently this website (UKPunting) has a massive impact on how the girls work, and the relationship between client / escort. This is something that I would definitely like to discuss further, and need to research in more detail. Another thing that particularly caught my attention was the girls insistence that their everyday spending habits had barely changed since starting work. This really surprised me, as escorting is an industry so often associated with big money and lavish lifestyles. The financial side is another area that I feel is very important to explore in more detail.

Going forward, I have suggested to the girls that I organise a reddit AskMeAnything. This is where people can post about an aspect of themselves: ie. “I am a 22 year old escort, ask me anything”, and then people from all over the world can ask questions regarding this. Ella has agreed, and its something that I am very keen to do as I want to know the areas of interest from people outside the industry, as this should help uncover which aspects are surrounded by the most intrigue and speculation. I am meeting Ella at her flat next week to set this up.