First interview - thoughts

Today I recorded my first interview with Ella and Ivy. I’m really pleased with how it went, and I got some really interesting information. A few thoughts:

• The girls were so casual about how they got into the industry. There was absolutely no suggestion of coercion or not having another choice, although Ella did say that she didn’t think she would have got involved if she hadn’t been short on money. Both girls had previous experience in the adult industry, and I got the impression that this gave them a very different perspective of the job to if they hadn’t worked in a similar way before. I am really pleased to hear that they were happy to get involved, however my only slight concern is that their experience might be a lot more positive than other girls. Although I don’t want to succumb to the stereotypical view that girls never want to work as escorts, part of me wonders how much the fact the girls are educated, middle class and students has an impact on their positive experience. I feel a big responsibility not to paint a purely positive picture, as I believe this would be as dangerous as painting an entirely negative one. This is one of the problems with only interviewing two escorts. On the other hand, although the girls have described their entry to the industry in a positive way, it is no way glamourous. One of my motivations for making this film was to show the real side of the industry, as I believe it is heavily glamorised in many media and pop culture portrayals.

• Ella and Ivy both seem to genuinely enjoy what they do. Ella highlighted the fact that she finds it exciting, which I can understand. There is an element of taboo about the industry which I can see might be attractive to some people. They both spoke a lot about how satisfying they find it when a client leaves happy, which makes sense as it is such a one on one experience that you must really feel a sense of responsibility to individual clients.

• Leading on from this, I’m beginning to see how much more there is to the job than I first expected. Although I assumed it can’t be as simple as having sex for money, I was not expectingthere to be so much involved in the girlfriend experience. It seems to me that it is everything that goes alongside the sex – the conversation, the cuddling kissing etc – that makes the difference between a girl that receives regular bookings and a girl that struggles to work. I had come across the term “girlfriend experience” before, and actually think it perfectly sums up what the girls seem to do. I don’t think many people could actually be this way in a professional environment, and I imagine it must take an emotional toll on the girls, although this wasn’t mentioned, and I didn’t ask as I want to avoid asking leading questions and imposing my own assumptions on what they do.

• The word intimacy is one that particularly stuck out for me, as it is one most commonly associated with romantic relationships. The girls seem to engage in something halfway between completely emotionless sex, and an open relationship with their clients. The lines seem pretty blurred between the fantasy and real feelings, which is understandable as it must be incredibly to separate the physical from the emotional, if not for the girls then for the men seeking a girlfriend experience. For me this was the most interesting part of the interview, and I would like to explore the differences of work intimacy and real life intimacy in further interviews.

• The industry has its own language. Ella and Ivy have explained to me the definition of a few abbreviations and terms, and it just goes to show how much of a community it is. These generally understood terms are completely unique to the escorting world, and I think most people not involved wouldn’t have a clue about what they meant. I think its things like this that make it all seem so alien to the outside world, and I’m hoping that explaining these little things in the film will help to show that it isn’t that far from what we all understand, and make the people more accessible.

Ella has offered to put me in touch with one of her clients - Dirk - who has been using escorts for around 30 years and is also currently in a relationship with a girl that works at Ella's agency. I have his email address and Ella is also giving him a call to make sure he doesn't mind me contacting him.