Selling Sex Made Me Pity Men

But I pity their wives even more.

I began manipulating men for money when I was seventeen.

Manipulating is a very strong word, actually, since I was so used to being treated poorly by men that asking them to pay a small amount for my participation felt tantamount to extortion. When I was seventeen, struggling with chronic illness and unable to ask my parents for money for the school trips that were a compulsory part of my education, I decided that I would harness the power of my femininity and make men pay for everything. From a purely financial perspective, it kind of worked: an accountant named David gave me a grand total of £550 (about $750) over a few weeks, and all I had to do was send some flirty emails and go on a single date to see Les Miserables in the West End with a kiss goodnight.

David, who had the time of his life behind the velvet rope of the Sondheim theatre sipping champagne with a teenage girl who he was pretty sure was over eighteen, was probably enacting some kind of moderately-expensive midlife crisis. I, enjoying the idea that I could monetise the gross sexual attention I was receiving from old men anyway, paid for my school trips and even went to Brighton for my birthday.

Photo by Gio Mikava on Unsplash

When I talk about how much I hate my clients, I don’t quite mean David, even though I do think he is gross and creepy. While…