Though I no longer use different stage names (in fact, virtually nobody except the government uses my legal name any more), I still have different email addresses and different websites for my activism and my sex work. This blog and this email address are for my blogging and activism, while my escort site (Google my name & “Seattle escort” to find it) and this email address are for hiring my professional services as an escort. And if you approach me through Twitter I’ll probably point you to whichever of those seems more appropriate.
Now, I don’t mind getting inquiries about my professional services through my activism address (though I will probably switch the correspondence to the other address when I realize what you want); the activism address is a lot better known and some people who want to hire me don’t know where to find the other one, so it’s all good. However, I find myself rather annoyed when I answer an email to my escort address and find something blog-related. Anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of human psychology, and/or a few months of following my writing, should understand why: when I see an email come in through that account, I naturally expect it means potential income, and that pleases me on both a practical and a sexual level (because money turns me on). So how do you think I feel when I find no money is being offered? Exactly. And I don’t like feeling that way about communications from my readers, so please don’t do that. The other day, some chowderhead made an even worse faux pas; he actually used my escort site booking form to request an (uncompensated) interview. Given that the fraction of booking-form emails which actually turn into paid bills is quite high, I was even more annoyed at this false alert than I would’ve been from a simple email to the wrong address, and when he told me that he used the booking form on purpose because he figured it would get my attention better…well, let’s just say my response was somewhere between “cross” and “I have a good mind to tell you to fuck off”.
But even this irritation is not as powerful as the seriously-pissed-off feeling of opening my escort email to find someone trying to extract money from me by hawking some product or service. Here’s a word of advice on that: Don’t. As in, don’t ever do that. If you want to interest me in your whatever-it-is, send an email offering me a free trial or sample or whatever, and if it sounds good I’ll let you send it to me (with no guarantee I’ll buy it or even like it). But a straight-up sales pitch or begging letter with not even the pretense of a gift or offer? Forget it. And if you’re dumb and rude enough to do that, expect me to immediately install a new filter so future emails from you go straight to the trash.
