I am a 24-year old in the US who has been interested in becoming an escort for a while, but I don’t know how to get started. How does one screen clients to make sure they aren’t dangerous (including cops)? I see your escort booking form asks for occupation & references, but what if they don’t have them? When is the appropriate time to talk about what sexual acts they are looking for? Where is the best place to start advertising? I just wish I had a step by step guideline. I wrote to a girl who’s highly reviewed in my area, but the response came from a guy in another state who said he is her “persona management.” He said that he books her clients, a woman does the screening and, they spend over $3000 per month on advertising for her. If I were to join they would take a percentage but I would be responsible for getting to all of my appointments. Have you ever heard of people doing this?
First, absolutely DO NOT make any deals with people you’ve never met. While there are still agencies, they’re going the way of the dodo in most markets and as a former service owner myself I’m telling you that you don’t need them (especially ones that try to hard sell you from the get-go with fancy talk of thousands of dollars a month in advertising). Frankly, this sounds to me like a scam, especially since you’re an unproven quantity at this point. The best thing for you to do (especially now that Backpage is kinda crippled) is to find your local escort boards and join. If you have a little seed money, it’s a good idea to get some professional pictures right away; if you don’t, find a friend you can trust who takes decent pictures to do your first ones, then after you get a couple of gigs you can hire a pro. You definitely want to make sure you like the work before you invest too much. As for screening, references are the best way to go for a beginner; as you go on you’ll talk to other girls and learn more tricks, including whitelists like Date-check and blacklists like Verify Him. It’s not a good idea to talk explicitly about sexual acts up front; this is partly because of cops, but also because some guys just want to jerk off while talking to you and you don’t want to give them free wanking material. Please check out my Mentoring tag, and the “Mentoring” section of my FAQ page; there’s a lot of stuff there and I think you’ll find many of the posts useful (including a number of them on screening). But probably the best all-around advice I can give you is to buy and read Amanda Brooks’ Internet Escorts Handbook; it’s a small investment and you’ll get a lot out of it.
(Have a question of your own? Please consult this page to see if I’ve answered it in a previous column, and if not just click here to ask me via email.)
