Know thy self – erogenous zones

From time to time people send me links to articles about sexuality – which I’m always happy to receive! I was sent this one overnight and I thought it was worth sharing:

https://www.glamour.com/story/hottest-erogenous-zones-women

I doubt that most people will be surprised by most of these erogenous zones – but I think that it’s always good to be reminded that they exist and to be mindful of them the next time that we are with a partner.

That’s especially true with someone that we have been with for some time. It’s very easy to fall into a rhythm with sex – we know what our partner likes, they know what we like, we give that to each other and that’s it. Which is fine as far as it goes, but it does leave a lot “on the table” so to speak.

Yes we know what our partner likes and doesn’t like. But there is a gap between those two extremes that creates an opportunity to explore and learn and perhaps discover new experiences and new pleasures together.

I have many, many years of experience, but I’m not too proud to admit that I can still learn more.

John

Relationships, dating, and sex work in these times

I came across this article recently and thought it worth commenting on in the context of my work as a male escort in Sydney, Australia.

The gist of the article is that older women (and also younger generations) are moving away from the model of conventional romantic relationships and instead finding happiness in deeper friendships (possibly with people of the same sex) rather than trying to get that from a romantic relationship.

This is I suspect influenced by changes in social norms and the decline of women’s financial dependence on men. (Many) women no-longer need to be in a relationship with a man to be able to provide for children, or just to get by.

So this opens up the opportunity for women to find different ways of satisfying their emotional needs and according the research quoted in the article many women are doing this through close friendships rather than romantic relationships with men.

I think that on the whole this is a positive thing. It is good to challenge conventional ideas about how we find happiness in life – and realising that it is possible to separate things like emotional fulfillment, intellectual fulfillment/challenge, and sexual fulfillment makes it much, much easier in my opinion to be able to fill your life with those things without being forced to compromise.

I literally see women doing this with my work. Women who have no-sexual relationships with a committed partner come to me for the sex that the relationship doesn’t give them. Others don’t have a committed relationship, but do have a strong friend network who give them emotional fulfillment, but not sex, so they come to me to get the physical intimacy that they don’t get elsewhere.

This isn’t a passing thing either. I have clients who have been coming to me for between five to ten years. So some women really do see my service as a long term part of their lives.

This won’t work for everyone, but I’m glad that sex work is decriminalised (mostly) here in Australia and can therefore help women to create better lives for themselves.

John

Sexstortion?

Ok, this wasn’t something I had on my 2023 bingo card – “Sextortion”. But I really shouldn’t be surprised I suppose. In this day and age of ever expanding online scamming, hacking, and spamming, lonely people looking for a connection really are an ideal target for people with no scruples and a desire for quick money.

So what is “sextortion”? From the article:

“…scammers are known to use sophisticated tactics to ensnare and exploit unwary love-seekers, engaging in what is increasingly known as “sextortion.” This worrying trend sees deceivers using emotional leverage to coerce individuals into sharing personal and often sensitive information or images, which can then be used as a means of extortion”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/traversmark/2023/11/10/is-online-dating-making-you-an-easy-target-for-sextortion-a-psychologist-explains/

I remember when scam emails claiming to have “hacked my web cam” started doing the rounds a while ago. The email claimed they had video of my doing unmentionable things and were going to share the videos of me with my family and friends and work colleges if I didn’t pay them a sum of bitcoin.

At the time I had a bit of a laugh about it because my webcam isn’t plugged in unless I’m using it, so it was clearly just a shotgun spray of emails to thousands or millions of email addresses in the hope of finding a few people who could be convinced to hand over money.

Clearly the tactics have evolved (even though I still get the “webcam scam” emails occasionally). So since many of the women I meet are actively using dating sites, or planning to, I think this is a good topic to cover.

I think that most people are aware of the basics of online safety, but it bares repeating in this case – be careful, trust your instincts, if something feels off (or too good to be true) then walk away.

Stay safe out there!

John

PSA for men – size does not matter

I talked more than once about labiaplasty and how – unless there is a genuine medical reason for it – that no woman needs to worry about the appearance of her labia. Well, apparently, post covid (and young men watching waaaay too much porn) there is a crisis in male confidence that has caused many, many men to go under the knife to have penis “enhancement” surgery (see the article Penile Cosmetic Surgery is Booming, But… Does Size Really Matter?” from the Sunday Telegraphy Body + Soul, October 15, 2023)

It shouldn’t need to be said. It really shouldn’t. But sadly it does.

Men: except in the most extreme situation – the size of your penis – does. Not. MATTER!

To put penis size in perspective: just 0.6 percent of people who have a penis have what is considered a “micro-penis” (defined as the stretched length between the tip and the base of the gently stretch penis on the body side of less than 9.32 cm (3.67 in.)).

That’s only just above one in two hundred people have a “micro penis” – and even that definition doesn’t mean that the owner can’t enjoy sex or that a woman cant get pleasure from it!

But apparently this message has been lost to the fire hose of internet porn featuring massive cocks. And young men are going under the knife – encouraged by advertising from a cosmetic surgery industry that uses highly manipulative tactics to attack men’s self confidence.

Now, if this were a consequence and risk free procedure, then that would be one thing. But it’s not. There are now surgeons who spend significant amounts of time operating to rectify botched penile surgery!

So men – here are some things that are much worse than having anxiety about the size of your penis:

  • Post surgery infection
  • Blood clots
  • Implant failure (remember what happens when silicone breast implants rupture?)
  • Scaring
  • Uneven or lumpy results

Not to mention the approximately $15,000 cost.

If you do have anxiety about the size of your penis then here’s a better solution: talk to a psychologist about it. Spend some of that $15,000 on therapy so you can find a way to be happy with what you have.

Finally – I remember seeing a video of a female American porn star talking about what was ideal for her in a partner. Her preference: four inches – that’s 10.1 centimeters. That’s literally only just bigger than a “micro-penis” – and for her – a former porn star – it was ideal.

John

Why would a doctor prescribe a vibrator?

So today I learned that as women age the nerves in their clitoris that detect soft touch can deteriorate and degrade a woman’s ability to feel soft and gentle stimulation. However – there is another type of nerve that detects strong stimulation like vibration that is more durable and less likely to be damaged over time.

This is good news for women who through the process of aging find themselves less able to enjoy soft, gentle stimulation. Vibrators exist and it’s ok to use one and enjoy the results.

I learned this very useful information from this article:

https://www.aarpethel.com/health/why-would-a-doctor-prescribe-a-vibrator

I think that it is worth a read for any woman who finds herself in this situation, experiencing a loss of sensation as she gets older.

There is an addendum to add here though!

If you use a very strong vibrator and you use it a lot and you find that it is becoming less effective – then it’s time to dial it down and reset your responsiveness. Very strong stimulation will cause your body and brain to react and “turn down the volume”. It’s not permanent and is easy enough to reset by lowering the stimulation level and letting your body adjust to the new, lower level of stimulation.

John

When sex work is criminalised sexual assault increases

For many years now I’ve been an advocate for the decriminalisation of sex work – which I benefit from here in NSW (and increasingly in other states and territories here in Australia and New Zealand). I encourage decriminalisation because it is very good for the health and safety and general well-being of sex workers and clients.

Now there is evidence that it is good for the rest of society as well. I was sent a link to an article that reported on a recent study of 31 European countries from 1990 to 2017 which shows that countries that liberalised their sex work laws saw a decrease in instances of rape. Where as countries that cracked down in sex work saw an increase in instances of rape.

So there we have it. Consensual sex work makes society safer (it wasn’t clear from the article if the statistics were gendered or not). 

I’m pleased to hear this news and it adds yet another reason to support decriminalisation. 

One unexpected result from the study was that countries that criminalised the purchase of sex but not the sale of sex had the worst outcomes. I doubt that will make the people who are fighting to “abolish” sex work, especially through the criminalisation of its purchase, stop and think about the harm that they are actually doing to their society. But at least it’s empirical evidence to throw in the face of the lawmakers who listen to them and vote to criminalise sex work on the basis of “protecting women”.

We are extremely lucky here in most of Australia and New Zealand – as sex workers and as clients. It is easy to forget that the all of the rest of the world labours under some sort of criminalisation of sex services. For all our faults as a society here in Australia we have at least gotten that right.

John

We need to have a conversation about terminology

I recently happened across this article from Slate.com (here) that I was quoted in a while back and I thought upon reading it again that it was worth commenting on the reader’s word choice when referring to sex workers.

“Prostitute” is a loaded term.  And for people who work in my industry it has a lot of negative connotations.  It’s why most people who sells sexual services prefers the term “sex worker”.

It’s a much more clear definition. It’s work. And it involves sex. We are sex workers.

Culturally the term “prostitute” is linked to exploitation, implies a lack of autonomy (individually and financially) and even a lack of legitimacy.

The idea that someone “had to prostitute themselves” to survive, or succeed is an inherently negative statement. “had to”. Not “chose to”. Or “wanted to”. “Had to” is the way we would most likely hear that described.

And this is where people who oppose sex work will say “But what about all of the women who have no choice?” (they rarely acknowledge that men do sex work too). The answer is that those people are generally what we call “survival sex workers”. Forced by economic, personal, or social realities to do work that they may not choose to otherwise – and they are often punished legally and socially because of that.

As sex workers we support these people and their right to survive however they have to, but at the same time what we fight for is to see the work decriminalised so that they can seek any and all physical, legal, and medical help that they may need to do their work in safety and good health.

Every society has sex work. It is a reality of humanity – but how we look at sex work and especially the words we choose when we are talking about it go a long way to how sex workers are treated and perceived.

So while “prostitute” may be a linguistically valid word to describe what I do, it is not the right word for todays society. I am not a “prostitute” I am a “sex worker”, with all of the connotations that carries.

John

Younger men and older women are the least likely to be in relationships

I came across this article recently:

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/relationships/dating/disturbing-reason-why-six-in-10-young-men-are-single/news-story/c13c94e2fbdb2c19bcf0730601b8f29e

And while the headline and most of the text is concerned with why young men are single (by choice or circumstance), the other statistic that leapt out at me from the included graph is how many women 65 and over are single.

It meshes with something that I am seeing in many of the women that I meet. That is, they have no desire to be in a long term monogamous relationship. They have “been there done that” and are now happy living their own lives.

They are happy to be single and do not want to go back to living with a man. They often have fulfilling careers, a circle of friends, and they come male sex workers or casual partners to have their physical needs met.

It’s an interesting shift in social attitudes and I think it is good that so many women have the confidence to live their lives their own way, not feeling the need to conform to societal expectations.

John

The rest of the world doesn’t understand sex work in Australia (and New Zealand)

Sex work in most of Australia is now decriminalised.  Current states and territories that have decriminalised sex work include: New South Wales, Victoria, Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory. That covers the majority of the population of Australia.  Other states have some form of “legalised” sex work which is still better than nothing, but we are waiting for them to catch up.

This is good for both sex workers and our clients.  Sex workers can go to the police for protection if we need, clients also are protected by consumer protection law from sex workers who may behave unethically.  And most of all – because of this protection potential abusers no longer considered sex workers (or our clients) “easy targets” that no one will care about.

People from other countries generally have no understanding of what this means for sex work and sex workers.  Case in point, a video that I came across the other day. 

https://www.facebook.com/ItsGoneViralOfficial/videos/456528303190628

This post looks to be ripped off the TikTok of the original creator – a female sex worker in Sydney, Australia called Jasmine (https://www.tiktok.com/@gentle_aura).

What is relevant here is the comments on the Facebook repost.  They are for the most part judgemental, ignorant, moralistic (or some combination of the above), and show no awareness of decriminalisation of sex work and understanding of how it changes the industry.

Decriminalisation of sex work makes the work much, much safer for women – as sex workers and as clients. It is frustrating when I am contacted by women (especially from the US) who want to see a male sex worker but are unable to find a suitable man in their area. I would like to be able to refer them to someone known in the industry with a good reputation and plenty of online presence to allow potential clients to decide if they are suitable. But where sex work is criminalised workers have to hide themselves.

For most women who might choose to pay a sex worker this makes the entire transaction just too much of a risk. So they are locked out of the opportunity to explore their sexuality in that way.

It’s easy for us to take for granted what we have here in Australia. So I’m taking this moment to recognise the privilege that we have compared to our peers (workers and clients) around the world. We are incredibly lucky – but never forget that all of these advances can be taken away from us if we fail to defend our hard won rights from the ignorant masses who reflexively lash out at sex work whenever it is presented to them.

John

How long do you want penetrative sex to last?

I saw this video in my Youtube feed the other day and professional curiosity suggested that I should probably watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siXHIeregY8

The women interviewed, on average declared that they would like penetrative sex to last for about half an hour – feel free to drop a comment below and let me know how long you would like sex to last. I’m curious to know where my readers stand on this question.

Now, compare that to the mean duration of PIV sex reported by couples (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-long-does-sex-last#considerations)

If the numbers are to be trusted, then it’s little surprise that so many women are disappointed with the sex that they are having.

So what is the solution?  As always I think that it comes back to good communication.  Something that is very hard to do around a subject as emotional and sensitive as sex is for most people.

It’s not easy for many of us to ask for what you want – and it can be very difficult for partners to hear those requests and not feel an implicit criticism.  There is no easy answer here because as a society we still treat sex as a taboo subject.  But at least we know where we need to start.

John