Sex is one of the most ancient pleasures in life, and it is not surprising that there is a big business around this practice. One of these businesses is prostitution, considered one of the oldest professions in the world, basically because the work tool does not have to go through technological refinement: it is the body itself.
Although prostitution is legal in many countries, some of the practices are not, for example, recruiting clients on the street. This profession does not enjoy great social acceptance and tends to discredit, of course, more the people who trade with their bodies than the mafias that are often behind them. The stigmatization that these people carry is part of the business and the type of product offered.
As a result of this stigmatization, in recent times The term escort or luxury prostitute has become popular (or high standing) that enjoys a better reputation than classic prostitutes. What exactly does this “label” change mean?
prostitution is the exchange of “sexual favors” for goods, generally money, and it has been practiced since ancient times. In ancient Mesopotamia, priests had sexual relations with prostitutes. In ancient Greece, brothels were legal and were used to serve political leaders and those men who enjoyed privileges. Prostitution was also common in ancient Rome, and generally consisted of the trade in women.
During the Middle Ages and throughout the 19th century, prostitution was not unusual, as legal brothels operated in much of Europe and were an important source of tax revenue. Today, prostitution is legal in many countries; however, social stigma still exists As we will see, this stigma serves to understand the existence of escorts from a psychological point of view.
Many times, when we think of prostitutes, we can imagine a woman who has sex to pay for her drug addiction or because she is in a precarious situation. In short, this practice is historically linked to poverty and the most vulnerable people, in the vast majority of cases, or directly to slavery.
However, the figure of escorts aims to break with these ideas and beliefs about this class of sex workers. The ‘escort’ concept is associated with women of great beauty, many educated, and capable of offering interesting conversations or even acting as companions for certain social events. The idea is, basically, to go beyond the sexual act itself when selling the body; The service includes the possibility of experimenting something similar to a real emotional relationship
Not everyone is very clear about the difference between escort and prostitute, since they can offer similar (although not identical) services. Basically, escorts usually perform services that a prostitute or prostitute does not perform. Prostitutes usually charge less, and their services are closely related to sexual practice. In the case of escorts, they can have sexual relations with clients, but they can also simply accompany them to events, parties or business trips
Possibly, the main difference between prostitutes and escorts is that the latter can provide escort services, that is, they can attend social events with their clients. In other words, they do not limit their jobs to one or two hours, but to entire nights, days, and even weekends.
Sometimes they may travel with their clients for several days and may or may not have sexual relations. That is, an escort is a paid companion and does not necessarily have sex with her clients. The price of an escort is usually more expensive, and this already indicates the type of psychological burden that the concept of an escort has and How is it related to stigma?
As we have seen, both prostitution and the practice of escorts belong to the sphere of sex workers. However, what says more about what an escort is is the fact that it is a service designed simply to differentiate itself from prostitution, an area in which there is a great diversity of practices without the need for each person to distinguish themselves using a different label to explain your work.
That is to say, technically, between the work of a prostitute and an escort there are no differences that cannot be found between two random sex workers. The difference between these two professions it has to do with classism
Basically, the escort is a person passed through a marketing filter that keeps out all the elements of prostitution linked to poverty: precariousness, ignorance, etc. This perpetuates the stigma linked to prostitution (for some reason the only way to escape from it is not to be lower class) and at the same time serves to give the feeling that the escort has had complete freedom when accepting and rejecting clients something that brings her closer to a real couple.
What is an escort? A question of classism
To hire an escort, the usual thing is to go to a contact page (usually on the Internet), where it is clear that they are trying to give a good image to seduce men with high purchasing power: Escorts are considered high-class prostitutes. Traditional prostitutes, although they can also advertise their services on the internet or on contact pages and go to the client’s home, can be found offering their services in the street, on the highway and in “clubs.”
These are practices associated with the lower classes, and although for centuries this has not posed any problem for the wealthiest to resort to them, the appearance of human rights and the rejection of covert forms of slavery have made the stigma bidirectional: for prostitutes and for those who hire their services. Given this, the protection mechanism for people with resources has been to use classism, to create another profession based on what has been known for centuries.
Escorts, being expensive and refined, act as a retaining wall for the stigma, causing it to once again be placed only on people who They cannot afford the freedom to become luxury prostitutes The reaction to the violation of human rights represented by the trafficking of women and exploitation by mafias is not to materially end the problem, but to change the name of the services that one hires oneself.
