When it comes to finding work as an escort, whether you are male or female, gay or straight, you can decide to work for an escort agency, or join the ranks of the independent escorts, or indies. Which you should choose is very much a personal matter, but you need to take into account the pros and cons of each carefully before commencing work.
If you are new to the business then it may be a good idea to work for an agency, at least for a while, so that you can become accustomed to the ins and outs of the escort business. This will also give you the opportunity to talk to other escorts employed by the agency, and benefit from sharing their experiences.
The Advantages of Working for an Agency
There is more to working as an escort than many people think when they first begin, and it can be nice to have someone else to look after some things for you, while you are getting comfortable. For example, the agency will look after advertising, will check potential clients, will manage your diary for you, and will take care of booking hotel rooms and organising transport, when needed.
Perhaps most importantly for many escorts, the agency provides a safety net as they know where you are and what you are doing at any given moment, and the client is very aware of this. This provides you with a notable level of protection, and with a backup team to call on if you run into trouble.
Speaking of trouble, the law also plays a significant part in many escort’s lives, and the degree to which it affects you will depend on where you are working, and how you are exceuting your business. Many escort agencies have been around for a while, and are very familiar with what you and cannot do. This again can be enough to stop you inadvertently running into issues.
The Disadvantages of Working for an Agency
An escort agency is the same as any other business, and some are extremely well run while others are poorly run, and may even simply exploit their escorts without a care for anything other than the profit the business can make. For this reason, you need to do your research and make sure you know exactly what sort of agency you are joining.
While an agency will take care of much of the background work for you, such as advertising, client checks and arranging appointments, they will also require certain things from you in return. For example, they may need you to be ready for work between particular hours each day, and decide how much time off you can have each week. They may also decide where you must be when you are not working, perhaps letting you go home, as long as they can contact you on the phone, or requiring you to be available in the agency’s office.
The agency is also in the business of making profit and does this typically by taking a part of the fees paid by the client for providing him or her with an escort. Fees can be high, especially in major cities where it is not uncommon for clients to pay several hundred dollars an hour for an escort. You will have to look carefully at the financial arrangements sought after by different agencies and decide what is, and what is not, acceptable to you.
The Benefits of Working as an Independent Escort
Private escorts are very much their own bosses, choosing for themselves when they work, who they accept as clients, and what they are prepared to do. In effect you are entertaining all of the benefits, including the monetary benefits, of being self employed and, for many people, these benefits often outweigh any disadvantages.
The Disadvantages of Working as an Independent Escort
Working for yourself means that you will have to handle everything yourself, including such things as advertising, screening prospective clients, booking hotel rooms, arranging for transport, and indeed handling anything else that comes up. This can be a lot of work initially, but much of this routine work becomes second nature as time goes on. One thing that you have to deal with though, and which will never become irrevelant, are the risks that accompany with escort work.
Like it or not, escort work is potentially very dangerous, and you must not only be constantly careful, but must take positive steps to cover yourself. The list of precautions you need to take is far too extensive to detail them all here, but will include such things as certifying that any room you use with a client has an emergency exit that you can use, and being positive that someone knows where you are, and that the client is aware of this fact. Telling yourself that this is a safe enough area and that nothing is going to happen to you does not work, and safety needs to be the main concern on the list of things to consider for independent escorts.
On Balance
As with any job there are both good and bad sides to becoming an escort, and this is deifnitely one job that you need to go into with a careful mindset. That said, independent escorts can enjoy a very nice lifestyle if they get it right, and the job can be good fun if you have the fitting personality for it, take the time to learn what you are doing, and set your business up correctly.