My New Obsession...
Would probably have to be
'I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story...'
Yay for Belle De Jour! No I have no intention of becoming a prostitute but I gotta hand it to her; she sure doe live an amazing life. Here's the begging of an article with one of her posts in the blog that she sold the rights to years later. It was made into a book and then eventually a tv series drama starring Billie Piper the infamous companion to the ninth and tenth Doctor. This is awesome!
'Belle de Jour', the anonymous 28-year-old London call-girl whose explicit online diary has made her a literary sensation, is now the subject of feverish speculation. Who is she? Is she the real thing? And if so, what is a clever girl like her doing with a job like that? Here, writing exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, she reveals (almost) all
My alarm is never set; I rise at a different hour each day. I eat breakfast, check my e-mail and update the weblog - little chores. My working day proper begins at four or five in the afternoon when I shower and dress. The first meeting, unless I have a lunch date, is usually at seven. Sometimes there's only one; sometimes more. Occasionally I work all night and come home at 7am.
I always ring someone when I arrive at a job and again when I leave - on longer assignments, once every few hours. The manager tends to worry when she doesn't hear from me. She used to have my job, too.
Just so you know - I'm a whore. Not in the metaphorical sense, often invoked by writers my age, of auctioning my intellectual abilities to the highest bidder. I'm not some disillusioned twentysomething desk-job graduate equating salaried work with selling out. No, I'm an actual, exchanging-money-for-sex prostitute...
I always loved sex, always enjoyed meeting people. Even before I began this job there were plenty of mornings when I woke up and wondered who on earth that was next to me and where my knickers were. I'd shower and dress, stay for the obligatory polite cup of tea, then wander back out into the world - blinking at the sun, dressed in the previous night's clothes. This job doesn't feel different from that. If anything, it's better. No one feels obliged to ring the day after...
...I am not the victim of childhood sexual abuse or a chronic lack of attention from my parents. No one believes me, of course; as we all know, sexual promiscuity is necessarily the result of low self-esteem or some such rubbish.
I disagree. I've met other prostitutes and, yes, many are drug addicts, survivors of abuse, or both. Some hate it from day one, but persist because they know no other way to support themselves. But a few are like me - a bit in debt but not unemployable.
It's a useful stopgap.
Having seen so many people naked is a great equaliser. Clothes off, it doesn't matter what someone drives or does for a living. I feel comfortable that way, competent around bodies. I know I don't look it. Clients often treat me exceptionally gently at first, as if I might break, and it is a large part of the job to egg them into a frenzy. At my interview with the escort agency, the manager worried about my squeamishness. Perhaps I don't look very robust.
For more go to this website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2004%2F03%2F29%2Fbabelle29.xml
'I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story...'
Yay for Belle De Jour! No I have no intention of becoming a prostitute but I gotta hand it to her; she sure doe live an amazing life. Here's the begging of an article with one of her posts in the blog that she sold the rights to years later. It was made into a book and then eventually a tv series drama starring Billie Piper the infamous companion to the ninth and tenth Doctor. This is awesome!
'Belle de Jour', the anonymous 28-year-old London call-girl whose explicit online diary has made her a literary sensation, is now the subject of feverish speculation. Who is she? Is she the real thing? And if so, what is a clever girl like her doing with a job like that? Here, writing exclusively for The Sunday Telegraph Magazine, she reveals (almost) all
My alarm is never set; I rise at a different hour each day. I eat breakfast, check my e-mail and update the weblog - little chores. My working day proper begins at four or five in the afternoon when I shower and dress. The first meeting, unless I have a lunch date, is usually at seven. Sometimes there's only one; sometimes more. Occasionally I work all night and come home at 7am.
I always ring someone when I arrive at a job and again when I leave - on longer assignments, once every few hours. The manager tends to worry when she doesn't hear from me. She used to have my job, too.
Just so you know - I'm a whore. Not in the metaphorical sense, often invoked by writers my age, of auctioning my intellectual abilities to the highest bidder. I'm not some disillusioned twentysomething desk-job graduate equating salaried work with selling out. No, I'm an actual, exchanging-money-for-sex prostitute...
I always loved sex, always enjoyed meeting people. Even before I began this job there were plenty of mornings when I woke up and wondered who on earth that was next to me and where my knickers were. I'd shower and dress, stay for the obligatory polite cup of tea, then wander back out into the world - blinking at the sun, dressed in the previous night's clothes. This job doesn't feel different from that. If anything, it's better. No one feels obliged to ring the day after...
...I am not the victim of childhood sexual abuse or a chronic lack of attention from my parents. No one believes me, of course; as we all know, sexual promiscuity is necessarily the result of low self-esteem or some such rubbish.
I disagree. I've met other prostitutes and, yes, many are drug addicts, survivors of abuse, or both. Some hate it from day one, but persist because they know no other way to support themselves. But a few are like me - a bit in debt but not unemployable.
It's a useful stopgap.
Having seen so many people naked is a great equaliser. Clothes off, it doesn't matter what someone drives or does for a living. I feel comfortable that way, competent around bodies. I know I don't look it. Clients often treat me exceptionally gently at first, as if I might break, and it is a large part of the job to egg them into a frenzy. At my interview with the escort agency, the manager worried about my squeamishness. Perhaps I don't look very robust.
For more go to this website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=%2Farts%2F2004%2F03%2F29%2Fbabelle29.xml