Devon Hunter

From time to time I encounter or learn about behavior that is so disappointing that it becomes necessary to address it as a point for Career Advice. I think it is time to bring special attention to the three most important guiding principles of Escorting as a modality of Adult Entertainment. There is (or at least there ought to be) a minimum expectation of decorum in any career, and when that lowest measure of professionalism is not only violated but on some level celebrated, a negative stereotype about Adult Entertainers is strengthened, and then it is time for me to refer back to the Mission of this blog, so that poor examples do not become the only examples.

I invite you to consider the information and videos in this story on “The Sword” before continuing, in order to understand the context of what I am going to discuss, and why I feel it is important to do so. Although each person is responsible for his/her own actions and the opportunities or consequences they create, I would like to use this space to remind both potential escorts and the reading/viewing/hiring public that negative stereotypes, although based to some extent on anecdotal situations, do NOT apply to all people within a community or industry. Here are what I consider to be the three guiding principles of Escorting:

1. Discretion – for a client’s privacy. Even if, for whatever inexplicable reason, a client were to request, permit, insist, or encourage you to publicly divulge his/her identity, you should never do so. Regardless of how well the client may think s/he has considered the consequences to him/herself, s/he probably has not considered how this will affect YOU. Being connected in any way to revealing the identity of a client will automatically make you suspect to almost all other clients who might otherwise consider hiring your time. Your judgment, sense, and discernment will be justifiably called into question. Do not bring unnecessary attention to your clients!
2. Discretion – for your behavior. You are in charge of creating your own reality, so you should consider carefully what you do publicly, especially if you are a person of renown. Clients often do a considerable amount of research before hiring a particular escort, and imitating Paris Hilton is not generally considered to be endearing. You attract that which you generate: If you generate trouble/drama/chaos, you will attract people who will create more for you. Again, I tell you to consider carefully your image and brand, so that you can attract the clients you want and enjoy a career that is rewarding to you. If you do something foolish, illegal, cruel, or controversial DO NOT BRAG ABOUT IT ON THE INTERNET (unless generating that particular hype and image helps you maintain the brand that attracts the type of clients you want). As “The Sword” illustrates, there are plenty of people who are willing to bring attention to you when you make mistakes, so you don’t need to do anything to help them. Do not bring unnecessary attention to yourself!
3. Discretion – for your opinions. Although it is true that you should be honest with others and yourself, you should also consider how diplomacy factors into what you say. Expressing shock online that a client is “hot” does not merely bring attention to one particular client’s attractiveness. It also, by default of your shock, betrays your true feelings about all your other clients, and is probably a bitter pill for them to swallow when they learn of it. This comment on the “The Sword” needs to be addressed: “Later, after he was given the ‘OK’ by the client, [the escort] tweeted a photo of them together. I concur with [the escort] that [the client] is kind of fucking sexy, for someone who hires escorts. Holy shit.” Let me say this right now: ALL TYPES OF MEN HIRE ESCORTS. I have many attractive clients, some of whom are more attractive than myself. To presume that only one particular type of man hires is to ignore the fact that any number of men will hire for any number of reasons. If you wonder what kind of man hires escorts, go to your local gourmet grocery store at 6 o’clock when everyone has left work, and take a look around at all the people there. These are the men who hire escorts. Do not bring unnecessary attention to people’s vulnerabilities!

Two flakes here in Philly have reminded me of a class of time waster I’d overlooked when I wrote “Red Flags: Time Wasters & No-Shows,” but I remember them now…

The young and the beautiful: Clients under 30 years old, students of any age, and self-professed hot guys are extraordinarily likely to flake. Although a few will follow through, most of these are looking to get their egos stroked by getting a discount or freebie. If you agree, you have lost money; however, if you don’t relent, you are likely to get stood up. Beware of any client who tells you in some way that you will be lucky/glad/turned on by how young or beautiful he is. I take it with a grain of salt when “hot” people try to work me for their egos’ sakes. I am lucky/glad/turned on to have respectful, reliable clients. You would be best doing what I do: Schedule the young and the beautiful only if your itinerary is already full, and you can afford it when they flake out (which is why I am more amused than angry right now).

I haven’t written a practical blog for career advice in quite a while, so it’s time to do that. In light of two of my interactions here in San Francisco, I am reminded that I have meant to discuss this in the past: Timewasters.

In escorting, as with many other professions, time is money. And so people who waste time are particular problematic, especially in cities where overhead is naturally high (e.g. New York City, San Francisco, Miami, etc.). Time Wasters and No-Shows can completely undermine your trip, and you won’t know it’s happened in many cases until you are either en route or already at your destination. It is very important to identify red flags, so that you can minimize this problem.

As I said in “Street walkers, walking into Darkness” in April, 2010, you must be very organized. One way to do this is to screen clients via email, not phone calls and texts. By communicating through an on-going, written conversation, you can look for the following red flags:

• Fragments: A client is more likely to flake if he does not communicate in full sentences via email.
• Extreme delays: If it takes a client more than 2 days to reply every time you exchange email he is more likely to flake.
• Sudden, urgent messages: If a client (particularly one you do not yet know) is eager to meet NOW, then he is just as likely to masturbate and flake, or to contact several escorts at once and go with the one who replies first. You should generally avoid last minutes, especially if they write in fragments. These often commit the following faux pas as well:
• Haggling: Your fee is your fee. If it is fair, then do not come down off of it, or you crack the door open on desperation, and that is a slippery slope into degrading compromises. Even if someone relents and agrees to your fee, what will you do when he shows up and has only that amount he originally offered you? If he can’t afford you, you can’t afford him. Also, he may agree, set up the appointment, and then flake because he didn’t have the money in the first place.
• Waffling: If someone needs to adjust the date and time once, that’s fairly common. Even twice doesn’t seem so bad; however, if someone keeps messing with the time, or in some way seems to question coming, he is much more likely to flake.
• Excessive communication and Psychic Vampires: The opposite problem of Fragments and Extreme Delays. There is a difference between hearing regularly from an established client (who is also a friend) and getting more updates than are needed from an unknown/new client (especially when the correspondences don’t add any new or pertinent information to the ensuing appointment). There is a fairly good chance these men will not show up, because they’ve already gotten everything from you they needed for free. If the person in question is a good, reliable client/friend, then obviously this does not apply.
• Disappearance: If the communication feels good, the appointment is scheduled and confirmed by all parties, but then the client no longer replies to messages in any form (e.g. voicemail, texts, email), he is likely to have changed his mind and simply doesn’t want to deal with canceling. This is extremely problematic, because you can’t know how to proceed. I suggest getting ready in case the appointment happens, but not to be too surprised if it doesn’t.
• ADDED 1/28/11: The young and the beautiful: Clients under 30 years old, students of any age, and self-professed hot guys are extraordinarily likely to flake. Although a few will follow through, most of these are looking to get their egos stroked by getting a discount or freebie. If you agree, you have lost money; however, if you don’t relent, you are likely to get stood up. Beware of any client who tells you in some way that you will be lucky/glad/turned on by how young or beautiful he is. I take it with a grain of salt when “hot” people try to work me for their egos’ sakes. I am lucky/glad/turned on to have respectful, reliable clients. You would be best doing what I do: Schedule the young and the beautiful only if your itinerary is already full, and you can afford it when they flake out (which is why I am more amused than angry right now).

All of this works both ways. Clients can look at the above and decide whether or not an escort is unreliable as well. In addition to this, clients will often fare better when selecting escorts who have multiple affirming reviews. If you are particularly interested in an unreviewed escort consider that he is more likely to flake under the following conditions:

• Hometown player: He’s not on the road, and doesn’t have to cover the overhead of travel.
• Youth: The young… Need we say more?
• Underpriced: There are a couple issues here. Is he willing to provide full escorting services at a price that seems too low? Why? Is he not the person in the pics (but hopes you’ll let him stay, since it’s easier than searching again – his fee is low after all)? Is he going to do add-ons unexpectedly? His base fee is the low fee, but this is $x and that is $y? Attaching a fee to a sexual activity is prostitution, and that is illegal in most places. Another consideration: If his fee is low he has less to lose by not showing up, so the incentive to keep the appointment is reduced.
• Porn Stars: Just because someone is a brilliant video model, it doesn’t guarantee he is a good companion. Look for reviews.
• Short term ads: Take your time. Watch the ads. The guys with faceless pics who advertise only a few days aren’t likely to be professional. Professionals maintain a web presence through ads, blogs, and other forms of consistent interactivity with the public. Traveling escorts will often have multiple ads, and one of them may be permanent, or the escort will make it easy to find himself in a consistent manner. Three-day hustlers often have an array of complications attached to them, and are very likely to flake.

Hello and Happy Holidays! Wow, 2010 has all but flown by already… You’re getting old! (I’m not. Somehow, I’m still 24. )

I want to take a moment to give thanks and appreciation to family, friends, patrons, readers, and other positive people in my life. Having a network of supportive people is so important, and I am deeply grateful for all of them. I’m even grateful for the challenges, obstacles, naysayers, haters, and porn drama: All of that stands as a contrast to remind me to appreciate what I have that is good in my life. Despite (or on some level, because of) the rough days back around my birthday this past June/July, I think I have never been happier than I have been in 2010. It was an amazing year for me (and yes, I already mark it off as being done, since Samhain was the last day of the year, and all you heathens are still waiting for December 31.) HA!

Lately I have made it a priority to make more time throughout the day to reconnect with my spirituality. It has repaid me well: I haven’t felt this optimistic, empowered, and confident since the Summer/Autumn of 2005 (which is when I met my last boyfriend – you know, the one who defrauded me for $30k and cheated on me with 20-30 men while I was working multiple jobs to support the both of us). But that was then, and this is now. I just paid of my Lasik surgery (the best money I have EVER spent), and so I own my eyeballs free and clear now (and they actually work, too!). I am so freaking excited to have paid yet another debt down to ZERO! Anyway, I find that re-establishing my sense of self has made it far less likely that others can get me down. On Twitter today, someone I was following as a compliment for following me first made the following statement: “Every time I get horny I just think about AIDS and I go back to normal.” That sentiment betrays a hypocritical attitude on many levels, coming from someone who blogs about sexuality. My response was simply this: ” ” His response to me was: “It made my day that a hooker thought my attitude disgusting! LOL”

I didn’t get mad. I just unfollowed him. It really is as easy as that. I’m not upset now. I mention it only as an example of how I feel responsible to myself and my own emotions, without being mired in guilt for distancing myself from immature ugliness. I really don’t have time for silly, stupid people. If you are so insensitive as that, then you really don’t deserve to know me. Your loss.

And this brings me back to some sentiments I have expressed repeatedly on this blog: 1) Pride is self-love based on truth, whereas arrogance is self-love based on nothing, and 2) Devon’s platinum rule: “Do unto yourself as you would have others do unto you.” Judgmental, hateful, insecure people are not going to be welcome here, if they seek to hurt others to aggrandize themselves. Keep that poison to yourself, thanks. You can disagree with me all day long (as many have done over the years), so long as you keep it civil.

To end on an introspective note, here are my Meditations. I have seven, one for each aspect of my integrated self. If they give you a structure that helps you, please use them in your own way. When you get what you want, please let me know!

In my quest to attract that which I want and deserve, I intend to focus on the following very specific desires:

1. PHYSICAL: I am maintaining or improving, as well as learning to see and  appreciate, the beauty in me that so many others already exalt, and I am humbly luxuriating in that Gift.
2. SPIRITUAL: I am re-establishing a variety of meditative practices and reconnecting to my journey along the Path.
3. INTELLECTUAL: I am expanding my mind by reading, writing,  conversing with a variety of people, learning new languages and skills, and researching new compositions.
4. EMOTIONAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL: I  am attuning to my inner self and understanding better those stressors  that cause me duress, so that I can better maintain balance and clarity; and I am understanding those impulses at a deeply intuitive level, so that I can help others as much as myself.
5. SOCIAL: I am improving the networking for the dance company, so that a large  and enthusiastic following begins coming to our performances across a  larger geographic region.
6. SEXUAL: I am attracting and having  safe, passionate sexual experiences with men who are able to access, with me, our mutual intensities.
7. FINANCIAL: I am going to be unsecured-debt free by my birthday of 2012. I am accomplishing this by maintaining or increasing my net  income until I retire, but by seeing fewer clients who book longer sessions.

Dear Devon:

-John
———-
Dear John:

As you said, “It depends.” But here are some generalities that I’ve noticed about my overnights, and perhaps they will help you with your plans:

1) Most overnight appointments last about 12 – 18 hours, and a good chunk of that is for sleeping.
2) If you meet your companion by 6 pm you could reasonably expect him to be with you until just after breakfast (but probably leaving by noon to do lunch on his own).
3) Please ask your companion about his preferences regarding food and play time (I, personally, prefer to play BEFORE dinner).
4) If your friend arrives at 6 pm, plan to spend an hour or two relaxing, playing briefly and lightly, and then getting ready to eat (but these details will depend on whether you go out or cook at home/get delivery).
5) If you begin dinner by 8 or 8:30 pm, you should try to finish around 9:30 or10 (there is a practical reason for this).
6) I, personally, need time to digest, talk, and get ready (especially after eating). Each person’s body is different, but I need 30 – 60 minutes to get prepped.
7) The timing will obviously vary, but around 11 or 11:30 pm you should begin your hour or two of concentrated intimate time.
8 ) Going to bed by 1 am is reasonable, in my opinion.
9) Sleep in! I can’t speak for everyone, but I hate getting up early (though “early” is subjective). Get up around 9 am and get ready for your breakfast. (I personally do not like morning kissing/play – the food from last night will be around, not to mention morning breath).
10) Start breakfast by 9:30 or so, finish up by 10:30, visit a bit longer, and expect your guest to need to leave around 11 am or noon.

I hope that helps. This is the general format for my overnights, though there is obviously room for adjusting this as you need to.

Devon