The Tragedy of Idiots

A bit negative for the first substantive post in a long time....

The title of this post is an obvious play on Garrett Hardin's well-known book. One of the main ideas espoused by Hardin is how often when people act in ways that are seemingly rational and compatible with their personal best/self-interest, their actions are nonetheless inimical to the long-term best interests of the social collectives to which they belong. Hardin contends that many social issues and worldly problems are enmeshed within this dynamic and it is played out the same way over and over, hence the description of this being a tragedy.

My belief is that in the context of one far-too-common and totally unacceptable aspect of the escort industry, that of stalking and harassment of providers, The Tragedy of Idiots (i.e. people engaging in ludicrous, at times psychologically obsessive, and other times outright illegal behaviour that neither advance their own meaningful self-interest and definitely do incalculable harm to the welfare of all participants to this industry) is truly at work.

If that small selection from Yana's blogs isn't enough to prove that obvious point, I hope the following personal experience, which I have had both the privilege of being allowed to share by the main participant concerned and the shock of simply hearing first hand how tough things can be for providers, will capture some people's attention.

The Story of "Erin"

Meet "Erin" (obviously not her former working name or real name), a former escort who appears to have been well thought of by her clients and worked privately for a year. She did this work to support herself through her studies as a student in a demanding area of study and to raise a daughter. When she was working, I was an occasional client of hers. Until yesterday, I knew little about her other than her working name and what she studied.

As I grabbed my morning tea at the café located at my work's building, I noticed Erin was standing in front of me and had just finished getting her things and was about to double back to whence she came. Her eyes and mine met and it was obvious to us both that we recognised each other. I just politely smiled back at her but what soon became obvious was the undisguised horror on her face. It was as if I was one of those ghastly ogres in the Resident Evil movies.

At first I chalked it up to her just wanting to put her working past behind her and thought little more of this until I learnt through the grapevine that another department at my work (which I often had to deal with) had recently made a great new hire and it was Erin. At the same time, I happened to have been exchanging a few friendly texts with another currently working escort, L, and casually mentioned this. L encouraged me to discreetly locate Erin and to try and allay her worries about any potential breach of discretion and general yapping on my part.

L's encouragement along with seeing that Erin's profile had accessed my intranet profile with my photo and contact details told me that Erin was clearly concerned and that it was time to try and put her at ease. I could also see from afar that since our morning meeting she went from a vibrant, energetic looking woman to looking sickly pale. So I managed to convince Erin that I only wanted to talk and we found a discreet place. Other sharable contents of our conversation will have to be left to another post but I hope the following snippets give people the sense of sheer, on-going hell that many providers/ex-providers routinely go through.

1. Erin was literally in tears by the time we met. She implored me to please not "yap" about her past to colleagues and urgently inquired about whether I had recommended her to anyone working in the same building. I had not and she said she was relieved to learn that no one working for us in this building appears to have been an ex-client.
2. Her concern over the above stemmed from her repeated observation that it was often the seemingly respectable (holding very fine careers), well-dressed, and "harmless" sorts that engaged in the most obsessive behaviour. "At least the big, burly psychos would just beat me and leave it at that".
3. And she revealed that she was raped by one of these so called respectable members of society.
4. She actually told me that initially she only wanted to meet to find out if I intended to be a pain to her and that if I did she was likely to resign. She had actually left another extremely hard-to-get position for exactly that reason, i.e. finding an ex-client was working nearby and that person actually decided to harass her.

So there it is, people. You can choose to care or not but this is real. Voyager has espoused the view that letting people hear and discussing these issues may serve to produce some real change. I agree -- and I am thankful that Erin has agreed to let me share. I am also extremely thankful to L for giving me the understanding of the need to get in touch with Erin and for her willingness to share a bit of her time in letting me know why that was important and to share her own experiences of idiot behaviour. It's people like L that truly give me some hope about the industry.

Next time a punter wonders why many good/great providers leave the industry for good as soon as some primary goal(s) of theirs are met, when they might otherwise wish to remain on a less intensive basis, he should think about what people like Erin went through and still go through.