What is an 'escort' exactly?

March 28, 2024

Sex is one of the most ancestral pleasures of life, and it is not surprising that there is a great deal of business around this practice. One of these businesses is that of prostitution, considered one of the oldest professions in the world, basically because the work tool does not have to go through a technological refinement: it is the body itself.

Even though Prostitution is legal many countries Some of the practices are not, for example, the recruitment of customers on the street. This profession does not enjoy great social acceptance and is often discredited, however, more to the people who trade their bodies than to the mafias that are often behind them. The stigma attached to these people is part of the business and the type of product offered.

Fruit of this stigmatization, in recent times the term escort or luxury prostitute has become popular (or high standing) who enjoys a better reputation than classical prostitutes. What exactly does this change of "label" mean?

Related article: "The 20 types of sex and their characteristics"

Prostitution is an ancestral practice

Prostitution is the exchange of "sexual favors" for goods generally money, and it has been practiced since ancient times. In ancient Mesopotamia, priests had sex with prostitutes. In ancient Greece, brothels were legal and were used to minister to political leaders and those men who enjoyed privileges. Prostitution was also common in ancient Rome, and generally consisted of the women's trade.

During the Middle Ages and during the 19th century, prostitution was not uncommon, as legal brothels operated in a large part of Europe and were an important source of tax revenue. Nowadays, prostitution is legal in many countries; but nevertheless, the social stigma continues to exist . As we will see, this stigma serves to understand the existence of escorts from a psychological point of view.

Differences between escorts and prostitutes

Many times, when we think of prostitutes, we can imagine a woman who has sex to pay for her addiction to drugs 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 the 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 with studies, 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 it comes to selling the body; the service includes the possibility to experiment something similar to a real affective relationship .

Not everyone is very clear about the difference between escort and prostitute, since they can offer similar services (although not identical). Basically, the (or the) escorts usually perform services that a prostitute or prostitute does not perform. Prostitutes usually charge less, and their services are intimately related to sexual practice. In the case of escorts, they can have sex 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 perform escort services, that is, they can go to social events with their clients. In other words, they do not limit their work to one or two hours, but to entire nights, days, and even weekends.

Sometimes, they can travel with their clients for several days and may or may not have sex. That is, an escort a paid companion and not necessarily have sex with their customers. The price of an escort is usually more expensive, and this already indicates the type of psychological burden that the concept of escort has and how it relates to stigma.

Related article: "Types of feminism and its different currents of thought"

The stigma that explains this profession

As we have seen, both prostitution and the practice of escorts belong to the field 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 be distinguished using A different label to explain your work.

That is, technically, between the work of a prostitute and an escort there are no differences that can not be found between two sex workers at random.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 makes the stigma attached to prostitution perpetuate (for some reason the only way to escape from it is not to be a lower class) and at the same time it give the impression that the escort has had total 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, it is usual to go to a contact page (usually on the internet), where it is clear that they try to give a good image to seduce men with high purchasing power : the escorts are considered high-class prostitutes. Traditional prostitutes, although they can also advertise their services on the internet or on contact pages and travel to the client's home, may find themselves offering their services in the middle of the street, on the road and in "clubs".

These are practices associated with the lower classes, and although for centuries that has been no problem for the wealthiest to resort to them, the emergence of human rights and the rejection of covert forms of slavery they have made the stigma bi-directional : for prostitutes and for those who hire their services. Given this, the mechanism of protection of people with resources has been to use classism, create another profession from what has been known for centuries.

The escorts, being expensive and refined, act as a wall to contain the stigma, causing it to be placed only in people who they can not afford the freedom to transform themselves into luxury prostitutes . The reaction to the violation of human rights that involves the trafficking of women and exploitation by the mafias is not materially end with the problem, but to change the name to the services that one contracts.