Student Escorts in the UK

[Guest W***ledi*Time]

Dominic Utton reports for News of the World, 3 Jul 2011:

 

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/_fabulous/nolfabulous_features/1337707/Student-escorts.html

 

Laura*, a 22-year-old sports science student, sits sipping a drink in a busy central London bar. As she looks around, she draws admiring glances from male customers.

 

In her designer dress and killer heels, Laura looks ready for a date at one of the capital's poshest restaurants. In reality, she's about to meet a complete stranger. And sleep with him. For money.

 

For the past year, second-year student Laura has been working as an escort in addition to her studies. For £160, you can book her company for an hour. According to her website, you're paying for her time - and anything else that happens is a private matter between consenting adults. But in reality, Laura's clients are booking her for sex.

 

"Being a student means there aren't enough hours in the day for me to keep on top of my studies and make enough money in a normal job to pay for my education too," she explains.

 

"Doing this allows me to work my own hours and it makes me more money than any other job I could do. So, in an odd way, it's the best job I could have. As for the ugly men... well if you worked in a bar you wouldn't refuse to serve someone because they're ugly, would you? I just see it as providing a service."

 

Laura doesn't fit the stereotype of a sex worker. She doesn't give the impression of being a victim of the industry. She doesn't take drugs, drinks very little, and comes from a loving, stable family background. She is funny, intelligent, articulate, and disarmingly open about what she does.

 

But she is also typical of a new phenomenon sweeping the lecture theatres and halls of residence in universities across the country: students who are turning to prostitution in order to pay for their education.

 

A recent study by Keele University revealed that more than a third of escorts questioned were degree educated - with over 18 per cent boasting post-graduate qualifications. Thirty-eight per cent claimed they used escort work to fund their education. Another study by Westminster University found that up to one in 25 students turned to prostitution to pay for fees and living expenses, while it's estimated 60 per cent of sex workers in Leeds are in full-time education.

 

Research scientist and blogger Brooke Magnanti, 35 - better known as Belle de Jour and the inspiration for hit TV show Secret Diary Of A Call Girl - who funded her doctorate by working as a call girl, is just one of a growing number of well-educated girls turning to prostitution to pay for university.

 

Tuition fees were introduced in 1998 at up to £1,000 a year; today they are more than three times that, and from 2012, universities will be allowed to charge up to £9,000 a year. According to education charity Credit Action, the average student today can expect to leave university with debts of £23,200. Next year, this figure is likely to rise considerably. And there's no guarantee of a job. Graduate unemployment is at its highest level since 1995 - and is rising faster than average UK unemployment, from 10.8 per cent at the start of the recession to 20 per cent now.

 

Easy money

 

Next month, thousands of British teenagers will find out if their application for university has been successful. Record numbers are set to miss out in the rush to bag a place before fees rise. But it seems that even the lucky ones who do gain admission may find the reality of surviving student life to be rather different from that advertised in the university prospectuses.

 

Laura says it was the need for money that made her turn to escorting. "I was working in a bar, earning £7 an hour, and I wanted to go to uni but there was no way I could afford it. A friend was doing phone sex chat and she told me you can earn £1 a minute doing it, so I looked into it. And then I came across the escorting websites and realised that there was some serious money to be made there.

 

"It can be so easy. Last week I went to an appointment for two hours. I spent an hour and a half drinking rum and coke, half an hour having sex, and left with over £300 in my pocket. Easy.

 

"People think we're victims - who's the victim? Sometimes you don't even have to have sex at all.

 

"This week I'll have three clients, so that's around four hours' work for over £600. No commute, no boss. That's my rent for the month."

 

Stacey*, 23, is a petite final-year art student with a quick wit and an infectious laugh who escorts part-time from a flat in west London. She started after struggling to pay for coursework materials and living costs in her first year.

 

"Rent day was nearing and I had maxed out my overdraft," she says. "I'd heard of friends of friends who were escorts. They said you just had to go on dinner dates - and sex didn't have to happen. So I searched the internet, found a site and put up three pictures of myself. I got a call within 20 minutes!"

 

Stacey met the man for dinner, and it soon became clear that he expected more than what was strictly on the menu.

 

"I was so naive I actually thought it was just a date," she says. "But then he asked how much it would cost to sleep with me. And he put an envelope on the table with my whole month's rent in it. He was quite a nice man, not bad looking, so I thought: 'why not?'".

 

The stigma

 

Since then, Stacey has lost count of the number of men she's slept with for money - but reckons she can make between £500 and £2,000 a week. She fits escorting around her studies and takes regular breaks "to get my head together".

 

"It can mess with your mind a bit," she admits. "And it makes having a relationship very difficult. But it's my choice. Nobody's making me do it. It's good money, I'm my own boss, I decide for myself whether I want a pay rise, and I pick my own holidays.

 

"And I enjoy meeting people. Does that sound weird? If I didn't, I don't think I could do it. Don't get me wrong, it's not exactly my ideal choice of career - I wouldn't do it if I didn't need the money. But the same applies to any job."

 

Stacey has no idea what she's going to do after graduating this summer. "I'm saving so that I can go travelling. I don't know what I want to do with my degree - but then nobody I know does either. And nobody can get a job straight from university now anyway. At least I'm not going to start out so horribly in debt."

 

Hearing the girls talk, it's easy to forget the day-to-day realities of what they're doing. For all the money and the upsides of being their own boss, one indisputable truth remains.

 

"You can't get away from the stigma," admits Cassie*, a 23-year-old humanities graduate who started escorting in her final year, and has continued since graduation. The girls may call themselves "escorts", but the unspoken other names remain.

 

"Whore. Hooker. Tart. They don't sound nice, do they?" admits Cassie.

 

And Stacey has no time for the Belle de Jour image of the sophisticated courtesan as played by Billie Piper in the TV drama, either.

 

"I hated Secret Diary Of A Call Girl," she exclaims. "It made it out to be so glamorous - I tell you, it doesn't feel very glamorous when you're down on your knees in front of some old man."

 

The stigma attached to the job can last even after the girls finish working in the sex industry and use their hard-earned degree to get a 'normal' job.

 

"I do worry about people finding out," says Cassie. "Especially my friends or family. Every time they say something like: 'Can I ask you a question?' or 'We need to talk', I'm thinking: 'Oh no...'"

 

No future

 

But there are compensations. As Cassie's fellow students struggle to break into the job market, taking on unpaid internships and racking up more debts, she has cleared around £120,000 since leaving university.

 

"I graduated at the start of the recession," she says. "I've done the slog, the five-hour-long applications for entry-level positions, I've attended countless interviews and got nowhere. After a while, you just give up. What's the point of going to uni if you're going to end up unemployed with a huge debt hanging over your head at the end of it?

 

"Instead I can do this and earn more money than anyone I know, more than if I had a top job in the City."

 

Back in the bar, Laura is preparing to leave for her "date" for the evening.

 

"Initially the idea was that I'd do this to pay for university," she says. "But I can't see that once I leave uni I'll find a job that will pay this much. So I don't think I'll give it up straight away.

 

"But at the same time it's not going to be forever. I don't want to be remembered for being an escort. I want to achieve something with my life. That's why I came to university in the first place. I've not forgotten that."

 

The girls who work on the edge of the law

 

Working as a prostitute in this country [the UK] is in itself not against the law - but just about everything associated with it is.

 

The 1956 Sexual Offences Act bans running a brothel (a premises containing more than one person available for paid sex) and it's also illegal to solicit sex on the street. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 it is an offence to cause prostitution or control it for personal gain. These laws can be interpreted to prosecute anyone associated with an agency or brothel, including drivers and those who answer the telephone.

 

Under the Policing and Crime Act 2009, it is illegal to pay for the sexual services of a prostitute 'subjected to force' - a girl who has been trafficked or otherwise made to sell her body. The man does not have to know that she has been subjected to force in order to be prosecuted.

[Capital Hunter 18263]

Thanks for the article WIT. Student escorts is not limited to UK. Here in Canada too (both in Ottawa and Montreal) I have come across many student escorts both at college and university level. When I used to go to strip bars and make friends with dancers I also came across many dancers who were college or university students.

[Guest s******ecan****]

I must admit that before I became active in the hobby I thought the whole "student escort" idea was a myth.

[matt1915 100]

At first, I was thinking that maybe the UK government would get a hint that students need more tuition assistance. Then I realized that the old politicians are probably among the people frequenting the student escorts.

[Malika Fantasy 144625]

At first, I was thinking that maybe the UK government would get a hint that students need more tuition assistance. Then I realized that the old politicians are probably among the people frequenting the student escorts.

 

 

Totally...most people that can afford to pay for an hour rate, more then once a month are rarely( I said rarely, not never) young post-student, it's middle-age men that are comfortable with their finance and can afford some extra and hired an escort for a set amount of time.

[etasman2000 15994]

Totally...most people that can afford to pay for an hour rate, more then once a month are rarely( I said rarely, not never) young post-student, it's middle-age men that are comfortable with their finance and can afford some extra and hired an escort for a set amount of time.

 

It is also true that young college / university male students have a better hit-rate with non-SPs partners.