ladies of leisure

Mondays are usually my "day off". My self-imposed task for the day, because I've been asked a total of eleventy-million times since I made the decision, was to write an entry as to why and/or how I ended up designing websites for the escort industry.

And I got

Absolutely nothin'.

Apparently, my creative juices were drier than an AA meeting in a convent of menopausal nuns. The thing is I am obsessive, and once I get an idea in my head, I figuratively chew on it and chew on it until it looks nothing like what I started with or I choke on it and have to spit it out.

I fell in love with the craft of web design back in 1997 when I started my own first "homepage" on one what would be one of several free hosted sites. It was made with Netscape's <strong>WYSIWYG</strong> editor and full of the pre-requisite bells, whistles and enough shiny, twirly things to send you into an epileptic fit. How utterly cool I thought it was.

By 2000 I discovered <a href="http://notetab.com" target="_blank" title="Thank you, NoteTab for showing me the error of my ways">NoteTab</a> and figured out that all the pretty things were actually manipulated by <strong>WORDS</strong> - some of my all-time favorite things, whether spoken or written - and I became an HTML snob. By mid-2000 I'd purchased my first "vanity" domain, which still exists today, and in early 2001 opened up shop as a web designer.

More or less.

I've had clients over the years, but in the beginning it was like pulling hen's teeth. I often tired of the struggle and would waver back and forth about giving the whole thing up. There was the summer I would go to <a href="http://craigslist.com" target="_blank" title="classifieds and forums">craigslist</a>, start at the top and troll for anyone looking for a web designer, some days emailing out thirty or more resumes. I was determined to start making a living doing something I loved, but it was a hard go. Occasionally, I'd run across an ad placed by an escort, but never lingered for whatever reason.

The truth is I can't remember when it came to me to offer my services to women in the Industry. It might've been after reading a few of the blogs at <a href="http://www.escortblogs.net" target="_blank" title="where providers say what's on their mind">EscortBlogs.net</a> and feeling a sort of kinship with the women who'd written them or it may have been seeing one more escort website with some incredibly beautiful pictures plopped down in the middle of horrific coding. In any event, I put HHD together in less than a month and started advertising.

My husband and the friends that know what I do (<em>I don't hide it for the most part, my life is weird enough anyway that no one is surprised when they find out what I've branched out into</em>) seem to think that I spend my day immersed up to my eyeballs in tits and ass. I guess to a certain extent I do. But unless I come across a particularly gorgeous shot or something that squicks me out more than normal, I mostly don't notice the nudity. It's not as if I'm doing hard-core porn here, y'know.

I've found that the women I come into contact with are more polite and less condescending than nearly <strong>ANY</strong> of my mainstream clients or contacts, and they have no problem thanking me for my work or recommending me to colleagues and friends, something that was <strong>HARD</strong> to come by in my mainstream business. I've actually gotten more paying jobs since offering my services to the ladies of the escort industry than I did in over <strong>SEVEN FUCKING YEARS</strong> of mainstream design.

I can't say I had an epiphany of any kind or that the HTML gods smiled on me, but I bust my ever-widening ass up to twelve hours a day trying to make a living at this and I'm starting to reap the rewards in a very short time. My friends roll their eyes when I tell them that is a job, just like any other one. Except that the scenery is a little more exciting than say, booze bottles or food trays. And I never have to ask "D'ya want fries with that?"

For the most part, my escorting clients are just as normal as my mainstream clients. They're doing a job, offering a service, using their skills to make a living, just like I am.

Here's to ya, ladies. Y'all fucking rock.

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