If You Recognize Any Of These Signs, You Might Be A Sex Addict

Are you a sex addict?

What is sex addiction?

Sex addiction, officially referred to by the World Health Organization as Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder, looks a lot like alcoholism and drug addiction except the”drug of choice” is sexual fantasy and activity, rather than an addictive substance.

Is addiction a disease? What are the signs of addiction of the sexual nature?

Like all other types of addiction, sex addiction is identified based on three primary criteria:

• Preoccupation to the point of obsession with the substance or behavior of choice.
• Loss of control over the use of the substance or behavior, typically evidenced by failed attempts to quit or cut back.
• Directly related negative consequences — relationship trouble, issues at work or in school, declining physical health, depression, anxiety, diminished self-esteem, isolation, financial woes, loss of interest in previously enjoyable activities, legal trouble, etc.

If you’re like most people, you readily understand the concept of substance addiction. If you are not addicted to anything, yourself (like cigarettes, alcohol, prescription medications, illicit drugs, etc.), you probably know someone who is.

At the very least, you’ve seen relatively accurate portrayals of substance abuse on television and in the movies.

Behavioral addictions — like sex addiction — are usually more difficult to fathom. Nevertheless, people can and do become addicted to behaviors just as often and just as easily as they become addicted to highly pleasurable, self-soothing, and dissociative substances — and with similarly problematic results.

For an active sex addict, sexual fantasies and behavior are priority number one. Sexual activity (either solo or with others) takes place no matter what, regardless of potential or actual consequences.

Often, sex addicts will tell themselves, But before long, they’re right back at it, showing and engaging in the same or very similar behavior.

Sex addicts organize their lives around sexual fantasy and the behaviors that follow. They spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about, planning for, pursuing, and engaging in sexual activity.

Sex becomes an obsession to the point where important relationships, interests, and responsibilities are ignored. Nearly always, sex addicts find themselves living a double life, keeping their sexual acting out hidden and a secret from family, friends, and everyone else who matters to them.

Sex addiction symptoms and patterns of fantasy-driven behavior that are typically exhibited by sex addicts include (but are by no means limited to) the following:

• Compulsive use of pornography, with or without masturbation
• Compulsive use of one or more digital sexologies — webcams, sexting, dating/hookup websites and apps, virtual reality sex games, sexual devices, etc.
• Consistently being “on the hunt” for sexual activity
• Multiple ongoing affairs or brief “serial” relationships
• Consistent involvement with strip clubs, adult bookstores, adult movie theaters, sex clubs, and other sex-focused environments
• Engaging in prostitution and/or sensual massage (hiring or providing)
• A pattern of anonymous and/or casual sex hookups with people met online or in-person
• Repeatedly engaging in unprotected sex
• Repeatedly engaging in sex with potentially dangerous people or in potentially dangerous places
• Seeking sexual experiences without regard to immediate or long-term potential consequences
• A pattern of minor sexual offenses such as voyeurism, exhibitionism, frotteurism, etc.

Like other addicts, sex addicts typically use their behavior as a way to “numb out” and escape from stress and emotional (and sometimes physical) discomfort — including the pain of underlying emotional and/or psychological issues like depression, anxiety, early-life trauma, and the like.

In other words, sex addicts don’t use compulsive sexual fantasies and behaviors to feel good and have fun, they use them to feel less (i.e., to distract themselves from what they are feeling). As such, sexual addiction is not about having fun, it’s about controlling what one feels.

 

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10 Steps to Quitting Pornography Addiction

Here’s an interesting perspective from one of my followers in the Middle East.

If you’re reading this, then you either struggle with pornography addiction, or care about someone who does. Please know that you’re not alone, and with the help of Allah, it is possible for you or your loved one(s) to overcome it.

How to quit a pornography addiction
1 – Accept that you have an addiction
Healing always begins with acceptance. Nobody likes labels, but accepting that you have a pornography addiction is the first step of your healing journey. You are not alone, and countless of people around the world have overcome their pornography addiction.

2 – Find a trustworthy support group
I strongly recommend the online resource, Purify Your Gaze. The founder, Brother Zeyad Ramadan has both sincerity and years of expertise in this field. Recovery from addiction is a lifelong journey, and that path doesn’t have to be a lonely one. There is strength in community, and Purify Your Gaze offers both that as well as the safety of anonymity, through clients using online nicknames.

3 – Be gentle and patient with yourself
Recovery is a lifelong journey, so don’t expect instant results! The more pressure you put on yourself, the more likely you might actually fail. Think of recovery as a marathon instead of a sprint. It is normal to feel disappointed when you relapse, so use that as an opportunity to surrender to Allah, repent and start again.

4 – Understand what drives your behavior
What are your triggers? Are you more likely to relapse when you get stressed about exams, feel lonely after attending weddings, or after you argue with difficult friends or family members? Try your best to notice the patterns in your behavior. When you notice the patterns, then you’ll be better able to look after yourself during those stressful moments. There isn’t a foolproof way to completely prevent stress, but it always helps to be aware of what presses your buttons.

5 – Cultivate a rich spiritual life
A closer connection to Allah will help you feel better connected to yourself. Struggling with addiction is often a sign that you find it really hard to stay emotionally present, and don’t have better coping mechanisms. Think of what you can do on a daily basis to help you feel more connected to Allah. Is through regular dua? Regular recitation of Qur’an? Fasting regularly? Everyone has different paths to Allah.

6 – Practice daily self-care
Check into your moods throughout the day until it becomes a habit. Use your five daily prayer times as a way to mindfully slow down and check into yourself. How often are you able to exercise every week? Is your diet healthy and balanced? What kind of books and media are you consuming? Make conscious decisions to choose to consume what is good for you, so that your heart and limbs can also manifest what is good.

7 – Choose your friends wisely
Don’t keep the company of people who indulge in pornography. Instead, spend time with God-fearing people who do good, and invite you to do the same.

8 – Buffer yourself during times of extra stress
When you know that you’re going to go through a rough patch, then do your best to prepare for it. Schedule in rituals into your daily and weekly routine to help you feel more balanced. It could be working out at the gym, going for a walk, or meeting a good friend for coffee.

9 – Forgive yourself when you relapse
Only Prophets are protected from sin. Everyone else is wired to make mistakes. Repentance is how we find our way back to Allah. Instead of beating yourself up and losing yourself in guilt, pick yourself up again, and consider it a learning experience. What can you do better next time?

If you were to commit sin until your sins reach the heaven, then you were to repent, your repentance would be accepted.” -Prophet Mohammed, narrated from Abu Hurairah (Sunan Ibn Majah)

10 – Reflect on how you can give back
One of the biggest gifts of striving to overcome pornography addiction is this – having empathy. And from this empathy comes the ability to support others along their own recovery journeys. This is is a lot better than shaming, blaming and judging fellow Muslims for having pornography addiction

Consider the childhood roots of pornography addiction
Maybe you came across pornography by accident. Maybe you were curious about sex, but looked for information through pornography. Whatever the reason, being involved in a pornography addiction may point to some difficult realities about your family home. In his must-watch video Brother Zeyad Ramadan describes the childhood home of pornography addicts having three unspoken rules.

1 – The Don’t Trust Rule (I don’t trust my parents)

2 – The Don’t Feel Rule (I survive by not feeling, my parents feel threatened by my feelings)

3 – The Don’t Talk Rule (Denial, we don’t speak the truth, we don’t talk about problems)

Grieve for the little wounded child inside you. You were an innocent and trusting child, and you deserved a safer family home. No matter what your parents did to hurt you, you are an adult now, and you are responsible for your own healing journey. Take ownership of your actions, and decide that it’s time to break that cycle. Your own future children will benefit from your courage and commitment to change, inshaAllah.

Benefits of insight
When you become a parent some day, then you will be a strong advocate for your own child’s emotional health. Because of your own lived experience, you’ll also be much more prepared to protect them from the dangers of pornography. There’s no running away from the reality that the tide of pornography is a growing one, so through your own healing journey, you will help your own children navigate their way to safety, in this world and the next.

 

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California Dreamin’ -1982 to 1984 – Dariella – Into Darkness

Let me preface this by saying that I’m no prince charming, but even I have limits. I met Dariella one night after a show at Madam Wong’s West in Santa Monica, and she seemed interesting and metal. Naturally I wanted to see her again.

The First Date:

I found out she doesn’t drive, which isn’t a problem. I also found out that she lived down in Long Beach, not great, but I wanted to spend time with her so I took the drive to pick her up. When I arrived I also found out she lived with her parents, and was unemployed, again, see seemed great so I decided it wasn’t a big deal. We went to one of the local haunts to get some food and get to know one another better. That’s when I found out she was a part time Dom in a local dungeon. Okay to each their own, people have different tastes. Everything else during the date went smoothly. She was hot and exotic. The night ended and I drove her home.

The Second Date:

She wanted to go to this great bar that she knew about. I was all for it, something new. It turned out to be a really seedy dive bar. It was like something out of a movie. Everybody knew her, and she even had some family there. She proceeded to get wasted while I took in the sights and got to know the people. There was an old Hell’s Angel that told me about his youth, and how he was the king of the skating rink back in the day. I got to see a midget line dance to Copper Head Road. My date ran into a friend she’d met in county lockup. (Nice) All in all, it wasn’t too bad. I really enjoyed the place more than spending time with her though. She ran up a HUGE bar tab while we were there and expected me to pay which wasn’t really cool.

The Third Date:

Back to the bar! This time I brought the guys from the band and a few of my friends along. Everyone loved the place. Crazy group of people that looked like, rockers, punks, goths, hookers, bikers, and hippies. It was nuts. But things took an odd turn on the way to the van to drop off my date and her cousin. Her cousin stops and makes a comment about having just about the right amount of people for an orgy. My date replied that it wouldn’t be the first time. What did her cousin think she did at all those parties she went to? The level of crazy just went way up. Her cousin was smokin’ hot too, so we went back in the bar and put it to the group. Everybody was down, so off we went back to somebody’s house.

Sadly, phicklephilly is a dating blog, not a sex blog so I can’t go into all of the details of the orgy back at her cousin’s house. But it was insane and my first one!

Here’s and excerpt of a conversation I later had with my buddy, bassist, Frank.

Me: “That shit was crazy, right?”

Frank: “Fuck sake, mate. Remember the one I was with?”

Me: “Dariella’s hot cousin or that chick with that Bow Wow Wow Mohawk?”

Frank: “Mohawk.”

Me: “Okay.”

Frank: “After I gave it to her she said she’d been smoking meth with her boyfriend earlier that day.”

Me: “That’s fucked up.”

Frank: “And she said how she hoped she wasn’t pregnant!”

Me: “By you or her boyfriend?”

Frank: Fuck sake, I wore a sweater with her, thank fuck!” (condom) But that’s not the worst part.”

Me: “What?”

Frank: “She stole like $80 out of my wallet!”

Me: “I told you that chick was a hooker!”

 

Sadly, that was the last time I went out with Dariella. I think the band was all to weirded out by what had happened.

I miss that bar though.

 

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California Dreamin’ – 1982 to 1984 – Shira – Persian Beauty

Oh… this one takes me back. I love this story!

(This post is not safe for work! NSFW! You’ve been warned!)

I was living in Santa Monica, playing in a band back in ’82 just living the rock n’ roll dream. I was working at that time as a busboy at a place called Cafe Casino in Wilshire Palisades in Santa Monica. Shira came in a few times to dine with her friends. Because of all of the shit at that time in Iran with the Shah, we had a lot of Persian people immigrating to America. Mostly California. If you look back in history, you’ll see that’s how the Kardashians got here.

I was a guitarist in a struggling band and a lowly busboy by day and flirted with Shira when she came in. I guess she liked my long blonde hair and fresh face and took a shine to me. She lived up in Brentwood which isn’t too far from me, but far enough way to be exclusive. We chatted a bit and exchanged numbers. I liked that she was dark, foreign and different from the usual girls I dated.

She and her girlfriends came out to see our band but nothing ever came out of it. She was lovely but I think I was just distracted from all the fleas and ticks of rock and roll at the time in early eighties Los Angeles.

One night we actually talked for six hours on the phone (9pm-3am) and she invited me to her house the next day for dinner to see if we liked each other in person. I agreed to go over. I was so naive back then.

So I go there and as soon as I walk in the door, she sniffs me and says “Last night on the phone, I just wanted to inhale you through the line”

And I was like “Yeah, we got on pretty well.”

“Is this your own place?

It is, Chaz

(Yes!)

She looks smoking hot and middle eastern sultry and I’m down for whatever. I just think she’s really pretty. I don’t know any better. She’s wearing a light blue blouse and really small white shorts and high heel sandals. Her long caramel legs are making me crazy. I’m 19 years old and this is all new ground for the boy I once was. She’s absolutely lovely and exotic. I don’t know any girls like her back home.

So we sit on the sofa, have a drink and are talking a while. She hops up from her end of the sofa and says “I want to smell you again”.

OK. So she straddles me and puts her nose deep into my neck and starts breathing in really deep. So I kissed her neck and she goes,”ahhhhhhhhh”. So I kept kissing her neck and shoulders, she starts doing the same to me. Next thing we’re French kissing,

Awesome, I’m a teenager, I love deep tongues. I was really enjoying it. Next she lays down on the sofa, I get on top of her and start kissing her again. One thing leads to another and we go to the bedroom and take turns giving each other oral. It was great. She had a raging orgasm and then teased me for what seemed like an hour until I had a huge orgasm too.

We end up having mind bending sex. She’s almost brutally sexual. Her brown body, drenched in sweat as she rides me like a stolen horse.

I have never met anyone like Shira, and girls back home don’t possess the kind of sexual prowess when it comes to staving off an orgasm and then coming like a freight train blasting through a forgotten station.

We made dinner together, pasta with pesto and truffle oil, with some really good parmesan, shared a bottle of wine and chatted on. Eventually we go to the bedroom again and had some crazy good sex and more oral in between. Great, intense, passionate sex.

Then we’re lying there, kissing and talking and she says:

“What am I going to do? I just took a six month lease on this place”.

Well, it’d be a good idea to pay your rent.”

“Well, that would be wasteful seeing as I’ll be living with you now”.

“Well, no, I think we should see each other as much as we can, and maybe have the odd sleepover and see how things work out”.

“But things did work out, I let you into my vagina, you’re mine now.”

I thought she was kidding.

“Well, if it’s important to you, you can call me your boyfriend, but you don’t own me.”

She started screaming, insulting me in Arabic, raving… (Which is kind of hot because it’s way before 9/11)

“Whoa, whoa, we just had sex, we’re not married. Sure we got into sex quickly, but hell, we met at a restaurant. I’m a musician. What did you think was gonna happen?”

“You said you take sex seriously, so do I. I only have sex with someone I’m in a relationship with, so this means we’re in a relationship and you said you wanted someone to live with and be happy with. I will cook your meals, clean your house, take care of our children. I want a child of my own soon.”

Holy crap… I agreed that we should keep talking, but I had to go home… I dressed and said good-bye. To her it was like seeing off a lover who was travelling overseas for a few years, massive hugs and kisses.

“Call me tomorrow???”

“Okay…. Okay…”

It was a moonless night, midnight, pitch black and pissing down with rain and I had to drive for 90 minutes on narrow, winding  roads in the Hollywood hills in my old ’69 VW  van. Because no one can drive in the rain in L.A. By the time I got home, white knuckled from gripping the wheel it was late, nearly 2am.

I woke up around 9am, my phone was ringing non stop and I answer it.

“I don’t appreciate this lack of communication. You are going to have to improve. You can’t treat me like shit after I’ve had you in my home, fed you, given you my vagina”

“I just woke up. Why did you call me so many times?

“ARE YOU CALLING ME CRAZY? I AM NOT CRAZY JUST BECAUSE I EXPECT SOME COMMUNICATION FROM MY MAN!!!!”.

At this stage, we’d known each other’s first names for like 36 hours.

We phoned on and off for like a week, me trying to increase the number of fights so she’d give up on me. About three days in, we’re arguing on the phone and I hear her moaning and stuff. She was fighting with me while masturbating.

Had to write her off.

Back then it was so much easier to cut off the crazy. I’m just glad her family didn’t hunt me down and cut my hands off… or worse!

But I will leave you with this lasting memory that has haunted me all of my days in a good way.

When Shira and I would have mad sex, she would get really sweaty. I like that. I like everything that happens to the woman I’m with during sex no matter what. But her sweat smelled like lawnmower exhaust. It had that hot, sexy, oily, burning with gas mixture kind of smell. I think it may have been from her diet, but I don’t care. It was real and I liked it.

For weeks after that whenever my neighbors mowed their lawn, I’d get a massive erection.

I wish that last part of this story wasn’t true. But it is!

Fuck you Pavlov.

 

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Neuroscience of Cannabis & Sex – Part 1

The propaganda

In the 1930’s, stories and images of sex-crazed youth were a staple of anti-marijuana propaganda. Sex and rage were intertwined with cannabis in biggest the newspapers across America. There were countless reports of intense lust brought on by smoking reefer, inevitably resulting in violence and assault.

One anti-cannabis article published by William Randolph Hearst ( who, at the time, owned nearly 30 newspapers reaching over 20 million subscribers) read, “… a sex-mad degenerate brutally attacked a young girl… Police officers knew definitely that the man was under the influence of marijuana.”

Today, this statement seems outlandish, but at the time, many believed it plausible that smoking a pure plant could result in “bath salt” like behavior.  The general public was taught to fear marijuana— unaware that it was the same drug as the cannabis plant, which had been used medicinally for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

Even to those familiar with the species many names, the science surrounding cannabis was meager. Books published 50-100 years prior were still influencing public thought. One in particular, Hashish and Mental Illness, written by psychiatrist J.J. Moreau in 1845, described cannabis-induced fluctuations of emotions, irresistible impulses, illusions, and hallucinations. If you subscribed to Moreau’s view, a sex-crazed assault seemed completely plausible (note: scientists today remain perplexed by his conclusions. Numerous hypotheses involving mixing other drugs have been proposed and debated to explain these observed symptoms, which are extremely rare or non-existent in cannabis users). As we didn’t know how the effect of cannabis on the brain back then, perhaps it could have made you a sex-crazed lunatic.

The implicit message in the W.R. Hearst’s newspapers was that cannabis lowers inhibitions and promotes the execution of sexual urges through violence. This would seem completely reasonable if you were exposed to Moreau’s teaching (from nearly a century earlier!) in addition to the government-fabricated propaganda. It took an evolved scientific understanding of cannabis to overcome this nonsense.

Emerging from the dark ages

The 1960’s was an important decade for the science of cannabis. In 1964, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary high-inducing cannabinoid, was discovered by Israeli scientists. They still didn’t know how it caused people to get high, but like ethanol in wine, people suddenly knew what was affecting their brain. Could THC cause people to become aggressive and capture “innocent youth victims of a new SEX-CRAZE”, as one propaganda poster reported? It was still unclear. Scientists didn’t know what THC was doing in the brain. Of course, there was no actual evidence that cannabis induced aggression or madness, but to many, that wasn’t sufficient.

Just a few years later, the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic opened and became particularly interested in the interaction between sex and drugs of its patients. Their report exposed cannabis to be a sex-enhancing drug, a position that was confirmed by survey reports on college campuses across the country. None of these reports mentioned elevated levels of aggression or “sex-rage”. But, it took scientists over 25 years before discovering the brain receptor through which THC carries out its effects. After this discovery, it became nearly impossible to take the violence-promoting position.

The discovery of the cannabinoid type I (CB1) receptor along with the identification of the body’s own cannabinoid chemicals (called endogenous cannabinoids) in the early 90’s are what led to the acknowledgement that THC merely modulates a system that’s already in place. This receptor is found throughout the brain and has a general “dampening effect” on brain activity. It has since been determined that this endogenous cannabinoid system, through which THC carries out its euphoric effects, has since been revealed to play important roles in everything from regulating mood to inflammation.

 

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Meet The Tinder Prostitutes

Guess what these women on Tinder really mean when they say ‘80 roses an hour’? Hint: it’s got nothing to do with flowers

Sarah went on Tinder for the same reason lots of women our age do – to find out how many single guys there were in her local area and to have an easy, safe way to get in contact with them. But, unlike lots of girls, Sarah doesn’t want to find single men because she looking for a boyfriend. She doesn’t even want a no-strings hookup – at least not in the way you’d think. Unlike you’re average user, when Sarah sleeps with a guy she meets on Tinder she leaves with much more than new number in her a phone and a funny sex story to tell her mates – she leaves with a pocketful of cash. Because unlike most 24-year-old girls using Tinder, Sarah’s a prostitute and she’s using the hookup app to lure in clients.

 

‘It made so much sense – where else do you basically have a database of all the down to fuck men in your area?’

‘Tinder has at least doubled my business,’ Sarah, who had a job in a strip bar before becoming a prostitute four years ago, explains to The Debrief. ‘In the last week alone, I’ve seen 12 clients all from Tinder and have earned over £1,000. I got the idea from a friend of mine who’s also on the game. I think she actually joined Tinder to find a boyfriend or whatever, but was sent dozens of messages from guys asking for no-strings sex, threesomes or naked pictures – there was basically no romance there at all. She just thought to herself “I’m not getting anywhere using Tinder to find a bloke, why don’t I just use it to boost business?” It made so much sense – where else do you basically have a database of all the down to fuck men in your area? – and she found it so easy I thought I might as well give it a go. I just made a profile, wrote caption that made it kind of obvious what I do for a living, matched everyone who I was OK sleeping with and then waited for matches to get in contact with me. I know more and more prostitutes are cottoning on as well – it’s made my job insanely easy.’

There have been reports for some time that Tinder has been being used this way over the globe. New Mexico State Senator Jacob Candelaria specifically blasted the app in his attempt to ‘clean up’ dating websites which allow the soliciting of sex. He told KOB Eyewitness News 4, ‘Our laws can’t and don’t keep pace with technological advancement and there will always be people looking to exploit those loopholes. We’re weak. Our courts have said our pimping laws are not applicable to the internet.’

And it looks like the same thing’s happening here, but should we be surprised? The dating app’s anonymity and pure reach make it a natural fit for sex workers. If you’ve ever borrowed your male mate’s phone to ‘play’ Tinder from the other side of the fence, you’ve no doubt come across a few of the profiles yourself. In between the ordinary profiles, you’ll find one or two pictures of lingerie-clad women provactively posing for selfies. That in itself isn’t exactly unusual, but what sets these profiles apart is what the women are offering in their ‘about’ section.

I was blown away by how quick, easy and transparent it could be to buy sex over Tinder

The ‘kind of obvious’ messages that prostitutes use to distinguish themselves from other girls’ profiles are easy to spot once you know the (admittedly, not hugely subtle) code. In London, at least, they’re easily identifiable by a proclivity for using rose emojis. Descriptions I have come across when I was researching this feature include ‘[rose emoji] 80 roses for the best night of your life’, ‘90 [rose emoji] for BBBJ’ [meaning bare back blowjob – blowjobs without a condom – according to Sarah] and ‘80 roses for an hour, GFE [Sarah says this is for a girlfriend experience] [rose emoji].’ In case you still haven’t figured it out – ‘roses’ mean ‘pounds sterling’.

Using my male housemate’s Tinder account, I was able to chat to three prostitues in one day and was blown away by how quick, easy and transparent it could be to buy sex over Tinder. On all three occasions, the process was the same – match with the girl, chat to them over Tinder about what I wanted and how much they would charge and then they’d send me a mobile number to ring and an address to go to. The price ranged from £70 for an hour with, extras such as blowjobs or anal increasing the price to over £100, to £300 for the entire evening and a full ‘girlfriend experience’. I was able to negotiate these prices without leaving my sofa or even speaking to the girl and that seems to be the point – it’s remarkable how easy Tinder makes it for users to skip the chit-chat and just pay a stranger for sex – all without deviating away from their iPhone.

For Sarah, the appeal seems to be that Tinder allows her to sell sex for cash while remaining anonymous and slipping past any interference from the police. ‘I had always worked at brothels or kerb-crawled before I started using Tinder, which was a nightmare, because you’d have to deal with hassle from the police. I’ve been in a brothel once when it was raided and it’s not an experience I’d like to repeat. And being shooed away by police on street corners is fucking boring. I’ve tried Gumtree and other websites, but they’re now really hot on closing down profiles that are soliciting sex. Tinder lets me get on with it completely privately – they message me, we chat, they come round, I shag them – or sometimes even just chat because it’s not always about the sex – and then they leave. It’s not traceable.’

When anyone reports Sarah’s profile and Tinder shuts it down, all she does is make another Facebook profile and get right back on.

The laws around prostitution in England and Wales are far from simple. The act of prostitution is not in itself illegal – but there are certain laws that criminalise activities around it. Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is an offence to cause or incite prostitution or control it for personal gain, and the 1956 Sexual Offences Act prohibits running a brothel and it’s against the law to loiter or solicit sex on the street. So selling sex on Tinder is not only completely within the parameters of the law, it allows these women to bypass any legal issues they might have selling sex through ‘traditional means’. No wonder Sarah finds it so appealing. For their part, Tinder is clear that such activities are against the app’s terms of service, which forbids commercial solicitation of any kind including ‘advertising or soliciting any user to buy or sell any products or services not offered by the Company’. Not that that’s had any affect on Sarah – when anyone reports her profile and Tinder shuts it down, all she does is make another Facebook profile and get right back on. It’s difficult to see how Tinder can keep on top of policing it.

So it certainly seems to be functional for Sarah, but what affect is it having on her emotionally? Using Tinder to solicit clients strips away what little face-to-face communication Sarah had with the people she’s about to have sex with so it becomes completely transactional – almost like doing a supermarket shop. Is she worried about what emotional damage she might be doing to herself? ‘Sometimes I think they forget that there’s an actual human behind the profile and there are times when it hasn’t been ideal,’ she admits. ‘People troll you a bit, but it comes with the territory and I just block them, because it’s a waste of my time. But even in person, people aren’t always very nice. When you meet with clients in the brothel or on the street, they obviously know what you look like in “real life”, but I admit that the pictures I used on my Tinder profile show me looking at my absolute best and, sometimes, the guys are disappointed with what they see when they arrive. Mainly all that people do is make a unkind joke about my appearance – which I can handle – but on one occasion someone actually left, which was obviously a bit shitty. And I do worry about my safety, but if I’m concerned, my male neighbor – who is a good mate – has a key to my house and I just text him if I feel intimidated and he gets rid of them.’

Interestingly, Sarah says that the sex she has through Tinder tends to be more ‘vanilla’ than some of the requests she had when she was working in a brothel. ‘I used to get people asking for weird stuff – one guy wanted me to wank him off into his own mouth– when I was in a brothel, but because the users on Tinder tend to be predominantly men in their twenties and thirties, they usually don’t want anything that niche. The most bizarre request I’ve had from Tinder was from a banker in his late twenties who wanted a classic sub-dom scenario and for me to urinate on him, but that’s not really a big deal to me. I got into this because I love sex and I have a really high sex drive. I get to have sex for a living and I absolutely love my job. Anyway, most of my friends on Tinder have sex with guys who then disappear off the face of the planet. The only difference between me and them is that I’m charging.’

 

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Another Life – Chapter 32

https://lapetitemort17.wordpress.com/?p=445

 

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