SHE is well educated, well spoken and very well groomed: an attractive blonde in her 30s used to men hitting on her in bars. So why did ”Eva”* pay a man to have sex with her? And how did that encounter lead her, a single mother with a full-time professional job, into secretly running a male escort business?
About two years ago, fed up with internet dating and the desultory randomness of the bar scene, but missing male company, Eva toyed with the idea of using a male escort.
Ignoring the storm of censorial voices inside her head, all screaming variations of ”nice girls don’t do that” and worse, she started searching online.
”It was very hard; there wasn’t much out there. I rang one of the places and they never returned my phone calls.” She ran hot and cold on the idea for six months.
Then she found ”Steve”, a solo operator online. ”I was very lucky,” she says, having now a better idea of what is out there (not much). Steve sent her a picture. They exchanged texts. She wanted to ask all sorts of questions about how it would work, but didn’t feel confident enough to have those sorts of conversations.
So she leapfrogged her doubts entirely and arranged for him to come to her house.
”It was nerve-racking but I was also excited. The anticipation, thinking, ‘Oh goodness, what am I doing?’ ” she says. ”When I opened the door, I just went ‘phew’. He was gorgeous, beautifully presented and he made me feel at ease. He worked very hard to make me feel comfortable.”
That encounter resulted in Eva and a friend setting up an exclusive escort business, MyMaleCompanion, for professional women like themselves who were well-off, but stressed or time-poor and wanted male company and sex on their own terms. About 40 per cent of jobs don’t involve sex; the clients just want the male company.
For Eva, hiring Steve was an overwhelmingly positive experience that she doesn’t regret.
But she knows that she is totally kicking against societal and possibly biological norms. Some men pay for sex, always have, probably always will. But women? It’s a fraught issue, especially as prostitution is one of the most divisive issues among feminists.
Eva finally confessed to her friend ”Julie”, and was more relieved than she expected that her friend didn’t recoil in horror. Julie’s reaction was positive: ”That’s great! How much better is that? You didn’t have to go out all night, didn’t have guys sleazing on you all night, the whole internet dating.”
Was it just about the sex? Eva said no. ”We sat on the lounge and he held my hand and stroked my hair and we talked. I enjoyed that as much as the sex, though the sex was great.”
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Eva and Julie figured that they were pretty normal, intelligent women and if they were interested in being able to have company or sex on their terms, others would, too, and that male escorts for women could be normalised or at least destigmatised.
My Male Companion has up to eight male escorts working in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. In two years of operation, Eva says hundreds of women have used the service, and they are getting so many men wanting to work for them that they have started charging for a full interview. Eva agrees to interview only about one in 10 applicants.
Eva says it’s difficult to find a good male escort because it’s not enough to be attractive physically. ”The perception of a lot of men who come into this work is it’s all about sex, but it’s not. It’s about making the women feel special,” Eva says.
So what kind of woman pays for sex? Eva says most clients are in their 30s and 40s though some are older. Most are attractive, professional, normally confident women who go to water when they contemplate hiring a male escort. A lot of Eva and Julie’s time is spent reassuring women and answering lots of questions.
She blames this on the fact that women who are very open about their sexual needs or sexuality are ”still labelled and judged”.
”We help women feel good about their choices, give them confidence that if this is something they want to do, they’re allowed to,” Eva says.
What she loves about the business is that so many clients who have agonised over it, contact her afterwards to say it was amazing. ”The feedback I get most is ‘that was a whole lot of fun’.” But they’re not about to tell their friends. ”We’re still very much in the closet. I think women want to do this, but they’re like me, it might take them six months thinking about it before they do it.”
Steve, the first male escort Eva hired, ended up working for her. He is My Male Companion’s most popular escort and will wine and dine a woman for $250 an hour – or have sex with them for $500 an hour, minimum booking of two hours. A full day can cost $15,000.
Steve, who moved here from Europe, lives in Sydney but travels, mainly to Melbourne and Brisbane, for one-off and regular clients. Sometimes he is hired just to spend the day with a woman and her children – ”looking after the children, walking in the park or with the dogs, cooking a meal together. Sometimes it’s to make an ex jealous.”
He says the income is good but not the primary motivator.
”In a selfish way I feel pleasure by giving pleasure and by giving I receive, that’s what counts.”
