What is(was) your professional/stage/working name?
Natalie Hunter
How old are you now?
Mid-20s
At what age did you engage in your first professional sexual experience?
24
Describe your first professional sexual experience, including what happened, how you felt, what you were thinking, how you felt afterward.
My best friend had begun working as an escort a few years prior, shortly after we met. I thought she was insane at first, but as time went by, I admired and envied her more and more. She had always been beautiful, but being an escort seemed to make her even more attractive, both through the way she carried herself physically, and in her spirit and confidence. Her life seemed mysterious, sexy and forbidden to me.
As she was escorting, I was working a frustrating, poorly paying day job, and stuck in a very unsatisfying and unhealthy relationship. When my partner and I broke up, I went through a pretty promiscuous phase of my life where I just wanted to try everything. I had long fantasized about being paid for sex, and so I tried that, too. I lived in San Francisco at the time. A businessman visiting from New York wrote a Craigslist post where he was looking for a non-pro to have a fun evening with—including drinks, strip clubs, and private time in his room.
I wrote to him introducing myself, and then we began exchanging emails. They got progressively kinkier, and I got more and more excited about meeting him. I liked using a stage name and taking on a new persona—all the fun, sexy, enchanting parts of my real self, condensed into an alluring alter ego. I remember later shopping for a dress to wear that night, awkwardly putting on pantyhose, slipping into high heels I hadn’t worn in years. At the time I had very little money and no sense of style. It all felt like such a costume, but I managed to put myself together enough to go out and meet him.
I was very nervous and considered backing out a hundred times, but he ended up being surprisingly handsome and really personable, and we had a wonderful evening. He bought me a lap dance at the strip club, and I’ll always remember how the dancer asked if he and I were together. I didn’t know what to say, so he interjected, “Tonight we are.” I loved the way that sounded. Tonight we are together. The sex was exciting, passionate and raw; I felt far less inhibited than I had with any partners in my personal life.
As I was leaving his room, I remember this distinct feeling that an entirely new world had just opened up to me. I loved the feeling of the cash in my pocket—in a few enjoyable hours, I had made nearly a week’s salary at my day job. The whole city seemed to sparkle in a new way, and I realized that all rules could be broken, my story could be rewritten, and I could become someone new.
At what age did you entertain the first (serious) thoughts of going into sex work?
24
What made you decide to enter the line of work you’re in?
Money and excitement. Both are addictive. From that first night in San Francisco, I’ve been hooked, and never seriously considered stopping.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love traveling. I love the flexibility to work whenever I feel like it, never when I don’t, and only with people whose company I enjoy. I like meeting new people who I never would have met otherwise. I like meeting other sex workers and being part of a community. I like feeling justified when I spend ridiculous amount of money on lingerie and makeup. I like feeling sexy. I like helping other people unwind, feel sexy and loved and appreciated. I love to be their dirty little secret, the thing they crave and fantasize about.
What do you like the least about your work?
The social stigma.
Does your family know what you do? If so, what do they think?
No. No one in my life knows at all, except for fellow sex workers, who tend to be my favorite people anyway.
How much longer do you think you’ll do what you’re doing now, and what are your plans for when you quit? If you’ve already left, what made you decide to leave and what did you decide to do for work when you left?
I have always worked a day job along with being a sex worker, and I hope to balance the two until I have a good reason to stop.
Describe your educational background.
I am in my first year of graduate school. I’m addicted to education—it’s what most of my money made through sex work has gone toward.
If you had to go back and tell your younger self (mid to late teens) that you’d be doing what you’re doing now (assuming you’re still working in the sex industry), what do you think your younger self would say about it?
I would never have believed it! But actually, I always have had a deep interest in sex workers. As a kid, I remember seeing a prostitute being arrested on TV. She was resisting like crazy, and I asked my father what she had done wrong. “Do you know what sex is?” he asked my 7-year-old self. I only sort of knew, but I nodded anyway. “She does that for money,” he told me, “Gross, huh?” And I nodded again, though I remember not really understanding what was gross about it. I think back on that still, and am surprised at what an impression it made on me as I remember it over 15 years later.
What advice would you give someone who was looking to get into your line of sex work?
First, save your money. I’ve seen women get horribly addicted to the money and quickly begin living way outside their means. They then get themselves in a position where the need to do sex work to maintain their lifestyle. The work becomes very restraining and tedious, rather than freeing.
Second: Tell as few people as possible about what you’re doing. It sounds obvious, but it’s safe to assume that the two or three close friends you trust might have two or three close friends who they trust, and so on. Be very careful in selecting whom you choose to trust with personal information—you never want this work to damage your chances of succeeding in the “square world.”
Third: Think long-term and don’t be afraid to turn down work. If you get an uneasy feeling about someone, don’t see them. Sure, you’ll miss out on some short-term money, but difficult clients will make you hate your job and burn out. Hold out for good clients and treat them well. It really is possible to meet amazing people through this experience — take good care of those who take care of you!
Natalie’s Professional Site: Natalie Hunter
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What is(was) your professional/stage/working name?
