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Friday, August 20, 2004

The Cost of Relationships

On another board somebody posted the following question:

What is the most you've ever spent on a escort or mistress? Who is the champ here? Let me see.
Champ or chump?

Let me broaden the question by looking at different kinds of relationships and their annualized all-in costs. These costs are not just the stipend or cash component, but also includes other expenses.

GIRLFRIEND: peak $140k/year or $2.5M investment

The most expensive girlfriend relationship I've been in cost about $200k over a year and a half in gifts, cost of living subsidies, helping family, travel and entertainment, extraordinary medical expenses, and several rounds through rehab. Call this about $140k per year.

That relationship wasn't worth it.

Sometimes it seems that every time I'm in boyfriend mode, I seem to attract women that are very needy in some way. Because I enjoy helping them out it initially doesn't seem bad, but so far these relationships have never worked out. I wonder if I can blame circumstances or other issues, or if the money is to blame.

MISTRESS: peak $300k/year or $5M investment

The most expensive mistress I tried cost about $40k over about three months in patronage, and probably another $80k or more in hotel, entertainment, travel, and other expenses. This is probably equivalent to a sustainable $300k per year.

I admit at that time I thought it was worth it. But since then I have had so many more experiences that I now know it was not. Expensive lesson. I have met more expensive mistresses, but have not engaged them.

But the best girlfriends and mistresses aren't that different. This implies that the value of a lack of long term commitment in a mistress is about 2x the uncertainty of a traditional relationship.

FAMILY: est. $400k/year + upfront, or $10M investment

When I was planning my last set of big charitable donations I planned several scenarios to determine how much I had to keep as a hedge against a change in my circumstances. If I had a wife and two to four children, I had estimated it would cost me about $300-500k per year in expenses and about $3M in up front costs. Put another way, I saw it as about a $7-12M investment allocation. The peak number is probably twice that.

At $10-20M these figures are not too dissimilar to the tax and depreciation-adjusted real cost of a jet or a motor yacht. Not a romantic way to look at it, I know! ;)

Can I imagine family being worth that? Sure, but it's difficult to imagine unless kids are really as great to have as some people say. I can't imagine a single woman being worth that if it requires monogamy and a lifetime commitment. It's costing an additional 2-4x premium.

Of course if that family needs a motor yacht and a jet, well... :eek:

What is kind of weird is that I have spent that kind of my own money, and much more on charities and companies. So I have some comparables:

HIGH TECH COMPANY / CHARITABLE FOUNDATION: $10M+ investment

I'll write more about the similarities and differences between relationships and startup entrepreneurship in high tech and social charities. Both require a kind of an insanely hopeful naivete.

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP SPENDING: $50-150k/year or $2M investment

Most relationships and escorts were, of course MUCH less expensive. My annual spending on relationships is probably in the neighborhood of $100k per year all in (all these numbers do not count the cost I'm spending on myself).

The interesting fact is I have seen very little correlation between cost and quality, an interesting point to debate about escorts. On the other hand I have seen correlation between cost and lower variability, which does have value, for example the value of beta in derivatives analysis.

I'll probably come back to this post from time to time and improve the underlying assumptions and models. I may also add other forms of relationships, such as supporting parents and siblings, and even the cost of friends.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

Revenge, A Dish Served Cold

Lest the recent postings make people think of a kinder, softer Siggy, I'll relate a story about a different side. Of course it's fictional, as are all the stories here. But if it had happened, it's almost the anniversary of the events described.

Men are more prone to revenge injuries than to requite kindness.
Thomas Fuller

I have a very close friend of mine, I'll call him Buckminster Freud (or BF for short). BF is a wealthy man. Even after making two fortunes and giving away nearly 90% of them twice... he is still a wealthy man.

But this is a story that starts before that... long ago.

BF's first mentor was "Linus", a self-made superman. He was an Olympic class athlete, an astute political staffer, and a turnaround specialist that worked his magic twice on two Fortune 500 companies. He wasn't fantastically wealthy, but very well off: let's call him a decimillionaire with a large island estate on the Pacific Coast and two other vacation homes.

Linus was the first "grown up" partner in BF's startup. BF had been screwed time after time looking for funding for his great idea. He was working several jobs to keep his startup team eating, but they were all packed into a single rent-controlled apartment (illegally borrowed from another friend), and reduced to obtaining free bread and cheese from the food bank and stealing condiments from the local Burger King.

Linus helped BF raise money in a professional manner. He was a successful investor and fund manager himself, and was married into the circles of power. Linus never managed the startup closely, preferring to stay arms length managing his other projects and letting the startup team manage itself. But his impact was undeniably huge.

BF and Linus became close, almost of one mind, and as the startup grew they became good friends despite the decade age difference. But even as the startup prospered, Linus' personal life floundered. He went through a divorce with an ugly court battle over the considerable assets. BF tried to support Linus, but Linus had done some very regrettable and stupid things. So the courts were not favorably inclined to him. Linus was left with little of the shared assets and, worse, most all his investors, mostly friends of his wife's, pulled out of his fund. It was shuttered and lawsuits flew fast and furious.

Meanwhile the startup was doing very well, with all of its business from overseas customers. With the first profits the early investors were bought out at a tidy markup, and the startup became a private foreign partnership. Everybody involved in the startup was happy.

Eventually the startup would earn in excess of $100 million of foreign income. The original partners gave up day to day management, retired, and started other projects.

Linus was despondent, and his equity in the startup was limited. But because of his impact on the company, BF and his partners agreed to create a partnership investment fund for Linus to manage. He moved overseas to manage the fund.

A decade passed. By all metrics Linus did a very competent job, growing the account and making substantial carry and management fees, almost certainly more than he would have made at his old fund. Everybody was happy with the arrangement.

Meanwhile, BF and his partners were doing well at other endeavors. Their financial needs were more than met. So at a board meeting of the fund, BF and his partners decided to pull out a little of the money to cover their personal needs, and donate the rest to charity. BF was donating 90% of his account, the others between 30% and 75%. They voted to create a foundation and trust, and have Linus co-manage it with an executive director recruited from a major foundation.

Six months passed. The plan was moving along slowly; there wasn't any particular hurry, after all.

But one day, Linus wasn't answering his phone. His weekly spritely and joke-laden report was late. After a few days Linus was still missing. The foreign country wasn't perfectly safe, and the sums of money were vast, so you can imagine BF's state of mind. He was concerned about his friend. He had the locals investigate, and contracted an international agency to assist with private manpower and investigators.

Perhaps more cynical people can see what happened next. Certainly BF and his friends never would have imagined it.

The money was gone.

The money in the fund was large enough and tempting enough to break a nearly fifteen year friendship. To break obligations. To break trust.

It also turned out the money was enough to bribe bankers, government officials and police, to hire mercenary assistance, to establish a haven, and to launder the cash.

Let us make medicine of our great revenge, To cure this deadly grief.
Shakespeare, Macbeth

Certainly this wasn't the first time BF learned a painful lesson. But this pain was different. And it wasn't the loss of the money. No, it was the betrayal.

BF's associates were unwilling to accept his offer to make their losses whole. They felt bad for BF, recognizing the anguish of the lost friendship. They felt bad that BF's losses were five times the others' combined losses.

But all of BF's share was donated to charities. BF could afford to do this because in the intervening decade, he had build a second substantial fortune.

This second fortune was very lucky for BF.

But this second fortune was very unlucky for Linus.

Months of terrible mental anguish haunted BF: guilt at leading his friends into this fund, depression at Linus' betrayal, and the painful experience of having to unwind the high expectations of charities promised money, even having to shutter a charity. All of this was compounded by the almost daily new discoveries by investigators of Linus' hidden sins.

Then it turned out that some of Linus' laundering operations involved dirty money. This triggered a variety of embarrassing and unpleasant investigations, which continued for some time, becoming progressively worse after 9/11, and creating many sticky situations for BF and his partners.

Over those months the anguish in BF grew into a kernel of anger, and then into enraged and obsessive thoughts of revenge.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Sicilian proverb

BF had immense resources at his disposal. He acquired two private jets. He retained a variety of consultants in security, foreign operations specialists, paramilitary advisors and retrieval experts. He eventually hired well over one hundred people. He created political pressure around Linus' operations. And he launched a worldwide search.

BF was persistent. Linus operated at a disadvantage. After all, he wanted to enjoy the money. Hiding in a cave wouldn't work for him.

At first, only clues were found, but mostly dead ends on several continents. Rumors. People wanting the bribes but having no information. Unscrupulous sources. Corrupt officials. But BF had patience, and above all, he was able to learn the methods of this new business.

In the first two years, a few of Linus' associates were found. The lucky ones were found by the police. The others were denied the benefits of official regulations regarding police brutality.

BF searched for a little over four years.

And of course he eventually found Linus.

The money was never fully recovered. The 20% that was recovered went to make BF's associates whole, to a variety of legal and other expenses incurred by the events, and a little left over for charities. BF had paid for the search and related expenses out of his pocket, to avoid any liability from misdeeds spilling over to others.

To this day, the rest of the money is missing. And there is no longer any active search for it. But if any more is found, it will go to charity as well.

Most of the remainder of BF's second fortune also went to charity. Perhaps it will buy forgiveness in the eyes of God.

All the while thou studiest revenge, thou art tearing thine own wound open.
Thomas Fuller

It is said there are two kinds of men in the world, and you can tell which kind a man is by seeing him lose an elementary school fist fight.

The first kind will fight, and when he loses, he will bow to the victor, respect him, and perhaps be his friend.

The second kind will fight until he is unconscious. And when he wakes up, he'll keep fighting until he's knocked out again.

It's irrational to hurt yourself in order to hurt somebody else. It's irrational to spend more regaining a lost thing than that lost thing is worth. And it's irrational to be expend so much mental, emotional, and financial effort over finding things you don't even need: an unfaithful friend when you have good ones, or one fortune when you have another.

But that, my dear readers, is revenge.

Friday, August 13, 2004

Deja Vu Part 2, Days and Nights in Hell

This is part II, see part I here.

The phone rings...

...and I reel back in terror. Who could it be?

DEJA VU THREE

It's "Jenny", the hostess with the most-ess. I stammer, since the conversation is in Korean, and it's too much to ask me to speak the language and be quick on my feet at the same time.

Jenny misses me. She got my number from my "big brother" (the Korean exec who has dragged me into this hell of Asian experiences); it was highly unusual for her to ask, but she missed me so much that she had to.

As I have mentioned before, you don't fall in love with hostesses in Korea. It might sound ridiculous, but it happens a lot. Something about the traditional sweetness of the role does it. The role is so ingrained in the culture that songs and poems are written about this. They are almost always tragic. Although Thailand is different, it's worth keeping in mind the 10 commandments for bar girls.

So there's no future in this. But she's so damned cute, nice and helpful. And the mode of address she uses seems appealing.

SIDEBAR: Big Brother

For most of Korea's history, it was uncommon for women to date men. With the modernization of the culture, the language has to adapt. Like many Asian languages, Korean has several forms of address, from the kind you use with strangers of uncertain standing, to the kind you use with your younger siblings. It is very ingrained. It is not uncommon to have a husband and wife argue (in private, of course) and the wife to threaten to kill him and kill herself (a common threat is mutual destruction) and all the while she is using the form of address of respect to the socially-superior husband.

Interestingly, as new social relationships develop in modern culture, rather than tearing down these forms of address, they seem to add new ones or adapt existing ones. There is no planning committee that does this, so to an extent it has to be ratified by the gestalt of the community.

Since there is no historical context for a girl dating a man, what form of address should they use? Married form isn't right, and stranger form isn't right. Today they use the word that means "older brother."

Now this isn't some incestuous thing, although initially this surprised me. The term is reserved for relatives, not somebody you might want to have sex with. But the collective unconscious sometimes rings true, and it started to resonate with me after a while. The reason why is a bit subtle, and made me feel embarrassed for thinking of the sex first, but it is completely consistent with the way that the Korean women seduce you:

As older brother you take care of and protect your younger sister.

It creates an automatic submissive role for the woman; not subservient, but submissive. It implies a bond of care and protection on the man's part and respect on hers, but all with an underlying familiarity and informality.It's disarming and works well with their art of relationship. It has nothing to do with the sexual act where, by convention, much of addressing formality can drop. That's right, it can drop during sex, but not during arguments.

Quite an enlightened approach, if you ask me.

I have to keep in mind that her job, even more so than an escort, is to seduce men in this submissive way. So she's probably very good at it as a fantasy.

She's talking to me: She says that I have to promise to see her. Maybe she can visit when she comes to the US. Her favorite cousin was in Vancouver and wasn't that close to me? Her aunt lived in NYC, didn't I have a place there? And so on. I'm starting to get use to nervous female phone chatter, it being my third call of the day.

Again, I am non-committal. I tell her I enjoyed being with her. Sure, I could look her up when I was in Korea next time, since I have her number. There isn't a problem with her calling me. Yes, I have a place in NYC, I'm not sure when I'm there, but drop me a note when you are. And so on.

She says she will send a CD of Korean songs, for the next time I sing karaoke.

The call ends.

DEJA VU FOUR

Not more than two hours later, I receive another call. But I'm in the bathroom and miss it. I come back and check the voicemail.

It's May the masseuse.

I have to admit it, I'm a man, and my body reacts to the physical remembrance of some of those sensations she created. It isn't quite like what I imagine a drug craving to be like, but there is... something to just hearing her talk that arouses a physical memory. I'm sure I'll get over it.

She is wondering where I am and when I will be back, and why I haven't called her. She leaves her phone number in case I forgot hers.

I do not call back.

May is like an E-ticket ride at Disney (an old but apt reference.) Just because I enjoy Space Mountain doesn't mean I want to own one.

Is she somebody with whom I'd want to experience other things, new adventures, life itself? No. Being realistic, her role is very clear and for that role I certainly wouldn't mind seeing her again. But if meeting her becomes entangled in other things, I would prefer not to.

Before I met her, I thought I might learn some techniques from an expert like her that could be passed on to a girlfriend. But that's not even the case with May. What she does is an outrageous fantasy and more than I could reasonably expect (even from her!) on a regular basis. And if we knew how to teach things like rhythm and synchronicity, Vanilla Ice would still be making records.

Would I be her friend? Sure, if it could be limited that way. But there is a risk in even investigating this. And I limit friends to a very small handful.

But, boy, what she does feels good.

I wait the night, mentally reviewing other loose ends I have left, waiting fearfully for my phone to ring. But there are no other spooky calls.

WHY?

Today I think... why does this happen?

I am not very self-aggrandizing, but evidence suggests that I am an excellent first date. I am polite, respectful, nice, smart, not ugly, so on.

But I don't think I'm a particularly excellent boyfriend in the long run. I'm dangerous. I can hurt a partner. Maybe that's because I can get hurt so badly myself. But I still do it.

This must be a little bit like being a good looking woman. The first date always looks good to your partner. But then what? You actually lose certain opportunities because things go so well the first time. It's harder to be just friends, for example. You may attract a disproportionate number of very aggressive people, thereby missing the less aggressive but better opportunities. People may second guess your intentions and desires, and mold themselves accordingly, "trying too hard."

Yesterday was a miniature "This is Your Life" reel. An interesting review of effect and affect.

I really encourages me to review the implied commitments I may make in meeting women. Perhaps it's not as innocent as I hope it to be.

Deja Vu Part 1, Picking up a Girl

Ah... memories...

Years ago I met a stripper named Daniela. It was almost a footnote in this post about the bad experiences I had with strippers. To reinterate: she picked me up, we went out a couple of times and had fun, and then I broke up with her abruptly, and never heard a reply from her.

Back in June I chronicled the saga of Cameron, basically the first girl I ever picked up, who turned out to be a stripper. It ended with an invitation for her to visit me in NYC but we lost touch when I went to France because she has no email and I had no phone. Another loose end.

And just last week I wrote about my 36 hours in Hell where I met May, the most skilled sex provider I have ever met, and later met a cute and business-minded hostess Jenny, as well a few other hostesses. I had received all their cell phone numbers, but hadn't called any of them. (I clearly had a better time than this Brit) Another loose end.

Yesterday (note: probably two days ago by the time I post this) was quite an unbelievable day, since quite unexpectedly these loose ends flapped my way and tied themselves into a knot. Whether it's a slipknot, hangman's noose, or a Gordian knot is unclear. But it happened all on the same day, while in my Asian hotel, and all via phone.

DEJA VU ONE

Daniela had her son when she was 17 years old, pregnant at 16. The father ran off and she raised him as a single mom. She has a model quality face and was a local child model, but never could make a career out of it, so it was stripping. At the time we met and dated, she was looking for a serious committed relationship and a father for her son. I most certainly was not. So to be fair to her and her kid, on a beautiful morning at our beachfront hotel in Santa Monica... I broke it off. We had never had sex, which mystified her because she was very willing. But I broke it off quite early and abruptly rather than let it develop into something complex. She had much more to risk than I in a deep relationship. I hadn't seen or heard from her since then, and the lack of closure was a little unfortunate.

Yesterday she phones me out of the blue to catch up. It's the morning in Asia when she calls; the early evening for her. After a little chit chat about what we had been doing in the years we were apart, she suddenly apologizes for never responding to me back when I cut it off. She said she realized the following night that although I could have slept with her I didn't because I was thinking about her and her son, and that was the most amazing thing she could think of a man doing. And that wounded and disappointed her even more.

But then she makes the points of telling me that her son is now ten and very independent, her sister is now married and local, Daniela moved into the same neighborhood as her aunt and cousin who has kids of the same age, and paired with the flexible hours of stripping, consequently Daniela now has a tremendous amount of free time. Moreover she decided last year that she didn't believe in marriage or long-term commitment, that her son wouldn't have any value out of a dad at this late stage, and that she enjoyed her single status. She said she had been dating and having a blast. She had "hardly any" sex the previous ten years, and she said she was quite enjoying catching up with what she had missed.

So she asked me to look her up the next time I was in town, and we could hang out together. Her interest was obvious, but I was noncomittal. Detecting this, she withdrew somewhat. But today she sent an email saying that she was too forward, and she understood my hesitation, but left an open invitation to call. A nice quote from her email:

It was very liberating to realize that nothing in life is truly forever and enjoying moments for what they are is much more the way to go- for me at least....
More interestingly, I had asked her for the reason she had decided to call me when she did: it was because she was talking with some other strippers at work, and they were describing bad boyfriends and good boyfriends, and the talk reminded her of me. (I'm hoping it was the good men category...) So right after work she called.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not writing about this incident because I'm thinking of going back to her. I'm not. But the plot will thicken...

DEJA VU TWO I hang up with Daniela. I'm awake, so I decide to start the morning routine. While washing my face, the phone rings. I go pick it up, still rubbing my towel on my face.

It's Cameron.

She is bubbly and very upbeat. She tells me that she's missed me and if it was ok, she'd like to take me up on visiting New York this weekend. (She's never been there.) I tell her I'm in Asia. She professes disappointment, but then perks up and asks when I'm in the US.

A little backstory on Cameron: when we last met she disclosed that she had an ex-boyfriend that she dumped but was having a little difficulty letting go. He's older than I am. She described him as a jerk that never did anything for her, despite the outrageous number of hints she dropped, and despite the nice things she would do for him. Like he never bought her anything pretty, she had buy it herself; they never travelled, she had to go alone; she would give him a massage, he wouldn't reciprocate, and never would let her go to a spa. Well, it's easy to be partisan when you hear only one side of the story. One of the first things I said, "Heck if you were my girlfriend, I would send you to a spa."

Now I'm not serious about Cameron. I think the main attraction I have to her, besides the physical (she is one of the few body types I like that has large breasts,) is that she is a country girl and hasn't seen much of the world. It's not like she's very young and innocent, being in her late 20's and with a college degree, but she inexperienced in some ways that I am very experienced. And there is some attraction to being unquestionably dominant as a male.

Back to the phone call: I tell her that I won't be in NYC for a while. She does a convincing pout over the phone. She talks about how she's moved into an apartment to get away from her ex-boyfriend, she's going to a different strip club that's better but a longer commute, and she's looking for a house so she can rollover her other place for favorable tax treatment. And so on. I start to wonder about her international calling plan.

Cameron says although she hasn't really kept in touch, she's missed me and would really like to meet.

I tell her that somebody else I hadn't seen for a while just called me, and what a coincidence it was that Cameron was calling also. Cameron asks if she is better looking than the other woman (she is). Hey, I did say she was straightforward in my previous post.

Cameron then divulges that she called this evening (her time) because she was talking to some girlfriends about her loser ex-boyfriend stalking her, and then how nice I was in comparison, and how difficult it seemed to find decent men that were her type.

Hold on, back up, I say. What talk with what girlfriends?

She bubbles on, oh, this girl, that girl, one girl who claimed that she had a boyfriend a while ago who was a gentleman like you, and he took her for a ride on his jet. But she might have been lying.

Whoa. Yep, you guessed it. Daniela and Cameron were in the same conversation. Both of them had moved clubs and now worked in the same place! But they don't really know each other, and certainly don't know that they know the same person.

What are the odds?

I told Cameron that we probably moved too fast, and that instead of a visit to NYC could I send her to the local spa? My idea was to purchase a gift certificate or something. She didn't seem too keen on that, but said that would be ok as long as I promised I'd see her the next time I came to town (yes, that's a weird logic.) I make some vague statements and hang up.

Okay.

I finish up at the hotel, and go out to do my business activities. In the late afternoon as the weather starts to get really bad, I get back to the air conditioned splendor of my room.

The phone rings...

Continued in part II

Why can't we just get along?

Yahoo! News - Giant mutant ant colony found in Australia
A huge ant colony measuring 100 kilometres (62 miles) across has been found under the southern Australian city of Melbourne, scientists said. [...] "In Argentina, their native homeland, ant colonies span tens of metres, are genetically diverse and highly aggressive towards one another," Suhr said.

"So population numbers never explode and they are no threat to other plants and animals.

"When they arrived in Australia, a change in their structure occurred, changing their behaviour so that they are not aggressive towards one another. This has resulted in the colonies becoming one supercolony."

Find this mutation, apply to humans, presto! global peace. And a message to intelligent life in neighboring star systems: Watch out! Just you wait until we get our act together!

Too bad it ain't that easy.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Workaholic gene: So that's my problem!

Gene Blocker Turns Monkeys Into Workaholics

"The gene knockdown triggered a remarkable transformation in the simian work ethic. Like many of us, monkeys normally slack off initially in working toward a distant goal"
I wrote another article about a gene for infidelity. The debate over potential applications for lifestyle altering genetic therapies is an old one, but the newer issue I've been pondering is the social impact on relationships when you have an assymetric interest in a behavioral change. It's even more interesting when one side of the assymetric interest is socially acceptable. For example:

In the infidelity case, one spouse may be interested in fidelity, and the other not as interested. And Western social mores prize fidelity. Moreover, the notion of fidelity may evolve; in the very young relationship both parties subscribe to it; later they may not. The impact on the existing social tension in relationships is quite fascinating to consider if we have a pill that can cause fidelity.

In the work ethic case we have an employee and employer on different sides. Here again, society may prize or value the hardworker over the slacker, putting additional pressure on the employee.

Keep in mind that both sides are not necessarily totally opposed. One spouse may find infidelity unacceptable, whereas the other finds is merely distasteful; they wish they didn't have the problem, but don't see anything particularly wrong with it. Who defines the acceptable level of hard work in the workplace or homework or childcare?

What happens when one side offers one of these therapies to the other? What is the social protocol for accepting? Declining? Is it considered a gift to take it? or will it be considered an entitlement? Will a medical organization issue recommendations for such therapies, and thereby be recommending correct behavior, for example, that for the public good we should be faithful or hardworking?

Does that sound crazy? Aren't we already dangerously close when the DSM coding (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently on version IV) is tied to the Prozac or Ritalin therapeutic? Isn't that a value judgement? (It's interesting to follow the debate on guidelines for the next DSM.)

It becomes interesting when social pressure, which originally had limited reach into your private behavior, may now have unlimited reach into the behavior of a population. We've seen this happen in risk adversion in the young, and I believe it is damaging to our long-term progress and survival. Uniformity and conformity may be more dangerous than the nuclear weapons in terms of our inability to adapt to survive the changes of the future. If the gene is being superceded by the meme, then uniformity of thought will be the end of our evolution.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Defining a Courtesan

Definition of a Courtesan

I found an interesting definition of a "courtesan" on an Australian web site linked above. Interestingly, it is an occasional topic of some debate in ASPD HDH, an Internet discussion forum of very high priced escorts, and ASPD TCE, a sister forum focused on the "companion experience" (the latter's charter definitions of courtesan appear here.) But the title one above is one of the few definitions I found interesting, and it was put up by an escort agency in Australia!

Here are some of the points in it that I found interesting:

  1. They define the "dictionary" definition of courtesan as: "A skilled and socially adept provider of sexual intimacy, erotic companionship, and sacred healing, particularly when highly compensated and respected, for example in a court or high society setting."

  2. The agency requires a 3-12 month apprenticeship for a courtesan. Even if that's not what they really do, it's an interesting claim. Apparently 6 to 24 months is the length of apprenticeship for a girl at the place I visited in Korea. It's shorter than the training period for a top level Geisha.

  3. The site denigrates "Dangerous Beauty." This is the classic story/movie, supposedly about the famous Venetian courtesan Veronica Franco, often quoted by independent escorts purporting to be courtesans.
The site goes on to say:

A true 'Courtesan Onesto' (honest courtesan) is someone who is more beautiful inside than she is outside, regardless of how beautiful she might be. She is often unaware of the extent of her outer beauty. She also chooses to be a pleasure provider and sexual healer, she is not someone who 'has' to do things she does not enjoy, in order to pay her bills/ support her family/ habit, make ends meet. This is a prudent and sensual woman who understands she has a lot to give, and derives immense pleasure from giving, an inherently sexual being. She derives unique pleasure from knowing she has made a positive difference in her gentleman's life. The fee she is paid is simply the cherry on top, she is not concerned with the money so much as the mutual joy and quality of pleasure that can be achieved.

[...]

She is, ironically, a rather moral woman, who sets her boundaries and cannot be 'bought'. Any woman who agrees to do extra things she would not normally do, or which she knows will hurt others or go against her friends or principles, for extra money, does not possess the class of a courtesan. A courtesan is a woman of integrity, intelligence and honesty. She is a woman of responsibility, and likes to do the 'right thing' where possible, preferring to be thought of in the best possible light by all who know her. She does not see bringing pleasure to a man in need of affection as 'wrong'. She has nothing to hide, and does not like to associate with those she feels she must keep things from. She is a 'stand-up' individual in lay terms, who would never demean herself or her reputation by allowing herself to become greedy, and becoming a humiliated play-thing who will do almost anything for money.

[...]

She is aware of the fact that how she lives is reflected in her overall look, presentation, attitude and demeanor, and she is someone who lives well and behaves appropriately continually, not just in the eyes of those she is trying to impress. She is a genuinely elite, quality woman of high standards in all aspects, at all times. A woman like this has too much class to ever make anyone feel uncomfortable.

[...]

She would never do anything to embarrass or hurt another individual for selfish, proud or greedy reasons. She is in fact usually more concerned for others' comforts than her own, thus entirely unselfish, whilst maintaining her own healthy, humble level self respect and esteem.

[...]

She would never do anything to embarrass or hurt another individual for selfish, proud or greedy reasons. She is in fact usually more concerned for others' comforts than her own, thus entirely unselfish, whilst maintaining her own healthy, humble level self respect and esteem.

[...]

When one is giving and one is taking, if the giver is happy to never receive, it can work, but anyone with any self respect would never stay in a relationship of this nature, it is unhealthy. A natural and healthy connection is where both are giving, therefore they both receive by default, and get the additional pleasure from giving.

Whew. Where do you get one of those?

Learning from the Hooker Experience

Recently I had an email conversation with an escort by the name of Elle. She has a website here... and, no, I don't know what "Butterfield 10" means, unless it refers to the fact that Interstate highway 10 follows the route that John Butterfield's set for his Butterfield Overland Mail Company in the 19th century... but I doubt it's that.

Elle sometimes posts on ASPD HDH as a high priced escort. She is better educated and well-read when compared to most escorts, what many people would call classy, but more than that she seems to be very thoughtful about the role she plays in society and men's lives.

Obligatory disclaimer here: I have never "known" Elle in the Biblical sense. And I don't even know her real name.

So here's the relevant quote from her email, quoted with her permission of course:

Interestingly enough, have I ever told you my theory about the hooker experience (or rather, at least my experience with clients)? As you get older, you feel limited or constrained in so many ways--it becomes less possible for you to start-up in entirely new professions, change partners, and even "be yourself" in many situations because people expect or want certain things from you and you don't want to disappoint them. So, I think the hooker experience is about creating an actually free space with another person, where you can express all aspects of yourself at once to one another, including sexuality, which is often the most constrained part of one's social roles, and there isn't any fear of blame, shame or punishment.

I wrote about this on ASPD, but the strange thing, to me, is that all my hooker relationships seem actually better to me than my real-life ones. I think the structural setup where you don't have to take care of the other person's feelings in many ways creates a much more open and intimate experience. Relationships in the real world often become about controlling the other's behavior, and less about actually encountering the person.
I found this to be a provocative and interesting point of view. I have been writing about relationships that haven't worked because my needs and environments are very complex: girlfriend relationships and provider relationships fail under the load of this complexity. I have written wistfully about a hybrid relationship, like a mistress but more. But I have failed to really articulate what that relationship is, although I have proposed that it is transactional or contractual.

Elle has taken a similar view but from a different perspective. Whereas I categorized the new relationship type as transactional, focusing on the financial aspects of a mistress to differentiate it from a girlfriend relationship, she has categorized it in terms of the non-financial differences.

While I am hardly limited or constrained in the ways she mentions, I do resonate with the liberation of not having to be responsible for somebody else's feelings completely, in the way expected by a girlfriend or wife. This is not to say you don't feel for them or love them, because you do! But you aren't responsible for tying their feelings into every aspect of your life 24x7, and therefore you can feel more deeply for the moment, whatever that moment may be.

This implies that another way of looking at the goals of a new relationship is an attempt to combine freedom with emotional commitment, by factoring commitments into separable parts and avoiding the holistic all-encompassing (and perhaps all-suffocating?) love.

Is that it? Am I seeking continuous freedom?

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Small, minor, random things

ANNIVERSARY: The first anniversary of my first post here passed. It was also the day that Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the Warsaw uprising began in 1944, and the week Marilyn Monroe died and the US dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF HANDLING JEALOUSY: The blogspot advertisement links on my blog are "Tackling Jealousy" and "How to Eliminate Jealousy" while two policemen were shot and two stabbed while raiding a wife-swapping sect armed with guns, daggers and bows in Nigeria.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF STAYING HAPPY: They found Prozac in the drinking water in Britain, which isn't illegal, which apparently puts it at the same level as toe licking among the Dutch.

Asia, Two Evenings in Hell

This is a continuation of Afternoon in Hell. This multipart post covers a single and continuous 36 hour period.

My personal demon, uh, tour guide to hell, "Park", took me to his private drinking establishment. In my visits to this place (admittedly over twelve hours total time spent there), I met two ambassadors, five former government ministers, the heads of a few investment banks, and several CEOs. If there were a club like this in the US, the dues would be fantastic for the connections alone. As it is, the place is owned by a woman who used to be one of the most popular high end bar hostesses. Now in her early forties (my guess, she may be older), she has her own place, her second, a relatively small and exclusive drinking, dining and singing establishment.

So let me take a moment to explain how these clubs work.

There are private rooms and a public area. The public area has several low tables, like coffee tables, around which is usually a semicircular couch or a couch and several wide easy chairs. The private rooms are like a private karaoke room, that is, a low table with a couch on three sides. The establishment will serve drinks, primarily beer, whisky, and soju, a cheap Korean drink of a potency between wine and whisky (soju is typically at the lower end of 22% to 45% alcohol). They will have other drinks, but those are the staples. There will be a kitchen that will serve everything from bar snacks to full dinners. At a higher end place, there is usually at least one musical talent, a pianist, saxophonist, or guitarist, who can also sing backup. They will accompany the "band", which is a computerized karaoke machine. The musical talent in the places I have gone are very very good. One guitarist was fantastic. Often they are professional musicians filling time; with the right audience they can have a great time.

But what the Western man will zero in on are the hostesses, the girls that serve the drinks and food. These are independent operators who may elect to contract short term or long term with an establishment. They may or may not be available for post-evening recreational activities (although keep in mind that you're drunk at the end of the night), and, yes, apparently many are reviewed on the Internet. They can be called in via cell phone by the club owner if the night looks busy. Or they may leave if the night looks slow. The girls must be pretty, have some talent for conversation, and know a lot of drinking games. Oh, and they'll be drinking with you, too, so they have to have a high tolerance for alcohol. A really high tolerance. Because unlike you, they may be drinking every night. As I noted in the previous post, some girls who can't take this kind of alcohol consumption decide to go the massage route.

You can find hostesses that range from movie actresses and models, to merely cute girls. The general rule of thumb, I am told, is that the actresses are better looking, but somewhat duller and less affectionate than the "ordinary" gals. But there are a lot of these girls, because these clubs are typically very small, and there are a thousand of them in Seoul, a city with a larger population than Manhattan. Also of note: nothing illegal happens here, at least at the nicer establishments. The biggest issue in the past has been the fact that too many businessmen expense the costs here. It is also reflective of the old boys network mentality of business. Women sometimes attend, and there are even family versions (without the hostesses), but it is really for the boys. Of course if you go low class enough you eventually get to the prostitution bars with indentured foreigners from the middle east and eastern European countries; these originally cater to the armed forces.

To give a sense of the operating margins of these establishments, they usually take underground real estate (the cheapest in Seoul. where real estate is more than in Manhattan), but will charge as much as a 4x premium over retail for, say, a bottle of whisky. And no BYOB here. The typical whisky evening can run over $1k for a party of four. At a lower class establishment, a beer night will go several hundred dollars. Still lower and they will drink cheap soju, which is the cheapest way to get drunk quickly, similar to the role of vodka in Russia. Salaried men will rotate taking each other out. It is estimated that as much as 10-20% of household income will go to drinking and eating in these and similar venues, so it is a big part of the economy (although almost paradoxically, the largest household expenditure goes to kids' education, not real estate).

Ok, so on with the night.

We arrive at the venue. Park is greeted with the fanfare of a foreign dignitary. The owner comes up to him and chats him up, and he introduces me in embarrassingly glowing terms. She is interested, gives me her card, and talks with me. Her English is good, with a strong sense of idiom, although it is Australian English. I compliment her on a nicely decorated, classy establishment. She is quite charming and very presentable and classy herself, the product of many years of exposure to the social elite.

We are in the public area tonight, in the front and center seats. The girls join us. During the evening they will rotate; this is kind of an option. I end up talking mostly to a fashion school student, a senior, who dreams of attending graduate school in Paris, Italy, or New York City. She is bright and funny. She trades me her contact info. I also am with a girl for whom it is her first night working. She is quieter and reserved. She is doing this to earn money. Her plan is to work for a few years and pay her way to go to school in Germany.

Given the afternoon I had, I'm also in a somewhat reserved mood.

Now as much as a Westerner would notice the girls, the local men see this as a networking venue. With drinks flowing and songs belted out, men let down their guards and can socialize like fraternity brothers. The women are accessories, but not the main point. In fact, it's considered strange to show up alone, just to hang out with the women. And indeed it is a great networking opportunity. I trade many business cards, and, yes, I am able to start several business deals. Perhaps more importantly, I am seen and know to a community from which I can start to network more.

Beyond the business there are many jokes, but also some interest piqued among the girls, by Park's story of how I spent five hours at the massage place. I am something of a hit, being an exotic Asian in their experience and a bit of a novelty. Some of this sentiment rubs off on the girls, and for a shining evening, I am popular. I enjoy the easy camaraderie of the venue, the way that people move seamlessly from joking and drinking and singing to business discussion.

The evening wears on to three AM, and we leave. I am exhausted, and intoxicated. I liked the girls, but there is nothing really that remarkable about them. The owner asks me for feedback and makes me promise I'll visit her again. I tell her about my plans for the next day, and she is excited.

I leave with Park, and spend the night at his place. He tells me that the owner was very impressed with me and my interaction with the other guests, and she had asked him how she could get me as a client. He also said that she and the girls had mentioned how much they liked me. When I called bullshit on that, he said, no, seriously, there aren't that many Asians they see that act as gentlemen, and they see your politeness and class, mixed with an exotic sense of humor. Ok, so sometimes I can fool the experts.

I'll take a moment to note that my time with Park is not all hedonistic sybartic delights. He is mentoring me very effectively in the business community of Korea. It is singularly effective to have him sponsoring me. He has taken a personal interest in me, in a culture where these kinds of relationships are important. He calls me "little brother," I call him "big brother."

Neither of us sleep very much, and we wake up no more than five hours later ready for a continuation of business meetings. This takes up the morning; then we are in the lather, rinse, repeat mode. We hit the unisex spa again, where the most therapeutic treatment is the very hot jacuzzi followed by the very very cold plunge pool with waterfall. A few cycles through that gets the blood flowing quite well despite the 95 degree 85% humidity weather outside, thank you.

I miss May a little, who I have not called (what would be the purpose?), but tonight we go out to a dinner with a larger group. I have promised to treat on this night out. I will host at Park's club, and I'm mixing in a new circle of contacts. The head of this second circle is another person who invited me out on my previous trip, let's call him "Young." Both Park and Young know of each other, but have never met personally. All together we are a party of six. I ask the owner of the club for a private room, and based on our feedback the previous night, she says she will make sure that good girls are there, including Park's regular.

We arrive a little late, but we are still the first. Within minutes, however, everybody is there in the room. Of course it turns out that one of the CEOs in Young's group knows the owner from her former club and she knows his chairman. It appears that nobody of importance in Korea is separated by more than one degree; after all over 25% of the population is in one city, nearly 2/3 in its four major cities, and the country is only the size of Indiana. So we get cozy and drunk, and then a few of my party start mixing with other parties in the public area, which include some ambassadors and others. We have a grand time, and I verbally get a deal done pretty early on.

I continue to be popular. Oddly, all the women, if given no data, guess I'm from Hong Kong not the US. Must be that rock star thing. The owner is going all out to impress, having been told (inaccurately but fortunately for me) that I am a big shot. I think she's impressed at how the other big shots are treating me and talking me up, but it's mostly because I'm a novelty. So we're having a good time. She brought a group of talented musicians, and they're having fun cranking the tunes, jamming, and everybody is singing. I have missed much of the early fun for the first hour, having been working the deal, but now I pay more attention to the extended group, including the people in the public area. There are more people to meet, a few other CEOs, an investment banker deal guy. I sing with the ambassador.

All this time the girl that the owner "specially selected" for me is patiently waiting, feeding me drinks and food, listening to the deal-making and jokes, and interjecting when appropriate. I slowly start to notice that she is smart in a quiet way. She is also beautiful, although she says she is not; she claims the better word for her is something I think means charming. (She and the other girls say that I am cute, but they use a word that I think is more often applied to babies. It must be my toddler vocabulary that impresses them so.) She tells me her name, and for a strange short moment I am worried that she's related to me because we share the same last name. But it turns out she's from a different family and we share a funny moment over that. I'll call her "Jenny."

At one point she confesses her age (she left her twenties, which I find unbelievable), and swears me to tell nobody. Jenny has an interesting story: she has engineering undergraduate and business graduate degrees; she works at a company, but hit the glass ceiling pretty fast. She doesn't like the way that men treat her at work, which doesn't surprise me as she is really quite attractive, has unusually well-formed breasts for a Korean, and is probably more outspoken than is good for her in a strictly hierarchical male-dominated corporate environment. She doesn't golf. So she does this for additional income on weekends and is considering going 5 days a week and trying to start a business of her own.

The age and experience is why she is quite smooth and so very polished compared to the girls of last night. She gets drunk with me, but saves me from going too far. At several points she is watering down my drinks (in one case even secretly substituting barley tea) while I'm toasting these other CEOs. It is a charming competitive advantage she gives me. She is telling me a few stories from her point of view on the power structure of business in Korea.

And she is trying to pick me up. As the night goes on, she is getting drunker herself, and she really latches on to me, or at least appears to! Some time during the evening she whispers in my ear that she is good at everything! everything, well, except for one thing: speaking English. Even across the language barrier I get her meaning. She says she loves men and treats them very well, but Korean men are intimidated by her. Obviously this is not a pick up line she can use often, but there is always that question of veracity from somebody in the service industry. Of course if it's true that in vino veritas, then this is a gift...

Jenny really charms the socks off me and being male, I can't help but be curious as to whether her skills are anywhere near to those of May, because she is obviously a lot smarter. Had I not needed to leave the next day, I would have been sorely tempted to take her up on her whispered claims of competency. But I also don't like a first encounter to be a drunken grope. And I didn't want to be bad this trip anyhow. So when the night finally ended at 4 AM, Jenny gave me her handphone number and extracted a promise for a call. Another opportunity with no future.

Oh, and my buddy Park? He really enjoyed his regular. I dimly recall prying him off her at 4 AM.

Besides throwing off my schedule worse than any jetlag, what did 36 hours in hell get me?

Quite a lot, actually.

I could focus on the three phone numbers I obtained, keeping in mind how up until less than a year ago no woman had offered me her phone number like that.

I am unable to forget the truly amazing experience with May, although the potency of it is already starting to fade. Truly Asia has completed a sweep in my competition, taking the gold in the menage a trois, the social geisha, and one-on-one categories. I'd argue that America still has it in the social date category (e.g. dinner, show and conversation) and the oral talent category. The former is probably a side effect of my language issue, but the latter I intend to expose Park to on his next trip to the US.

But I should not discount the real purpose of this trip: business. And my tour of hell was particularly fruitful in that regard. As a compact place to be integrated into an important network, and to quickly establish trust in deals, this experience has no peer. In the past I have sometimes spent years on Asia deals, and this experience accelerates progress by a factor of 10 at least. And it isn't unpleasant, to boot!

Asia, an Afternoon in Hell

Hell is a hot place. But in some religions it is also a place full of temptation.

In the midst of unresolved fantasy relationships, relationship contemplation and mistress seeking, I took another trip to Asia. It might sound like a distraction to these other goals, and of course it was, but the primary purpose of the trip was business.

I have posted on a few previous Asia trips. This post and its continuation is only about the first half of the trip, because the second half will be quite dull. Mostly I'll be catching up on my blogging!

It was my intention to be "good," and not to be tempted into excessively prurient adventures. I knew my moral intentions were to take a beating, since I was meeting at least twice with the same person who had taken me out in Korea previously, and for whom I had arranged a reciprocal experience in Las Vegas. Since I am certain to have future interactions with him, I'll bother to name him: "Park."

After a week or so of pretty tame business meetings, the first meeting with my Park coming up. I had tried some things to minimize the likelihood I would be distracted (I spent some time contemplating the anniversary of Little Boy dropping on Hiroshima) but he was quite determined to show me a good time. After a business meeting together with some of his staff, we went out to a spa (unisex) and got polished up. An excellent meal followed, basically a very late lunch with just the two of us. Then we went to an interesting massage place.

Now calling this establishment a "massage place" is like calling the Taj Mahal a "big residence." I now see that Asian massage parlors in the US and even in Asia are merely false shadows of places like these.

Our previous experiences had been, as I had described, group encounters with a bunch of women. I had conceded that the menage a trois experience in Asia was far superior to that in America, and that the kieseng or geisha were more artistically creative than most American providers. So Park boasted that I should experience a top sensuous one-on-one experience to complete the sweep. In other words, try out what one skilled woman could do. He told me it was not just about sexual skill alone, but a holistic experience that I should have.

He was a born salesman, it was an offer difficult to refuse.

Park called the establishment from a hotel lobby to make sure everything was set, and then we went to a very discreet winding narrow roadway. I am pretty sure I couldn't find it again if my life depended upon it. We walked into a guard-controlled garage-like structure (with no cars in it) and into a doorway hidden in a corner. A tiny but inviting lobby was at the end of some stairs, where a man took our shoes. Two attractive women escorted us to an elevator, and took me first to a spacious room. My friend then left with the other woman, after explaining to her that I was a rock star from Hong Kong. The woman remaining with me instructed me to settle in, and drew a bath and dimmed the lights.

I need to describe this room. It was about the size of a good hotel suite but with no windows. There were several rooms attached together, with no doors between them. The rooms were on slightly different levels and had frosted glass and wood Asian-style partitions dividing them. It had a very relaxing layout with some strategic mirrors that reflected views into the other rooms.

There was one room that was similar to a dressing room, with a sitting area, desk, mirror, and an impressive array of products, and a decent sized refrigerator. And a complex office-style phone and Internet connection.

There was another room like a cross between a bedroom and a living room. It had with a futon-like bed that could raise and lower, and small Western-style love seat in front of a nice flat screen television. Another refrigerator and phone was in this room, along with a bar.

A third room was sort of a spa. It had a raised wood slat floor, a small steam room, a wood sauna room, a very deep and very cool looking stone jacuzzi tub, a large open shower with several nozzles and chair like seating area, and a set of massage-table like mats the size of a double bed, but on the floor. There was also a small bathroom, which was the only room with a door.

The bath was drawn in the stone tub. I entered the bath. My thoughts were this was a upscale Asian massage parlor type of experience and I was thinking of several ways to beg off the release part of the massage. I wasn't really in the mood anyhow, and since most all of the time I don't get a release, why take the frustration? While pondering this, several minutes went by, and I was quite relaxed, eyes closed, really almost asleep. I then felt soft hands caressing my face. I opened my eyes and found a woman had come behind me on the tub, and was massaging my face gently from behind. I looked upwards but couldn't see her clearly, and the wrinkling of my brow from looking upwards seemed to be way too much effort against the soothing caresses.

There was an interesting thing where the woman would be breathing in my hair, and running her lips over parts of my forehead and temples. Two body-warm lotions were applied to my face and massaged in, and then, I think cucumbers! were put over my eyes. While I was so masked and unable to see, the now-invisible hands moved down to my feet and washed them. Some kisses and breathing down there also, strangely soothing and yet a little exciting. Some kind of warm oil or lotion was applied to my feet and they were massaged. Between this and the heat of the water I thought I was going to pass out in the tub. Then my hands were similarly cared for with her hands, breath, and lips, and some lotion.

I have never been a massage and spa person. I have tried some of the best places in the world, the ones that show up in Conde Nast style magazines. Not my thing. So much not my thing that I would send girlfriends to the spa and I'd spend the day on the computer or reading. But this was pretty good. Less clinical and more personal.

Then the woman removed the cucumbers and applied something else to my face. She then slipped into the tub with me, and I could finally see her.

She was breathtaking. And I mean that literally: my breath was taken from me for a moment as I regarded her. Her face was like a perfectly drawn anime character, with large eyes, cheekbones, perfect lips, and beautiful skin. My staring seemed to embarass her, and she looked away shyly. Acting or not, it was quite attractive and effective. She leaned forward and hugged me, and then did an interesting move that kind of flipped me around head to toe and started to wash my hair. She would kind of touch me lightly underwater from time to time, massaged my head, breathed in my ear, and generally gave me the most sensual hair washing I've ever had.

I was then hoisted out of the tub and onto the mats on the floor, which fortunately had been warmed by water, and given a body wash. Unlike some Asian massage parlor body washes, she did not soap herself and wash me with her body. It was a classier and more personal experience where we kind of cuddled on this huge mat and she just got me clean and rinsed, and seemed to get herself clean at the same time. It was also very sensual, and a new experience for me.

The woman, let's call her May, then dried me off with a few very soft and pre-warmed towels.

Now let me take a moment here and talk about May's amazing attitude during this entire experience: intimate, happy, attentive, and even fun. She seemed entirely comfortable with her body, my body, the situation, very much like an intimate girlfriend with an oddly-attractive mixture of uninhibited, sex positive boldness and an inhibited girl-like shyness -- not a laughing behind her hand kind of shyness -- she was very outgoing and friendly. She also had been mixing in language lessons as we were going and had found my tolerance level for being made fun of. But unlike a girlfriend, or even the so-called "girlfriend experience" discussed about sex providers in the US, she was unbelievably focused on me. Maybe a licensed massage therapist girlfriend is like this, but it was really kind of amazing.

I was then led into the bedroom where I was fed cold fruit and a drink with a straw. My hair was massaged, combed and brushed by this nude woman climbing over me. The closest thing I can compare it to is getting a hair style, a lapdance, and a houris feeding you fruit at the same time. But it wasn't sleazy, we were having uninhibited fun.

May definitely knew her visual assets. From time to time she would also touch me in ways that really were effective in calming or exciting me. In hindsight I feel that she deliberately mapped my physical and visual responses out. She played me like a composition, and started to lead us toward a sexual encounter.

And I tried to resist. Ok, maybe it was feeble, token resistance, but it was deliberate nonetheless.

She detected this, and seemed to find it amusing. In our broken communication she said she understood what I wanted (I had said nothing), and she told me I needed a break. She turned on the TV to soccer, put on a robe, and left me to my drink. I took the opportunity to use the bathroom.

The breather was helpful to normalize myself. She really had taken me on a sensuous path from the face massage to the hair brushing; really an amazing journey. I was feeling delicate but vibrating, like I was a glass bell rung lightly by a hammer.

A few minutes later May returned. She had changed into a kind of nightshirt, and brought a pajama bottom for me. She curled up in the love seat, turned off the television, and started talking with me. I was a little taken aback at the change of pace, but she was very sweet and so very beautiful, so it was hardly difficult to talk with her. Watching her lips and eyes alone was a treat. We mostly talked about cultural changes in Korea, and Korean and Chinese comparative art and literature in the disputed Goguryo period, which was an area of mutual interest. Although completely non-technical, she had an artistic bent and even jumped up at one point to draw me. During the conversation, she was still very intimate, like we were lovers, touching me, leaning against me, smiling a lot, even bopping me on the arm or legs a few times.

It was almost surreal. I found her looks mesmerizing and started to spend more and more time really looking at her. Her body language was very attractive. Her conversation started to turn to her dreams. Not sexual fantasies, but dreams of success and her road to them. And she started to talk about me as well, and we talked about my successes and failures. Remember that my language skills are not that good, so the conversation was stilted and full of errors, but in hindsight I see that she was weaving me into the story, making me a part of it. And then, unbelievably, I started to get really turned on in a kind of emotional way. There was this weird upswelling of care and tenderness that started to fill me up, and about that time her touches were caresses, and her face and body language changed subtly, and then I was really turned on sexually. It was the damned strangest thing I had ever felt, it was as if my body was connected to hers, and unconsciously it was responding to her at a level I could not detect. Almost as if we had built some kind of resonance that she was taking advantage of to create responses in me.

She pressed herself against me, using submissive yet intentional noises and words that inflamed me even more. She found some place on my leg that she would stroke, and my entire leg would twitch. She had some other places on my chest, side and arm that had similar effect on other parts of my body. She would do this while pressing my back, chest, head to her bosom, kissing or licking, and the whole effect was galvanizing. I can't even recall everything because at some point I really lost control over myself.

Losing control for me is very rare. I don't like it, and it may be the root of several issues I have. But May, this submissive young thing, somehow wrested control from me while appearing submissive the entire time. May herself was also very responsive, or at least could fake that well. Everything seemed like a duet, even though I was putting almost no effort into it.

She had me twitching everywhere, to the point where she could elicit a response from me with a single fingertip. I was in a continuous state of ecstatic epilepsy. I still remember her hovering over me, her hair falling to one side of her pretty face, her dark eyes looking at me adoringly, touching me and herself until I thought I go insane.

So she played me. She brought me to the edge several times several different ways, with her hands, lips, and riding me. This was the first time somebody has been able to do that for me multiple ways. The entire time this was happening, she was not at all dominant. She just seemed focused on my pleasure, using intimate honorifics that are difficult to explain in English, but that were submissive and oddly sexy.

Finally she let me get across the finish line. While I crossed, she touched me in some ways that literally had me writhing uncontrollably and maybe even screaming (I confess I can't remember), and she modulated the post-orgasm in a way that made me think she was a true empath.

Then she cuddled up with me.

A little while later, and after it was clear to her that there was no way I was going for another round, she did a light massage that was very energizing, and we did an interesting hot and cold shower that was also invigorating. She continued to be intimate and playful, all the way through dressing me, continuing with the language lessons. In fact, she started to get a response from me again, but again, there was no way we were going to finish that... especially since we had already spent nearly five hours together.

I told her I had never felt anything quite like that. She said she liked me. She guessed my age low. She flattered me. She cut me some fruit. Again, it was unclear how much is acting and how much was real, but given her reputation, I guessed a lot of it was her skill. Then we had a curious conversation that I'll come back to later.

My encounter had taken five hours. Park had gone after two hours and had left his number to call when I was done. May escorted me to the elevator, kissed and hugged me, and handed me off to the hostess, who took me down where I retrieved my freshly cleaned shoes and met my friend.

Afterwards I asked Park how the setup worked. The girls live at the location, which is like a hotel, and train there. In some places, especially abroad, they can be almost like indentured servants, working off their living debt. In high end places like this one, they are not in order to attract and keep the best talent, but in all cases, the girls do pay rent.

In many massage parlors, the girls are failed bar hostesses, in that they are unable to or unwilling to drink (I will write more about the bar girls in Evening in Hell post next). Like the bar girls, massage girls can get a public following, and there are Internet sites that rate them. Surprisingly far fewer girls advertise on the Internet in Korea than in the US, it's really driven by men's rating sites. The good women come to places with good reputations, where the clientele is higher class. In such places, girls are recruited or come with referrals. Girls at top places are not rated, since the male clientele doesn't do that (and know each other). According to my friend, they also make less money than the lower class places, but have a better and more relaxed lifestyle.

The key factor for top places, such as the one we had visited, is a long history which leads to proprietary training, very exclusive customers, and nicer facilities. This isn't a shared shower and mat on the floor kind of place. Girls at a top place would see between two and ten customers per week, depending on her schedule. As I noted in my prior post training from girl to girl is key, and good customers, such as Park, can access and help train the new talent. He had never experienced May, but the madam had recommended her for me. May was considered new talent, but the madam thought she was among the best she had ever trained for such a young woman (I'm guessing May was about 23 and had been trained since 18.)

My friend also mentioned that they had lots of fantasy role playing offered as well, with an impressive array of choices, from authentic airline stewardess uniforms to dressage outfits.

Let me get back to the parting conversation I had with May.

After she had told me how much she liked me, she asked me how often I came to Korea. I told her I visited several times a year. She knew from earlier conversation that I was from the US (either she was not told, or had known it was a joke that I was a Hong Kong rocker). I asked her if she had visited the US, and she said she had never but thought it would be great to do so. In fact, she hoped to visit next year because she had a relative in the mid-west. I told her I recommended the west or east coast over the mid-west, and we talked about that for a few minutes. Then, out of the blue, she asked me if I was married. Then she gave me her handphone number, in Korea the equivalent of an email address, and coquettishly asked me to give her a call while I was in Korea so we could meet for lunch or something.

Hmm. I told her that I was leaving in a few days but I wondered why she would do this. Gold digging or genuine interest? Since there is clearly no future in it, it has an intrigue factor...

But this is only the Afternoon in Hell, and evening awaits. So, really quite drained, but with a spring in my step, Park and I went to his private club to drink and sing.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Mistress Seeking

I first became interested in mistresses back in February and wrote about it then. I had a very interesting experience interviewing a mistress, which I wrote about here in April and here in May (although the events were actually March and April). It was interesting enough that I briefly thought of looking for such a relationship more actively, an activity I pursued mostly in June. So this is a catch-up posting (originally authored July 18, updated today).

By mistress I am referring to a contractual relationship. The contract is that I provide living expenses, and they provide companionship. My framework was an annual renewal, with an understanding that emotional attachment was actually preferred. This is generally not the case with providers, where emotional attachment is a no no. And as I have written before, full living expense support often creates a relationship strain with traditional girlfriend-boyfriend relationships.

Traditionally a mistress arrangement exists to supplement a marriage relationship. Whereas marriage (traditionally, again) was a public social contract, and a socioeconomic imperative for raising children in the context of society up until the industrial age, a mistress is a relationship between adults. In some cultural contexts a mistress is quite socially acceptable, but this is becoming less frequent with the globalization of the Disney-eque expectations of lifetime solitary mating. Indeed there is a tort of "alienation of affections and criminal conversation" that addresses damages upon an innocent spouse against a person who knowingly engages in sex or other affairs with a married person. This tort allows the "wronged" spouse sue the mistress for damages (although this tort has been recently abolished in most states.) At the same time, the mistresses role has become an interesting part of the social milieu of modern Western civilization, one that many women accept and enjoy.

So in April I tried a variety of approaches to finding a mistress:
  1. Providers looking to reduce their exposure in the market by restricting to a small number of clients or a single client, for emotional, financial, or personal reasons.
  2. Civilians looking for a "sugar daddy" without long-term commitment.
  3. Experienced mistresses looking for their next patron.
  4. Civilians who would fall into the mistress category willingly due to the asymmetry in financial means.
My goal was to have an idea of a mistress contract by the fall or end of the year at least, to address at least one New Year's hope. Although my crtieria was long, because I could cast my search globally, I found many candidates. But only a small set, about a dozen around the world, looked promising. Nine were US based, two in Europe, and three in Asia. Four were providers, two were retired ex-providers, three were ex-mistresses, and five were civilians. The age range was 21 to 38, with most between 26 and 28.

A surprising number of civilian candidates were students or had just graduated and were looking for patronage to support a lifestyle, and had no issues with checking out of their native social scene for a while. I don't know if this is a modern trend or a community that was hidden from me prior to on-line networking... but as a consequence of this, they tended to be very young (but there is some truth to beauty in youth!) and naive. Only two in this category seemed interesting: one was 21 and in school, the other was 24 and at a sales job. The other two civilians was not explicitly looking for a mistress situation, but the situation seemed open to it. Both women from Asia were ex-mistresses, that is, they had experience and were somewhat older. Two providers were contemplating this in lieu of retirement, one was seeking a one-year fantasy fulfillment, an opportunity to create a novel form of sex-based relationship. I had not met either. The two ex-providers were looking for a long-term mistress relationship. I knew both of them well.

I met these women, predominantly in May and June. Most I was able to encounter sexually. It became clear that there was an unfortunate separation between sexual ability (to please me) and social ability. The Asian women, for example, were fantastic at sex (I may write more about this later, it's not just the physical act or skill), but could not speak English nor appreciate my culture and humor sufficiently to pass my social bar. Another example of this was the 21 year old student, who was sexually very dynamic, but socially a dud. Like a young wine, perhaps another six years of exposure would help, but I wasn't that interested in providing that myself (although perhaps there is a business in doing that, a revival of the very traditional madam business). Since I am difficult to please sexually, I found the sexual ability a highly-weighted attribute, but for the very same reason I also needed the social connection.

There was also an interesting financial stratification. The civilians and Asians required far less income to be a mistress, and they were more careful with their spending probably as a result of having been "spoiled" less. Why this is important to me is unclear; perhaps it is a fiscally conservative upbringing, or a paranoia that people are "out for my money", or a worry that fiscal irresponsibility is a high liability if I am the sole financial support, or perhaps it makes my generousity look even more generous so it's a vanity thing... but for whatever the reason, I find it attractive. The range was $50k to "at least $300k" per year, and the clear dividing line between the "wants" and "want-nots" was around $100k per year. This is only the stipend, so the figure does not cover entertainment, travel, gifts, and the like. Despite my caviar tastes, I couldn't help be swayed by the 6:1 range into carefully considering the "value for dollar" proposition. (Consider, for example, this (PDF) paper that finds the economic value of sex to be equivalent to $50k/year income based on a happiness metric.)

After my initial meetings, I had narrowed the list down to four: three US based and one in Hong Kong, one provider and three civilians. The provider implied a very high rate mistress stipend, but had interesting and intriguing scenarios, and a certain strange but attractive mystique. The civilians were comparatively inexpensive and more transparent.

I was in the process of scheduling multi-day meetings, and I started to run into difficulties. This was now June and July. The provider wanted, not unreasonably, to charge her ordinary fees during this period. Two civilians were nearly impossible to schedule. One was in a city that was difficult to reach, but was unable to travel on my schedule due to commitments. The other was in a convenient city, but kept breaking appointments due to her chaotic sales job, and then went with friends to France.

And then fate delivered me into the hands of Paulina, the topic of another posting.

Paulina poses an interesting dilemma, although a pleasant one. Although it's unclear what relationship I may be pursuing, there is an interesting and unspoken question of commitment. This is always an issue with me. When growing up, I didn't have many relationships, but I was exclusive, i.e. dated only one person at a time from an early stage of the relationship, to such an extent that friends would make comment. It was never clear to me when was the right time to become exclusive. In school there was a "going steady" transition that I observed but never really experienced. In college you could "pin" a girl or trade rings or some such, but I never understood that either. Later it seemed like an increasingly serious commitment to become exclusive. So to this day, I don't really know the protocol. Personally I have taken a more hedonist attitude to the whole thing in the last few years. I spent years in the play it safe exclusive mode, and it gained me little. (Note that the previously-cited paper also notes that more money buys more partners not more sex.) It may sound awfully self-centered, but I am on a search, and computer science tells us that parallel search is more efficient, although it can produce contention and conflicts. Hmm.

An interesting second question is one I brought up in an earlier post about mistresses: I had hypothesized that one reason my experience with the ex-mistress T didn't work was because I was not previously committed to a social relationship, for example a wife and children. Mistresses seemed to base their compensation and model on being the other woman, not the woman. So it is quite fascinating to consider if a mistress would be bothered by my having a girlfriend relationship, but also to think about the other way around. Is there a pretext for an open relationship with a girlfriend? Open relationships was a fad of the 60's that didn't seem to really take off.

Consider for a moment the concubine model. A man who could afford to keep a harem or multiple wives or concubines would do so. On the other hand, in most all such societies, the multiple partners were ordered, that is, there was a clear first or dominant wife. (In this sense, open relationship is different from polyamory.) The concubine model is not the model I would advocate in relationships, but to bring it to the modern context, consider the girlfriend who cannot travel to all the places I go, due to financial, scheduling, work, independence, or other considerations. Should she allow me to have contractual relationships in other places? In other words, is it ok to have a girlfriend and contractual relationships (a pattern I seem to like, as I noted here)? Or is that too modern? To what extent are we socially or genetically programmed to be greedy about our mates?

Interestingly, if what is good for the gander is good for the goose, I would have a problem, as I have stated elsewhere. I am jealous of other men, I think (my experience with women cheating on me with other men is very limited, thankfully). But given that symmetry in my relationships tends to be broken from the beginning, should this be a limitation?

Thoughts to ponder.

Know Thyself

Sometimes it's useful to step back and look at what I've written, to use the blog like a Rorschach test. The goal today is to understand what it is I'm seeking in sex and relationships (the topic of this blog!)

Here are some excerpts I culled from the blog:

  1. In fact I am quite worried that my fate is in the direction of souless emptiness. That somehow money fills and displaces meaning from your life. (Changes and Good Deeds)
  2. Possible solution? Women in every city I frequent, who can entertain me, or just hang out with me, or converse with me, or, yes, have sex with me, on my schedule and without getting jealous of the other women... well, it's ideal. [...] I haven't achieved all that, but I've tried it, and it seems to be the right path for me. (Girlfriends Better to Rent or Own)
  3. It is very uncertain how a relationship will turn out, but it is not in my nature to presuppose it will be serious. It just seems like long odds. [...]Maybe that's what I'm looking for. I would like to think that I value independence, and I definitely do. I don't want somebody who waits for me. But on the other hand, I enjoy helping clients, employees, and others. I like to feel that people rely on me. Perhaps that's a character flaw, since it might be a factor in the kinds of girlfriends I have attracted in the past. Dependency is a subtle point in the Rent or Own posts below. (Financially Secure Man Wants Playmate)
  4. I'm at a crossroads. I have been searching for either my next steady provider or next steady girlfriend, and it's been tough going. I have been hobbying and dating for a decade, and frankly I feel that the experiences are changing. Girlfriends are quicker to demand committment, and I'm starting to want to date providers in a civilian manner. I'm not sure why, but it's happening. (Pros vs. Civilians)
  5. One of the things I freely admit that I do, is that I blur this line between girlfriend and provider. I will take a provider out in public, to events, and show her off. The social rationale is as important to me as the personal (and more important than the genetic), and sometimes I am willing to pay for the convenience of a relationship with fewer obligations. To me, arm candy is important. And girlfriends or escorts have to be physically and socially presentable. (Arm Candy)
  6. T is sexy and smart, with a wicked sense of humor. She can also be comfortable and casual, in jeans and a t-shirt, or lounging in sweats. And T is sufficiently organized and tasteful that she can plan and schedule an outing or vacation herself, which relieves me of those chores. [...] T was deeply well-adjusted, intellectually independent, entirely drug free, not heavily tattooed, and socially classier. T is quite liberal artsy, having worked in politics, journalism, and even a bit of liberal activism. And sometimes she acts a bit too... preppy? Radcliff-ish? So she isn't perfect. And if she was a real girlfriend instead of a mistress, I could see some real arguments in our future. ;-) (Northern Europe and NYC and Rejecting a Mistress)
  7. Until my experience in Asia. And that was what tipped the balance. Who needs a regular provider? I'm just in the wrong country! (Rejecting a Mistress)
I have also praised N for her geek knowledge and friendship, H for her enthusiasm and energy, Anais for her role playing acumen and ability to arrange fun scenarios (all in Northern Europe and NYC), and some positive remarks on bisexual women (Women on Women). And, of course, Paulina for her body, mind, and interests (A New York Reality).

So how does this sum up? I both feel (and fear?) that the inkblot reveals that I am not committed to a committed relationship. That for now, and perhaps forever, I want to have relationships that reflect my mobility. It is a fact that although I could stop travelling around as much as I do, and I even say that I will as part of a perennial resolution, I never do.

Based on the writings so far, here is my list of attributes of an ideal companion. As noted above, this may not be a sole companion, however:
  • fluent in English
  • pretty, presentable and elegant
  • lithe and not "top heavy"
  • comfortable in high class social settings
  • educated or self-educated, and well-read
  • mistress mentality, i.e. not requiring a 24/7 commitment or a full-on relationship
  • willing to share city by city, or a similar situation
  • entrepreneurial and goal driven
  • compassionate and very giving
  • positive, upbeat and fun attitude
  • analytical and rational
  • exposure to science or technology, ideally a geek
  • excellent email and written communications, does not need a lot of "phone time" (I dislike the phone)
  • funny, wicked or dark humor
  • creatively expressive in some way, written or otherwise
  • organized and able to plan
  • fiscally responsible
  • comfortable and confident with her sexuality
  • loves men
  • compatible fantasy life, willing and able to create interesting situations and scenarios
  • sexually highly skilled and open minded
  • ideally 25 to 30 years old
  • ideally bisexual but preferring men
  • ideally travelled, preferably in Asia
It is an open question, if I found such a person, or somebody close, would they become a preferred single relationship? Or it is merely the next step in the evolution of my desires, yet to occur?

I'd like to think that I will settle down some day (see Changes and Good Deeds), but maybe that is only a latent desire for social comformity, or merely wishes for an innocent world passed-by: Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle Received from a Friend Called Felicity.