Sex and the Recession

I was reading in the paper today that our stupid ass president is finally admitting that the economy sucks. Duh. Luna and I were talking about business the other day and let me tell ya – Working Girls can spot a recession faster than any of these chump politicians. Know what I’m talking about?

It’s like this… here in the Sex Industry we rely mostly on what people call “Disposable Income.” In other words – getting your willy whacked is a luxury, not a necessity. Luna said it worked the same way when she was hooking. When the economy is down, people earn less and spend less. So when Punchclock Joe gets his paycheck, he automatically knows if he’s cleared enough after his bills to afford our affections.

And customers are like clockwork when it comes to paydays. On payday, business peeks that Friday night and it usually lasts through the weekend.. At the local plant, we know it’s payday every 2 weeks because we get what we call the “Business Rush.” I keep a log of my tips and noticed these trends years ago. Now the federal payday is monthly, and what we see then is a peak that usually lasts about a week.

And in case you were wondering, apart from quantity of customers, we also see changes in what guys are asking for in options, and size of tips. When things are great – like before 9/11 – I remember getting 20 customers during a single 12 hour shift. AND THIS WAS NORMAL!!! Guys would come in more frequently for shorter visits, but would ask for the more expensive options and often tip extra. Then when the economy tanked, guys would come in less frequently but for longer sessions. I guess they wanted to stretch their dollar since the tip stays the same no matter how much time they want. Then when things get REALLY bad, guys come in less frequently, ask for the cheapest options, and never tip extra.

Then there's ROCK BOTTOM. Now you know things have hit rock bottom when customers start asking you to drop your price. THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED TODAY. I talked about this situation in my first post to this blog thing. Our prices haven’t gone up in 3 years, but ever since October, more and more customers have been trying to talk us down. This has NEVER been this bad in all the years I’ve been doing this. Heck – even Audrey says that this is the worst dry spell she’s ever seen - and she’s been doing this forever!

Luna’s seen the same thing back in her whoring days, but with some minor differences. When things got bad, she said hooking oftens turns into a bartering business. So she’d start trading sex for drugs, booze, or the occasional DVD player. On the flip side, you can also tell the economy is going south when liquor sales go up. Customer of mine owns a liquor store and said business has been good in recent months. Maybe we should change this place to a liquor store! LOL

So you wanna know how the economy is doing? Fuck the news - just visit your friendly, local massage parlor.

BTW - have you been reading about this so-called Stimulus Package from the government? They're going to send all us poor folk checks in the mail. Well let me tell ya, the last time that happened, we offered our own little "Stimulus Package" here at the Business!!! We ran specials that just happened to coincide with the checks - made a TON of money for about a month. I'll talk to Audrey about doing that again in May.

But I'm not going to hold my breath... with a couple hundred extra bucks, a lot of people I know are just going to buy groceries.

Well that’s it for now. Don’t you guys have any questions for me yet??? Writing about what bugs me is getting old. What are you guys curious about? I don't want to start boring you!

CJ
Economist/Masseuse