What’s Your Price?

Evan came into town, which meant I did my best to halt my endless onslaught of work. It’s very hard for me to stop working. I’ve internalized too much capitalism, too much scarcity even when I’m fine, too much pressure to be constantly making money.

I took a money relationship quiz *that was definitely an ad for some bank* and was told that my money psychology is that of the stockpiler. I’m a scrappy deal finder. Obsessive saver. Worrier over not-at-all-concerning balances. I don’t think I will ever live without money anxiety because I grew up poor. And I don’t think that there’s a problem with having a bit of anxiety around it, because the world can be cruel and I’ve seen plenty of cruelty as a result of people not having enough money to care for their needs. Capitalism fucking sucks, and it’s completely reasonable for me to plan and set aside money for the suck. Why can’t we all just have a political and economic system that actually cares about humanity rather than expansionism?

Anyway, leftist tangent aside, as much as I wanted to indulge in time with Evan before he went away for another month, as the days went by, I kept thinking more and more about money, and work, and how I’ll be knocked out during my period for at least four days. I worry spiraled for no good reason. I’m fine. As fine as everybody else is during this shitshow. I live with the same constant sense of scarcity that even the rich men in my life aren’t able to avoid. And I suppose, that’s just the nature of the form of capitalism we’ve all grown accustomed to.

My anxiety wasn’t helped by the text I received from Longshoreman, saying that he needed to take a break from our sessions for financial reasons. He is one of the legs of the three pronged stool of monetary support I depend upon. It’s Longshoreman, Gemini Ketamine, and my social media money. After breaking into a sweat, I remembered what Lilia suggested a while ago, which is a site called What’s Your Price. I described the site briefly in an Instagram post, but to recap, it’s based around the concept that men bid on dates with attractive women. Of course, it’s not meant to be inclusive of people on the nonbinary spectrum and it’s not built for gay interactions. These sites tend to be either for the straights or for the gays, unfortunately. And of course, men are the primary economic powers in our patriarchal society. Regardless of my feelings on that subject, it is the system I’m navigating. Anyway, I created a profile. You have public pictures and private images accessible only after an interest has placed his bid on a date with you. They have a no nudity policy, but bikini pics are welcome. You can favorite profiles, and whenever you favorite someone or they favorite you, you get a message that the person is interested. You can also request someone bid on a date with you. You can even suggest the bid amount that you want up to $500.

The financial aspect is front and center on the site, as opposed to Seeking Arrangement and other sugaring sites where the finances are obscured under language like “mentorship” and “mutually beneficial arrangement”. And as a sex worker approaching thirty, I just don’t have time to pussy foot around getting paid. On WYP, in order to begin talking to someone, a bid must be submitted and accepted. If someone bids too low, you can make a counter offer. Again, shoutout to the built in app negotiations.

For your profile, you write a blurb about yourself and then a blurb describing your ideal first date. Who knows how many of these men scroll down far enough to make it to that portion of a profile. Ambitious creature that I am, I began favoriting profiles and requesting bids before my profile was even approved. I immediately requested $500 from one guy I had a hunch would be into me. He bid down to $100, which I accepted after concluding that I’d rather keep my exact numbers off of the site. It’s always better as a sex worker to reduce your paper trail both for evading the I*R*S and policing. I also didn’t want WYP to take a cut of whatever deals I might be making. $100 is a large enough bid that I know that the bidder is serious about engaging. So, I applied this logic and when I received bids under $100, I countered their offers with the $100 minimum and all of the men I’ve done this with have agreed upon the $100 mark.

What’s Your Price writes pretty centrally that it is against prostitution and that you will be banned if your profile or messages reflect solicitation. So, I’d suggest switching off of the site and onto a private platform as soon as possible to avoid anti prostitution policing. In case you’re interested in exactly what the site says about the messy business of using it for exactly what it seems to be about:

Prostitution is strictly forbidden on WhatsYourPrice. Those looking for, or offering, prostitution services will be banned immediately and for life, with no exceptions.

Offers (First Date Incentives, or FDI) are reimbursements for the attractive member’s expenses.

After agreeing on a First Date Incentive, re-negotiating or asking for it in advance violates our Terms of Use.

WhatsYourPrice team members will never contact you here to ask for account details, such as passwords or billing information.

Please be honest and transparent with your dating expectations.

Treat other members respectfully. Use your best judgement.

Messages are deleted after 180 days. You can still send new messages.

Reading this stuff is always chilling because you once again feel the fragility of the situation. A useful medium can kick you to the curb at a moment’s notice for inadvertently violating terms. I’d suggest collecting numbers and other contact info as quickly as possible just in case. I’ve been doing that after accidentally messaging a potential about “rates”. Hopefully it won’t bite me, but definitely going to verge on the side of caution going forward.

Because LA county is a fucking huge area and I don’t intend drive all over for potential first dates without any guarantees, I messaged everybody with essentially the same message:

Hey there, I'm interested in connecting with you. While I don't think you're a murderer, I want to first do a zoom call just to get to know each other a bit better, and to get off of this site for the sake of not leaving a paper trail. Are you available this week for a call? And then from there, we can schedule something irl and negotiate what that will look like.

I wrote in a previous post about my early experiences on Seeking prior to becoming a stone cold veteran hustler. I could have avoided a lot of pain and risks to my safety if I’d just arranged a FaceTime prior. Some people are creepy, and their creepiness is evident from the start. They are pushy rather than being open to where the relationship will go. They nag you for immediate time and become prickly when you don’t immediately give them what they want. They solicit you for free pictures “to see how you look,” without understanding that pics aren’t free. They try to haggle your prices. They dive into sexual talk when the purpose of a first call is to establish a rapport. If a possible customer does any of these things or for any reason you feel uncomfortable when you’re talking to them, def drop that hot potato. You do not need any of these people. I was worried the site would be more in the favor of men, but thankfully it feels tilted toward women primarily holding the power? I’ve gotten a number of good matches, at this point, perhaps too many. But there are a few that stick out.

The first is a decent looking black software engineer in his early 40s. Another great part of the site is that members list their income brackets. I’m only talking to people who make over $100k annually. He makes between $100k-$300k according to his account. Now, of course income does not equate to generosity. I have plenty of clients with modest incomes who are exceptionally generous, but if I’m going to make it through COVID-19, I will need someone with a stable, relatively high income who can afford my rates.

You might be wondering “Selena, what are your rates?” It’s easy to be cagey about these things because of a combination of personal shame over rates and simultaneously my fear about price shaming other people. I do not ever want to price shame anybody. I set my rates from working as a stripper and seeing how much I could charge for a good time without sex. Of course, now sex is in the equation, but my rates are essentially the same. What I charge is not what everybody else can or should charge. But I do think that having transparency about wages is crucial for us to raise class consciousness and work toward having equitable power situations.

I use a sliding scale with most of my clients. Before COVID-19 struck, I could charge $1k for every session outside of the club because I could make that on any Saturday night at the club. I chose the number because that was the value of my time getting paid at the club, so for me to leave, I better be getting paid that at minimum. But now, the world is fucked and we’re all facing financial difficulties. Also, before the pandemic I would take an outcall only a few times per month. Now it has become the bread and butter of my income and I see customers a few times per week.

Caveats aside, I charge a minimum of $600 for a GFE date. With GKM we have an Uncut Gems situation where when he wins, I win. So GKM dates fluctuate between $750-$1,300. When he is having a particularly good week, he gives me $1k-$1.3. I would prefer to get $1k every time, but in the end it kinda equals out. Recently, Evan suggested I instate a retainer option. So for my WYP possible daddies, I’ve begun suggesting a retainer option of $3.5 - $4k per month with the possibility of multiple weekly visits. Of course this entails a bit of a risk should someone want too much time, but there is the built in limitations of my schedule and my fucking long heavy period which knocks out at least 5-7 days of every month. What I do on these dates varies from client to client, and I’m not going to go into detail, but I do upcharge depending on what we decide to do and what rate each customer has locked in.

I hope you enjoyed my financial transparency and that you aren’t upset at me for it.

The other person I’m interested in is Cryptodaddy. Evan asked what I might call this person, and I was thinking Futurismo or Mr. Futurism, but Cryptodaddy is a little more fun. He runs a cryptocurrency company that is actually kinda remarkable. He sent me an episode of his podcast so that I could get to know what he looks like and glean a taste of his personality. He’s definitely kinda arrogant, but so am I. While researching him, I took a deep dive into DeFi (decentralized finance), and for the first time in a while, I got excited about the future that digital currency might hold. He’s a bit of a utopian thinker, but I am too. Anyway, I immediately had the feeling that we might not only get on, but that I might finally have a client whose work I genuinely respect on an ethical level. This rarely happens. As far as careers go, Longshoreman is probably the one working a job that is the least morally dubious. I usually have to hold my nose as I get to know venture capitalist after venture capitalist, finance bro after finance bro, entrepreneur after entrepreneur. I mean, as people, many of them are decent enough, but as ethical monetary powers in the world, they’re capitalist cucks. Cryptodaddy isn’t exactly an anticapitalist, but he is trying to subvert the concentration of wealth among very few people; offering a solution to the problem of unbanked people; and attempting to value the contributions of those working blue collar jobs equally to those working in white collar jobs by creating an economic ecosystem that subverts our current privatized banking situation. It’s radicalism under a different name, and I think that’s really dope.

Wednesday I had to choose a GKM over a first date with Cryptodaddy because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and GKM promised to give me more money than normal. Cryptodaddy is still an unknown variable. GKM is a long term client, and it’s important for me to prioritize the ones I have over new folks. But it created a nagging sense of fomo. I would love nothing more than to lock down Cryptodaddy before he gets scooped up by somebody else. Time is a commodity nobody can afford to waste, particularly Cryptodaddy. He is literally flying out tomorrow for some kind of business trip. The whole situation gives me anxiety gas lol. I have to remind myself that if it’s going to happen, it will happen. If it isn’t, I haven’t lost anything. There are other whales in the ocean, and I’m talking to a few.

So that’s where I am in a nutshell. Over the coming week ’ll begin interviewing more potential candidates via Zoom or FaceTime. I’ll discuss my rates and see who balks. There’s no use trying to convince someone who balks, you can’t move them. I have to make sure I maintain momentum even while I delay IRL dates because my period begins tomorrow. But this is my life. Not much I can do about it unless I get a hysterectomy.

I’ll keep y’all updated as things go. Let me know if this entry brought up any questions. Love you guys so much.