Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts

and Constructions of Intimacy

in Commodified Sexual Relationships
Zoey Jones
Carleton University

Stacey Hannem
Wilfrid Laurier University

This article draws on fourteen in-depth semi-structured interviews

with men who hire female escorts to examine the role of intimacy
in their interactions with sex workers. Using the concept of social
scripting, we examine the cultural, interpersonal, and intrapsychic
meanings that shape the commodified sexual interaction. Focusing
on the clients’ intrapsychic scripts, we argue that previous typologies
of client behavior ignore the role of intimacy and the meaning that
individuals ascribe to their own experiences and actions. We suggest
a typology of clients that goes beyond previous classifications of “reg-
ular” and “non-regular”—the latter referred to as a “hummingbird”
client from the perspective of one sex worker. Our four-part typology
of committed regulars, hybrids, searchers, and industry insiders takes
into account the role of intimacy along with the client’s perception of
frequency and motive, even in seemingly casual sexual encounters. A
video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/IK_UiGzWT_E.

Keywords: intimacy, sexual scripts, social scripting, sex work, clients,

sexuality, prostitution

INTRODUCTION
Sexual behavior is social behavior and sexual interactions are socially produced,
drawing on existing cultural narratives, scripts, gendered expectations, and accepted
motivations (Gagnon and Simon 2005; Kimmel 2007). Although it is commodified
and subject to marketization (Bernstein 2007), sex work—the exchange of sexual

Direct all correspondence to Zoey Jones, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Carleton
University, B750 Loeb Building, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa Ontario, K1S 5B6, Canada; e-mail:
[email protected].

Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 41, Issue 4, pp. 488–512, ISSN: 0195-6086 print/1533-8665 online.
© 2018 Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1002/SYMB.379
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 489

services for money or other consideration— is not immune to the cultural scripts and
narratives that shape noncommodified sexual interactions. Participants in sex work,
both clients and sex workers, actively construct encounters that reflect the cultural
expectations of sexuality as an “intimate” interaction, but also retain the boundaries
of a consumptive practice—what Bernstein (2007) has called “bounded authentic-
ity.”
Intimacy is often a crucial aspect of the client experience in sex work, and has
been studied directly and peripherally from the perspectives of both sex workers
and their clients (Bernstein 2007; Lever and Dolnick 2010; Sanders 2008a, 2008b).
Researchers attempting to classify sex work clients often draw on sex workers’
descriptions of their clients’ behavior, and on self-report surveys of clients exam-
ining quantifiable behaviors divorced from individuals’ understandings of what
those behaviors represent. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with clients
of escorts, and utilizing a symbolic interactionist framing, this research challenges
the existing dichotomy of “regular” and “non-regular” clients by presenting a typol-
ogy that engages with the role of intimacy in sex work. Using Newmahr’s (2011)
framing of intimacy as a function of access to privileged information and experi-
ences, we argue that the role of intimacy in sex work challenges narrower framings
which rely on a characterization of the relationship as a reciprocal experience of
positive emotions. Most of the research participants claim to value intimacy and
“connection.”1 Building on this discovery, we argue that previous typifications of
clients ignore the meanings that individuals ascribe to their own behavior, fail to
capture diverse motivations, and erase the experience of intimacy in seemingly
casual sexual transactions.

Literature on Intimacy in Sex Work

The existing sociological and psychological scholarship on intimacy generally does
not address the sex industry as a site of potential inquiry. Sanders (2008a) argues that
this gap in the literature exists because researchers instead emphasize the physical,
sexual aspects of the interactions between sex workers and clients, and neglect emo-
tional interactions. The disconnection of sex work and intimacy is also present in the
client literature. Some research depicts the sex worker/client relationship as funda-
mentally different from sexual relationships not involving monetary exchange, claim-
ing that sex work encounters are “focused entirely on sexual release rather than love
and intimacy” (Milrod and Monto 2012:794; see also Campbell 1998; Monto 1998,
2010), and suggesting that payment creates a buffer between the parties involved,
preventing authentic bonds from forming (Milrod and Monto 2012). Other studies
refer to the “illusion of intimacy” (Frank 1998) and “counterfeit intimacy” (Boles and
Garbin 1974; Enck and Preston 1988) often found in strip clubs. Such assertions are
predicated on the assumption that there is, then, a “true intimacy” which presumably
is not commodifiable, is reciprocal, and has overtones of romantic attachment.
490 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

The discussion of intimacy in sex work is also limited by varying usage of the
term intimacy, and lack of a clear definition (see also Moss and Schwebel 1993).
In some cases, authors clearly belie a conceptual conflation between intimacy and
love, assuming that the two are synonymous or, at the least, co-present (see Milrod
and Monto 2012). Many researchers use Giddens’ (1992) characterization of inti-
macy as a “healthy and desirable condition of a relationship, fueled by open but
bounded communication between partners” (Newmahr 2011:169). Giddens’ (1992)
macro-sociological analysis is concerned with how relationships and sites of intimacy
have been transformed via shifting social expectations of sexuality and relationships.
Sanders (2008a) argues that the presence of intimacy in sex work is a part of this
transformation, while Milrod and Weitzer (2012:4) interpret Giddens’ theorizing of
the “pure relationship” to imply that intimacy “transcends any economic relation-
ship between the two parties.” Evidently, even with a common foundation, sex work
researchers have yet to reach a shared conceptualization of intimacy and its relation-
ship to the transactional aspect of sex work.
Researchers have also engaged only peripherally with the existential aspect of
intimacy. For example, Milrod and Monto (2012) imply that intimacy is a necessarily
two-sided experience, and clients’ desires for companionship and mutual enjoyment
are framed as burdens upon the sex worker, requiring emotional labor (Hochschild
1983). Reciprocity (or lack thereof) seems crucial to define whether there is “authen-
tic” intimacy for some researchers (e.g., Enck and Preston 1988; Milrod and Monto
2012). This approach has also been referred to as “self-focused sexuality,” suggesting
that the exchange of sexual services for money makes this closer to a consumer
relationship than an intimate one (Milrod and Monto 2012; Monto and Julka 2009).
Alternatively, some researchers accept that the experience of intimacy may be
present in a commercial context. For example, while Frank (1998:184) acknowledges
the assumption that intimacy in a strip club is illusory, she found that intimacy
between erotic dancers and regular clients is “constantly negotiated in repeated
interaction” and can challenge traditional ideas of “authentic intimacy.” Similarly,
Bernstein (2007) is clear that recognition of the emotional labor and “deep acting”
that many sex workers engage to fulfill their clients’ fantasies of desire and connec-
tion does not invalidate clients’ experiences of that connection, and Sanders (2008a,
2008b) utilizes the word intimacy to describe clients’ emotional experiences, without
problematizing her respondents’ representations of their feelings.
Newmahr (2011:171, emphasis in original) describes intimacy as “not necessarily
about love, sex, or tenderness, but about access to emotional and physical experiences
of others that we consider inaccessible to most people.” This effectively separates the
concept of intimacy from that of relationship, highlighting that intimacy is interac-
tional and is neither inherently “good” or “bad,” nor necessarily tied to feelings of
love or pleasure. The importance or “depth” of the interaction is of less concern than
the sense of exclusivity or privilege that is afforded in the interaction; if an individual
believes that s/he is engaged in a form of interaction that would not be offered to
others, then a sense of intimacy will emerge. Newmahr argues that any interaction,
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 491

even violence, can be experienced as intimate if it meets the conditions of providing

access to another’s thoughts, experiences, or physical body that are normally subject
to selective boundaries and not readily available. In this sense, the pursuit of inti-
macy is competitive; individuals strive for access to others and achieving intimacy
represents a conquest (Newmahr 2011). While Newmahr does not examine paying
for access, the possibility is not precluded. This conceptualization provides a rich
theoretical framing to situate the interactional negotiations of intimacy described in
our data.
In the limited research on intimacy in sex work there are two distinct approaches:
(1) intimacy requires equal partners with reciprocal emotions, leading researchers
to assess whether or not both parties have “real” feelings or (2) intimacy can be
experienced without reciprocity, and researchers can explore and identify intimacy
with data from one side of the relationship. Drawing on a rich tradition of phe-
nomenological and existential inquiry (e.g., Berger and Luckmann 1966; Douglas
and Johnson 1977; Schutz 1962) we adopt the second approach which recenters sub-
jectivity and recognizes that while shared meanings permit social action, two actors
may experience their interactions and the situation very differently. We acknowledge
the emotional labor required of sex workers when clients pursue intimacy; however,
we also respect our participants’ convictions that their experiences are real.

Literature on Clients
The majority of sex work research focuses on sex workers or service providers
(SPs) rather than clients. This may evidence a male-centric bias in the study of
deviance and sexuality which positions male behavior as normative, while women’s
violations of notions of femininity result in extensive speculation, interest, and
research (O’Neill 2001). The notion that purchasing sex is “normal” (and that the
men who buy it are, therefore, not of great interest to scholars) has a strong historical
foothold (O’Neill 2001). However, societal and academic interest in sex work clients
has increased over the past three decades; since the early 1980s, moral censure
has been “incrementally extended and, to a degree, transferred from women who
sell sex to men who pay” (Kinnell 2006:212). The 2014 Canadian legislation that
criminalized the purchase of sex, but not the sale, is explicit evidence of this shift.
In the past two decades, researchers from a variety of disciplines including sexual-
ity, gender, and masculinity studies (Bernstein 2001; Joseph and Black 2012; Katsulis
2010; Khan 2011; Milrod and Weitzer 2012; O’Neill 2001), criminal justice (Tewks-
bury and Golder 2005), sociology (Giusta, Di Tommaso, and Strøm 2009; Sanders
2008a, 2008b), and psychology (Plumridge et al. 1997) have attempted to address
the dearth of literature on sex work clients. While Holzman and Pines (1982) were
among the first to employ a phenomenological approach to the study clients of sex
workers, using in-depth, qualitative interviews, the more contemporary literature has
moved away from intersubjective methodologies (notable exceptions include Bern-
stein 2007 and Symons 20152 ). Many studies focus on describing the demographics
492 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

of clients, finding that clients are a heterogeneous group, spanning ethnicities (Arm-
strong 1978; Monto 2010), a wide range of ages (Jordan 1997; Sanders 2008b), and
education (Lowman and Atchison 2006). Research also examines the services that
clients seek, and identifies a wide variety of motivations (see Busch et al. 2002; Jor-
dan 1997; Lowman and Atchison 2006; Monto and McRee 2005; Pitts et al. 2004;
Tewksbury and Golder 2005), including unsatisfying sexual relationships with part-
ners (Jordan 1997; Monto 2010; Sanders 2008a), desire for minimal emotional con-
nection and involvement (Monto 2010), attraction to the “thrill” or “taboo” of hiring
sex workers (Kinnell 2006; McKeganey and Barnard 1996; Monto 2010), or meeting
unfulfilled emotional needs (Earle and Sharp 2007; Sanders 2008a). Participants are
often recruited from “John Schools” (e.g., van Brunschot 2003; Wahab 2005, 2006;
Wortley, Fischer, and Webster 2002), suggesting involvement in street-level prosti-
tution. There is also a growing literature which studies and surveys clients’ virtual
worlds, through analysis of client engagement on online erotic review boards (ERBs)
and special interest sites (Blevins and Holt 2009; Earle and Sharp 2007; Holt and
Blevins 2007; Milrod and Monto 2012; Pettinger 2011; Pruitt and Krull 2011). This
seems to have marked a shift away from relying on the stories of sex workers to
gather secondary information and draw conclusions about clients (e.g., Armstrong
1978) toward clients as primary data sources.
Although there is a strong, if relatively small, body of literature on clients from
which to draw, much of the research investigates clients through online observation or
survey research. Further, their hypotheses are largely informed by previous research
on sex workers and assume that client experiences will mirror the perspectives of
SPs. Few studies employ qualitative interviews with clients, and even fewer allow the
voices of the clients to shape the research process.

EPISTEMOLOGY AND METHOD

For this project we adopted a constructivist grounded theory stance—an approach
that reflects an interpretive paradigm and views “both data and analysis as created
from shared experiences and relationships with participants” (Charmaz 2010:130;
see also Glaser and Strauss 1967). Consistent with a symbolic interactionist framing,
constructivist epistemology approaches data and analysis in a relational manner; the
participants’ narratives provide rich data for analysis as we engage with the intersub-
jective and social elements of their perceptions, examining how clients interact with
symbolic “objects” (Blumer 1969) to construct meaning in the sexual transaction.3
Participants for this study were recruited from an online ERB serving a
medium-sized city in Ontario, Canada. ERBs represent an online space where
clients can be relatively anonymous (or pseudonymous), and the particular site
chosen for this study included discussions ranging from ideal rates for sex work to
Canadian politics. However, an ERB is essentially built around sharing reviews of
sex workers’ services. Clients using this site discussed all types of sex work including
street sex work, massage parlors, indoor escorting, and sugar babies, and there
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 493

appeared to be a locked section for sex workers only (which was not accessible to
us as researchers). Clients could choose to remain anonymous online, but many sex
workers asked for online handles (i.e., online names) during their screening process,
which would allow them to check references with other sex workers and review their
online presence. As such, for some clients their online handle represented a “real”
name in that they had a reputation with positive and/or negative associations that
they built up over time. Other clients boasted at the fact that they did not share their
online handle with sex workers, allowing them to escape social consequences for
negative or rude online comments. However, most people who actively reviewed
sex workers on this website would presumably be identifiable to those sex workers,
as they often recounted specific activities and interactions during their review of
services.
The first author explored several online ERBs and chose one that appeared
to have a regular group of clients who frequented the site. This ERB, given the
pseudonym “Eros,” is a virtual community of active, retired, and prospective clients,
and sex workers. After obtaining ethics clearance from the university, we received
permission from the owner/administrator of the ERB to post a recruitment thread
to introduce the project and request participation.
After choosing a location for recruitment and study that appeared to reflect some
community cohesion, recruitment was as broad as possible. The recruitment post tar-
geted all participants of Eros who hire sex workers and was inclusive of all adult ages,
ethnicities, genders, and styles of sex work interaction. This post emphasized that the
core purpose of the research project was to gain and share a better understanding of
clients’ lived experiences in the sex industry. The initial guiding research questions
focused on these lived experiences, with a sensitivity to experiences of stigma and
perceptions and management of risk, as well as an intention to pursue criminological
verstehen4 (Ferrell 1997). The emergence of “intimacy” as an emergent theme across
each interview intrigued us, and influenced later interviews and analysis to adjust to
this prevailing topic of conversation.
Initially, some clients enthusiastically volunteered to interview, while others pub-
licly and privately expressed concern at being outed or arrested through the process
of research. One of the first author’s initial positive contacts was with a modera-
tor on the forum, who volunteered to monitor the discussion and provide her with
“insider” information, although he was too nervous to participate himself. The first
author built trust with participants by thoroughly and transparently sharing informa-
tion in follow-up comments regarding methods, research question, and assurances as
to criminal law relating to sex work, and this was significantly bolstered by partici-
pants who subsequently posted “reviews” of the interview and/or researcher in the
recruitment thread. After participants shared positive experiences in this manner,
a second, smaller wave of volunteers came forward. These comments emphasized
that the experience was positive, respectful,5 and, most importantly, did not involve
any surprise police officers or journalists. Recruitment was significantly aided by the
fact that many of these clients felt that they were unfairly represented in media
494 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

(particularly news/crime media) about sex work and were worried about potential
future legislation criminalizing the purchase of sex (which subsequently came to pass
in Canada in late 2014).
The initial interview questions asked the participants to discuss any concerns they
had about criminalization or being arrested for soliciting to purchase sex, experiences
of stigmatization connected to being a client, how much of their identity and self was
invested in being a client or “hobbyist,” and their impressions of clients in the media.
However, the first three clients arrived at their interviews prepared to tell the story
of how and why they hire sex workers, and gave succinct and distracted answers to
our intended line of inquiry. The first author decided to adjust the interview schedule
to better suit what the clients wanted to talk about: what they felt was misunderstood
by the public and researchers alike, which was, chiefly, the nuanced experiences that
they had hiring sex workers.
The first author interviewed fourteen men who hire women sex workers6 in a
semi-public location7 —thirteen in person and one over telephone. These inter-
views were semi-structured, in-depth, guided by a thematic interview schedule, and
lasted from 45 minutes to 3 hours. Most clients indicated that they viewed around
$200 per hour as the ideal rate for sex workers, which positions them in a fairly
middle-of-the-road demographic as far as sex work is concerned (see Jones 2013
for more analysis of this price point). All participants identified as Caucasian and
heterosexual (one identified as “straight but curious”), and ranged in age from
“early 30s” to “over 65.” The participants represented a range of socioeconomic
statuses; one participant was unemployed and receiving government assistance,
while the remaining thirteen reported income from $25,000 to $300,000 per year.
Occupations varied widely, and included employment in the service industry, infor-
mation technology, science, finance, factory work, and business. The marital status
of those involved in this study was often a point of discussion (albeit a delicate
topic), as this frequently was cited as a motive for seeing sex workers, whether
single (six participants), married (six participants), or divorced/separated (two
participants). The majority of participants expressed no difficulty finding sexual
partners outside of the sex industry and so their decisions to see sex workers were
generally not related to a lack of access to potential sexual partners, consistent
with Bernstein’s (2007) findings in which she suggests that it is a particular kind of
commodified and bounded intimacy that clients are seeking in pursuing paid sexual
encounters.
The initial phase of coding utilized line-by-line or incident-to-incident coding
(Charmaz 2010) using NVivo10, depending8 on the richness of the data; axial coding
was employed to connect emerging themes and categories together. Focused coding
was used to consider each interview in light of the emerging themes, finding new
connections and references that aided in defining and exploring concepts. The
theme of intimacy was very significant in the data, found in every interview, and
served to inform the creation of new theoretical categories for understanding client
behavior.
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 495

INTIMACY AND THE SEXUAL SCRIPT

Building on Gagnon and Simon’s (2005) seminal work on sexual scripts,9 much
work has been done to understand and unpack the various cultural narratives and
socializations that impact the context, shape, and experience of sexual encounters.
Gagnon and Simon (2005) identified three layers of scripting involved in the framing
and interaction of sexual behavior. The first, and most abstract, cultural scripts,
“lay out the playing field of sexuality; what is deemed desirable and undesirable,
and where the broad boundaries lie between appropriate and inappropriate sexual
conduct” (Wiederman 2015:8). In the case of heterosexual encounters, cultural
scripts are not necessarily cohesive and shifting cultural norms will create tensions
in actors’ expectations. Dominant cultural scripts would place the case of men who
seek paid sex with women at the intersections of the broad categorizations of desir-
able/undesirable and appropriate/inappropriate. Male clients of sex workers at once
are pursuing the appropriate cultural script of seeking sexual interaction with (often
multiple) desirable women, but violating scripts of romantic sexuality which suggest
that such encounters should be organic, rooted in mutual desire, and free of (explicit)
commodification. Broad cultural scripts, rooted in puritanical and instrumentalist
views of sexuality, also suggest that heterosexual interactions should be understood
as a site of intimacy, framed as the reciprocal experience of a shared emotional
connection that is at once romantic, unique, and monogamous (or at least monog-
amous for the woman). Some contemporary sexual scripts, such as “the hookup”
examined by Bogle (2008) and Wade (2017), explicitly sever sexual encounters
from the expectation of emotional intimacy and ongoing relationship. The hookup
scripts themselves are understood as deviant such that the expectations for these
interactions are not well defined, leaving the interpersonal scripting vague and prone
to misinterpretation (Bogle 2008; Wade 2017). However, hookups are understood,
in some cases, as a possible precursor to a longer, more traditional, intimate dating
relationship, and may, in some situations, evolve to conform to more normative
scripts. Paid sex with sex workers violates these cultural scripts as well; introducing
the element of payment into the sexual encounter signals a commodified interaction
which appears incompatible with our dominant scripts for sexual intimacy and
seems to erase the expectations of mutual attraction and connection. However,
we would suggest that at the subsequent layers of scripting—interpersonal and
intrapsychic scripting—sex workers and clients construct interactions that draw on
these dominant cultural scripts, rewriting the script in a way that sets the boundaries
of the encounter and allows for clients to experience intimacy within a bounded
temporal and emotional frame.
For Gagnon and Simon (2005), interpersonal scripting draws on shared symbols
and cultural expectations about sex and sexuality to permit individuals to interact
and play out a “scene” without necessarily explicitly discussing the parameters of that
interaction. Physical and verbal cues are engaged to maintain a frame of expectations
around the interaction—in this case the frame of the paid sexual encounter—and the
496 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

intersection of cultural and interpersonal scripts permits shared understanding of the

definition of the situation (Thomas and Thomas 1928) that allows the interaction to
proceed smoothly. This is true in all realms of social interaction; Emerson (2001) and
Lerum (2001) provide insightful empirical expositions of the social scripts involved
in gynecological exams and strip clubs, respectively. However, it is at the level of
intrapsychic scripting that we can unpack the meanings and emotional engagement
that individuals associate with these actions/interactions, realizing that “the same
sequence of acts may have different meanings both for different pairs of actors or
the participants in the same act” (Gagnon and Simon 2005:14). We now turn our
attention to the focus of our analysis, which is the intrapsychic scripting employed
by the male clients of female escorts in making sense of their own engagement with
commodified sex.

SYMBOLIC OBJECTS AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF INTIMACY

Most of the clients in this study explicitly referred to “connection,” “click,” or “inti-
macy.” Some clients identified intimacy as their primary goal in hiring escorts, with
sexual interaction almost an afterthought; for others, intimacy was a surprising but
welcome by-product, or a positive accompaniment to the pursuit of fulfilling sexual
experiences. While discussion of intimacy and connection was almost universal, the
representative symbols of intimacy varied. These symbolic objects were discussed as
indicators of intimacy—proof presented to the interviewer in the client’s explana-
tions of his relationships, experiences, and desires.10
Many clients discussed the development of a nonsexual relationship with a SP to
represent the intimacy that they experienced. In order to explain the connection,
consider a statement by a client that expressed his respect and attraction to the per-
sonality of the SP, his interest in talking and hanging out with his favorite SP(s),
and/or his interest in intimate—but not explicitly sexual—physical interaction:

A lot of the time I want to get it [sexual intercourse] done quick, because I like the
after time. I like just laying there and relaxing and, oh yeah. It was everything, the
first year was just like therapy. I loved everything about it. It wasn’t just the sex
at all. Especially the ones I saw multiple times, those were the girls I really liked
talking to, so I’d just go back to them. Actually, there were some times I went that
I think I just wanted to hang out with them and just talk more than anything, but
I spent all that money, so I might as well do everything! (Justin, 39)

Justin’s statement suggests that when a client seeks primarily nonsexual connection,
the commodification of the interaction might alter expectations of the interaction,
prompting him to engage in sex because he spent the money, following the scripted
expectations for interactions with sex workers. Many participants discussed the con-
nections that they found in conversation, and the development of candid, friendly
relationships with SPs as enhancing intimacy, making the client feel as though he is
a special and privileged client. As Jonah suggested:
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 497

Sexuality is much more than body. Much, much more. And, I don’t know. That’s
not the appeal for me. I was [with] somebody I had seen regularly, and we just
started chatting and chatting and chatting and chatting, and then we got into
things, and all of a sudden she was like, “Oh my God, somebody’s going to be
here in like five minutes!” So it’s like, clothes on. But it was out of respect, you
know. She has a business, and that’s how she’s supporting herself. And I’ve been
the guy sitting in the parking lot being like, “What do you mean, five more min-
utes, five more minutes?” No. Okay, I’m way over the time. I was supposed to be
there for an hour and we were an hour and a half, hour and 45. (Jonah, mid-30s)

Clients such as Jonah interpret the extension of the session due to chatting and
connection, without extra cost, as a measure of mutuality11 —a symbol that the SP
enjoys spending time with him as much as he enjoys spending time with her. How-
ever, Bernstein (2007) has documented that sometimes these symbols of mutuality
are not well received by clients who wish to avoid the messiness of an ambiguous
sexual relationship and intimacy that is not bounded by payment and time limits. We
did not encounter this in our data, but SPs may, in fact, risk alienating the very clients
that they seek to keep by offering additional time or unpaid services. In this sense,
the script of the paid sexual encounter is thrown into question by the suggestion of
mutuality that might exceed the negotiated limits of a commodified service.
Within the sexual encounter, participants’ constructions of intimacy also included
sexual mutuality. The nature of the sex industry prioritizes the sexual desires of
the client and requires the sex worker to accommodate those desires; flipping this
dynamic and providing sexual pleasure for the SP gives clients the feeling of a more
intimate connection and that this reciprocation assists with enjoyment of her job.
This is consistent with Giddens’ (1992:3) definition of intimacy as “a transactional
negotiation of personal ties by equals,” as many clients find authenticity and intimacy
in attempting to create equal sexual pleasure—a experience that they assume does
not occur in all of the SP’s sexual transactions with clients. Donald explains:

If there’s a genuine connection of any sort on any level and you can play that up,
if I can give them an orgasm that helps a great deal for me. That’s why I like oral
sex because then I can at least give them that, and they can put up with me for a
while. (Donald, 33)

Ralph also prefers sessions if he believes that the SP is enjoying herself:

I’m there because I want a GFE [Girlfriend Experience], number one, and num-
ber two is, I care.12 I want the interaction between us, I want that time together,
to be mutually enjoyable. So I want the woman to be pleased as much as me. So
I’m really, I focus on them. I want them to come if I can. And I try. (Ralph, over
40)

Clients describe attempting to provide SPs with pleasure for a variety of reasons
largely tied to sexual enjoyment, mutuality, and an interest in fostering intimacy. They
described prowess at giving women pleasure, with varying degrees of awareness that
the enjoyment exhibited by the SP may or may not be authentic. Client desire for
498 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

mutuality may, in fact, increase the emotional labor required from the SP (see Lever
and Dolnick 2010), as satisfying the client requires her to perform enjoyment. At
the level of scripting, the performance of enjoyment maintains both the client’s fan-
tasy (intrapsychic script) of a mutually enjoyable sexual encounter, and the agreed
upon interpersonal script of the sexual service which requires that the client’s desires
be satisfied—the SP would violate the script of the commodified sexual service by
expressing displeasure or failing to perform pleasure such that the client was forced
to confront the failure of his fantasy. However, her performance of his successful
sexual prowess allows the client to feel that he has provided an enjoyable experience
that would differentiate their interaction from the SP’s interactions with other clients,
thus creating a sense of intimacy in having access to her sexual pleasure.
The experience of intimacy for clients also appears to be tied to scripted patterns
of traditional heterosexual romantic encounters, as indicated by symbols normally
associated with a “date”:
I like to talk first, chat, if the TV’s on, whatever, see what’s going on, and all that
type of thing. And just basically, I like it to feel like, you know, a date. Start on the
couch kissing, something like that. (Kevin, 44)

Clients place a premium on nonpenetrative erotic contact as mirroring noncommodi-

tized heterosexual relationships and therefore as indicative of intimacy:
I lack intimacy in my life, so for me it’s not about sex. I couldn’t care less. I could
have sex with anything. But it’s the connection, it’s the kissing, it’s the touching,
[and] shower for two after. Nothing goes on in the shower other than talking,
touching, washing. Very basic, almost basically what a couple does. (Bart, 35)

Kissing also appears as a symbol of intimacy; in some instances, the client felt kissing
was so indelibly linked to intimacy that they could not enjoy a session with an SP
who restricted kissing. Jonah told us:
Several girls I’ve seen advertised in the past have advertised very adamantly, “no
kissing” ... that’s something I can’t not have. It’s not, there’s no link, there’s no
emotion, if it’s just straight sex with no kissing. (Jonah, mid-30s)

Kissing is also sometimes leveraged to demonstrate that the sex worker and client
have a special or unique relationship. For example, Ralph quickly learned the inti-
macy value connected to the kiss upon his first visit to a sex worker:
She told me the first time “no kissing,” and I was like, (disappointed voice) “no
kissing, okay, well I guess.” I don’t know anything about this, and she said “you
know, the girls don’t kiss.” I go back a week later, started getting intimate with
her, oh my God. She kissed me like I’ve never been kissed in my life. (Ralph, over
40)

Following Newmahr’s (2011) analysis, Ralph was granted access to a restricted phys-
ical experience (kissing), contributing to his sense of a growing intimacy in the rela-
tionship and a feeling of privilege. The SP’s willingness to engage in kissing when she
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 499

had not previously been willing signaled to Ralph that this encounter was moving
toward a more traditional sexual script in which intimacy and sexuality are entwined.
Beyond these physical experiences, many clients engage in more abstract
meaning-making processes that influence the intimacy they feel in their relation-
ships with sex workers. Jonah suggested that the anonymity of sex work encounters
actually increases the intimacy:

Especially if you’re with somebody that you’ve already been [with] and got to
know, and have a bit of trust built there. The walls are down, and that anonymity
between the two of you; she doesn’t really know who you are, and in a weird sort
of way you can both just kind of let go. (Jonah, mid-30s)

Conversely, Kevin expressed concern that women may be coerced into the sex indus-
try or otherwise be unhappy due to the nature of sex work, wondering, “how do they
see themselves after I leave?” (Kevin, 44). He reported that when these concerns
emerged during a session, he sometimes finds himself unable or unwilling to per-
form sexually, but wants to ensure that the SP’s feelings are not hurt by his lack of
interest:

You know, I’ll sit there and hold hands, whatever, watch TV, if it doesn’t go right.
I’ll make sure, you know, “it’s not your fault,” because some girls will feel guilty.
It’s like, “well you know you paid me for … ,” and I’m like, “no! I want to sit here,
talk, have a smoke, whatever.” (Kevin, 44)

Interrupted Intimacy
Clients may develop complex and meaningful relationships with SPs and, indeed,
feel that they do. However, the nature of the sex industry creates challenges; many
clients inevitably experience some degree of interrupted intimacy, an abrupt and
often unexpected disruption of intimate relationships, usually triggered by external
forces, which results in the removal of access to the SP. One gentle form of inter-
rupted intimacy manifests each time a session ends, as the commodified nature of
the session creates an experience that is always temporally bounded, regardless of
enjoyment and intimacy. As Robert explains, “I’ll be honest, it’s not always easy,
because sometimes who you’re having a great time with, you wish they could stay
because it’s that good” (Robert, 53). This form of interrupted intimacy highlights the
tension between traditional scripts of sexually intimate relationships in which access
to one’s partner is not temporally bounded and the script of the commodified sexual
encounter which is understood as limited, albeit sometimes reluctantly so.
Another manifestation of interrupted intimacy and loss of access is experienced
when clients hire SPs through an agency or brothel which prevents workers from
directly contacting clients and vice versa. A sex worker who leaves a brothel or
agency often loses clients through lack of communication. Jacob expressed some sad-
ness about his experiences with this interruption:
500 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

I [saw] her over a three or four month period and she’s not there anymore, and
because I have no way of contacting her or vice versa, I don’t see her at all any-
more. (Jacob, 57)

Donald experienced another variation of this problem. He met a sex worker who he
connected with at a brothel but found the intimacy too intense:

Basically I was falling for her, and I kept wanting to go. And I was like, “no,
this isn’t good, she doesn’t care. She might think I’m a sweet guy, but she’s
twenty-three or something, she’s got her life. She doesn’t need this.” Then, about
two months later, I was like, I really do want to see her again, because [it was] the
best experience I’ve had, even just physically. And she wasn’t doing it anymore.
So, I was a little sad because I totally lost touch. (Donald, 33)

In nonpaid relationships, individuals interested in maintaining contact might

exchange contact information and notify one another of any changes in this infor-
mation, making these kinds of experiences less likely. The interpersonal scripting of
the sex industry contains unique rules—explicit and implicit—regarding communi-
cation, the end of a session, and barriers between “real life” and the commodified
encounter that can make it difficult to maintain intimate relationships, even when
both parties are willing and interested. Interrupted intimacy can be painful for
clients who experienced a strong connection; sex workers who leave the sex industry,
contract an illness, or pass away can leave an emotional imprint on clients who cared
about them. As Bryan (age 62) shared: “when something happens to them or they
decide to leave [the industry] … there’s a loss there.”
There are many objects of intimacy and indications of clients’ intimacy
meaning-making processes. While there is not space here to present each example
found in the data, we have presented some of the most prevalent negotiations of
intimacy. Next, we will examine how client engagements with intimacy are crucial to
our understanding of their behavioral patterns in the sex industry.

Addressing the “Regular”

Sex work research frequently refers to the regular—a type of client who sees the
same SP over a series of sessions and develops a bond with her (e.g., Brewis and Lin-
stead 2000; Browne and Minichiello 1995; Egan 2006; Joseph and Black 2012; Milrod
and Weitzer 2012; Murphy and Venkatesh 2006; Sanders 2005, 2008a; Sanders and
Campbell 2007). From the SP’s perspective, regulars may be seen as “safe” (Sanders
2005), “easy,” and “nice” (Browne and Minichiello 1995:608), and according to an
escort on Eros, they represent job security. Further, the relationship between a regu-
lar client and SP mirrors traditional heteronormative scripts and notions of romance,
making this relationship more similar to unpaid relationships than outsiders believe
(Sanders 2008a). Research on sex work describes men who are not regulars less often;
Sanders (2008a) refers to them as “one off” clients, implying that a subset of clients
hire a variety of SPs without forming emotional bonds. Sarah, an escort on Eros,
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 501

referred to these “non-regulars” as “hummingbirds”—describing a tendency to flit

from SP to SP, pursuing sexual variety. Sanders (2008b:404) wrote that “[n]on-regular
clients ... appeared to be different from ‘regular’ clients in both their motivations to
seek out commercial sex and the commercial relationship dynamics.” The dichotomy
of regular clients and hummingbirds informed this project—we expected to be able
to classify participants as regulars or hummingbirds; however, our data did not sup-
port this dichotomy.
In the existing sex work research, the dichotomy of regulars and variety-focused
nonregulars emerged from sex workers’ own retrospective or journal-based descrip-
tions of clients (e.g., Armstrong 1978; Holzman and Pines 1982); assumption of this
dichotomy seems to have influenced subsequent client studies. Most client research
does not justify its use of this binary, nor define it, indicating that the concept of the
regular is embedded in assumptions about clients’ motivations, frequency, and the
nature of sex work. An examination of client behavior informed by understanding
of their motivations (intrapsychic scripts) provides a very different, less homogenous
view. From our data, four categories of behavior hinging on differential frequency
and engagement with intimacy emerged: (1) the committed regular; (2) clients who
were regular with one (or two or three) SP(s), while also pursuing variety on the
side (this was recognized briefly in Sanders 2008b); (3) clients who saw a variety of
SPs, seeking the “right one” with whom to be a regular; and (4) clients who are so
immersed in the local sex work subculture that they are familiar with most sex work-
ers in the Eros scene, making their “regular” status difficult to determine. A clearly
delineated hummingbird category, whose sole purpose is to pursue sexual variety, did
not emerge in this sample. This data suggests that a client’s negotiations with desired
levels of intimacy and familiarity are more complex than previously represented.

Committed Regular
Several participants fit the traditional definition of the regular; they pursued close
bonds with a small number of sex workers (sometimes one at a time, mirroring the
serial monogamy of dating relationships) and maintained those bonds over a period
of time. For some, meeting a new SP is a nerve-wracking and negative experience,
and there is a degree of comfort present in identifying a regular SP. Jacob (age 57),
for example, felt that “variety’s not the spice of life”—he had been seeing his regular
sex worker for about 18 months. Kevin (age 44) likes to “go” with the same girls, for
comfort and familiarity—he disclosed that “after three or four, five times … I don’t
get nervous anymore. It gets more fun.”
Other committed regulars described their relationships in intense and intimate
terms; these clients prefer relationships that mirror the respect, courtship rituals,
intimacy, and confidante quality of traditional heteronormative romantic scripts (as
identified in Sanders 2008b). They pursue relationships with SPs that often blur
the boundaries between sex work and nonpaid relationships. For example, Ralph
related a history of long-term, intense, sometimes (asymmetrically) monogamous
502 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

relationships with sex workers. He shared that he helped one SP to leave an abusive
relationship, unsafe home, and the sex work profession. He became her only client,
but hoped she would eventually stop sex work entirely.13
Ralph also described developing relationships with SPs in which he no longer pays
for individual sessions, preferring instead to exchange shopping trips and vacations
for an ongoing sexual relationship. As noted by Bernstein (2007), noncash or “gift
exchange” payments may blur the boundaries between paid and nonpaid relation-
ships, requiring additional emotional labor on the part of the SP to fulfill the fantasy
the client is seeking while maintaining her status as a professional. In Ralph’s case,
the SP continued to see other clients, but allowed Ralph a measure of priority—
a privileged access to her time and body that underscored his experience of
intimacy:

She knows how I feel; like I don’t want to see her after she’s been working all day.
So she knows she sees me first. (Ralph, over 40)

While Ralph did not appear jealous of other clients or nonpaid relationships, he was
aware of men whom his current SP might be seeing. Bryan also shares intense con-
nections with the SPs he sees regularly, although these relationships do not include
monogamy or off-the-clock services. He described one SP in particular as “a key com-
ponent to my emotional landscape.” Bryan only sees new SPs if he “needs” to—if his
regulars are ill or out of town—and he indicated a sense of loyalty to his regular SP:

… for some strange reason, this is bizarre, I feel I’m cheating on the other person.
And isn’t that crazy? (Bryan, 62)

Both Ralph and Bryan described characteristics common to heteronormative rela-

tionship scripts (Sanders 2008b) including trust, respect, intimacy, mutuality, and
even a tendency toward monogamy—or, in Bryan’s case, feeling guilty for seeing
other SPs. Joe, on the other hand, experienced a very unusual relationship with his
regular SP. He became very emotionally attached to the first sex worker he hired, and
then found himself the subject of increased financial and practical demands without
reciprocal sexual or intimate interactions, which he struggled to meet. He described
being unsure if he could even call himself a client, since she did not frequently
provide him with sexual services and he could not afford to see someone else. Joe
cited his unrequited feelings for her and pity for her life circumstances—including
pregnancy—as reasons why he rarely turned down her requests for financial
help.
Jacob, Kevin, Ralph, Bryan, and Joe could all be classified as regulars in the tradi-
tional sense, but their narratives demonstrate how varied their individual experiences
are. Each of these five clients forms strong and intimate bonds with his regular SP(s)
and yet there is radical variation in degrees of personal investment and the resulting
impact on their lives.
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 503

Hybrid
Some participants described seeing a pattern among new clients on the ERB who
see (and subsequently review) many SPs when they are first introduced to the sex
industry and then slowly “calm down” over time. Justin’s comparatively short history
as a client—around 3 years—exemplified this. Justin is one example of what we will
call the hybrid client—a client who forms bonds in the midst of variety.

When I started, it was a lot of variety. Like just different girls all the time, but there
were a few that I’d seen more than 10 times. There were a few favorites over the
years. Like one girl I saw was one of the first girls, and I saw her again probably
a couple months ago ... I probably saw her 10 times, spread over three years. And
then other girls I’ll see five times in two months, and I won’t ever see them again.
(Justin, 39)

For clients like Justin, frequency preferences and particular needs for connection
may change over time. Another client, Robert (age 53), felt that building rapport
and connection over multiple visits could serve a functional purpose that, ultimately,
increased the quality of the encounter. Robert was one of the few clients who seemed
to acknowledge a sex worker’s service as a dynamic rather than a static variable, and
hybrid clients are well placed to see the advantages and disadvantages of different
types of relationships within the sex industry. Some, like Phil (age 31), might actively
desire multiple types of relationships with sex workers. Phil explained that he some-
times desires connection and ongoing intimacy, while at other times a purely carnal
“porn star experience” is more attractive. This is an example of how an individual
sex worker may experience a client as either a regular or not, while the client’s own
understandings of their behavior, motivations, and frequency might reflect something
less binary and definitive.
Lastly, Jonah provides yet another approach to being a hybrid client. He sees many
SPs; according to his records14 he has between 1 and 12 sessions per month—45 per
year. These sessions are split between regular sex workers and new ones, depending
on his mood. Jonah described his interest in variety as being not about the excitement
of a new body, but the draw of meeting and understanding new people:

I’ve always had an interest in the differences in people, and in women; [it]
fascinates me. Like how different one woman is from another. And then when
you actually get into an intimate sort of setting with them, how different they all
[are] … The intimacy that happens there is very different from person to person.
(Jonah, mid-30s)

Five of the fourteen participants shared that they have some degree of attraction
to variety, but also form connections with sex workers whether or not they inten-
tionally pursue intimacy. For them, long-term bonds may not be the only way to
foster and feel intimacy—once again, drawing on an understanding intimacy as a
kind of access that may be temporally bounded rather than an ongoing relationship.
An interest in variety can be coupled with a desire for prolonged rapport or short,
504 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

intense experiences focused on fleeting discovery. This challenges the archetype of

the regular by fulfilling major requirements of the definition (such as repeat visits and
connection), while also undermining common assumptions that a higher frequency
must result in weaker or less intimate connections. Sarah’s analogy of the humming-
bird is apt but, for these clients, missing one key detail: while these men might flit
from sex worker to sex worker like a hummingbird between flowers, they might still
regularly return to their favorite sex workers before flying off in search of new ones.

Searcher
In this research study we identified a third type of client: a client who is searching.
Their behaviors might be motivated by a search for a particular connection or a par-
ticular experience, and their failure to find what they seek keeps them engaged with
the sex industry and visiting new sex workers. Alexander, for example, previously
had a “regular” type connection, but found his relationship interrupted:

There was one with—I don’t know what, click or chemistry or whatever you want
to call it. We got along very well, but she’s no longer around. So lately I’ve been
trying, and I don’t go that often, maybe once every two months. I’m trying to find
that one person that I’m comfortable with. (Alexander, 44)

Defining Alexander as a hummingbird in search of sexual variety would not encom-

pass his desire and search for intimacy and meaningful connection within the sex
industry; yet his recent patterns, when considered quantitatively or from the per-
spective of the SPs he hires, would identify him as such. Alexander exemplifies the
limits of the current client typology. While the literature might define Alexander as
a client who pursues variety, his patterns in the sex industry are actually very similar
to those dating outside of the industry looking for the “right person.”
Similarly, Donald is searching for sexual fulfillment and cannot find the right SP
or client pattern to eliminate his frustration. He shared that he sometimes does not
reach climax during his sessions, leaving him sexually frustrated, and occasionally
visits multiple sex workers in a day searching for sexual release. Donald may be the
closest to a true hummingbird client in this sample, but his patterns are driven by
dissatisfaction rather than lust or desire for variety—he does not want to see multiple
sex workers, but feels that he needs to in search of one who can fulfill him.
In contrast, Bart is searching for a sex worker who can fulfill all of his needs with-
out presenting a potential emotional risk. He has several mental health illnesses and
uses the sex industry as a way to manage his depression and anxiety. A sex worker,
for him, must meet an extensive list of requirements to set his anxiety at ease and feel
safe enough. However, while Bart’s primary goal is to find a regular SP he feels com-
fortable with and fulfilled by, he is also afraid of becoming “too attached” and risk-
ing emotional harm. Consistent with Bernstein’s (2007) observations, the bounded
nature of the commodified sexual encounter is key to Bart’s pursuit of paid sexual
relationships. During our interview, he shared his ongoing search for the perfect sex
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 505

worker who would be able to meet his needs without posing an emotional risk. In
this sense, Bart’s search is characterized by attachment avoidance at the same time as
he is seeking a comfortable regular SP.
Each of these “searchers” is looking for something different, in various ways, and
with different criteria. In each case their behaviors can be understood as frequent,
and yet the intrapsychic scripts that they attach to their behavior and experiences
challenge and disrupt simple constructions of variety-seeking clients; to characterize
their patterns as hummingbird is to obscure their motivations and desires.

Industry Insider
The final type of client identified in this data, the “industry insider” is a client who
is thoroughly immersed and involved in the local sex work community and familiar
with many active SPs. The industry insider represents a cross-over category, a client
who is not just a client and is more involved in the industry than the average client;
they see a number of escorts with whom they have existing or prior relationships.
In addition, immersion in the community provides uncommon avenues to meeting
and seeing escorts. While only a single participant in this research presented as an
insider, Bruckert and Law’s (2013) study of management in the sex industry provides
evidence of others who share a similar experience, documenting third parties in the
sex industry (e.g., managers, security, photographers) who are also clients.
Eric is an industry insider; he has been involved in the sex industry for decades
and is familiar with the group of regular escorts on Eros.15 This situation directly
affects the intimacy (or lack thereof) that Eric pursues and experiences in the sex
industry:

I do get the opportunity to see a lot of new girls, but I don’t want to come across
as egotistical and I don’t want to be seen as... you know, high and mighty, I’m not
doing that. But what has happened is, because I’ve been around so long, because
I have networked with a lot of the people, a new girl comes on the board and
wants to try the industry out, many times I will be asked to be her first client. Just
because I am classified as a good client, I’m not gonna be overly aggressive, I don’t
have wants and needs that are over the top, and I’m trusted. I’m heavily trusted
by most of the girls on the board, I’ve come to their personal residences, I’ve met
their kids, I know them personally. So I will get that opportunity. (Eric, 39)

Eric does not view himself as solely a client; he sees himself as a trusted friend and
confidante, making his role—and the question of whether or not he is a regular or
even a hummingbird—more complex. Once again, the industry insider could appear,
from the outside, to be in search of sexual variety, based on the number of SPs that
he may see and the frequency with which he engages with the industry. However, his
own motivations and understandings of that behavior are more complex and hinge
on his recognition of a privileged kind of access, based on his status in the community,
which is not offered to all clients.
506 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

CONCLUSION
These four categories of client—the committed regular, the hybrid, the searcher, and
the industry insider—provide an expanded typology that can be utilized to inquire
more deeply into clients’ experiences of intimacy. These descriptors take into account
not only the client’s objective behavioral patterns but also the intent behind these
patterns, their experiences, and their associated desires. Beyond the limited sam-
ple size, there are a variety of potential explanations for the absence of an obvious
“hummingbird”—seeking only sexual variety—in this analysis. First, it is possible
that being interviewed by a woman shaped the information shared by these clients
and the aspects of their experiences on which they chose to focus (see Gailey and
Prohaska 2011). The participants may have chosen (consciously or unconsciously)
to emphasize the emotional aspects of their experiences, drawing on scripts which
position emotionality as being key to women’s experiences of sexuality, in particular.
Second, the men who took part in this study seemed to be particularly engaged in the
Eros community (with a few exceptions16 ), and these types of clients—sometimes
referred to as hobbyists—may be more likely to pursue connection even during
casual sex worker encounters. Third, clients who have more intimate (and poten-
tially socially acceptable) interactions with sex workers may have been more likely to
respond to the recruitment post and participate in this research.17 A final explanation
might be that the hummingbird client is more rare than prior research has under-
stood. Some of the non-regular clients identified in previous research may actually
be engaged in seeking connection and intimacy; this nuance would neither be cap-
tured by common survey questions on frequency and length of relationships nor by
sex workers’ descriptions of their one-time hummingbird clients. Our analysis sug-
gests that future research on clients should attend to their meaning-making processes
and intimacy needs, as client behavior is not accurately characterized by dichotomies
of regulars and non-regulars.
Drawing on the language of sexual scripts, we can see how interactions in the
sex industry are shaped by the cultural scripts that govern sexual relationships more
broadly, including the social understanding of sex as an intimate encounter, as well
as scripts that are specific to the commodified sexual interaction, including its tem-
poral and emotional boundedness. In some ways these encounters mirror the unpaid
casual sex encounters of the hookup scene, described by Bogle (2008) and Wade
(2017), replicating patterns of repeated hookups with the same person, and varied
expectations and negotiations of nonsexual intimacy or friendship(s). By drawing on
Newmahr’s (2011) discussion of intimacy as a privileged access to another’s thoughts,
body, time, or emotions, we open a conceptual space to differentiate the experience
of intimacy from the related—and often conflated—concepts of relationship, love,
attachment, and connection.
While the clients interviewed for this research described variable experiences of
intimacy and connection, it was clear that they most often sought these experiences
in a bounded way; that is, they were not seeking romantic relationships or love in
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 507

these encounters. The intrapsychic scripting employed by clients allows them to

experience intimacy in access to the SP, while the interpersonal and cultural scripts
around sex and sex work insulate even committed regular clients (and SPs) from
being implicated in the emotional and ongoing demands of a romantic, attached
relationship. In this sense, our data affirms Bernstein’s (2007) observations that sex
work clients appear to be seeking a kind of bounded intimacy. The commodification
of the interaction does not preclude the experience of intimacy—and, indeed, may
facilitate the access necessary to the experience of intimacy—but commodification
places limits on access, both temporally and in permitting SPs to assert boundaries
around their physical and emotional self. Clients who seek a less bounded form of
intimacy seemingly prefer less obvious forms of commodification and the bestowing
of “gifts,” as described by Ralph, above, and may attempt to blur the lines between
commodified and noncommodified interactions and time. The notion of bounded
intimacy further reinforces the conceptual distinction between intimacy as access
and more emotion-centered understandings of intimacy, which would transcend
temporal boundaries. This suggests that a definition of intimacy that draws on access
is useful as it is reflective of a wider range of relationships that, while they are
experienced as intimate, are not romantic nor based in feelings of love.
While intimacy in the sex industry often parallels intimacy in nonpaid relation-
ships (e.g., Giddens 1992; Sanders 2008b), an awareness of the reality of interrupted
intimacy between clients and sex workers may allow for more complex investiga-
tions into the unique connections, attachments, and detachments that occur within
the sex industry, and possibly in other professional settings. The temporal bound-
aries around access and the removal of the possibility of access may create situations
in which one or both parties may be prevented from seeking or experiencing further
intimacy. There are other professions where the client-provider relationship offers an
intimate experience in terms of access to the clients’ body and/or emotional world
(e.g., physicians, therapists, midwifery, etc.); however, professional codes of conduct
which prohibit fraternization place limitations on seeking continued intimacy. Future
research examining intimacy in these contexts may prove fruitful in further unpack-
ing the experience of intimacy in commodified and bounded contexts.
This research study is by no means exhaustive, and our typology of clients provides
only a starting point to understand client behavior and patterns in the sex industry.
Further research that takes into consideration the experiences and perspectives of
clients may recognize further patterns, “types,” or details that continue to illuminate
how clients engage with sex workers, how they reconcile their experiences, and how
these intimacies affect their lives.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank colleagues Chris Bruckert, Tony Christensen, and Christo-
pher J. Schneider for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. The first
author also wishes to thank the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and
508 Symbolic Interaction Volume 41, Number 4, 2018

the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University for supporting this

research.

NOTES
1. Many clients in this study referred to a “connection” but their definitions varied, encompassing
sexual, physical, emotional, and/or intellectual components. While the type of connection varied,
the term was always used to identify a feeling of simpatico that the client experienced with a sex
worker.
2. Symons (2015) focused on the male clients of male sex workers.
3. This paper focuses on the meanings ascribed and shared by clients rather than on the more
theoretical and political dilemmas of the sex industry. For analysis of the theoretical and political
debates on sex work, see Bruckert and Hannem (2013), Bruckert and Parent (2006), Monto
(2004), O’Neill (2001), Parent et al. (2013), and Sanders, O’Neill, and Pitcher (2009).
4. To achieve verstehen is to “understand behaviour, beliefs, opinions and emotions from the per-
spective of the participants themselves” (Hennink, Hutter, and Bailey 2011:10, emphasis added).
5. For example, the moderator informant told the first researcher that one client was claiming to
have knowledge that the first author was secretly a journalist intending to “out” clients to their
spouses in an exposé. This was, of course, not the case. Positive feedback from the first round of
participants helped dispel this rumor.
6. The data for this project were collected for the first author’s M.A. thesis, supervised by the
second author.
7. In most cases, this meant a booked room at a local university, but in one notable exception, the
interview took place on the bleachers of a deserted baseball diamond due to the participant’s
concern about being recognized.
8. Some clients told lengthy stories and their analytic value was largely per incident, rather than
per line.
9. Originally published in 1973.
10. This does not address the legitimacy of the intimacy and connections identified by these partic-
ipants from the perspective of the workers. Friendships and relationships between sex workers
and their clients certainly do occur (e.g., Lever and Dolnick 2010), however, “off-the-clock”
interactions and symbols of intimacy may be an extension of the emotional labor and fantasy
maintenance acted out by many sex workers (Lever and Dolnick 2010; Milrod and Monto 2012;
Sanders 2005).
11. Some literature in psychology refers to the positive impact that perceived mutuality can have on
perceived feelings of intimacy within romantic relationships (see Oliphant and Kuczynski 2011;
Zimmerman et al. 2002).
12. The importance placed on physical intimacy that does not involve penetration or climax supports
recent findings that the “Girlfriend Experience” is widely preferred by the clients of escorts
(Milrod and Weitzer 2012).
13. Ralph is not unique in wanting to “save” his favored SP from the industry and her own life
circumstances; SPs commonly refer to these clients as “Captain Save-A-Ho.”
14. Jonah keeps track of his SPs and the money he spends each month; he shared this document
after our interview.
15. While Eric was the only research participant who described a behind-the-scenes relationship
with many escorts, the conversations on the Eros board and the number of people involved in
board administration/management suggest that this applies to several Eros clients.
16. Participants identified two motivations for responding: (1) they wanted to talk about their expe-
riences because they had few outlets to talk about this aspect of their lives; or (2) they were not
Escort Clients’ Sexual Scripts 509

particularly immersed in being a “client,” but had some experience with academia and wanted
to support research on clients.
17. Due to private and unsolicited communication with two SPs on Eros, we do know that at least
one of our participants was seen to be a “hummingbird” type (in her language) by the SP who
was familiar with him. During our interview, it was clear that his experience did not reflect that
understanding.

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ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR(S)

Zoey Jones is a doctoral candidate at Carleton University. She primarily researches people with
criminalized and/or stigmatized sexualities and their communities. She is currently studying the
experiences and subculture(s) of rope bondage practitioners, and has recently published on necrop-
olitics and sexuality in Feminist Perspectives on Orange is the New Black: Thirteen Critical Essays
(McFarland Publishing, 2016).

Stacey Hannem is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier Uni-
versity. She researches the experiences of stigmatization and marginalization, particularly the impli-
cations of crime and the criminal justice system for families, and sex work legislation and policy.
She is co-editor (with Chris Bruckert) of Stigma Revisited: Implications of the Mark (University of
Ottawa Press, 2012). She has recently published in Symbolic Interaction, Journal of Contemporary
Ethnography, and Deviant Behavior.