A Client Reviewed Me As 'Fat' And It Destroyed My Escort Business
He said "my belly hung out" and ruined everything.
AS photostudio / Shutterstock When I first resumed taking Adderall after going off it (because I was worried I was getting addicted), I'd gained a ton of weight due to undiagnosed hypothyroidism. I'd begun taking Synthroid to help with the newfound deficiency in my metabolism but it wasn't working quickly enough for my liking.
In the eight weeks I spent on Synthroid, I managed to lose six pounds — hardly the rapid progress my short, sex worker body sought and needed. I also received a horrible review on an escort discussion forum calling out my weight gain.
There are sites like TheEroticReview.com that good clients use to make sure an escort is legitimate (i.e., not a scammer or law enforcement), and bad clients use to talk sh*t about escorts, pressure them to lower their rates, and make the life of an escort hell if she doesn't conform to the "customer is always right" Stockholm syndrome these men delusionally try to inflict.
There's a certain type of client that seeks vengeance in the form of a bad review because escorts hardly give refunds for services rendered. The client was as mean as mean could be, saying that my belly hung out and had “ruined everything,” saying I took too long to “get down to business” (aka, start being physical) and that I was late (I was late by just a few minutes due to GPS misleading me, and I illegally called him while driving to explain).
He said I looked older than my advertised age, and even said I gave a below-average blow job. He said not one positive thing besides "she had nice tits."
He even dug the knife further by taking the words from my advertising and contrasting them with his perceived reality. For example, I call myself feisty, and he said "more like bitchy — she has an attitude problem."
(As much as the thought of an escort refunding money is preposterous, the tens of thousands of dollars I literally lost due to his review is something I’d gladly exchange the $700 he paid me for. He’s the type of client I despise and try to screen out. This is why I will NEVER go out of my way to write a Yelp review again, unless it’s positive.)
I became depressed because of how ugly I felt and the hormonal symptom of depression that's associated with hypothyroid disorder.
My bad review devastated my business and I dealt with it like the stages of grief. There was much anger and depression at first, and it sent me into a tailspin of self-loathing and alcohol abuse. I actually have a "no review" policy, which this client violated. The only reason I discovered the review was because after two to three weeks of no appointments or emails of tentative interest in bookings, I hate-Googled myself to see if there was negative information causing the drought, despite my anti-review policy.
The tear and rage-inducing words of his review were also a violation; it was like verbal anal rape without a condom. Two more positive reviews had been posted since I’d begun the no review policy, and they did actually help business a little. But of course, it took a negative one to enrage me, alternating with deeply upsetting me and exacerbating my mental health.
I emailed and called the client, screaming at him to take it down so I could get back to making a living, telling him he was ruining my life. The problem is, since I charge high rates, I can’t threaten to blackmail men.
An administrative assistant who helps various escorts screen clients sympathized with my situation and dug up information on the guy, including his business Twitter account and home address. I could have made his life hell like he did mine, but had to take the high road — extortion, threats, and blackmail would hurt my reputation far more than one outrageously bad review among about 20 quite positive ones.
Even if he’s not married, I could have contacted his business network or investors and said, "This guy likes to see hookers and then write misogynistic skewering reviews of them for the amusement of other John trolls ballin' on a limited whore budget." I couldn’t lower myself to these tactics.
At a certain point, my brain switched gears and I decided that, with the help of Adderall, it was time to lose the weight — fast. I popped half a dose in the morning with a light breakfast and worked out for almost six hours before the onset of evening appetite.
I cut way back on the booze and kept a calorie journal. I weighed myself about three times a week to ensure progress, and the tangible results were quite validating. Since last fall, my body is back to its natural weight of about 125 pounds, and I check-in with the scale every so often to make sure I don't creep up over 130 pounds.
Right now, I'm in a depressive phase and I'm not sure what's brought it about. Last summer, as the last ten spare pounds were shed and my social drive was high, I felt great. Now, I'm holing up in my apartment and closet drinking, binging, and purging.
It's all so private and ugly, and I worry for myself because this is the worst of what addiction is.
There are easily attainable ways to improve my situation: make a point to be more social, skip the wine aisle at the grocery store, take advantage of my new ClassPass addiction, improve my marketing copy for the escorting business, buy organic groceries, or have a spa day.
But these distractions don't address the real issue. When you have a troubled brain, too much time alone with your own thoughts is literally dangerous. I wouldn't hesitate to voluntarily hospitalize myself if it came to that.
It's not like I'm taking advantage of the fact I have about 40 Klonopin on my nightstand. I'm also not over-using the Adderall that much; my neighbors always want some, so it's "portion control." I'm not stripping as much, partly due to the self-isolation of this depression phase.
But now, rather than Adderall, alcohol is becoming the main demon as far as self-medicating.
On the bright side, my business has rebounded a tad. Adderall helped me lose the weight almost as fast as I’d gained it, so to new and existing clients alike, nobody was the wiser about my brief overweight stint. The review now just looks laughable and vindictive, not legitimate.
After months of resisting clients' suggestions that I allow more reviews to bury the bad ones, I requested positive ones from clients I hit it off with. That lends some legitimacy to the fact the bad one is a fluke, and I went further and went on my escort Twitter account, taking selfies showing my toned body.
One shot showed a tape measure around my waist to prove that I'm the 27 inches I advertise. Another showed the scale at 121 pounds. I also took selfies in clear stripper heels and stripper outfits with captions saying "Once upon a time, a client decided to single-handedly ruin my business, so I had to resume stripping."
Of course, I didn’t bother to mention it took 12 weeks of four-to-six-hour per day workouts and 1,200 calorie days before I even DARED audition at a strip club. My weight gain, plus advanced age, made me worry I wouldn’t get hired, or at best, be relegated to strip club day shift, where clubs put the old broads out to pasture.
Jolene Dubois is a self-confessed seductress and professional escort based in the United States. She is currently working on her exit strategy from the sex industry and plans to attend graduate school and become a true working writer.