'I was out escorting when we ran into my client's daughter. I knew I'd never see him again.'

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This article is an edited version of one that originally appeared on Laura Roscioli's Substack. Sign up here.

I looked over because he'd stopped talking mid-sentence. His face had gone white. Even in the dimly lit, sexy restaurant, I could tell something was wrong. I followed his gaze and saw her. His daughter.

It hit me all at once — shame, desire, second-hand guilt — an unexpected punch to the gut. I became suddenly, excruciatingly aware of the lacy push-up bra hoisting my boobs over the tight satin corset he'd bought me. I saw myself from the outside, framed in someone else's narrative. I wasn't the character people liked. I was the enemy.

In my early twenties, I spent a few years escorting. It started slowly, getting paid to go to fancy events with lonely rich businessmen. It evolved into more of a 'girlfriend experience' for a select few, and eventually became full sexual service for some. Almost all of my clients found me organically. It wasn't strategic. It just... happened.

Watch: Things you want to know about escorts, answered here. Post continues below.

It started with a man who walked into my cocktail bar job on a Thursday afternoon. The bar was tucked into a laneway on the edge of the CBD, between a newspaper office and a law firm. He arrived right at opening time, tie a little crooked, cheeks already rosy.

He wore a perfect, custom-tailored suit and smelt like Tom Ford. His thinning sandy blonde hair and freckled, sun-kissed face made him seem human, almost boyish, despite the obvious wealth. He ordered a Peroni Red and slumped into the bar stool as though it was to be the only thing holding him up.

"How's your day been?" I asked.

"Honestly?" He looked up, tired.

I nodded.

"Really boring. I'm working the job I wanted as a kid. I make enough money to do whatever I want. And I'm bored. How's that for honesty?"

Later, he'd tell me it wasn't just work. His whole life bored him. Married young, had kids, got divorced. "We stopped having things to talk about," he said. "And we didn't have sex anymore."

Reality hits hard in cocktail bars. No one warns you how many high-functioning adults in tailor-made suits are quietly crumbling on the inside. All they need is a drink, or five. Watch them unravel.

He asked me what I'd do in his position.

"I'd take up a weird hobby," I mused. "Or have an affair."

He smiled, a little less tired.

After a few more Peronis and a couple of Negronis too, he came up to pay.

"This might be overstepping," he said, lowering his voice, "but would you come with me to a work event—as my date? I think you'd make it a lot less boring."

I blinked. Was he asking me out? Was that a problem?

"I'd pay you," he added.

That changed things.

"Leave me your number," I said.

Naturally, I had questions. But overall, the request felt simple. He needed beauty, energy, distraction. I could give him that. I couldn't deny that I needed some extra money, too. I wanted to get out of my own boring life.

But more than anything, I was curious about people's desires and where that could take them when they slipped outside the neat—and limited—lines of societal expectation.

My first client.

And just like that, I had my first client. Let's call him Daniel*.

Growing up, the only escorts I'd ever heard of were broken ones—women stripped of agency, trapped in dark motel rooms, or left dead in alleyways. In film, books and television, escorts are rarely allowed complexity. They're either the backdrop of male downfall or the cautionary tale whose fate feels inevitable.

Even history has treated them as necessary evils. In Ancient Greece, courtesans were granted education and influence, but only so long as they remained on the margins. In Victorian England, sex workers were the focus of moral panic, subjected to public health inspections, arrests, and forced rehabilitation. Across centuries, sexwork has been tolerated when it serves male desire—but vilified the moment it empowers the woman herself.

No one ever explained their nuance. That survival is complicated. That some women choose this work. That some find autonomy inside it. None of the stories suggested that their strength might live within the shame society assigns to them. I hadn't grasped this consciously yet, but I could feel the weight of their stereotyped narrative—the ancient, inherited guilt—stitched invisibly into every experience I had as an escort.

After Daniel, they found me easily.

I wasn't seeking it out—but I think they could smell my open-mindedness, like a starved pup midlife crisis.

There was a rhythm to it. They'd buy me a drink, linger, and later, slip a proposition into conversation. They'd ask me to be their date to an event. To be their girlfriend for the night. With a side of physical intimacy, if the night "went that way", if we "had a connection".

At first, I wondered 'why me?' I was the common denominator after all, but I had no agenda. Just curiosity.

I knew I didn't want anyone in my life to know. Not my family. Not the friends I was drinking with. Not the men I was casually dating. Explaining to them that I was being paid for the intimacy that I gave to them so freely felt… complicated.

For that first event, Daniel bought me a maroon dress made of real silk—sexy but tasteful. He paraded me around, introducing me to colleagues as a 'friend'.

I felt self-conscious of how people were looking at me, their faces full of questions they already knew the answers to. I felt shadows of shame inside of me but didn't understand them fully. I guess I knew that my parents—and everyone else—wouldn't approve. They'd be mortified. Should I be mortified? I was having fun.

I enjoyed making Daniel laugh and giving him compliments about the way he smelt, how he held himself in a conversation, and how good his manners were. They were certainly better than any other man who'd asked me on a date. And he was paying me.

Over the next few months, Daniel mostly took me to events and fancy dinners. We agreed: we'd be affectionate but not sleep together. That line blurred a few times. He was insecure about sex —about being good enough, man enough—but he said he trusted me. I became part confidante, part fantasy, part employee.

I learnt pretty fast that sex and intimacy can feel boundless, like they're the reason we do everything. I learnt that everything within the realm of sex and intimacy and connection and kink, is all about control. Sex is closely linked to power, power is undeniably linked to money and money is one of the most powerful vehicles for control. I learned that we don't really talk about any of this on a mainstream level because it makes people uncomfortable. Defensive. It was a lot to learn, half naked on a hotel bed, with a middle-aged man suckling on my breasts.

Things got complicated.

Things got complicated when Daniel's teenage daughter spotted us at dinner.

"Dad!?" She called, coming up to us.

"Hi, sweetie." He squeaked, after gulping down a large sip of red wine to force down his mouthful of food, his face as white as a sheet and his frame somehow half its usual breadth.

"This is Laura." He gestured at me, even though he couldn't look at me.

"Hi!" I said in a sing-song voice I knew sounded forced. I was trying to make up for his discomfort.

"What's going on?" His daughter demanded, ignoring the introduction. I could feel her looking down at us. I didn't blame her. I wasn't sure if this was the first time she'd ever seen her dad with another woman, but I was definitely dressed in a sexy enough way that she understood the dynamic.

I felt something that resembled embarrassment, but I think it was mostly for him. He'd told me all about his fractured relationship with his daughter, how he didn't know how to connect with her, how he felt like a failed parent because he wasn't able to show her a healthy relationship.

He told me he found it hard to stand up to his wife. He didn't feel sexy or respected by her, and he thought everyone around them could see it—the slow, visible erosion of his manhood. Now, he had invested money into something that made him feel desired again. And it was being exposed in real time.

He knew his daughter wouldn't see it the way he did, and so did I. Having to pay for it, I think, made him feel like even less of a man.

My heart hurt for him.

"We're colleagues," Daniel tried for an explanation, but none of us were buying it—not even him. I could see his daughter emotionally check-out as she realised she wouldn't be getting an honest answer out of him. I think she felt annoyed. Perhaps disgusted. Definitely ashamed. Her face and her body language said it all.

Part of me wanted to swoop in and bat for him, explain his vulnerabilities to her how he couldn't. I was sure she'd understand, if not now; someday. But the words wouldn't come out. It didn't feel like my place to share his truth, because in doing so, I'd have to reveal his shame too.

"Whatever, Dad," she said, in a tone that sounded like a teenage eye-roll. "I was going to meet some friends here, but we'll go somewhere else. I'll see you later, I guess."

He looked at her with these eyes I'll never forget. They were pleading, apologetic. His shame felt palpable in a way that made me actually want to cry.

She shot me a look on her way out—cold, accusatory. I wished I could tell her the truth, the side of Daniel that I saw, the kind heart, the vulnerability. I wished I could tell her that this wasn't just about lacy push-up bras and sex in hotel rooms. It was about a lost man, having the guts to try and rediscover his identity.

And still, even though I knew all of that, her look made me feel terrible. Like I was the problem.

When he kissed me goodbye that night, I knew I'd never see him again.

The other clients.

By then, though, I had other clients.

Most weren't paying for sex, exactly. They were paying for something harder to name. Validation. Excitement. A way to exercise their power outside of the confines they'd built for themselves.

Some nights it was just me, in lingerie they'd bought, drinking champagne and letting them orbit around me like moths around light.

Other nights, it was sex they wanted. Sometimes performative. Sometimes surprisingly tender. Always layered.

There was the man who only ever wanted to dance with me, drunk and childlike, in the hotel room's heavy silence. The man who cried after sex, apologising into my hair. The man who wouldn't meet my eyes unless I called him 'sir'. The man who couldn't orgasm without a heel pressed into his throat.

Each night peeled back another layer of loneliness, not just theirs, but mine too. They revealed an emptiness in the world I'd always recognised. A boredom. A predictability. Moments that begged the question: is this all there is?

Their desires taught me things no one else had:

That sex is always, always about power.

That men — especially older men — ache to feel seen.

That intimacy, at its core, is a transaction even when no money changes hands.

Being an escort made me a better listener. A better reader of people. It taught me to spot insecurity and to look deeper for it's cause. It made me feel powerful—and it scared me too, the power. How easy it was to take hold of. How addictive it felt. Some nights I lay awake, questioning the morality of it all. Was I allowing these men their own self-indulgence? Was that a bad thing?

Other nights, it didn't bother me at all.

Listen: Anna Grosman believes that putting a male escort on retainer will be one of the new trends of 2025 - as more and more women are rejecting the dating apps and more traditional methods of meeting a sexual partner. Post continues below.

Working as an escort made me a reluctant realist. It gave me some harsh smacks from the reality of how a lot of marriages go. How loud untapped desire can be. How deep the self-righteousness of powerful people can cut and how blinding that can be for everyone involved.

It showed me how much of people's darkness stems from shame they never learned to name.

Shame thrives in the shadows, in the spaces we're told not to look. And few roles are more steeped in taboo than that of the escort. When you occupy that role, you become a mirror for other people's projections: their secrets, their longings, their fears. You witness the ways shame contorts desire, how it makes you want things you don't understand, things you can't say out loud.

I saw it as a privileged place to be. As an escort, I felt like I was seeing the world for what it really is: not a place where the powerful are free of shame, but one where they're ruled by it. I had keys to the corners of the world that people dream to be and what I found there, was not what dreams are made of. The emptiness of money.

The neverending quest for power. The battle for control, over yourself, over others, over systems much larger than us. The exhaustion of it all made me feel heavy.

It wasn't the work that made me tired. It was the silence, years of pent-up emotions ready to explode all over me—for a price. It was the suffering of those more powerful than me, and their obedience in a world I thought they owned. It was the realisation that society needs escorts in order to keep its own illusions intact, yet it continues to condemn them and anyone who works in the currency of desire. Perhaps it's because they know that we know their secrets.

At its core, being an escort made me better at loving—or at least seeing—men fully.

When I date them now, I ask harder questions. I look for softness underneath bravado. I don't feel judgemental of dalliances outside what we've collectively decided to be our moral compass. Instead, I feel the urge to ask questions. To find the human-ness in their mistakes. To listen to the silence. I think that's where you find true love.

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*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Feature Image: Instagram @lauraroscioli