If you say ‘pardon' to sound posh, you're wrong on two counts
'I'm sorry?' or 'what?', perhaps? Or maybe you're a 'pardon?' person.
One of those silly surveys has just come out, declaring that Gen Z have given up saying 'polite' words such as 'pardon' and 'excuse me' in favour of 'what?' or 'come again?'
Three quarters of young Britons deem 'pardon' too formal, says the survey, so they reply 'huh?' or 'you what?' instead.
Is 'you what?' better than saying nothing at all, which is what half of the survey's respondents claimed to do?
Instead, apparently, the youth nod along and pretend to have understood. Though we've all been there, haven't we, at a noisy drinks party, for example. You're desperately trying to understand the other person, but you don't want to stick your ear any closer to their face because they've just eaten a salmon canapé, so you smile broadly, nod and maybe let out a little laugh, only to realise with horror that they were telling you their mother had just died.
Unfortunately, however, this survey has got it all wrong. Look, I try not to be a word snob (all the time), but I can't let this one slide.
'Pardon' is an abysmal word, not polite, and certainly not a word anyone posh would use. It is a Hyacinth Bucket word – one that people may use because they think it sounds grand, and better than 'what', but which actually marks them out as deeply middle class.
Sorry, don't blame me. I'm only passing on the facts, and the fact is, 'pardon' is awful. When I once came home from school and reported to my mother that I'd been told off for saying 'what' to my teacher one day, and told to use 'pardon' instead, my mother called up the school to complain. Because 'pardon' is ever so slightly common, and 'what' is, honestly, more acceptable.
It depends how you say it, of course. You can't blurt it out in the manner of Harry Enfield's Kevin – 'Wot?'
Try to be more gentle.
I'm a fan of 'What was that?' if I miss whatever I've just been asked.
Somewhat contradictorily, 'I beg your pardon?' is also tolerable.
But just never, ever 'pardon'.
So, for today's lesson, we're going to have a quick trot through a few other words that people believe are polite, but which are, in fact, infra dig.
Again, it gives me no pleasure to pass these on. I merely offer them up so you don't embarrass yourselves.
A final note about the word 'posh', because it's a controversial one.
People often grumble to me about this. 'I do wish you wouldn't use the word posh so much.' Because some people consider it embarrassing, a common word the lower classes would have once used about those considered above them.
'Smart' or 'grand' are used as synonyms. But happily, these days, most decent people don't consider themselves 'above' or 'below' anybody else, and posh can be used ironically and liberally.
'Dead posh floor tiles,' I might say to a friend who's recently had her kitchen done.
So a bit of a minefield all this, I appreciate, but please do try to remember the 'pardon' thing.
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Yahoo
04-08-2025
- Yahoo
If you say ‘pardon' to sound posh, you're wrong on two counts
What do you say if you mishear someone? 'I'm sorry?' or 'what?', perhaps? Or maybe you're a 'pardon?' person. One of those silly surveys has just come out, declaring that Gen Z have given up saying 'polite' words such as 'pardon' and 'excuse me' in favour of 'what?' or 'come again?' Three quarters of young Britons deem 'pardon' too formal, says the survey, so they reply 'huh?' or 'you what?' instead. Is 'you what?' better than saying nothing at all, which is what half of the survey's respondents claimed to do? Instead, apparently, the youth nod along and pretend to have understood. Though we've all been there, haven't we, at a noisy drinks party, for example. You're desperately trying to understand the other person, but you don't want to stick your ear any closer to their face because they've just eaten a salmon canapé, so you smile broadly, nod and maybe let out a little laugh, only to realise with horror that they were telling you their mother had just died. Unfortunately, however, this survey has got it all wrong. Look, I try not to be a word snob (all the time), but I can't let this one slide. 'Pardon' is an abysmal word, not polite, and certainly not a word anyone posh would use. It is a Hyacinth Bucket word – one that people may use because they think it sounds grand, and better than 'what', but which actually marks them out as deeply middle class. Sorry, don't blame me. I'm only passing on the facts, and the fact is, 'pardon' is awful. When I once came home from school and reported to my mother that I'd been told off for saying 'what' to my teacher one day, and told to use 'pardon' instead, my mother called up the school to complain. Because 'pardon' is ever so slightly common, and 'what' is, honestly, more acceptable. It depends how you say it, of course. You can't blurt it out in the manner of Harry Enfield's Kevin – 'Wot?' Try to be more gentle. I'm a fan of 'What was that?' if I miss whatever I've just been asked. Somewhat contradictorily, 'I beg your pardon?' is also tolerable. But just never, ever 'pardon'. So, for today's lesson, we're going to have a quick trot through a few other words that people believe are polite, but which are, in fact, infra dig. Again, it gives me no pleasure to pass these on. I merely offer them up so you don't embarrass yourselves. A final note about the word 'posh', because it's a controversial one. People often grumble to me about this. 'I do wish you wouldn't use the word posh so much.' Because some people consider it embarrassing, a common word the lower classes would have once used about those considered above them. 'Smart' or 'grand' are used as synonyms. But happily, these days, most decent people don't consider themselves 'above' or 'below' anybody else, and posh can be used ironically and liberally. 'Dead posh floor tiles,' I might say to a friend who's recently had her kitchen done. So a bit of a minefield all this, I appreciate, but please do try to remember the 'pardon' thing. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more. Solve the daily Crossword
Buzz Feed
24-07-2025
- Buzz Feed
People Are Sharing The Dumbest People They've Ever Met
A little while back, we shared stories from Reddit's r/StoriesAboutKevin, where people share their best stories about "Kevins," i.e. people who are staggeringly unintelligent, clueless, or incompetent. Well, members of the BuzzFeed Community chimed in with their own stories, so we rounded them up here along with some new ones from the subreddit (we also added the original post's entries at the end for good measure). Enjoy! This will make you feel smart! "Kevin once brought soup for lunch. Not in a container. Not in a thermos. Nope, he brought it in a Ziploc bag. A floppy, sad, cold bag of soup. At lunchtime, he asked where the microwave was. We said it was broken. Kevin went, 'Oh, okay, I'll just heat it up on the stove.' We assumed he'd pour it into a pot like a normal person. We were so wrong. He literally plopped the Ziploc bag directly onto the burner. We noticed the smell of burning plastic before we saw the flames. Kevin stood there poking the bag with a spoon. He said, 'I don't get it. It worked when I did it in the fireplace that one time.' It melted, of course — soup and plastic were everywhere." "I was in the checkout lane at TJ Maxx, and the couple in front of me were looking at last-minute items. The lady said, 'Oooh, Lemon Mint Tea! That sounds delicious.' She then examined the box and howled, 'Made in China?!' The man replied, 'China?! What do the Chinese know about tea?'" "A friend I had in high school burned most of his hair off because he didn't realize that lighting matches and holding them near his head would do that. He wasn't injured, but you'd think he was with the amount of bitching he did about having to shave his head. When asked why he had the matches near his head in the first place, he claimed he was trying to 'hear the fire.'" "I was going to watch Tipping the Velvet with one of my exes, and I was telling her, 'This show is British, it's from the BBC.' She very seriously replied, 'So its gonna have subtitles?'" "I worked with a guy whose teenage son crapped in the cat's litter box to see if anyone would notice. They did, within less than 60 seconds." "My friend, whose actual name IS Kevin, almost got shot by an armed guard at the US Capitol in 2012 because he started walking toward some door and either somehow didn't hear or didn't listen when they started yelling at him to stop. Then the NEXT DAY, he did the EXACT SAME THING when we were walking past the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building." "When I worked at a hair salon, I had more than one Kevin/Kevina who, when scheduling their next appointment IN THE FUTURE, would ask 'Will he/she be running on time?'" "I (29F) work the graveyard shift at a local gas station. One night, a blonde-haired Kevina comes in. She grabs a small pack of Oreos worth about $2.50 and comes up to the counter, trying to pay with a crisp one-dollar bill. She claimed she had read somewhere that one-dollar bills are actually worth four dollars. I told her that wasn't true and that I needed an additional $1.50. She kept insisting that the bill was worth four dollars and that she had enough. Eventually, she relented and scrounged up some change to pay for the Oreos. I know some older dollar bills can be valuable, but this was a brand-new, crisp one-dollar bill. There was no way it was worth more than one dollar. And honestly, even if it somehow was worth four bucks — why would you spend it at a gas station, of all places?" "I once stopped Kevin from microwaving a can of corn. As in, an unopened can." "My husband once wanted to make us scrambled eggs, but we didn't have milk to make them fluffier, so instead he decided that using French vanilla creamer was a good idea. It was as bad as it sounds. Later, upon retelling the story, he somehow convinced himself that I was the one who did it (I grew up in kitchens and worked in restaurants my whole life)." "My Dad (a Kevin) once went to a hotel and decided that he really wanted to know what an elevator shaft looked like. So, he forced open the doors to an elevator while waiting in the hallway, which caused the elevator to jam. Somebody was inside. Dad was asked to leave the hotel. The kicker? The elevator shafts were made of GLASS. So yes, he forced open the doors of the elevator so he could see the shaft when the entire fucking thing was already transparent." "This was many years ago. During a meeting, we needed a copy to be made of something, so 'Kevin' was asked to run down the hall to one of the main copiers. Kevin ambled off, but 10–15 minutes later he still wasn't back and the meeting was almost over so I went to find him. I found him standing around watching someone fix the copier. I asked him why he didn't just use a different copier around the corner. He thought it was more important to call someone to fix it and wait for them! We finally had to let him go. His response? 'Oh that's okay, I'm going to law school this fall anyway.'" "I work for a guy whose 15-year-old stepson is the most Kevin person I've ever met. Now, I've known some dumb teenagers in my time. Hell, I used to be one. But this kid is just on another level. Two examples: 1. He licked a lit match because he thought fire would taste like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto; 2. He once dropped a bowl of cereal and milk, and rather than clean the mess with a towel, he soaked up the spill with his sock. A sock that was still on his foot. He then put on his shoes, went out to catch the bus, and went to school with a soaking wet milk sock. Later that day, he went to the school nurse because he was convinced that his foot was bleeding and soaking through his sock." "I used to work part-time at a phone repair shop, and one day Kevin walked in looking like someone just told him the Earth was flat. He plopped a melted Samsung on the counter and said, 'I think my antivirus didn't work.' I ask what happened. He says he was browsing some shady website, clicked a link, and his phone 'started acting possessed.' Classic malware. I nod and tell him I can probably help if he didn't do anything drastic. Then he goes, 'Yeah, so I microwaved it for, like, 40 seconds to kill the virus. Like how hospitals sanitize stuff.' I just blinked. My coworker choked on her water. This man cooked his phone like a Hot Pocket because he thought heat would kill malware. And the best part? He wanted to claim it under WARRANTY." "A client called our grooming shop for the price of a bath and nails. I asked her what kind of dog it was. She said, 'I don't know what it is now, but when it grows up, it's going to be a black lab.' I was dumbfounded, literally. I asked her how old it was, and she said it was three months, so I'm thinking maybe 20 lbs max, so I told her maybe $20–$25. Swear to God, the lady brings 'Red' in, and he is a POMERANIAN, a POM. I said, sorry, but this is a Pomeranian, and she told me, 'Well, I know it's going to be a black lab because I have papers at home.' I pulled up pictures of labs and Poms on the computer, but I still think she believes it will be a black lab. I'm going home to drink wine." "One of the stupidest people I've ever met was a 26-year-old male who turned up to work for me an hour and a half late the first day. He was brought in by his mum, which I thought was kind of odd for a grown man. I let that slide, but then things just got worse. It was a small roadside cafe/eatery, so I thought I'd ease him into the way of the place with some small duties. I asked him to put new toilet paper in the toilets — a minute or so later, I heard him yelling, 'It won't fit on the toilet roll holder!' I'm like what? That's a pretty simple thing. I tell him to bring it to me so I can show him — he's carrying a roll of paper towels; it's almost three times the length of the toilet paper holder." "My friend told his wife about an article he read about people in Siberia digging up frozen mammoth tusks and selling them. Her: 'That's terrible!' Him: 'Why is it terrible?' Her: 'They'll sell all the frozen ones, and then people will start killing mammoths for their tusks, and pretty soon they'll all be extinct!'" "I used to work in emergency medicine. Obviously, the emergency department sees many people who've had moments of foolishness that have caused them suffering. To err is human. I would not mock such victims of mere mortal frailty. Kevin was special. Kevin arrived by car, bloodied and battered. Kevin had fallen off a ladder. Since coming to get checked out was very sensible, it's not surprising that someone else insisted. Kevin was carefully checked over, his scrapes treated, and his bones imaged. Kevin was sent home. An hour later, Kevin was back, looking rather worse for wear. The staff, concerned, questioned him closely as to what had happened this time. Kevin had fallen off the ladder again. Kevin's friend had insisted that Kevin rest rather than climb the ladder again, so Kevin was determined to prove he was perfectly fine to go up the ladder. Kevin was not fine." "My husband owns a small plumbing business and participates in a job-readiness program with the local high school. This semester, he got a Kevin. One of Kevin's biggest jobs is to answer the phone. On his first day, he was instructed to pick up and say, 'Custom Quality Plumbing, don't forget to ask about our seasonal maintenance deal specials, how can we help you today?' Instead, he answered the business phone, 'Kevin residence, who's calling, please?' When confronted, he explained that he had forgotten the greeting and that this was how his mother had taught him to answer phones." "When I was in high school, some of the jocks decided that Home Economics would be an easy A. One of the jocks was an absolute Kevin. So, the Home Ec class was learning how to use sewing machines. Kevin was sewing merrily away, with his thumb sticking out perpendicular to his left hand, putting it on trajectory toward the needle. Not surprisingly, he ran his thumb through the feed dogs and punctured it several times. He called out to the teacher for help. She came over and asked, 'What did you do?' Kevin replied, 'I did this,' and proceeded to repeat his actions, including going through the feed dogs and getting additional puncture wounds to his thumb." "Sage started dating Kevin about two years before this incident. Things seemed to be going all right between them. She told me he was a bit of a derp and sometimes incredibly oblivious. He couldn't pick up subtle cues, and even suggestions flew over his head with about a mile of airspace between his skull and the suggestion. She initially chalked it up to him being on the autism spectrum, as she has a few other friends who have similar problems picking up cues. So she switched her behavior from 'talking to neurotypical' to 'talking to neurodivergent,' and the bumps smoothed out for a while. Then the talk of taking the relationship seriously came up. Marriage. Becoming a family. And that's when the plane hit the mountain with a cartoonish bang. Kevin said he wanted to DNA test Sage's kids to ensure they were his. The kids were 5 and 3 when Sage and Kevin started dating." "I may have married a Kevin. He initially doesn't strike you as a Kevin, because he had a very successful career working for a government alphabet agency. But once he gets a notion in his head, you cannot remove it with dynamite. If his mother or his teacher, Sister Mary Godzilla, told him something 50+ years ago, then that was Revealed Truth and could not be changed. Sister MG told him men have one less rib than women. It has to be that way because God took Adam's rib to make Eve. I had to show him side-by-side images of male and female skeletons in a medical encyclopedia and make him count the ribs before he believed Sister may have been mistaken." "My husband's ex wondered why planes and helicopters didn't crash into the moon." "Kevin wanted to 'grow his own fruit' because he saw a TikTok about 'living off the land.' Respectable…until he pulled up to our local community garden with a bowl of chopped fruit. No seeds. No whole fruit. Just literal fruit salad. Mangos, bananas, grapes, and a strawberry or two diced, marinated, and probably taken from a hotel breakfast bar. He dug little holes and carefully spooned fruit chunks into the soil. Like he was planting flowers. He even watered them with pineapple juice because 'they'll grow faster if you feed them what they like.' We tried to tell him that's not how fruit works, but he insisted it would 're-form in the dirt' and 'find itself again through nature.' Bro thought fruit had a respawn point. He came back two weeks later, mad nothing sprouted, and blamed the 'vibe of the soil.'" "My sister used to work with a lady who was a total Kevina. One day, she called out from work because she was in the hospital, on IV fluids, from dehydration and heat exhaustion. After returning to work, my sister asked her how she got so dehydrated. Poor Kevina had no idea, although I'm certain they tried hard to explain it to her at the hospital." "In the early '90s, I knew this kid (15) whose mom asked him to vacuum the house while she was at work. Kevin didn't want to — he just wanted to sit in his room, smoke pot, and listen to music — so he hatched a brilliant plan to get out of vacuuming. He knew the vacuum left lines in the carpet when run over it, so, without plugging in the machine, he ran it over the house's carpet so that it would leave the lines. Voila! Kevin got out of his vacuuming chore!" "One night, I got to meet this girl who my friends said was a perfect description of a 'Kevina.' We were eating some fast food (burgers and fries) when she asked, 'I really wonder what fries are made of? Flour?'" Know a Kevin or Kevina, LOL? Let us know in the comments or by using the anonymous form below and you could be featured in a future BuzzFeed post!
Buzz Feed
15-07-2025
- Buzz Feed
"I Made Four Figures In 30 Minutes": 21 Shocking Stories Of Sex Workers' First Client Encounters
Recently, Reddit user drowning_fish_101 asked, "For those who worked (or still are) as a sex worker, what was it like having your first client?" and the responses were super fascinating. Here's what former sex workers, strippers, and others in the sex industry had to share about their first times working. "I was a 22 y/o crossdresser at the time, and I found a guy (let's call him Kevin) on Grindr. He said he liked spoiling people and said he'd pay me to have sex with him. He was a ... not my type, but I wasn't bothered by it. I let four people know exactly where we were going to be and who he was before I did it. I dressed up in a cute fit, and he complimented me, and I felt affirmed at a time when I was questioning my gender. He asked if $100 was okay. I was only expecting half that, so of course, I said it was okay. We had sex outside, and he was really sweet. We cuddled and talked more than we had sex. He told me his nephew was transitioning and started living with Kevin because he was escaping his bigoted parents. Kevin asked for advice on how to make his nephew feel safe and stuff. Kevin even respected my boundaries as far as what I did and did not want. He was a really caring guy who was just lonely." "I remember my first client wanted a foot job. I was in no way prepared for giving that type of a repeated movement with my legs. It was so physically exhausting. I was in my early twenties at the time. I just remember the client looking really young. I wore lingerie the whole time and did the foot job. After he came, he just wanted to talk for the rest of the session. He asked me a lot of questions about the job I was doing." "I was about 20/21 at university and worked in a cafe run by these two funny gay guys. They told me one day that they knew a lot of older women who were looking for sex and willing to pay for it. All I needed to do was turn up, be dressed nicely, have dinner and drinks, maybe a river cruise through the city, and back to their hotel for sex. This was before smartphones, so not once did I get a photo of these women beforehand, and I was always worried about what I was walking into and if I could perform." "I was absolutely terrified. I entered the industry for the first time as a mature woman, surrounded by young girls with long legs and perky tits. I had always been a very sexual person, so I thought that I'd be like a fish to water, but I was not prepared for the emotional toll of trying to sell myself to every man who walked in. My first booking was a man in his early thirties, and it turned out he was high on coke. ... He couldn't even get hard. I thought it was me. I never doubted my oral skills but assumed he wasn't attracted enough to me. It was some of the more experienced girls who later explained coke dick to me." "He asked to be humiliated. I smiled and made him confess everything and saved the receipts. Now, he tips extra just to keep them hidden. First client. Still my favorite toy." "I was 18, fresh out of high school, and wanted to make money for Christmas, but nowhere 'normal' was hiring. I got work at a brothel/parlor that I didn't realize at the time had a horrible reputation. It had known gang-affiliated clients. The owner would collect her 'room fees' in the morning (of a $200 one-hour booking, we would get $125 for ourselves, and $75 would go to her for using the room) and have a general vacuum and tidy up before leaving for the day; whatever girls were working that day were also the 'receptionists,' answering the phone, doing all the laundry, collecting money from clients, cleaning rooms, and locking up at the end of the night. We had no security on site. It was run out of a residential house, and it was JUST us girls for the whole day: 10 a.m. to 11 p.m." "I was 19, and I was told I would be taking a woman to a wedding. There was no talk of sex. Just the promise of a bonus from the woman who set up the date if the woman I escorted gave me a good review. The mark was a 32-year-old divorcee who was absolutely gorgeous. The wedding was for her ex' sister, who was also her best friend. I played the part through the ceremony, where she pointed out her ex. He was skinny, short, and had no muscle — totally the opposite of me. We went up to change for the reception. That's where I learned what it would take to get the bonus, and I obliged. She was exaggerating and screaming since the ex was in the next room. We were all over each other at the reception. Back to the room where we performed all night, and she would get digs in on her ex. The morning, she pushed me out of the door naked in front of her ex, whom my manhood must have dwarfed, by the look on his face." "When I was 19, I was stationed with the US Air Force near Tokyo. One time, at a local gay bar, I was essentially recruited by a local massage was expected to end with extra services. I was young and enlisted, not making a lot of money. So the amount of money they told me I could make with my clients seemed really attractive. My first time working was a Friday night. I got off work, dressed, and went to the massage parlor. Clients could come into the shop, or we could be called for an out-call to a hotel. Clients would choose us in person or from a website. The boss came in and told me I had been 'reserved' for a hotel meet-up. I cleaned up and took the subway to the nearby hotel. I was so nervous. My Japanese was very weak, and I felt like everyone in that hotel lobby was staring at me and knew why I was there. ... The short elevator ride up, I almost bailed. I was about to have sex with a total stranger." "He was a prominent Canadian businessperson, and I was a college student in Indiana in my twenties. He was married and used a fake name, but I figured out who he was. He was kind and generous, and we saw each other several times whenever he came into town. He really liked to see himself as a mysterious benefactor and had a weird breeding kink, but he was a lovely man. Then he died of cancer and had a big plaza named after him, and sometimes I see it mentioned and think, 'Huh. That was a weird time.'" "The first time was purely just to say I had done it. I was 19 and went on Craigslist and answered a post from a guy asking for a threesome with two women. We messaged back and forth for a while, but our schedules didn't line up right away. He had a woman text me to verify he wasn't dangerous and actually paid. He lived a bit away, and I didn't drive, so he eventually ended up driving to my city, picking me up, and getting a hotel. I brought a bottle of wine and some weed because I was nervous. We ended up talking for about an hour. Then, we eventually moved on to the deed. He basically had a micro penis, and that was my first time ever seeing such a sight. But I keep it professional. At some point, probably because I was tipsy, I started making out with him. That caught him off guard." "This guy liked to buy custom videos of me, and he asked me if I would make a video for him of me fucking some college student. I found a guy who I already wanted to fuck but who just lived an inconvenient distance away, and it turned out he was down to be filmed. I drove to his place, had an AMAZING time, took a video, edited it together nicely, sent it to the buyer, and got $3600. So, it really couldn't have gone better." "I didn't even realize it was happening until he paid me. I sneaked into the Bike Stop in Philly at the age of like 17 or 18, back in like 2002. Immediately, older dudes are offering me drinks and chatting me up. It was so much attention. I'm a chubby nerd, and it's new and flattering as hell. I wound up talking to this dude for a while. He was talking about how he was a lawyer. I was asking him about cases and shit. Finally, he was like, 'Are we going home?' and I was like, 'Yeah, alright.' So we got back to his place, we did some stuff, and it was all fun. I hopped in the shower for a minute, and when I got dressed and came back out, he handed me like $100 and said, 'For the cab,' with a wink." "I was extremely nervous. I knew nothing about my client, and I was worried about whether or not she would enjoy herself. I arrived at the hotel and knocked on the specified door. She ended up being a perfectly average middle-aged woman. I followed my instruction manual to the letter for all the introductory stuff. She warned me that she doesn't get off easily and requires a lot of warmup." "I'm a former OnlyFans girl. I'm well-educated, but I'm from a poor country, and I'm a breadwinner. I was so, so lucky; my first client was a sweet man — a widower. He just wanted company and some playtime. For my second client, I was even luckier. She was a lovely woman. She was just lonely. It was her first time ever on OnlyFans, trying it out. Everyone else after that were pigs. I really felt like an object. I was dissociating a lot and hated my body. But I stayed on for the money to pay for school (Master's, mind you) and my parents' hospital my second client (the woman), whom I had gotten close to, offered me a large sum so I could leave the business and focus on finishing my degree and getting another job where I was safer." "I was in my late twenties, had lost my job, a parent had died, I was about to be evicted, and my cards were maxed out. I knew a ton of gay escorts and porn models. I pretty much kept it to referrals only, as for a quick minute, I was on Rentboy. It mostly was that either someone wanted a three-way or the friend couldn't do it (usually out of town). So I wasn't nervous the first time I did it on my own. The first time I did one alone, it was pretty fun, and I earned a bit of money. He was in his late fifties and pretty good-looking, but nothing super wild. He came six times. It lasted like 30 minutes, and it was four figures. And when I stopped, I still hooked up with him." "I was a sugar baby to different successful men for three years. My first sugar daddy had 800K followers and 'public figure' in his Instagram profile bio. He smiled and told me not to be nervous because I was just his type. When I asked him what that was, he said, 'Scared skinny European girls who don't talk.'" "Does phone sex count? Many moons ago, there used to be phone numbers in little sleazy magazines with pictures of pretty girls and women. Phone 18-year-old Missy now! Talk to 33-year-old Karen, the single mum, now! 55-year-old granny Rita is ready for your call now! Ring Gina, the transgender 24-year-old, for a chat! None of these people actually existed. All but one of us on the phone lines were ex-working girls. I was the exception. We signed into the phone system on our own home phone. We heard a code when calls were connected, and then we knew which character we were to play." "I met him on SeekingArrangement. I was 19 years old. We had a drink at a dive bar I was familiar with in the downtown part of my hometown. I blew him in the backseat of my car for $200. I had sex a bunch, so I was 'experienced,' but I never did it in a straight-up transactional way. I had worked some shifts at strip clubs, though, so I wasn't SO green on taking the money. But the money actually changed my life. I needed it badly for some bill. I went immediately to the bank right after he finished to deposit and pay the bill. I didn't use a condom because I'm an idiot, but yeah, that was the first time." "I was on the SeekingArrangement website for not very long, and there were some genuinely nice men, looking for their taste, I guess (IDK a better way to put it), but there were also some straight-up creeps. I will admit I slept with a guy 30 years my senior, and we had arranged a monthly agreement where he'd pay me $2000. It didn't work out, but the men I met on there beforehand made me question society. They were blatantly cheating on their wives, not even trying to hide it, saying you will get this amount if you have a place I can fuck you, or this amount if I have to rent a hotel." "It was stressful AF. Meeting someone new and then having sex as a service instead of for fun was definitely anxiety-provoking. ... For me, I think most of the jitters came from the fear that I would disappoint the client in some way. What if he sees my body in real life and doesn't like it? What if I'm too awkward? What if I'm not as good at tomfoolery as I thought? What if he wants me to ride him, but I lose my balance and break his dick and accidentally punch him in the face while trying to catch myself??" And finally..."It was a blast. I got tossed and flipped around like a doll. She was a 6ft Slavic woman. Mira, wherever you are, I miss you so." If you've worked in the porn, stripping, or sex industry, we want to hear your story — share in the comments below or via this anonymous form. Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
