Wednesday, July 18, 2007







“Material Girls”:
Escort Girls and Their Relationships with Cultural Capital







A dissertation submitted to the University of Warwick in partial fulfilment of the requirements for admission to the degree of Bachelor of Arts.


Department of Sociology
BA dissertation


Student Number:

May 2006
Words Count:11,099



Abstract

Prostitution has long been a controversial debate in feminist study. A number of studies have been conducted regarding prostitution. Regardless of the different focus and intention of those studies, two common characteristics can be found; the first is that the majority of the studies have tended to regard prostitutes as a homogeneous group of people and the second is that they tend to explain prostitution as the result of a lack of economic or social capital – a structural socio-economical explanation. However, this fails to explain a specific stratum of prostitution – escort girls; they are certainly not in poverty or lack any skill to acquire ‘legitimated’ jobs. They also do not conform to the stereotypical image of prostitution.

This essay adopts the methodology of using autobiographies written by three escort girls and one owner of an escort girl agency in Western society in an attempt to provide accounts from these escort girls. The central theme of this dissertation is to employ the concept of cultural capital derived from Pierre Bourdieu as well as recent literature on cultural consumption to theorise the forms of cultural capital embedded in the lives of these escort girls. This dissertation suggests that cultural capital, if not major, is certainly an important currency for escort girls.

Escort girls are the epitome of an ever increasing cultural consumption. They possess certain forms of cultural capital and are inspired to obtain more and more sophisticated cultural capital in order to stay in the ‘market’ or/and to maintain their ‘lifestyle’ as well as to buy into other identities. Money or economic capital is important, but perhaps more important are those ‘things’ money can be converted into.
























Introduction

‘The boy with the cold hard cash is always Mr. Right. Cause we are living in a material world and I am a material girl.’ These are the exact lyrics that Madonna sang in 1984. Not long before that, Sydney Biddle Barrows, perhaps the most well-known madam, opened a very high class escort agency in New York, charging her clients 125 U.S.A dollars an hour back in 1979. Sydney was arrested in 1984 and later published a book which detailed her life and the operation of the unknown world – the high class escort industry. More than three decades later, Margaret McDonald who is referred to as the world’s most successful madam, was released from jail and made a short documentary with Channel 4 which hit the headlines of several newspapers in 2005. In the same year Belle de Jour: The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl was published, the book is a collection of the writing published on an internet blog and sold 500,000 copies, and the sequel is expected to be released soon. Another book Call Me Elizabeth: Wife, Mother, Escort A True Story made its public appearance right after Belle, as well as Callgirl: Confession of an Ivy League Lady of Pleasure which was published in 2004. The intention of those wishing to reveal their secret life may be a coincidence but the timimg they chose to publish their self-confessional autobiographies might not be so.

Escort girls, call girls or elite prostitutes (Norton-Hawk, 2003), regardless of the different terminology used, have become finally unveiled and thrust into the spotlight. However, because of the secretiveness and invisibility of its nature, very few studies have been conducted regarding this issue. The escort service is like a missing puzzle in the long debate on prostitution, which disproportionately focuses on street prostitutes. Debates about prostitution have long been centred on areas regarding the issues of legalising or decriminalising prostitution; the problem of commodification of women’s bodies; violence towards prostitution and drug-use as well as the psychological problems faced by prostitutes. Regardless of the issue on prostitution and whichever side, either supporting or against prostitution, there is a common theme in these discussions – a conclusion that prostitution is the result of poverty, lack of education or skills and the last resort available for those ‘fallen’ women. This explanation tends to solely focus on the socio-economical status of prostitutes and deems prostitutes as a homogeneous group.

Instead of justifying or condemning prostitution, this dissertation will look at prostitution as an existing social phenomenon and examine the ways in which prostitution has been discussed. The term prostitution has to be clarified; here prostitution refers soley to female prostitutes who engage in heterosexual relationships with their clients. Albeit this dissertation recognises that the term prostitute can be used both for male and female, nonetheless male prostitution is a rather different subject which involves a different socio-culural context, literature and power relations, and therefore is not to be discussed in this dissertation. This essay will strive to demonstrate the evidence to argue that prostitution is not homogenous but rather a group that within itself is stratified according to the different amounts of the earning, social and education background both in terms of prostitutes and clients. Also, this dissertation will refute the structural socio-economical explanation of prostitution. This explanation is based upon studies on the street and other lower strata forms of prostitution, thus, it is not applicable to the study of escort girls. By recognising the two major omissions in the studies of prostitution, this dissertation attempts to look at the life stories of escort girls’ and to explore the possibility of other forms of capital, namely cultural capital and the role in which cultural capital has engaged in the lives of these escort girls.

The dissertation will be divided into four parts. In Chapter 1 ‘Literature Review’, a long-standing debate on prostitution amongst feminists will be summarised with a selection of the recent research on prostitution in western society. In Chapter 2 ‘Methods and Methodological issues’, the main research method adopted by this dissertation, namely, the use of autobiographies will be discussed and argued. In Chapter 3 ‘Consumption Culture and Cultural Capital’, attention will be moved to discuss the rise of contemporary consumption culture as well as the conception of cultural capital derived from Pierre Bourdieu. In Chapter 4 ‘Review of Autobiographies’, four autobiographies written by three female escorts and one escort agency madam will be reviewed in order to provide critical accounts to support the argument of this dissertation.

Chapter 1: Literature Review

Prostitution by definition is the act of exchanging sexual service for money and is often said to be the ‘oldest’ profession in the world; ‘Prostitution has existed in every society for which there are written records.’(Alexander, 1988, p.186). The debate on prostitution is as long as the history itself and with its deeply divided arguments; arguments in favour of prohibition and arguments supporting the legalisation and decriminalisation of prostitution. In the early 19th century in England, prostitutes were considered outcasts and were not entitled to the same rights as other citizens; a woman who was identified as a ‘common prostitute’ was subjected to internal examinations and detained in the lock hospitals (Bell 1994; Smart, 1981). It was a commonly held belief that there was something internally wrong with these women and prostitution was seen as the result of deviant female sexuality. Prostitutes were seen as dangerous and thought to pose a threat to the ‘national health, security and challenging the social order by their active and autonomous sexuality’ (Frank, 2000, p.59). In short, prostitution was regarded as a synonym for a disease. This view was later challenged by Josephine Butler in the middle of the nineteenth century, who launched a campaign to rescue and reform prostitution. Instead of seeing prostitution as a health hazard or the prostitutes as abnormal human beings, Bulter saw prostitution as a moral issue; a moral issue, not so much for prostitutes but for society. She regarded prostitutes as the ‘fallen sister’, the passive victims of male unrestrained sexual lust. Therefore, redomesticisation was required to help these eroticised women to return to their respectable womanhood.

The contemporary debates on prostitution are less prone to see prostitution as a result of biological or psychological abnormality. Therefore the need to subject prostitutes to medical treatment is no longer on the agenda. Although some research suggests sexual abuse in early childhood may have psychological effect and pave the way for prostitution (Vamwesenbeeck, 2001), other research findings deny such suggestions (Nadon et al. 1998), and the search for the link between psychological harm and prostitution remains inconclusive. Moreover, prostitution is treated less as a moral issue than a problem of commodifying female bodies, the by-production of the capitalist and patriarchal system (Pateman 1983; Shrage 1989; Overall 1992; Roberts 1998; McLeod 1982). Pateman clearly states that, ‘the sale of “sexual services” as a commodity in the capitalist market cannot be reduced to an expression of our natural biology and physiology.’ (1983, p.563). Marx claims that under the capitalist system, with the lack of the means of production, individuals are forced to sell his/her labour power to capitalists in order to earn a living. The worker is treated merely according to his/her ‘physical existence’ or ‘as a commodity’ (Marx 1844, p.137). In addition, the capitalist system intensified ‘alienation’, which by Marx’s definition is the work that is ‘external to the worker…it is not the satisfaction of a need, but only a means for satisfying other needs…. It [the work] is not his own work but work for someone else, that in work he does not belong to himself but to another person’ (ibid. pp.124-5 original emphasis). In the same vein, in capitalist societies, women use their bodies, their sex in the same way as any other kind of worker; as an end of itself not as a means of itself. They become, in a Marxist sense, alienated from their own bodies, and at worst their own soul – they become commodities. According to Kingsley Davis, ‘in commercial prostitution both parties use sex ….one for pleasure, the other for money… To tie it to money, the most impersonal and atomistic type of reward possible… On both sides, the relationship is merely a means to a private end, a contractual rather than a personal association.’(1937, pp.748-749).

In Shrage’s work (1989), she suggests that ‘the sex industry, like other institutions in our society, is structured by deeply ingrained attitudes and values which are oppressive to women.’(p.348). Women are largely employed to satisfy or to serve men’s desires and for men’s interests; secretaries, air hostesses and housewives are the same. This has the implication of justifying men’s rights to access women in every aspect, including women’s bodies and their vaginas. The whole social structure is deeply gendered; unequal pay, discrimination against women in employment and the long-rooted ideology that women are primarily responsible for childcare and domestic labour; under such social conditions, it is perhaps not surprising why prostitution might seem like an attractive option for some women (McLeod 1982). Women who ‘choose’ to enter prostitution are said to make ‘an act of resistance to the experience of relative poverty or the threat of it.’(ibid, p.26). As Overall summarises, ‘Sex work is an inherently unequal practice defined by the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy’ and ‘Prostitution epitomizes men’s dominance…’(1992, p.724). The pro-prostitution advocates who equate sex work with other types of work create an illusion constructed by, and a negation of, the profound influence of capitalist and patriarchal system. Overall believes that, the so called right to determine and to dispose of one’s body should really be seen as ‘buying into the patriarchal version of independence’ (ibid, p.723).

Satz agrees with this argument but goes a step further by providing a more complex perspective. She questions that if prostitution is a form of degradation and commodification of human beings and therefore should be abolished, then why should society tolerate practices such as ‘monotonous assembly line work where human beings are often mere appendages to machines?’(1995, p.72). For Satz, it is wrong to treat people as mere things, but she is nonetheless sceptical that this argument can support the conclusion that prostitution is wrong (ibid.p.73). She argues that ‘whether the purchase of a form of human labour will have this [destruction of dignity] negative consequence will depend on background social macrolevel and microlevel institutions’(ibid. pp.73-74). In short, prostitution is not in itself wrong; to say there is something wrong with prostitution, the wider social structure and culture are necessary criteria to be taken into account.

Boutellier (1991) documents the changes in the debates on prostitution in accordance with the amendment of the legislation in Netherlands in the 20th century from prohibition to regulation of prostitution. This shift according to Boutellier’s documentation was due to the change from regarding prostitution as a moral issue; as victims of the society or male dominance, to seeing prostitution as ‘just work’ that is freely chosen by thousands of women. This change implies that,‘Women are no longer just victims of sexuality, rather they claim another definition of sexuality… it would be very problematic to neglect the experiences of prostitutes. In one way or another, “the whore” has to be incorporated in a definition of female identity and feminist morality.’(p.209). Davidson (1998) and Phoenix (1999), also disagree with the view which sees prostitution as a problem of men having power over women. For them, this view oversimplifies power relations as men over women. Their studies offer a more sophisticated view of power relations by including prostitutes’ accounts, and the use of interview research method. In Davidson’s study, she interviewed a self-employed ‘higher class’ prostitute, Desiree. By using Desiree as an example, Davidson demonstrates that Desiree is the one who is in control of her body and instead of selling her ‘whole’ body, she sells clients the temporary power of command over her. For Davidson, ‘both parties volunteer to enter into the contract, which implies a degree of power and control on both sides.’(1998, p.91).

To incorporate prostitutes in the study of prostitution has become essential and this includes written work published by prostitutes and other types of sex workers. For them, writing is a platform that provides opportunities for them to express their views and experiences as well as enabling their voices to be heard. Roberts, a former sex worker wrote in her book The Front Line, ‘everything that was said or written about the sex industry was coming from outside it…’ (1986, p.13). A number accounts written by sex workers were published and followed the same line as Roberts to make their own statements (Bell 1987; Negle 1997; Alexander & Delacoste 1988). A major difference to those earlier accounts on prostitution is that these personal accounts do not simply refer to themselves as victims, but as individuals who make their own decisions according to the specific personal biography and circumstances. This approach stresses the importance of

[a]cknowledging the ideology of individualism that marks contemporary culture and politics, and also focusing upon the wider social and economic contexts that women’s involvement in prostitution, necessitate asking women about personally felt experiences, routes into prostitution, making out in prostitution, and the extent of exploitation and violence against women working as prostitution, in order to develop a more thorough complex analysis. (O’Nell 2001, p.27 original emphases)

The debate on prostitution has shifted its focus from viewing prostitution as naturally deviant; a moral issue, to the later analysis of a capitalist patriarchal system and finally, to incorporate prostitutes into studies. Regardless of the change, the arguments for or against prostitution; to treat prostitution as a source of female inferior status or to see women as having the rights to do whatever they want to their bodies; excluding or including prostitutes in the studies, there are two flaws in most of the debates; the first is to regard prostitution as a homogenous group and the second is to heavily rely upon the structural and socio-economical explanation of prostitution. There are a number of evidences to show that the hierarchical differences among prostitutes have existed throughout history. The division of temple ‘goddess’ and lower-class prostitutes called harimtu dates back to the Mesopotamian period; the lowest class prostitutes deichtrides, the auletrifdes who were skilled in singing and dancing, and the highest class prostitutes – the hetara were highly educated and were able to move much more freely than other females in fifth and sixth century B.C. Greece; the luxury courtesan in Europe and highest-paid prostitutes – tayu in Japan (Ringdal 2004). In contemporary western society, prostitution is also stratified into street prostitutes, prostitutes who work at brothels and massage parlours, club hostesses, escorts who work for escort agencies and independent escorts. Despite all of these different forms of prostitution, researchers of prostitution have disproportionately focused on street prostitutes – the most visible forms of prostitution. In 2004, the Home Office published a paper, Paying the Price, which is concerned exclusively with street prostitutes, just like a number of other studies. However, according to Weitser (2005) street prostitutes account only for one fifth of all prostitution in America.

Some researchers have become aware of the different forms of prostitution and the lack of research on the mystifying high-class prostitution – escort service (Davidson 1998; O’Neill 1997, 2001; Scambler 1997; Norton-Hawk 2003; Soothill & Sanders 2005, Satz 1995; Shaver 2005; Weitser 2005; Ringdal 2004; Sandford 1975; Sanders 2005, Foltz 1979). These studies acknowledge and agree with Chancer’s statement that ‘prostitutes’ experiences, situations, and circumstances differ greatly over the gamut of this highly class-stratified occupation.’ (cited in Weitser 2005). Escort girls are at the opposite pole to street prostitutes. The amount of money they receive is considerably higher, and can be as much as £ 650 an hour, the price Margaret McDonald charged her client (Alderson, 2005), compared to as low as £ 20 for a ‘Soho “walk-up”’ (Soothill & Sanders 2005). They have comparatively more power to negotiate with their clients (Davidson 1998) and there is a lower rate of them becoming addicted to drugs (Norton-Hawk 2003). Lever & Dolnick’s (2000) study shows that clients received by escort girls are largely white and come from upper income strata. The girls tend to have longer relationships with the clients, spend more time with a client and engage in rather different sexual activities compared to street prostitutes. For instance, there is more conversation and caresses, kisses and hugs involved in the relationship between escorts and her clients.

Very few researches have looked at the escort service in depth and the following are the few that have devoted a certain amount of their efforts to the topic of escort services. Salamon (1989) conducted a research on a homosexual escort agency in London. By contacting agencies and interviewing escorts, she was able to understand the management side of the escort industry. Her research is an attempt to examine the underlying relationship between the agencies, escorts and clients. A rather interesting article by Extavasia & Addison (1992) Fucking (With Theory) for Money, was an attempt to study escort prostitution by using terms from Telephone Book by Avital Ponell and A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattaris. The article draws heavily on Sydney Barrows’ (1986) autobiography. Ringdal (2004) in his book devotes a whole chapter to call girls and also refers to Barrows’ autobiography. Ringal points out that, ‘Call girls were discernibly a post-war phenomenon. They were a product of the 1950s emphasis on prostitution legislation, a post-war economic boom, an increase in travel, and improved telephone technology.’ (p.343). A similar account provided by Earle & Sharp (2002) points out that the emergence of the internet has had an effect on transforming the sex service. This allows both escort agencies and independent escorts to have more space and obtain new channels through which they can contact their clients. Moreover, O’Neill (1997), states that,

[t]he feminization of poverty, global recession, problems in marriage and the family within the context of changing demographic structures and the freeing up (de-traditionalization) of large aspects of social life…, unequal sexual relations, lack of action by the state to fundamentally deal with increasing poverty for women and children and the endemic nature of male violence against women…(p.17)

are another major reason that has contributed to the increasing number of women who work as escorts.

The accounts all have the tendency to view prostitution through the lens of the structural socio-economical explanation, and disproportionately refers to street or lower strata prostitutes. If Gorham (1979) was correct to say that ‘the origins of prostitution in the economic system and the opportunities that prostitution offered to young girls as a way out of acute poverty and dismal career possibilities’(cited in Weeks, 1981, p.88), then what would be the explanation for escorts? Since escorts tend to be well-educated and come from middle-class backgrounds, they certainly do not lack any of the acquired skills and education to pursue a ‘legitimate’ job and some of them may not even lack money (they do not ‘need’ but might ‘want’). Providing a few common justifications for escorts,

These girls will generally leave prostitution completely after their college graduation, when they reach their financial objective… The women do not intend to make prostitution a career. It is simply a way of temporarily making extra cash and perhaps, meeting wealthy men. (Norton-Hawk, 2003, p.132 my emphasis)

[T]he average modern-school type girl or the highly educated from abroad sort of girl wants to earn extra cash. (Sandford, 1975, p.66 my emphasis)

Many call girls…led neither by material want nor lack or alternatives.
Some are college graduates, who upon graduation earn money by prostitution while searching for other jobs. (Satz, 1995, p.66 my emphasis)

These accounts only show the surface world of escorts and remain ignorant of the underlying reasons and drive for these escorts in seeking to earn extra cash, meeting wealthy men, or to finance themselves to acquire education.

Greenwald (1958) published The Call Girl. In his book Greenwald points out the differences in forms and socio-economic division amongst prostitutes: ‘unlike her [the call girl] less successful sister of the street, she is usually better educated, more articulate’. He therefore names call girls the ‘aristocrats of that group’(Greenwald, 1958, p.7). His research is, as he states, ‘an attempt at a scientific exploration of a specific facet of prostitution’(ibid. p.2), 20 call girls were interviewed and as the book’s subtitle suggests is ‘a social and psychoanalytic study’. Greenwald refers to Durkheim’s notion of anomie and applies it to call girls (ibid. p.4). Essentially he regards the girls as ‘a problem’ and his study is an exploration of social pathology. Again, Greenwald’s research confirms the traditional view on women involved in the sex industry as having inner, psychological problems and to have common ‘symptoms’. Nevertheless, in Greenwald’s book, he identifies the importance of achieving and demonstrating one’s material success in the construction of call girls; he uses Veblen’s concept of ‘conspicuous consumption’ and further points out that call girls ‘were both the pawns and the beneficiaries of conspicuous consumption’ and ‘the girls were caught up in the worship of material success and in the need to display the trophies of such success’(ibid. p.143).

Foltz (1979) is probably the only scholar who is aware that consumption might have a substantial role on the issue of escort girls. In her study Escort Services: An Emerging Middle Class Sex-for-Money Scene, she points out that middle-class women were recruited due to their knowledge of middle-class standards, the language, the attitudes, and their appearances. Foltz suggests that some of the women are not ‘“driven into” prostitution because of impoverished social circumstances or the lack of available (legitimate) opportunities…’(p.109). Her argument is that escort prostitution can be something more than a transaction of sex-exchanging-money. Something more abstract such as symbols, status or cultural capital may be involved.

After outlining the changing debates on prostitution and the common neglect – to regard prostitution as a homogeneous group and to see prostitution as a result of structural socio-economic problems, to avoid such neglect, this dissertation will be devoted to the study of the higher strata form of prostitution – escort girls and to investigate explanations other than the socio-economic theory. To do so, this dissertation will adopt the methodology of using autobiographies written by escort girls themselves. The next chapter will be an attempt to justify the use of such methodology.

Chapter 2: Methods and Methodological Issues


The recent research on prostitution has become increasingly aware of the need to incorporate prostitutes’ accounts in their research. In Prostitution & Feminism: Towards a Politics of Feeing, O’Neill (2001) points out the importance of ‘asking women’ within the study of prostitution. The ethnographic work, the use of diaries, autobiographies, letters, life-history work, memory work and certain fictitious texts, is suggested by O’Neill as an alternative way to explore the issue of prostitution (p.146). However, by asking women and then systematically categorising their situation into dualistic matrices as street prostitutes/elite prostitutes, working-class/middle-class background, the method has its limitation and is not too far divorced from the orthodox ‘scientific’ research method.

Feminists have long called into question the orthodox scientific way of doing research, particularly regarding the study of women. From the starting point of Enlightenment, the importance of reason has been employed philosophically and scientifically to provide an objective and universal foundation for knowledge. This knowledge is based upon dualisms: reason and rationality versus emotion; subject versus object that is criticised by feminists because they imply opposite extremes and devalue the second components (Maynard, 1994). Rational scientific knowledge is based upon reason and its dichotomous view of the world. It is said to be a male and “‘masculinity world view’ that is so endemic…that very few people are aware that it is a social construct and a part of sexism” (Stanley & Wise 1993, p.47). In short, ‘[s]cience rationality is thus expressing male domination, rather than superior reason.’(Alvesson, 2002, p.3).

The idea of objectivity is itself problematic. Cosslette et al. (2000) argues that ‘knowledge is not objective “there”, but it is produced by subjects situated in particular social relations and historical discourse’ (p.2). ‘ “Truth” is a social construct, in the same way that “objectivity” is; and both are constructed out of experiences which are, for all practical purposes, the same as “lies” and “subjectivity”.’ Hence, Stanley & Wise (1993) conclude that research is ‘“fiction” in the sense that it views and so constructs “reality” through the eyes of one person.’ (p.171). To employ autobiographies as a resource for conducting social research may be the way to reconcile the long debate on subjectivity versus objectivity; structure versus agency. Autobiography blurs these borders as well as the line between fact and fiction, public and private (Cosslette et al. 2000; Stanley, 1993). Individuals are social beings; they construct their identity by taking up social structure and practices then transfer into their own meaning. Therefore, according to Stanley, by seeing ‘the biographer’ as a ‘social-located person’(1992, p.7) and ‘from one person we can recover social process and social structure, network, social change and so forth’(1993, p.45). Autobiographiers, according to Merton, ‘are the ultimate participants in a dual participant-observer role, having privileged access – in some cases, monopolistic access – to their own inner experience.’(cited in Stanley, 1992, p.43).

The use of self-narrative accounts have become recognised and promoted in the study of women’s life in general. Women have long been marginalised and tend to have more difficulty than men in publicly claiming their own importance. This contributes to the fact that women have excelled in writing diaries and journals because there is rarely any place where they are allowed to express their experiences (Gufunfsdottir, 2003). Autobiographies cannot simply be treated as self-expression, it is ‘a process of self-definition’ as Franklin et at. (1991) suggest, ‘the use of the first person has thus been seen to imply a degree of political self-consciousness’(p.99). By writing autobiographies, women are able to move from the private to the public. It is also through the study of these autobiographies that similarities can be formed for collective experiences. ‘Personal is political’ is no longer a slogan but a feasible reality.

Due to the sensitive subject matter of female escorts and their business nature; they tend to keep their real identity and involvement in the escort service highly secretive. It is common for them to have double lives; as working girls as well as other kinds of socially legitimate occupations. They only reveal their secret life to those people who are carefully selected by them. This makes the research on escort girls extremely complicated. Any research on such a topic will always encounter difficulties in accessing correspondents and face ethical issues such as the potential of disclosing correspondents’ real identity and causing unnecessary stress. Moreover, the credibility of the accounts provided will always be questionable. Almost all the quantitative research on the escort industry and prostitution adopted the interview research method, which although provides female escorts with an outlet to disclose their ‘secrets’. The method can be problematic; interviewers’ interaction with the interviewees and the questions asked may or may not lead the interviewee in one direction. In addition, with the limitation of the time allowed, the interview research method can only focus on a segment of the life or experience of the research subject. To avoid these problems and to enable this dissertation to have a comparatively more complete picture of the secret life of the female escorts, this dissertation will be based upon the autobiographies written by female escorts and in one case written by the owner of the escort agency. By doing so, this dissertation does not only solve the difficulty of accessing interview correspondents which is made unfeasible by the scale and the time allowed, but it also avoids the complicated ethical issues and aims to provide a more wholesome perspective from the female escorts.

With regards to the reality or the reliability of autobiographies, it is arguable that the authors may or may not exaggerate and ‘storiealise’ certain aspects for the sake of protecting themselves or for the sales of the books. However, even if autobiographies are unauthentic and therefore said to be stories, ‘[s]tories do not float around abstractly but are grounded in historically evolving communities of memory, structured through age, class, race, gender and sexual preference.’ as argued by Plummer (1995, p.22). Plummer also points out that to study stories, they must be seen as ‘socially produced in social contexts by embodied concrete people experiencing the thoughts and feelings of everyday life.’(ibid, p.16). This dissertation will regard the selected autobiographies written by female escorts in the same light and will employ them as evidence for supporting the argument of this dissertation.

The selection of autobiographies has been chosen with several considerations, the first is the book’s popularity. The reason for this is that with higher popularity there comes more public awareness, and in some cases, already referenced by some academics as evidence, i.e. Mayflower Madam. Secondly, the date of the publication is also taken into consideration because of fast changing social circumstances that may effect the accountability of the autobiography. Finally, the situation of the working environment that is presented by the authors has to be taken into consideration; Happy Hooker written by Xaviera Hollander published in 1972 shocked the world and was extremely famous at the time, nevertheless the way Ms. Hollander operated her ‘business’ is less similar to the contemporary classification of the escort service but bears more resemblance to a high class brothel due to the fact that most of the girls she hired were confined in her ‘apartment’ to conduct ‘business’. The book is therefore not included in the discussion of this dissertation.

A total of four autobiographies are chosen but before turning to look at these autobiographies, the concept of cultural capital will be presented alongside recent arguments regarding the rising consumption culture in order to facilitate theorisation in chapter 4.

Chapter 3: Consumption Culture and Cultural Capital

This chaper serves as the conceptual matrix of this dissertation.‘[W]e are moving towards a society without fixed status groups in which the adoption of styles of life (manifested in choice of clothes, leisure activities, consumer goods, bodily dispositions) which are fixed to specific groups have been surpassed.’ (Featherstone, 1991, p.83). Everyday, new consumer products arrive in the market and advertisements are everywhere within every single aspect of our everyday life. We are now truly a consumption society whereby individuals can buy different products and become X or Y. Is this not the message purported through advertisements and the ideology embedded in our society that we are free individuals and can make our own individual choices? Who we are and how we define ourselves has become increasingly complex and can no longer be classified by the orthodox Marxist theory of class.

The orthodox Marxist theory of class is based upon the ownership of the means of production; ‘the whole of society must split into the two classes of property owners and propertyless workers.’ (Marx, 1844 p.120). This economics-based class classification, although subject to some debate, has become the very root concept of the occupational and income class stratification that is now used in governmental statistics as well as academic research. Class stratification has been a long debate for sociologists. Weber criticised Marx’s binary concept of class contending that the sole focus on economic situation is an oversimplified view of class. Weber argues that to consider class, power and status have to be included, which has been drawn upon and further expanded by a number of scholars in an attempt to explain the ever growing complexity in contemporary society. Status, according to Weber, is expressed by a specific, what he called, ‘style of life’ (1978, p.65) this is a group of people who possess similar patterns of consumption, habits and tastes. Economic acquisition may influence one’s status, as he or she could use their economic power to obtain better life chances, such as through gaining better education qualifications. Arguably, focus has shifted significantly from the production-side to the consumption-side of class explanation. Consumption has always played a significant role within our society as Veblen stated, ‘the consumption and display of scarce materials and cultural goods has always, throughout the prehistory and history of human societies, been used as a marker of power and domination…’(1934 cited in Crompton.1998, p140). In his book The Theory of the Leisure Class, he suggested that if the things are expensive and said to be a luxury, they are to be defined as noble and honourable and a marker of the superior status of those who are able to afford it (1899, p. 70). Those luxury and honourable goods have long been restricted to the aristocratic and noble classes, but since the end of Second World War, the rise of mass production accompanied by the economic boom in western society and increasing life standards and disposable income, these goods are no longer exclusively available to the higher class strata but have become more accessible for the masses.

Following the consumption-side argument, in the UK, Goldthorpe (1968) in his famous thesis The Affluent Worker based upon his finding on the differences in consumption, lifestyle and political attitudes, concluded that there is an emergence of a new working class which is rather different from the traditional mode of working class lifestyle. In France, Pierre Bourdieu, after a number of his early studies in aesthetics and education in French society, published perhaps his most famous work, Distinction (1984), in which he opened with the sentence, ‘There is an economy of cultural goods, but it has a specific logic.’(p.1). For Bourdieu, purely economic power is powerless. He distinguishes four types of capital,

‘firstly economic capital, in its various kinds, cultural capital or better, informational capital,…social capital, which consists of resources based on connections and group membership, and symbolic capital, which is the form that different types of capital take once they are perceived and recognized as legitimate.’ (Bourdieu,1987, p.4).

This recognition of other forms of capital apart from the economic form, made Bourdieu’s theory distinctive; it is his conception of cultural capital that is later developed and deployed in many subsequent studies of contemporary consumption and popular culture. Cultural capital exists in three forms: in an incorporated state, that is to say in the form of the durable dispositions of the mind and the body; in an objectified state, the form of cultural goods, books, instruments; and in an institutionalised state, represented by things such as educational qualifications (Robbins, 2000; Skeggs, 1997). It is precisely this concept of cultural capital that provides the central thesis of this dissertation.

Cultural capital exists in various forms and it is through the process of cultural capital consumption that an individual is able to display his/her taste – the marker not necessarily of class but, manifesting a person’s ‘distinction’. Consumption, as Bourdieu also points out, is ‘a stage in a process of communication, that is, an act of deciphering, decoding, which presupposes practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code’ (1984, p.1) and taste according to his famous quotation, ‘Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects, classified by their classifications, distinguish themselves by the distinctions they make’(ibid. p.6). The implication of Boudieu’s concept is that goods, including a person’s physical body and his education, can no longer to be seen as having only use and exchange values. They possess ‘identity-value’ (Warde, 1992, p.17), that is a value that can be converted into a social-symbolic value. Individuals are, by displaying or engaging in the consumption of the ‘identity-value’ of these goods, to distinguish themselves from the ‘Other’ (ibid, pp.17&25). In other words, ‘[n]o longer are people placed in society by way of their lineage, caste or class, but each must invest and consciously create a personal identity’(Warde, 1997, p.10). Nevertheless, consumption pattern and taste are affected and restricted by a person’s possession of economic and social capital. As Bourdieu argues, ‘Through taste, an agent has what he likes because he likes what he has, that is, the properties actually given to him in the distributions, and legitimately assigned to him in the classification.’(1984, p.175).

This dissertation maintains that in present society, whereupon credit can be borrowed relative easily and television and magazines are bombarded with advertisements, the individual has become much more mouldable then ever before. Individuals can afford to buy into certain identities and the information about different choices have become more accessible; fashion magazines or even newspapers provide information such as how to dress like certain celebrities. Baudrillard (1998) and Featherstone (1991) point out in their studies on consumer culture that to consume an object in contemporary society has more to do with the consumption of ‘signs’ rather then the immediate need and enjoyment. Individuals therefore are to be regarded, ‘[r]ather than unreflectively adopting a lifestyle’, ‘the new heroes of consumer culture [that] make lifestyle a life project and display their individuality and sense of style in the particularity of the assemblage of goods, clothes, practices, experience, appearance and bodily dispositions’ they made and choose their own identity’(Featherstone, 1991, p.85). This argument is not claiming that economic capital is no longer important or that class division has disappeared. Instead, it contends that it is important to recognise that individuals can use economic capital to buy cultural capital in order to acquire other identities or enter into other classes which already pre-exist. As Falk (1994) writes, ‘In other words, it becomes possible to be the other, to identify oneself with the other and even gain the same status the other occupies without actually taking the place of the other’. (p.121). The consumption of ‘signs’ has become an exceedingly significant indication of a person’s identity and class.

By recognising the importance of cultural capital or the consumption of signs, this dissertation maintains that an explanation of prostitution on the basis of a lack of economic capital is an omission of other forms of capital. In the case of high-class prostitution – the escort girl, the socio-economical explanation is indisputably inadequate. In the next chapter, a selection of autobiographies will be reviewed with the intention of finding evidences from escort girls’ own accounts to support the central argument of this dissertation – cultural capital and its significant role plays in the lives of escort girls.

Chapter 4: Review of Autobiographies


This chapter will first provide brief summaries of the four selected autobiographies in order to facilitate the reader’s understanding of the social background and the circumstances of the autobiographers. However, it has to be noted that all four autobiographies have the tendency to show a lack of economic capital as the force for them to become escort girls, but this chapter will argue later that this lack of economic capital is not the sole deciding force guiding these women. Subsequently, this chapter will aim to identify various forms of cultural capital mentioned in these autobiographies and attempt to theorise the common forms of cultural capital.

The first book to be selected is Belle de Jour (hereafter Belle), published in 2005 and probably the most famous and popular book out of the four selected autobiographies. However, the book provides the least content to be analysed due to its written style and focus. Belle is a collection of the posts published on a web-blog; the style bears resemblance to a dairy or notes of daily events. Each post has its corresponding date, although not necessarily arranged sequentially. The book devotes particular attention to the author’s private life, thoughts and sexual encounters. As for the description of the author’s encounters with her clients, these are described casually and briefly with the focus on the action of sex itself. The information gathered from the book indicates that the author is a recent university graduate and has moved to London in the hope of acquiring a job. She came from the Yorkshire area and was brought up in a Jewish middle-class family. Her attitude towards sex is rather liberal and she refers to her job with only the slightest regret. This is how she describes her job in comparison to those of her friends who work as accountants; ‘Theirs is probably on a trunk road to the suburbs. Mine is spreading its leg for cash on a regular basis.’(p.2). The reasons for the author becoming an escort girl are due to her living expenses in London and her failure in obtaining a job.

The second book selected is Call Me Elizabeth (hereafter Elizabeth). Both Belle and Elizabeth were published in the same year and set in the UK. The style of Elizabeth is more closely aligned with a traditional autobiography. It starts by providing the social background of her parents and her childhood memory. The author’s mother came from an upper-middle-class family and disobeyed her father’s will by marrying the author’s father who comes from a middle-class background. Due to her father’s job, the family moved constantly during her childhood before finally settling down in Kent and moving to a detached house in a decent area. The relationship between her parents was fraught. Her mother was very strict on the children and her father was extremely controlling, dominating, and abused the author sexually. She wished to continue to study after having achieved great results in her O levels but her parents refused. She then acquired a job at Harrods and moved out of her parents’ home as soon as she finished her training period. She got pregnant but the father of the child refused to take any responsibility. She soon met another man who was willing to look after her and her unborn baby. Soon after she gave birth, she got married and eventually gave birth to a second child. However, the marriage did not last for long and when the marriage broke up, she was left with two young children and a mortgage. She moved on and found another job and married another guy. Her second husband came from a very different social background to hers and their marriage was soon in trouble. Situations got worse with mounting financial pressure and her constant pregnancies, she now has six children in total. With the debt collector threatening to take away some of her belongings and with the debts growing ever fast, becoming an escort seemed to be the only solution for her and her children. She values her children and is determined to provide them with a perfect childhood as opposed to her own unhappy childhood experience. As she expresses, ‘I did it because it seemed to me to be the only way to save my children from momentous physical and emotional upheaval (…) I had always wanted the fairy tale for my kids (…) I became an escort so I could pay off our debts and maintain our stability.’(p.5).

The third book chosen is Callgirl written by Jeanette Angell. Jeanette obtained her degrees from several prestigious universities, such as Yale and Boston University. She received a doctorate degree in social anthropology and worked as a lecturer and also as an escort girl for three years. Due to her academic training, Jeannette provides a rather critical account of her job as an escort girl; her feelings, her experience, the manager of the agency, other escort girls and her clients. Eventually she combines her academic life with her secret escort life by starting a class – The History and Sociology of Prostitution. In her book, Jeannette only very briefly mentions her family background although it is likely that she comes from a traditional middle-class family. To quote from her, ‘She’d [her mother] probably approve of neither of my jobs, My family was not academic: I was the first to earn a Master’s degree (…) I think that my mother would have been pleased to see me married with children (…).’(pp.208-209). She liked her job as a lecturer but the pay was quite modest and with the sudden departure of her boyfriend, who emptied her bank account, she found herself in a state of financial disaster. She desperately needed money; ‘I needed a lot of money, and I needed it quickly’. Under such circumstances, it is not difficult to see that escort work would be a reasonable option for her.

The last book included is Mayflower Madam (hereafter Mayflower) written by Sydney Barrows, who is a descendant of the first New England settlers and was therefore a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants. Sydney was not an escort girl in any circumstance but she established a high-class escort agency in New York. Her book is the most important book for this dissertation; not only because Mayflower has had been referred to in several other studies, but also because Sydney’s account provides rich information about the way in which an escort agency is managed and operated, including the aspects of marketing and recruitment. Her agency was raided by police in 1984, by that time the agency had existed for five years. After the build up period to the law suit, Sydney reluctantly pleaded guilty to promoting prostitution. Sydney was certainly brought up in an upper-middle-class family. Despite her parents divorce, her mother’s family supported her through paying her tuition fees and sending her to a boarding school. However, after graduating from high school, her father refused to send her to college. With limited money and choices, Sydney took a course at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. She graduated with the highest grades and was offered a training program at a large and well-known New York department store. She later became a buyer for independent boutiques but quit due to a disagreement with the new manager. For a short period, Sydney worked several temporary jobs but of course, such jobs were not very well paid. Accidentally, she met a girl who worked for an escort agency as a telephone assistant and realised that the pay was much higher than her ordinary salary. Sydney joined the agency and worked as a telephone assistant, which is how she came to understand the industry and developed the idea of opening a high-class escort agency of her own.

The summarised accounts of all four autobiographies will now be used to identify the various forms of cultural capital mentioned. It is quite true that all four women faced financial difficulties, especially the first three women mentioned. It would not be wrong to say that they chose to become escort girl due to a lack of economic capital. Nonetheless, it is arguable that these girls were not that ‘poor’ and ‘desperate’. For instance, the author in Belle could have given up her lifestyle in London and moved back to stay with her parents. Undubetly, with her educational background, she could have found an administrative job, a job at restaurant or even in a supermarket. In Elizabeth, the author could have changed her children’s school from private to state school, discontinued the expensive after-school clubs and the music lessons. The women all had a degree level qualification and hence, the choice of not becoming escort girls. Nevertheless, they chose to work as escort girls instead of giving up their ‘lifestyle’. It is this ‘lifestyle’ that cultural capital has been deeply embedded in. In addition, by acting or working as escort girls, they all played and are required to obtain certain forms of cultural capitals in order to maintain their ‘lifestyle’. Chapter 3 pointed out that cultural capital exists in three forms; an incorporated state, an objectified state and an institutionalised state. These classification of cultural capital will be identified with regards to these autobiographies.

The first form of cultural capital is an incorporated state such as body and mind. In both Callgirl and Mayflower, the importance of their figures is mentioned; ‘At current rate of food consumption, if I didn’t get to the gym soon I wouldn’t be able to work for Peach [the owner of the agency] at all anymore’ (Callgirl, 2004, p.228) and as Sydney said in her induction to her new girls, ‘It’s also important to keep in shape. These guys are not paying $200 an hour to see somebody who’s overweight or flabby’.(p.63). The appearance – to wear the right clothes is also crucial and is mentioned in all four autobiographies. In Belle, it is written ‘If you leave an impression at all, it should be of a well-dressed lady. You are a business woman.’(p.10) and in Callgirl, ‘I’d already spent some of my money on what I was already thinking as professional expenses, smart little suits at Next and the Express…’(p.44). Particularly, in Mayflower, Sydney had a very strict dress code for her girls, she chose to go for the elegant and classic look (p.54). Sydney expresses that she wanted her girls to look like business executives and would always be very careful about ‘too much make up, seamed stockings, or anything else that might suggest a stereotypical call girl’ (p.55), and in her induction for the new girls, Sydney stated

You must always wear a skirt or a dress. (...) You’ll also need a dress, which should be lady like and tailored, with no frills or ruffles. If you’re at a restaurant and one of the client’s colleagues walks in, it’s important that you look like a business associate and not like a girlfriend he keeps on the side.’(p.64)
and again

If you’re walking through the lobby of the Pierre at midnight, you want to look as if you belonged there’(p.58).


Correct manners are also very important; ‘I know which knife and fork to use’(Elizabeth, p.103) and in Mayflower as Sydney told her girls ‘We do not drink hard liquor in this agency, which means no gin and tonics, no margaritas, no Scotch. We drink Perrier, soda, wine, and Champagne.’(pp.68-69). Not only are escort girls judged by a certain criteria, but the same is true of the clients; ‘There were men whose choice of language told us more than we wanted to know. For the man who asked, “Whaddaya got tonight?” the answer was a dial tone’ (Mayflower, p.122). These emphasis on the body, appearances and manners echo the analysis of consumption culture and the notion of distinction and cultural capital derived from Bourdieu. As Featherstone points out,

the body is treated as a sign for others and not as an instrument (…) body size, volume, shape, posture, way of talking, sitting, ways of eating, drinking, (…) pitch, tone of voice, accent, complexity of speech pattern, body gestures (…) these all portray the habitus of one’s origins. In short the body is the materialisation of class taste (…)’(ibid, p.90 emphases added).

With regards to the mind, this is abstract and more difficult to analyse. Sydney’s account of the way in which she managed and marketed the image of her escort agency is probably the best illustration in this case. The name of Sydney’s agency was carefully chosen – Cachet. According to Sydney, the name was chosen because it sounds elegant and has a French flavour and also, ‘you have to be reasonably civilized to know how to pronounce it’(p.42). As for marketing, Sydney‘s advertisement stated, ‘We’re not for everyone. (…) For those who can afford to be discriminating, Cachet introduces a new standard of elegance and distinction.’(p.45 emphases added). Additionally, the language is used very carefully; Sydney told her telephone assistants to always refer to the girls as ‘young ladies’ (p.107). Girls’ aliases are selected in accordance to the agency’s image because for Sydney, certain names always suggest specific images (p.127); names like Monique, Noelle, Nicole, and Tiffany made a girl sound like a hooker which was the image that Sydney’s agency avoided being associated with (p.128).

The second form of cultural capital is in an institutionalised state, namely cultural goods. The first thing noticed is the class, status and the wealth of the clients. Not only can escort girls be treated as a commodity, they have to acquire the right image in order to be bought by the clients or to be displayed as a symbol of the clients’ richness. Also, the clients here are regarded as the magnitude of an escort girl or an agency’s success. The description of wealth or high status, either directly or indirectly described, can be found in all four autobiographies. In Callgirl Jeannette wrote, ‘clients were university faculty lecturers, stockbrokers, and lawyers. (…) they could afford to spend two hundred dollars for an hour’s company.’(p,7), and there was a client who always took her to the symphony and Handel and Hayden Society events as well as the opera (p.64). In Mayflower, Sydney’s client’s ranged from extremely wealthy businessmen who can fly over from London on the Concorde just for a party (p.83), to a Saudi prince, and foreign diplomats. The hotels that a client stayed at were also important; Sydney only sent her girls to the best and most respectable hotels. The description of a client’s house and its location can also imply a client’s class and income status; ‘we had pulled up at a large house surrounded by a rather lush-looking front garden, which was shielded by a wall and a pair of electronic gates.’(Elizebeth, p.92). In Callgirl, Jeannette also once visited a client’s house at Weston, a very nice neighbourhood with mock-Tudor style mansions (p.167). These statements precisely reflect Foltz’s analysis, ‘the exposure to clientele of higher socio-economic status elevates their [prostitutes’] own status’(1979, p.124). In Jeannette’s case, because of her close relationship with the owner of the agency, she was able to socialise with the owner’s friends at events held at the owner’s place. Jeannette described the people who attended such events as ‘bright, well-read, able to carry on witty conversations on nearly every topic.’ and she called the owner’s place as a ‘salon’(p.140). Furthermore, escort girls have to have the ability to hold intelligent conversations in order to demonstrate not their educational status (the third form of cultural capital) but also to show that that they possessed certain cultural goods, such as sophisticated books, certain magazines and music. In Elizabeth, it is mentioned, ‘I could speak good English (…), and could discuss films, travel, the merits of private education and, my absolute passion, books…’(p.103). Sydney also told her girls that ‘At the very least, you should be reading Time or Newsweek and watching “60 Minutes” on a regular basis.’(p.70).

Education qualification is the third form of cultural capital. All three escorts girls in Belle, Elizabeth and Callgirl are very well educated and the author of Belle graduated university. Jeannette is certainly highly educated and the author of Elizabeth would have been considered as well educated during her time – she achieved O level‘s. In Mayflower, Sydney’s girls are all well educated or hoping to acquire higher education qualifications or working in professional areas. To give some examples, a girl called Christie worked in advertising; Arlene worked as a lawyer; Suzanne studied at medical school and for Clarissa who worked for Sydney in order to save enough money to go on to study veterinary medicine (p. 83, 93, 131). Education is important for escort girls to possess or in some cases, pursue, and it is equally as important for the agencies in defining its market. Jeannette points out that her agency required the girls to have a minimum of some college education and targeted a ‘specialty niche’ – ‘clients who wanted intelligent conversation along with their sex’(p.7). Jeannette believes that because of her education and intelligence, she was requested more frequently than the twenty-year old blondes. This also helped the agency settle into its niche (p.233). Moreover, Sydney told her telephone assistants to tell the clients that they ‘hire only girls who work or go to school during the day. (…) A few of our young ladies are aspiring dancers, actresses, or models…’(p.113). Additionally, in Elizabeth’s case, she recognises the importance of education, not for her but for her children; she worked in order to send some of her children to private schools. She also mentions that she told some of her clients the reason she worked as an escort was to put her child (she only told them she had one child) through private school. She believes the reason she provided for her wealthy clients, that ‘the provision of a good education was a laudable reason to prostitute (….) Private education fell within their own sphere of value.’(p.96 my emphases). Concisely, education is significantly important for being an escort girl, as it is for the agencies and for the clients.

In addition, there is another form of cultural capital – femininity, which plays a rather important role but which is not mentioned by Bourdieu. In all four autobiographies, it can be found that escort girls spent a certain amount of effort on investing in their femininity in order to ‘sell’ themselves. Thus, femininity can be treated as a form of cultural capital. In Belle, the author is certainly aware of the importance of femininity for her work; as she states ‘flat boots, short hair, cropped trouser, rara shirts? I’d never get work again.’(p.103). This is also written in Elizabeth, ‘I looked down at my flat, weather-beaten shoes in despair. They were wrong. I needed heels, not the flat pumps of a schoolgirl.’(p.77). In Mayflower, Sydney repeatedly stresses the importance of the girls’ looks. She not only wants the girls to look right or look like a business executive, but also, she goes on to point out that generally, female executives who wore business suits were not very feminine. Hence, her girls ‘chose more stylish suits and glamorized them with a soft blouse, a colorful belt, high heels, and fancier earrings.’(p.58). Femininity is undoubtedly a selling point and a form of cultural capital. As Skeggs (1997) points out, femininity was the property of middle-class women and they used it to construct distinctions between themselves and others (p.101).

Distinction is the key word here. All four women deployed peculiar cultural capital to distinguish themselves from others, or to be more precise, distinguish themselves as escort girls/high class escort agencies from the stereotypical image of prostitution. Jeannette has a very strong reaction when a friend tells her she is a hooker. She furiously defends herself and states, ‘I’m not a hooker’(p.71). In Mayflower, Sydney endeavoured to avoid the stereotype of prostitution from the language she uses to the clothes and the make-up she advises the girls to wear. In Elizabeth, the author expresses her surprise when she met another escort girl while she is at the agency for her interview; ‘she didn’t look at all how I had imagined a prostitute would, nor did she look unhappy about being one. She looked glowing and energetic and immaculately groomed, with painted fingernails, minimal make-up and eyes framed by well-shaped brows.’(p.84). For Belle, although the author stated at the very beginning of the book ‘I’m a whore’, there is no way she would compare her situation to street prostitutes; the way in which she wittily expresses her ideas and experience are of itself a way to distinguish herself from others, and a form of cultural capital.

Not only do these women deploy forms of cultural capital to distinguish themselves, they have to either possess or have the ability to acquire certain culture capital in order to stay in the ‘market’. Before entering into the ‘market’, the escort girls already possess a certain ‘right’ cultural capital, such as having come from middle-class families and being reasonably educated. These ‘right qualities’ enable and facilitate them to become escort girls. Subsequently, and for whatever reason they entered the market, they start to build up and accumulate more cultural capital, which they could not have been able afford previously. For example, to purchase further education, expensive clothes and a comfortable lifestyle. The ownership and the display of the newly-acquired cultural capital enables them to stay in the ‘market’ and be recognised in other societies that they did not belong to. In other words, it is through the use of cultural capital that these escort girls are able to buy into certain identities. However, their relationship with the identities they ‘buy into’ is an ‘artificial relationship’. They seemingly possess these identities but it is only through displaying certain cultural capital such as, expensive clothes, correct manners and presenting the ‘right’ image that they temporarily, if not permanently gain the ownership of those identities. This is precisely what Falk (1994) points out when he states that, by possessing particular goods and products, individuals can gain certain identities and status without actually becoming so (see chapter 3).

They seem to be caught up in a cycle whereby they possess certain culture capital in order to improve qualitatively and quantitatively the cultural capital they already possess. The more and ‘higher class’ of cultural capital they obtain, the more they need to work and in order to maintain such ‘lifestyle’. In a world where success is increasingly measured by the symbols one displays and the materials one possesses, it is not surprising that certain individuals strive to obtain such symbols. Although cultural capital is indeed an important currency for escort girls, they are often unaware of it, or trivialise the currency even though they possess, display and are inspired to obtain it. They often reflect their choice of becoming escort girls as a result of a lack of economic capital, the same explanation given by the majority of the researches regarding sex workers. Economic power is important but again as Bourdieu points out, pure economic power is powerless. It is the ‘things’ money can obtain and display in order to make distinction that possesses the power and the significance in the lives of these escort girls.

Conclusion

Researches on prostitution disproportionately focus on street prostitution and ignore other forms of prostitution. Consequently, the accounts provided are based upon solely structural socio-economical view point. This dissertation is an attempt to look at high-class prostitution – escort girls in Western society, and to investigate the role of other forms of capital, which may have contributed to the construction of the escort industry. This dissertation recognises the importance of including the accounts of the subjects of the study and adopts the methodology of using autobiographies written by escort girls. By adopting this methodology, the dissertation aims to provide a more complete and accurate picture from the escort girls own personal accounts.

Unlike most of the studies on prostitution, these women do not lack economic capital or the ability and means to obtain economic capital; they are all well educated and come from middle-class family backgrounds. In order to look into this puzzling phenomenon, this dissertation employs the notion of cultural capital derived from Pierre Bourdieu as well as recent literature on contemporary consumption to theorise the forms of cultural capital embedded in the life of these escort girls. Three forms of cultural capital are classified in chapter 3, which enables the dissertation to identify the embedded cultural capital from the selected autobiographies. Firstly, an incorporated state of cultural capital is unearthed in the emphasis placed on the importance of body figures – to have the right appearance and the correct manner. Secondly, the wealth of a client, which is regarded as the measurement of the successfulness of an escort girl is suggested to be an institutionalised form of cultural capital, as well as the ability an escort girl has to demonstrate her possession of certain knowledge of cultural goods. Thirdly, education as a form of cultural capital can be easily identified through the emphasis on the importance of the level of education shown in all four autobiographies. Additionally, this dissertation suggests that femininity can also be regarded as a form of cultural capital in the lives of these escort girls.

For these women who certainly do not correspond with the stereotypical image of prostitutes, this dissertation employs the concept of cultural capital to provide a plausible explanation. In a world that is becoming increasingly dominated by consumption power, one’s successfulness can no longer be judged only by his/her economic capital ownership. Again, as Bourdieu points out, pure economic power is powerless. This dissertation argues that for these escort girls, the importance is not money but the symbols and the materials that money can be converted into. They employ cultural capital to buy into certain identities. Their relationship with those identities is an ‘artificial relationship’ – a relationship which is based upon the display of certain cultural capital. Escort girls are the epitome of the ever increasing consumption culture and the power of cultural capital. They possess, display and employ cultural capital with or without being aware of it. They are driven to obtain more advanced cultural capital in order to keep themselves in the ‘market’. They are caught up in a cycle with the power and the desire to obtain cultural capital. Here, economic capital or money is no longer the end of their actions but the means for them to obtain cultural capital. They are living in a material world and they are material girls.


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