http://www.asiaone.com/Just%2BWoman/News/Women%2BIn%2BThe%2BNews/Story/A1Story20071225-42435.html
Want to be a social escort? You need a degree
first
THE quality of female social escorts or professional companions has
gone up, say agency owners and managers.
Clients, they added, have become more discerning and demanding:
They want degree-holders.
The usual going rate for
escorts is around $200 to $250 for an hour's work, while overnight
rates usually hover around $1,000.
But undergrads or
graduates can command up to $500 an hour.
The agency operators insist that the world of the entertaining
industry - as they would prefer to call it - is not as shady as it
is often made out to be.
Mr Ernest Ting of MS Promotions told The New Paper on Sunday: It
is often misunderstood.
'Think, why would someone want to pay so much, if all that is on
your mind at the end of the day is sex?'
A cheaper option, he offered: 'Head down to the red-light
district and get your fix there. It'll cost you less than half of
what you'd have to pay.'
Another agency manager, MsGlenda, claimed: 'There is often a
misconception. Many times, the clients who hire social escorts or
who can afford to do so, are not your Ah Gongs and Ah Peks.
'They are respectable
businessmen who have to entertain their associates who could be in
town for a few days.'
For this reason, added a
manager of three agencies: 'Surely you'd not want to send the wrong
message out to your clients?
PERSONALITY COUNTS
'They'd want someone who
can dress up properly, carry themselves well and are able to hold
decent conversations without stuttering, spluttering or making
sheer fools of themselves.'
The trend in the past two
years has been to recruit women who are in their mid-20s and more
highly-educated.
Demand has been good, said MrTing.
He added: 'Of course the other problem we face is that these
girls can work as freelancers.
'As such, they could be working for more than one agency. If we
relied on just the number at hand, we could find ourselves short of
manpower.'
Except for one, all the other agencies claimed that
there has been a 40 per cent increase
in the number of undergrad and graduate
escorts.
One agency owner, who only wanted to be known as Ms Kimoi, said:
'But many of our graduates
have been with us since they were undergrads.'
She also revealed that
these undergrads 'had initially entered the trade because they
needed to pay their bills or fees'.
Ms Glenda claimed: 'Many
of them later realise how lucrative or easy it is to make a fast
buck and they become reluctant to leave the
trade.
'But they are usually in
only for the short haul. Some do quit after a couple of
years.'
A major international business conference last year had also
seen an influx in the number of escorts for some of the
agencies.
Yet all the agency owners
reiterated that escorts were not required to offer sexual
services.
But, added Mr Ting: 'We
can't control what is negotiated privately between the escorts and
their clients.'
The managers and owners
insisted that they do not get a cut of the 'extra
services'.
Said one agency manager: 'Prostitution is not illegal in
Singapore but soliciting is. We're not going to risk paying a fine,
going to jail or losing our licence.'
The offence carries a $1,000 fine. Repeat offenders can be fined
up to $2,000 and jailed six months.
But summing it up best was Mr Ting, who said: 'It's a matter of
feeding the right type of meat to cater to the right palate.
'We supply you with what you want. Simple.'
This article first appeared in The New Paper Dec 23
