Like any other consumer, "Paddy" wants to make sure he's getting quality service at a good price. But it's tough to comparison-shop in an underground industry. Unless you also frequent the Web.
Like amateur music critics or software reviewers, dozens of johns are regularly logging on to JR's Super Sex Guide and Georgia Powers' Field Reports to trade appraisals of call girls from Nevada to Nairobi.
Most of the posts range from positive to ecstatic. "Not only are Hollywood's breasts magnificent to behold, but she can do things with them that are just amazing," gushes The Tall Gentleman, a patron of one of Nevada's legal brothels, the Sagebrush Ranch.
Of course, not everyone has such a good time. "It was sort of like getting self-serve gas," sums up "Paddy", a disappointed customer of Nevada's Chicken Ranch brothel.
Things are even chancier where prostitution is illegal. An anonymous San Francisco-area resident reports making his way to a suburban bordello only to find that, despite what he had been promised, the women were not as beautiful as Las Vegas showgirls. "While I never ever walked out of a place," he recounts, "I was real close here."
A single, forty-eight-year-old Bay-area software designer who calls himself "Doc," says he hires hookers only half a dozen times a year, but discusses them online "every damn day."
"Being a man who visits prostitutes used to seem shameful and secret," he explains. "Now I've found a community of intelligent, professional, upscale guys who like the same thing I do."
JR's Super Sex Guide, the more ambitious of the two sites, offers a lonely planet of sleaze, from accounts of handjobs in northern California to lascivious acts in La Paz, Bolivia, with a special emphasis on Tijuana, Mexico. Contributors are asked to give women scores of 1 to 5 in categories including "physical body", "inside beauty", and "technique, skills, and dexterity used in the service rendered."
It's a helpful system. "In 1996, before there was any real discussion on the Internet about prostitution in Mexico, I visited over 20 ladies there. In 1997, largely because of what I learned from other guys on the Internet, I saw only six, and overall had a much better experience," testifies "Rob D. Poor."
Webmaster "John Right" declines to identify himself beyond saying, "I work in the financial sector and I am very wealthy." Among his contributors, "the only common characteristic is that they are all male, have computers, and have access to the Internet. My site tends to attract johns who need information, but they generally don't have the desire to email with the girls."
Georgia Powers' Field Reports is a much more folksy, communal affair, focusing exclusively on Nevada's legal brothels. Webmaster "Bashful", a self-described lonely computer programmer living in the southwest, has been an enthusiastic whoremonger since losing his virginity at Nevada's Mustang Ranch years ago. He tries to keep the review area, at least by his own definition, respectful. Other areas of the site, however, feature links to various sex businesses.
Unlike JR's Super Sex Guide, Bashful's site encourages women to chime in. There are posts from outraged wives, and from prostitutes griping about cheap customers, greedy managers, and lousy working conditions. Bashful allows the professionals veto power over the reviews: "If a woman doesn't like a report, I'll yank it," he says.
Some women, at least, are quite happy to see their names and talents described online. "As a professional, I welcome the online reviews," says a Nevada working girl, who calls herself Mystical Magdalene Meretrix. "They represent perpetual, wide-reaching word-of-mouth recommendations," she points out -- helpful in an industry that can't otherwise advertise.
Still, even JR's SuperSex Guide webmaster Right acknowledges he has received complaints from prostitutes about the reviews. And the more female-friendly Bashful admits, "Some women do feel it's an invasion of privacy. There are guys who wouldn't say to their face, 'you're old, ugly, and fat,' but they will post it online."
