In , I collapsed all of my identities onto themselves. Previously, I had written under my legal name — essays and reviews — unless I wrote about sex work, in which case I published under one or two pseudonyms. I solicited clients and created a public-facing escort persona, social media and all, under an entirely different name, and referred to myself as such with people who hired me.
I had a whole other name to reveal to them as my real name — also fake — if they pushed too hard. Slowly, I thought, why not remain Sophia, full-time? I became myself and I quickly developed a higher retention rate with men who wanted to pay to sleep with me. Everyone preferred Sophia, which is to say: what people really want to buy from sex workers is not sex, but a mode of authenticity with fewer imperfections, and it was easier for me to feign this when I was pretending about other things less.
I will always answer more warmly — more truly — to my own name. The art and sex markets are ripe for scam — for price gouging and asset manipulation — because consumers are purchasing a conduit to a feeling.
Each buyer is in search of a particular state of being and wants to see that state reflected back to themselves. Whether meaningful or shallow, the particular state one desires is priceless, as in: ever fervently and desperately sought, intrinsic to desire itself, commanding at whatever level of the market one is dipping into.
The buyer is seeking confirmation of who they are, or who they want to be, or who they were, in purchasing a painting or an overnight: a virile man; a widow with taste; a just-promoted banker; a cheating spouse; maybe a failson who wants, violently, success. I spoke with Sarah Michelson, a choreographer, about this phenomenon in a series of conversations in the summer of ; she assigned gestures to these ego relations, getting at the core of it.
