The Las Vegas Courtesan

I love getting questions to my email and responding as best as I can to them, but it seems like more and more lately I have been getting questions from guys and girls about STD risks and their concerns. With recent fantasy bloggers who post unsafe sex practices while claiming to be real sex workers, I feel like the community needs to be better informed and educated to help protect themselves when seeing providers in the future. It seems like I have to also teach other girls locally in the industry of what are good safe sex practices even if they are only giving oral or a manual release. When I explain to clients at the beginning of the session what my simple rules are, it shocks me sometimes how many people scoff at my two rule list: no kissing and no touching of my genitals or oral on me (well, touching of breasts is okay). They roll their eyes, cry out “why?!”, and very rarely, I even have clients who cancel outright immediately and end the session over this. So I’d like to explain more on here why I have these rules, and why you should have these rules, as well, when experimenting with anyone. By the way, I will only cite references to the CDC.gov website. It’s commonly cited within medical references and journals for all of the information on sexually transmitted diseases and isn’t open to user generated content like Wikipedia, so at least in theory, it’s rock solid science (government and politics aside.)

It seems like some clients feel justified with getting a sexual act done without a condom by paying more. No price justifies something that could potentially harm your own health and is incurable, even something like oral sex. Both HPV and Herpes (HSV-1) can be readily transmitted through oral-genital contact. This is why it is important to use condoms or dental dam when performing or receiving oral from partners. I also learned something while researching this topic: you shouldn’t use silicone-based lubricants with dental dams. Herpes HSV-1 is more commonly known as fever blisters, but can be transmitted orally while HSV-2 is associated with blisters on the genital area. Both forms of the herpes virus are incurable and medications can only reduce the outbreaks. Also, a person with herpes can increase their susceptibility to the HIV/AIDS virus due to open sores.  HPV is highly transmittable through oral and even genital-to-genital contact without penetration. Also there has been relation between head and neck cancers being linked to HPV when contracted orally… even in this study on couples in which one partner had a form of the human papillomavirus. In the study they tracked the spread of the disease between the two partners. One study notes one case of contracting HPV between scrotum and anus — just from the skin-to-skin contact.  I always make my clients wash up beforehand to hopefully reduce the risk of this form of contracting the disease even though I avidly use condoms for any sexual contact. This is why on my Twitter a week or so ago I commented on this status update from Angiewa about a prank call she received. Looking at it now doesn’t seem like much of a prank!

This type of contact brings me onto hepatitis. All of the forms of hepatitis can be linked either to bodily fluids and fecal matter. The back door is not too far from the areas we commonly come in contact with sexually which makes it more important to wash up and use protection even during oral stimulation. You can read more on Hepatitis A-E (I didn’t even know there were that many!) here.

Gonorrhea and Chlamydia are very common sexually transmitted diseases, of course, and can be contracted orally. Since the bacterial infection of Chlamydia is sometimes a silent one, people can easily go undiagnosed for years. Chlamydia can even be found in the throats of women and men who have sex with an infected partner. In gonorrhea, the bacteria can grow in the cervix, uterus, and the urethra of both men and women. It can also grow in the mouth, throat, eyes, and anus. I found this information about gonorrhea when I took the sexual education class after being arrested years ago and it only confirmed my concerns about kissing and contact even via hand.

Of course last but not least is the importance of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS. Since so many people know how the transmission of this autoimmune disease is spread, I think it’s what most people use condoms to protect themselves from yet don’t realize there are a slew of other STDs that are so easily transmittable.

Now, I know I am not a doctor nor am I person in the medical field, but I feel like more people need to be better educated of the many ways that STDs can be transmitted and how they are not just transmitted through vaginal penetration, like many believe. I hate to roll out the list of diseases that can be communicable through oral contact when a client wants to argue about my safety rules, but they need to know and educate themselves even if it’s an uneasy topic in the middle of a session. No price nor gift will sway me to change my rules and I hope it will only benefit others to be more aware of the spread of disease.

As far as my personal health goes, being safe has worked for me, and I believe it will work for all of you, too.

So I talked about Trojan changing their condoms about a month ago and then found today that Consumer Reports had actually done a round of testing on 22 different “models” back in November. The one thing I don’t agree with on their testing was they only did a capacity test, not a friction test. They filled the condoms to a higher capacity than normally done at the production company and then submerged them to see if there was leakage. Apparently its a little difficult to round up couples who want to do the friction test with so many condoms over a long period of time and come back with results of their findings. I’m sure there could be another way to test friction in a lab, but of course it’s not the same thing as two humans performing the same test.

Another thing I noticed on their site was that they mostly tested the thinner condoms and how they held up. Wish I had the full subscription to see if they tested the condom I mostly use (and have witnessed a lot of other girls using) and if they were just trying to find the best combination of thinner and strong, instead of just the strongest condom. If you read what was said on ABC about the subject, more failure occurs with user error than anything else. Goes back to what I’ve said before: a lot of people don’t realize that water based lubricants are the only way to prevent tears or breakage in the condoms. I have to tell girls quite a bit about this rule when I see them pull out lotion or try to use baby oil.

Well maybe in the future Consumer Reports or some other independent testing agency will actually perform a friction test for the condoms instead of a water balloon test. Any volunteers? I’m sure they could find them if they looked harder!

I had said something on my Twitter feed a while back that I was shocked to learn after so many years, the typically used condom by most working girls I know, had changed. I didn’t think anything of it when I made my bi-monthly stop into Costco and loaded up 5+ boxes of the condoms into my cart and saw the yellow notice, “Now with improved lube!” Let me tell you of the odd looks I get at Costco. Flats of water, laundry detergent, house cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and a slew of Trojan condom boxes laying on top of everything (since it’s the last isle before checkout). Too bad they don’t have one of those pump style lube bottles in there because I would get that too!

So I got to a newer box finally and was on a call. I opened up the condom and immediately noticed not only is the lube different but the latex is as well. I always get the thickest condoms (along with most other girls here) for obvious reasons, and hated to see that the latex seemed thinner and more transparent. The good thing about the new lube is it doesn’t taste nasty any more. The previous version was covered in slimy sticky sweetness that I wiped off every time, which sometimes still didn’t get rid of it all. Now I am just worried about the thickness of the condoms. It doesn’t seem super thin but I hate a change in something I’ve come to trust for years! Misleading packaging for sure, but there isn’t another brand I would switch to that I would trust the same.

I need to start adding a surcharge for condoms… because this is getting ridiculous. I usually prepare myself for clients by stocking up on the large boxes of Trojan condoms at Costco or the cheaper Wal-Mart by my house because they are $9-$10 for the whole huge pack. When I run out in the middle of the night because customers are using 3+ condoms and somehow depleted my condom supply in a week? I have to resort to going to Walgreens on the Strip which ends up costing me $30 for the same pack or when I’m in a pinch, $5 for 3 condoms from the gift shop or convenience store. That money adds up!

So.. my conclusion is the first two condoms are free… use 3 and up? $100 surcharge. Haha. Ok so the math works out in my favor but dangit! I am tired of looking like a skank asking for condoms from Habib behind the counter, that weird lady in the gift shops, or shelling out the unnecessary $20 at Walgreens at 4am. I like to do my rubber shopping along with the rest of my shopping! Then maybe no one notices the 60+ condoms in my basket 🙂