NEWSThe Oldest Profession Goes High Tech! Inside The Lives Of Silicon Valley Sex Worker Millionaires
April 17 2013, Published 10:54 a.m. ET
The world's "oldest profession" has gone high tech, as an influx of sex workers hit the Silicon Valley area—and like any successful entrepreneurs, they're making bank!
The Bay Area's higher than average wages, combined with a large concentration of young single men is like manna from heaven for some professional ladies, who, according to a new report from CNN Money are making in excess of a million dollars plying their trade -- and OKMagazine.com can offer you a glimpse inside the steamy and seedy side of Silicon Valley vice life.
Kitty Stryker (l) and Siouxsie Q (R) are two of the sex worker entrepreneurs making bank in Silicon Valley
The booming local sex industry encompasses a number of services — from adult massage to prostitution to escorting to specialty dominatrix work — and the most successful of the women are mimicking their tech savvy clientele when it comes to marketing their services.
"I'm trying to communicate to them that I understand a little bit what it's like to be techy, nerdy, geeky," one worker, named 'Josephine' tells CNN Money. "I consider myself to be a small business owner."
'Josephine' deliberately markets herself to attract the attention of the area's well paid engineers and computer programmers, wearing T-shirts emblazoned with slogans such as "Geeks Make Better Lovers" and "Winter Is Coming" in her on-line escort ads.
The sex worker entrepreneurs use tech savvy marketing tools to help ply their trade
"Everything I know about social media marketing I learned doing sex work," says another worker, Kitty Stryker, who works during the day as a social media marketer for a startup then charges $350 plus an hour for her "other job."
Stryker says she uses the same apps to promote her sideline adult business as she does during her day job.
"Currently I'm using Hootsuite a lot; I'm using Klout a little bit. I also use Twitter calendar, which is just this simple free thing, but it's got very interesting analytics data," she says.
27-year-old Siouxsie Q claims she finds sex work "very feminist and empowering"
Stryker is an outspoken advocate for women in the sex industry and proud of her work — even going so far as to contribute regularly to a podcast created by Siouxsie Q, a fellow sex worker, stripper and activist.
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"I consider the sex work that I do my career," Siouxsie tells CNN Money. "I would like the podcast to be a vehicle to really humanize sex work and have people see that I am just a girl trying to make a living and pursue the American dream."
And like any smart modern day small business operator, Siouxsie, who claims she finds sex work "very feminist and empowering", builds her client base with the help of social media.
Kitty Stryker works during the day as a social media marketer for a startup then charges $350 plus an hour for her "adult work"
"I have a Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, I have two websites, and I have Google Voice," she says — sharing that Twitter is especially good for her burgeoning video business, which includes live shows.
"When I'm doing a shoot or I'm doing a cam show, I will absolutely take pictures and put them out there and say, 'Hey, this is what you're missing out on.' The more I tweet, the more folks end up in the chat room," she boasts.
Not surprisingly, sex sells well in the testosterone fueled tech industry — and it pays too.
"I live a fairly extravagant lifestyle for a 27-year-old living in San Francisco. I go out to eat, I buy nice clothes, I go on trips," Siouxsie claims.
Kitty and Siouxsie are outspoken advocates for women working in the sex industry and host a regular podcast on the business
"I'm quoting Belle de Jour, who did Secret Diary of a Call Girl, but you know, you sell the strength of your arms when you dig a hole. Selling our bodies -- which everyone thinks of as this big scary thing -- anyone who has a job that requires labor does that."
As with every other potentially lucrative business, competition is fierce, with workers scrambling to bag the big spending clients.
"There's a lot of competition to get the big-name clients," says 'Karen', who claims to have made over a $1 million during the time she's been working in the area. "When you do land them, I've heard of women getting condos, whatever they need."
'Karen' explains that the majority of her clients work in the tech industry, describing them as, "young guys who have the money to spend on what they need. When they're working long days, this is something they simply see as what they need."
Meanwhile, the ladies are confident their booming business is a sign of the recovering economy — something that is bound to be good news for those who chose the more conventional 9 - 5 type of work!
"It's interesting to hear on the news about the economy and how it's recovering," 'Josephine' says. "If you were to gage by my business, it's recovering a lot faster."
