Appendix 1: SASP survey instrument

Introduction

Thank you for agreeing to participate in our Survey of Adult Service Providers, or SASP for short. Because we take your privacy seriously, we have undertaken a number of security precautions to ensure that your answers are kept confidential and anonymous. You will not be asked to record any information that could be used to identify you, nor will Baylor University keep records of respondent IP addresses. The only data we are recording is the data you give us when you voluntarily answer the survey. We ask only that you answer all questions truthfully whenever possible.

As of mid-2008, little to no survey data exists on Internet-based adult service providers. While writers from within the industry and observers of the industry have written numerous books and articles on service providers, and Internet forums, newsletters and trade magazines continually share this knowledge, systematic evidence on the determinants of your wages is missing. We also know very little about things like worker safety, work-related risks, or compensation you receive for exposing yourself to risk.

The primary purpose of our study is to better understand the determinants of your wages, and how the risks you face on the job affect those wages. To better understand this, we will be asking you to share with us information about your job experience, your personal characteristics, and the transactions themselves.

This survey is intended to be completed privately by individuals working as escorts, not by their friends, business associates, or others. If this survey was sent to you in error, please do not complete the survey. If you prefer to mail us your answers without your email, even though we pledge to destroy that information, please do so. If you prefer to have this survey conducted over the telephone, we can also accommodate that request. You can reach us whichever way is best at the contact information below.

Section one: background information

In this section, we would like for you to share some information about your background. We ask these questions so that we can compare your answers to other providers with similar characteristics.

1. Are you male or female?

2. Which of the following best describes your race/ethnicity?

□ White

□ Black

□ Asian

□ Hispanic

□ Other

□ Multiracial

2b. If you answered “Other,” please specify:

2c. Since you selected “Multiracial,” please check all that apply:

□ White

□ Black

□ Asian

□ Hispanic

□ Other

2d. Please list additional racial types below:

3. Are you transsexual?

4. Are you transgendered?

5. Were you born in the United States?

5b. Please indicate which country you were born in:

6. How old are you?

7. How tall are you?

Feet:

Inches:

8. Roughly speaking, how much do you weigh?

9. Have you completed high school or received a GED?

10. Have you attended college for any period of time?

11. Did you receive a college degree?

12. Are you currently a student in any formal educational program, such as a college degree?

13. What was your mother’s highest level of education?

□ Less than 12th grade

□ High school graduate or GED equivalent

□ Some college

□ College graduate

□ Post-graduate

□ Don’t know

14. What was your father’s highest level of education?

□ Less than 12th grade

□ High school graduate or GED equivalent

□ Some college

□ College graduate

□ Post-graduate

□ Don’t know

15. Which of the following best describes your marital status?

□ Currently married and living with your spouse

□ Married but not currently living with your spouse

□ Single and never married

□ Divorced and not remarried

□ Widowed and not remarried

□ Cohabitating (living with a partner) but unmarried

16. How many years have you been married?

17. How many years have you been married?

18. How many years were you married?

19. How many years have you been widowed?

20. How many years have you been living together? If less than one year, type “0.”

21. Do you have any children?

22. What are the ages of your children? If you have more than one child, please separate each age by a comma. Also, if your child is 1 ½, just write 1.

23. How many brothers or sisters do you have? Include any step-brothers or step-sisters who lived in the same home with you for most of the time when you were growing up.

24. How many of these brothers or sisters are OLDER than you?

Section two: historical experience questions

We define “adult service provider” as an occupation in which companionship and/or intimacy is provided in exchange for money. I’d now like to ask you some questions about your career as a provider.

25. At what age did you first work as an adult service provider?

26. Have you ever stopped working as an adult service provider?

27. For how many months did you stop working as a provider the last time you quit?

28. We consider a provider to be “independent” if she runs her own advertisements and solicits her own customers. Do you work as an independent?

□ Yes, I work as an independent.

□ No, I work for a brothel.

□ No, I work for an escort agency.

□ No, I work for a massage parlor.

□ No, I work for a man who solicits customers for me.

29. Have you ever worked as an independent?

30. How many years did you work as an independent?

31. How many years have you worked under your current management?

32. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse when you worked as an independent?

33. Was your take-home pay better or worse as an independent?

34. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked as an independent?

35. Why did you discontinue working as an independent?

36. What keeps you from working as an independent?

37. Have you worked for a massage parlor?

38. How many different parlors have you worked for in your lifetime?

39. How many years did you work at a parlor?

40. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse with a parlor?

41. Was your take-home pay better or worse with a parlor?

42. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked for a massage parlor?

43. Why did you discontinue working for a massage parlor?

44. Have you worked for a brothel?

45. How many different brothels have you worked for in your lifetime?

46. How many years did you work at a brothel?

47. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse with a brothel?

48. Was your take-home pay better or worse with a brothel?

49. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked for a brothel?

50. Why did you discontinue working for a brothel?

51. Have you worked for an escort agency?

52. How many different escort agencies have you worked for in your lifetime?

53. How many years did you work at an escort agency?

54. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse with an escort agency?

55. Was your take-home pay better or worse with an escort agency?

56. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked for an escort agency?

57. Why did you discontinue working for an escort agency?

58. Some adult service providers work for a man who solicits customers for them, usually in return for a share of their earnings. Have you ever worked for a man who fits this sort of description?

59. How many different men of this kind have you worked for in your lifetime?

60. How many years, total, were you employed by this kind of management?

61. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse with this man?

62. Was your take-home pay better or worse with this man?

63. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked for this man?

64. Why did you discontinue working for this man?

65. Finally, have you ever solicited your customers from a public place, like a street, alley, highway, or parking lot?

66. How many years has it been since the last time you tried to solicit a customer from a public place, like a street?

67. Were working conditions (other than pay) better or worse when you worked in public places, like streets?

68. Was your take-home pay better or worse?

69. Did you feel better protected and safer when you worked in public places, like streets?

70. Why did you discontinue working from public places, like streets?

Section three, part a: current business questions (non sensitive)

In the next section, we’d like you to tell us a little bit about your current business practices and environment, including your beliefs about the risks of your work, questions related to screening clients, and other questions related to your work and private life.

71. Did you see any clients in the last week?

72. How many clients did you see in the last week?

73. How many of them were regulars (customers you see frequently)?

74. How many days (including evenings) in the last seven days did you work?

75. About how much money did you make from working as an escort in the last week? Please indicate a dollar amount (example: 5.22, $5, or $5.00):

76. Besides being a provider, do you have another job?

77. On average, how many hours a week do you work at your other job?

78. Do you have medical or health insurance?

79. Do you have Medicaid insurance?

80. In what state do you conduct most of your business as an escort?

81. In the state you listed above, In which city do you conduct most of your business as an escort?

82. How far do you travel typically to meet with a client?

□ 0–1 mile

□ 1–10 miles

□ 10–100 miles

□ More than 100 miles

83. What’s the farthest distance you’ve traveled to meet a client?

84. What’s the farthest distance one of your current clients has traveled to meet with you?

85. Do you expect to be working as an adult service provider this time next year?

86. Do you expect to be working as an adult service provider in five years?

87. What do you plan to be doing after you stop working as an adult service provider?

Section three, part b: current business risks

I would now like to learn more about some of the risks you face in your work.

88. Do you usually undertake safety procedures--for example, conducting a background check, verifying client identification, or using a search engine to find the client’s telephone number or e-mail address--before meeting a prospective client?

89. Which of the following safety procedures do you usually undertake before meeting a prospective client? Check all that apply.

□ Insist on seeing a state-issued ID or other identifying information

□ Use search engine to find the client’s telephone number or e-mail address

□ Require one or more references from other escorts

□ Perform a background check

□ Insist on membership in RS2K or other verification services

□ None of the above

□ Other

90. Since you selected “Other,” please specify:

91. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being very likely and 1 being not at all likely, what do you think is the chance you will ever be arrested by the police for anything you do in the course of your work as a provider?

92. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being very concerned and 1 being not at all concerned, how concerned are you that your friends or family might find out that you are employed as a provider?

93. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being very concerned and 1 being not at all concerned, how concerned are you that one of your clients will become violent towards you?

94. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being very likely and 1 being not at all likely, how likely do you think it is that you will contract HIV from working as a provider?

95. Have you ever been physically assaulted by a client in a way that injured you?

96. Did you file a police report against him or seek to have him held legally accountable for his assault?

97. Have you ever been verbally assaulted by a client?

Section three, part c: recent transactions, price data (sensitive)

The following questions are the most sensitive of all the questions asked so far. I will ask you about your experiences with the last five clients, and will specifically ask you about issues like vaginal sex, condom use and negotiations with clients on price and condom use. These are some of the most important questions in the survey. Please remember that all of your answers are purely confidential. If you do not wish to answer any specific question, please simply skip it and move on to the next question. Even if you feel you can only answer some of the questions in the survey, please answer as many as you can.

In the following questions, I will ask you about events that happened between you and your most recent clients. For the sake of time, I am interested only in the last 5 clients, and so will list these clients from the most recent as Client #1 to the least recent as Client #5.

Client #1

98. Was client #1 a male, a female, or a couple/group of individuals?

99. What race was client #1?

100. If you answered “Other,” please specify:

101. How old would you say client #1 was? (Guess if you don’t know exactly. For instance, if between 20–30, say 25)

102. Indicate the race of the individual members of the group or couple. Check all that apply:

103. Since you also checked “Other,” please specify:

104. Indicate the ages of each of the individuals involved. Separate each age with a comma.

105. On a scale of to 1 to 10, where 10 is “very attractive” and 1 is “extremely unattractive,” how would rate client #1’s overall appearance to you?

106. If client #1 represents a couple or group, rate each individual’s overall appearance to you on a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is “very attractive” and 1 is “extremely unattractive”:

107. About how long, in minutes, did you spend with client #1?

108. How much did client #1 pay you, including any tips?

109. Was client #1 a regular client of yours?

110. How did client #1 first contact you?

□ email/Internet

□ word-of-mouth

□ Telephone

□ face-to-face

□ referral from another provider

□ Other

111. If you selected “Other,” please specify:

112. What city and state did your meeting with client #1 take place?

113. Did your meeting take place in a hotel room?

114. Where did your meeting take place?

115. Did you provide a massage to client #1?

116. Did another provider assist you in your meeting with client #1?

117. Did you kiss client #1 on the mouth but without tongue?

118. Did you kiss client #1 on the mouth with your tongue (i.e., “French kiss”)?

119. Did you and client #1 have vaginal sex?

120. Was a condom used?

121. Whose idea was it to wear a condom?

122. Did you perform oral sex on client #1?

123. Was a condom used?

124. Whose idea was it to wear a condom?

125. Did client #1 perform oral sex on you?

126. Did you have anal sex?

127. Was a condom used?

128. Whose idea was it to wear a condom?

129. Did client #1 ever physically assault you?

130. Were you verbally insulted or verbally assaulted?

131. If you have been assaulted in any way, do you plan to report these assaults to the authorities?

[Each questions was then repeated for Clients #2–#5]

Conclusion

I want to thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview. As stated in the beginning, we want to assure you that your answers will be kept confidential. NO ATTEMPTS WILL BE MADE TO IDENTIFY OR CONTACT YOU AFTERWARDS.

Soon, after all the data is collected, we will begin analyzing the answers to this survey. We will send you an email telling you that the results are online. Until then, please feel free to contact me by email (scott_cunningham@baylor.edu <mailto:scott_cunningham@baylor.edu>) or by telephone (254-710-4753) if you have any questions regarding your participation in this study.