Sex trade booms despite deaths

Source: http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Edmonton/2008/11/01/7272991-sun.html

As far as Nancy’s concerned, Edmonton’s the best city in Canada to work as an escort.

“There’s more money and less grief,” she says. “The police are excellent for helping us, the cost of living is good compared to bigger cities and the licensing system works.”

FAR FROM RISK-FREE

Edmonton escorts routinely charge up to $600 per hour, but Nancy warns that it’s far from risk-free.

“This business will weed you out,” she says. “A lot of very naive girls get into it, but it’s survival of the fittest. If you last, it means you’ve learned, or grown up.”

But if you don’t learn, she adds darkly, “You could die.”

Edmonton’s so-called inside sex trade has been rocked this year by two high-profile deaths. The body of Brianna Torvalson, 21, who had been working over the Internet, was found on Feb. 21 on an acreage in Strathcona County. No charges have been laid in her slaying.

Then on June 30, the body of Chantel Robertson, 20, was found in a shallow grave behind a south-side house. She had been strangled. Matthew Todd Barrett, 24, has been charged with first-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body.

Robertson was last seen at 2:30 a.m. June 28 when she was dropped off at a client’s house in the same neighbourhood. Sources said her cellphone – an escort’s “lifeline” – had been switched off and no one was able to make contact with her.

Nancy, a veteran of the business, says escorts quickly learn to size up a situation and determine whether it’s safe.

It begins on the phone. She gets a feel for new customers simply by talking to them. Are they nervous? Do they sound high? What are they into, sexually?

When she arrives, Nancy makes sure everything is as discussed. Are there extra people in the room? Did he lie about his appearance? Does he behave differently than he did on the phone?

“About 95% of the guys are totally fine,” she says. “Mostly, they’re just square dummies.”

She’d rather deal with someone high on crack than a drunk, any day.

“You just raise your voice and the crackheads are going, ‘Sshh, I don’t want any trouble,’ ” she says. “Drunks are the ones you have to watch out for. Booze makes people aggressive.”

Nancy prides herself on her ability to “de-escalate” volatile situations and talk herself out of trouble. Failing that, however, she says she can defend herself if things get out of hand. But in the three decades she’s been an escort, it never has.

“I know we’re taking chances,” she says. “Either you don’t allow yourself to think of it or it just doesn’t enter your mind.”

NO STRAIGHT JOB

Nancy doesn’t even consider getting out of the business and taking a straight job.

“Most women in this business don’t hate the business. It’s a good-paying job,” she says. “How many secretaries get their asses pinched for $10 an hour?”

David Aitken of the city’s bylaw department said there are about 160 licensed escorts in Edmonton, mostly working for any of the nine agencies. Of those, 13 have independent escort licenses.

However, Aitken said that over the past three or four years, there’s been a “significant” increase in prostitution activity over the Internet.