Singapore sex worker reveals all about life as an escort: ‘I’m proud to call myself a whore’
- During her work, high-end escort Ashley Chan has been paid to kick a man in his genitals, choke a man wearing a hood, and ingest a nightly cocktail of drugs
- A university student by day, she talks about how race affects a sex worker’s financial worth, her mental scars and clinging to the ‘Singaporean Dream’
In her five years as an escort, 24-year-old Ashley Chan (not her real name) has learned several tenets, including how to be absolutely discreet and why you should never fall in love. Welcome to the life of a high-end escort in Singapore.
In Chan’s new memoir, Scarlet Harlot: My Double Life, published by Epigram Books, the undergraduate and sex worker pulls back the veil on the sex industry in the squeaky-clean city state, revealing a sordid underbelly where men pay in the thousands for the hourly companionship of Chan and her peers – and what they do in the hours they’ve bought.
“I’m proud to call myself a whore,” she says coolly in an interview.
During her work, the escort and business studies undergraduate has been paid to kick a man in his genitals, choke a man wearing a hood, and ingest a nightly cocktail of drugs as a professional “party girl”.
There were, of course, the garden-variety sex calls that were more uncomplicated: Chan would show up at a hotel and let her client do “whatever they wanted” to her for two hours.
While Chan declines to disclose exact numbers, she’s cavalier about the things that her work has afforded her: designer goods, a S$12,000 (US$8,900) enhancement surgery on her nose and chin, and all university tuition fees. As an escort that’s part of an agency, Chan also reveals that she has a “quota” – though it’s “very variable”.
“During the pandemic, it’s been quite difficult to work, and my earnings have been reduced by some 60 per cent,” she says. “Thankfully, I have my pool of regulars who are still supporting me through these hard times. I’m still relatively privileged compared to others.”