How I chose this profession - or how it chose me!
This article is part of a series. To read the first part, click on the following link: Who am I really?
People ask me this question often. Sometimes out of genuine curiosity, sometimes with that little undertone searching for the wound, the trauma, the dark reason. The truth is less dramatic and, I think, more unsettling for those who would like to pity me: I chose this profession because I wanted to. Because one night in Geneva showed me something I could no longer ignore.
It was a Wednesday evening in November. I was 23, I had been living in Geneva for a year, translating legal contracts for a firm at the end of Rue de Rive, and I was earning a decent living - but decent, and nothing more. Enough to pay for my apartment in the Pâquis, dress myself without going broke, go out on weekends. Not enough to live the way I felt I could live.
That evening, a friend had taken me to a cocktail reception at a hotel on the right bank. The kind of event where men wear five-figure watches and talk loudly to say nothing. I was out of place, and I knew it. But I stayed - because the Champagne was good and because I had noticed a man on the other side of the room.
The Man from the Richemond
He was around 50. Not handsome in the classical sense - tall, greying temples, a way of holding his glass that said "I have nothing to prove to anyone." He looked at me twice before crossing the room. Not the usual predatory gaze. Something calmer, more direct. He said: "You look like you're as bored as I am."
We talked for two hours. He was in finance, Swiss-German, divorced, intelligent. Very intelligent. The kind of man who truly listens to what you say before responding. At midnight, he suggested continuing the conversation in his suite - at the Richemond, just next door. I said yes without hesitating. Not because I had been drinking. Because I wanted to.
What happened that night I will largely keep to myself. But I can say that this man knew exactly what he was doing. With his hands, with his voice, with the time he took. I was 23 and had already had lovers, but that night was different. There was a quality of attention I had never felt before. As though I were the only thing that existed in that room.
The following morning, before I left, he placed an envelope on the nightstand. Five hundred-franc notes. He said nothing. He looked at me with a kind of quiet respect, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
What I Felt
I expected to be shocked. Offended, perhaps. That's what one is supposed to feel, isn't it? I took the envelope. And what I felt was something strange and very calm - a kind of clarity. Like when you understand something you already knew without ever having said it to yourself.
I wasn't humiliated. I was acknowledged. There is an enormous difference between the two.
That night had pleased me - truly pleased me, physically and otherwise. And someone was thanking me for it in a concrete way. The money was not a sordid transaction. It was a form of respect for something I had offered with sincerity.
I walked back to the Pâquis with those five hundred francs in my bag and one question in my mind: what if it were really that simple?
The Weeks That Followed
I didn't dive in immediately. I spent three weeks thinking it over, looking for reasons not to do it. Social shame. The judgement of others. What my parents would say if they knew. Those reasons were real - they still are. But none of them was stronger than the certainty that something in me was perfectly aligned with this choice.
I began to inform myself. How it works in Switzerland - and in Switzerland, it is legal, which changes a great deal. I read testimonies, forums, articles. I came to understand that there were several ways to practice this profession, and that the way I wanted to do it - with selection, with independence, with my own rules - was possible.
My first listing was brief. A understated photo, a few lines. My phone rang within 48 hours.
Why I Have No Regrets
Four years on, I still ask myself the question from time to time - not out of doubt, but out of intellectual honesty. Would I make this choice again? Yes. Without hesitation.
This profession has taught me things about men, about desire, about myself that ten years of ordinary life could never have taught me. It has given me real financial freedom - I don't count my expenses, I travel when I want, I have serious savings at 27. It has confronted me with complex, sometimes uncomfortable situations that have forced me to know exactly who I am and what I want.
Are there difficult days? Yes. I will talk about the grey areas in other articles - the loneliness, the boundaries to set, the rare times when something went wrong. I am not selling a fairy tale.
But that Wednesday evening in November, in that suite at the Richemond with a man who knew how to take his time - that is where Sofia truly began. And that woman, I rather like her.
Sofia
Sofia, 27 — Based in Geneva, she fully embraces her life as a luxury escort and speaks about it openly.
Through her stories, she shares her beginnings, her experiences with an international clientele, the advantages of the job (luxury, freedom), but also the more complex realities. She writes in a simple, honest way about what truly happens behind the doors of Swiss hotels.
This text was originally written in French. It was then translated to be readable in your language.
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