Reading Time: 10 minutes

Ten Truths About Modern Men Behind Closed Doors: Confessions of a Girlfriend-for-Hire

If you’ve ever looked at a man and thought, “What is actually going on in there?” — welcome to my world. Here are the confessions of a girlfriend-for-hire.

Not the cliché people imagine when they hear “escort girl.” My world is quieter and more complicated: WhatsApp bookings, discreet Airbnbs, hotel keycards, rideshares at midnight, scented showers, soft playlists, and very, very clear boundaries. It’s the girlfriend experience — the part of sex work that looks the most like dating, just with an agreed price and an exit time.

Over the years, between my own clients and the stories other girls tell over late-night takeout or in anonymous forums, you start seeing patterns. Men aren’t as unpredictable as they think they are. They repeat themselves — in their loneliness, their ego, their tenderness, their lies, their kinks, their shame.

This is what being a girlfriend-for-hire has really taught me about modern men:

1. Most Men Don’t Pay for Sex. They Pay to Switch Off.

People assume my job is a highlight reel of wild sex.

Honestly? A big chunk of my work looks like this: a man in a hotel bed, fully clothed, shoes kicked off, half a plate of room-service food on the table, and him passed out on my chest snoring softly while Netflix keeps asking, “Are you still watching?”

Some nights we don’t even undress.

They arrive wired, tense, talking fast. They complain about their boss, their kids, their wife, their business, the traffic, the economy, everything. Then, slowly, once they realise I’m not going to nag, correct, or ask for school fees, you can feel their whole body drop a gear.

I’ve been paid to watch series, to lie in the dark holding hands, to sit on the balcony in silence while he smokes and tells me about the time he almost ran away from home at 16. For a lot of them, sex is part of the package, but not the headline. The real product is peace.

One of my girlfriends in the once laughed and said, “People think they’re paying us for sex. Half the time they’re paying us to be human Valium.”

She wasn’t wrong.

What they’re buying is a night where they don’t have to be the strong one, the provider, the clown, the leader, the example. They just want, for a few hours, to exist without explaining themselves.

2. “Nice Guys” Are Real — They Just Outsource Their Chaos

I meet men their wives would probably describe as “good husbands.”

They show me pictures of their kids. They speak respectfully. They pay on time, tip generously, apologise if they’re running late. They ask what I’m comfortable with, if I got home safe, if I’ve eaten. They vent about being under pressure, about making sure the family never lacks anything.

And yes, they still cheat.

You’d be surprised how many times I’ve heard, “I love my wife. I’d never leave her. I just… can’t show her this part of me.”

In their heads, I’m not a threat to their marriage. I’m a storage unit for their chaos — the lust, the stress, the meltdown, the fantasies, the side of them that doesn’t match the faithful husband image they’ve built at home. They don’t want to wreck their family with a messy affair that could get emotional. They want something controlled, contained, and forgettable.

Is it hypocritical? Absolutely.
Is it human? Also yes.

I stopped thinking in terms of “good guys” and “trash men” a long time ago. Now I see men who are desperate to keep at least one part of their life clean, even if it means paying someone like me to absorb the dirt.

3. Bachelors Use Us to Test-Drive Intimacy

Single men who insist they “don’t do relationships” are some of the most romantic clients I get.

They book the night, swagger and all. You’re expecting pure “hit it and leave.” Instead, we order takeout and eat in bed. They ask me to wear their hoodie. They pull me onto the balcony just to lean on the rail together and talk about nothing.

Some of them want to cook; one guy once brought ingredients to my Airbnb and made me pasta while I sat on the counter watching him.

Then checkout time comes, and they flip the switch.

“Yeah, I’m not a relationship guy.”
“Feelings aren’t for me.”
“I like my freedom.”

Sure you do, baby.

What they actually like is control. With me, they get all the softness — the cuddles, the listening ear, the feeling of being chosen — without the risk of someone staying long enough to see their worst days. Our intimacy comes with an expiry time, and that makes it safe for them.

They’re not incapable of being a boyfriend, just more comfortable when love comes with checkout at 11 a.m.

4. Older Men Aren’t Just Chasing Young Bodies — They’re Chasing Old Selves

A lot of my regulars have grey in their beards. Some are divorced. Some are widowed. Some still have a ring on their finger and a photo of their family as their WhatsApp display picture.

People love to roll their eyes at older men with younger women, but what I see up close is less “dirty old man” and more “man who hasn’t felt desired in years.”

They talk about their youth like it was another lifetime; university nights in smoky clubs, the first girl who broke their heart, the time they hitchhiked across borders just for a party, the risks they used to take before mortgage payments and school fees. Their eyes go soft when they talk about it.

I’m not just a body in stockings. I’m a reminder of a season when they were lighter, less careful, less serious. They’re not always trying to relive the sex. They’re trying to relive the feeling of being someone else — someone freer.

That’s what a lot of people don’t get: sometimes the real affair isn’t with the girl. It’s with their own past.

5. Money Isn’t What Makes Them Bold. Privacy Is.

On the outside, some of my clients look untouchable. Suits that actually fit, cars that purr instead of rattle, business-class boarding passes, names that end up in newspapers.

Behind the hotel door, a lot of that confidence disappears.

They fret about the curtains being fully closed. They check the peephole. They ask me twice to confirm I won’t take photos. They make me put my phone away. Some use fake names. Some book under their friend’s name. Some use different numbers every time.

But once they believe they’re safe? The shift is almost dramatic.

Once they’re convinced I’m not going to expose them, they relax. The way they talk changes. Their jokes get sillier. They stop sucking in their stomachs. They stop trying to be “sir” and start being just… a man.

Big money doesn’t automatically come with big self-esteem. It comes with bigger things to lose. The bravery you see in public is often propped up by fear. Inside those rooms, privacy is the real luxury they’re hunting.

6. Porn Gave Them Scripts. Real Life Exposes the Gaps.

You can practically tell which porn categories a man watches from the way he touches you.

Some arrive with a clear story in their head: positions, lines, pacing, everything. You can see them trying to replay a scene shot in California in a hotel room in Windhoek or Yaounde with average stamina and zero lighting crew.

Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s sad. Sometimes it’s just awkward.

They focus so hard on “performing” that they forget there’s another human being involved. They want to be the star, not the partner. They don’t always notice the difference between what looks hot on camera and what actually feels good in a real body that gets tired, sore, distracted, emotional.

The clients who leave the biggest impression on me aren’t the ones with porn-level moves. They’re the ones who pay attention. The ones who ask, “Is this okay?” and actually listen to the answer. The ones who don’t treat me like a prop in their private movie.

Porn has given a whole generation of men a blueprint for what sex is supposed to look like. What it hasn’t given them is instinct for how it should feel with a real, breathing, unpredictable human.

7. The Kinks Don’t Shock Me. The Shame Does.

If you hang around my world long enough, you stop being surprised by what turns people on.

I’ve seen the “basic extras”: foot fetishes, stockings obsessions, men who just want to be praised and called a good boy, people who melt for slow choking, spanking, hair pulling, or being pinned down. I’ve met clients who only get aroused when they’re the one in charge — strict, controlling, commanding — and others who can only relax if they’re the one being told what to do.

Then there are the role plays. Boss and secretary. Stranger in a bar. “We’re married but meeting in secret like we’re cheating on our future selves.” Some men want me to dress like a teacher, a nurse, a church girl gone bad. Some want to be the one in heels and lingerie, shaking as they say, “I’ve never shown anyone this side of me.”

Every time I think I’ve seen the full menu, someone comes along with something new, oddly specific, weirdly tender or darkly funny. I don’t shock easily anymore. Bodies are strange. Brains are stranger.

What still gets me is not the kink itself, but the way it’s wrapped in shame.

The way a grown man, successful on paper, can’t look me in the eye when he asks if it’s okay if I sit on his chest, or spit in his mouth, or call him by a name he only uses in his fantasies. The way they apologise three times before they even tell me what they like. The way they use humour as a shield: “You’re going to think I’m a freak, but…”

But instead of risking the person they love looking at them differently, they bring it to me — to hold their secrets and hand them back intact.

I’m not saying every fantasy needs to be acted out, or that every partner has to say yes. Some things are incompatible. Some things cross lines. Some things belong in your head and not your living room.

What I am saying is this: most men are not being destroyed by their kinks. They’re being destroyed by the feeling that if someone ever saw the full, unedited version of their desire, they’d be abandoned on the spot.

The kink is rarely the heaviest thing in the room.
The fear of being unlovable because of it is.

8. Married Men Don’t Only Cheat Because the Sex Is Bad

Sometimes the bedroom at home really is dead. No point lying. But a lot of the married men I see aren’t complaining about technique. They’re complaining about distance.

“We talk, but it’s always logistics. Kids, bills, errands.”
“If I tell her I’m not okay, she thinks she’s failed as a wife.”
“I don’t know how to be weak in front of her anymore.”

What they want from me isn’t always hotter sex. It’s a different role. With their wives, they feel locked into “husband”: strong, capable, stable, sexually predictable. With me, they can show the messy version: nervous, insecure, confused, needy.

That doesn’t excuse anything. Betrayal is betrayal.

But it does explain why some men will risk their entire life for a hotel room where they can say, “I feel lost,” without worrying it will crack the foundation they’ve built at home.

9. Online Is Where Their Real Personality Lives

Before I ever meet a man in person, I meet his online personality.

You’d be surprised what leaks through in those little bubbles. The husband with his family as his profile picture, but cryptic, thirsty statuses no one at home pays attention to. The guy who takes 10 minutes between each reply because he keeps typing “too much” then deleting it. The ones who call late at night, hang up before I answer, then text, “Sorry, ignore that.”

Some want full novels in chat: every emotion, every fantasy, every complaint. Some send voice notes from the car, from the office bathroom, from the gym parking lot. Some only ever message when they’re drunk.

By the time a booking actually happens, I already know what kind of man I’m walking into a room with: the oversharer, the ghoster, the sweet one, the controlling one, the shy one, the one using me as a diary, the one who pretends it’s “just business” but sends “good morning” every day anyway.

The hotel room is just the physical version of a conversation that started a long time before “Where are you?” and “What room number?”

10. Modern Men Live in Split Screens

Modern men don’t just have one self. They live in tabs.

There’s the husband version, sitting on the couch scrolling while his wife dozes next to him.
There’s the boyfriend version, sending “I’m not ready for something serious” texts to a girl who has already memorised his schedule.
There’s the work version, crisp shirt, controlled tone, yes sir, no sir.
There’s the online version, liking things he’d never admit to out loud.
And then there’s the version that walks into my hotel room.

Same man. Five different costumes.

But here’s the twist: if you lined up all those versions, they’d be more similar than he thinks.

The man who jokes crudely with his friends is the same one who cries in my arms when he talks about his father. The one who swears he’s “not boyfriend material” is the same one who falls asleep clutching my hand like a lifeline. The confident husband cracked with dad jokes is the same man who, naked and nervous, asks, “Do you still find me attractive, honestly?”

They keep one slice for home, one for work, one for porn, one for us, one for the group chat. They never let those pieces sit in the same room, because they’re terrified that if anyone saw the whole picture — the tenderness, the kinks, the fear, the ego, the neediness, the softness — it would be too much.

So they compartmentalise. They swear, “This isn’t the real me” in every setting, not realising that all of it is them.

From my side of the bed, that’s maybe the biggest thing I’ve learned about modern men.

And as long as they keep living in split screens, they’ll keep coming to women like me for a place where, for a few stolen hours, all those hidden tabs can stay open at once — before they hit “close all” and go home.

In the End:

The biggest lesson is this: modern men are not simple.

They’re loud and quiet, cocky and terrified, faithful and cheating, loving and selfish, gentle and cruel, sometimes all in the same 24 hours. Underneath the labels — husband, bachelor, sugar daddy, older man, kinkster, “nice guy,” “player” — I keep seeing the same questions echoing:

“Am I still desirable?”
“If someone saw all of me — the fantasy, the fear, the failure — would they stay?”
“How do I carry the life I built without losing myself?”

Some try to answer those questions with porn.
Some with money.
Some with hotel rooms and girls like me.
Some with a strange little fantasies they only whisper in the dark.

What they’re really paying for, when you strip it all down, isn’t just sex. It’s a suspended moment where they get to believe, even briefly, that the most complicated parts of them might still be accepted by someone.

For more reads, check out Erotic Africa for spicy goss from all over the continent and beyond.

839