ESCORT GRANNY
MEET THE AUSSIE MATURE-AGE SEX WORKER WHO LOVES HER JOB
Taylor Tara is not your average grandmother. For the past nine years, she’s worked as an escort in brothels throughout Western Australia and northern Queensland.
And the 56-year-old is here to say she really loves her job.
“You do get a lot of satisfaction out of it,” Taylor tells New Idea. “If you only get one person a week that really needs somebody at that time, it makes what we do really worth it.”
Taylor’s family – she has three children and seven grandchildren – are behind her choice of career as a mature-age sex worker.
“I brought up my children to not judge people,” she says. “If it ever comes up (with her grandchildren) it won’t seem out of the norm now.”
She concedes some people she meets are taken aback when they find out what she does for a living. “They say, ‘Oh my God, I would never have picked that in a million years,’” she says.
“But every second person will have met a working girl, you just don’t know they’re a working girl.”
Before she started in the sex industry, Taylor’s perception of prostitution was, like most people, that it was taboo. She says the negative stereotypes about the industry aren’t fair.
“It’s totally not what people think and hopefully, by talking about it, I can help break the stigma around the sex industry,” she says.
“Very few of the clients are sleazy and the ideas about working girls are so wrong. I’ve learnt the need and importance of the services we’re providing to people.”
Taylor has detailed her experiences as a sex worker in her debut book, Tara – Memoirs from the Boudoir. The book is full of steamy Fifty Shades of Grey- style scenes, which she says are 100 per cent true.
“Only the names have been changed,” she adds.
In the book, Taylor talks about a guy she calls Christmas Bruce, who had booked her for three days over Christmas.
“His 20-year fantasy was to wake up beside someone at Christmas,” Taylor says.
“He cried he was so happy. We do more than a lot of people realise.”
When she started, Taylor was conscious of her age. But she was told early on by brothel madam Linnea that she had nothing to worry about.
“She said, ‘There are horses for courses, darling,’” Taylor recalls. “You get younger people who think they can teach you something and older ones who have granddaughters and daughters, who don’t want anyone younger.”
By Stephen Downie · Tara – Memoirs from the Boudoir, by Taylor Tara is out now, RRP $29.99.
“HOPEFULLY, BY TALKING ABOUT IT, I CAN HELP BREAK THE STIGMA AROUND THE SEX INDUSTRY”