Male escort agency owner explains how women want just one stand-out quality
Is it a full head of hair or a mighty bank balance? Not really. Anna Grosman, who owns a pay-per-hour companion agency for women, says there’s really only one thing females are looking for.
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Melbourne male escort agency owner Anna Grosman is interviewing for new sex workers. She already has nine men on her books but she’s looking for more to cater for the pressing demand from women customers eager to pay for connection and intimacy.
It’s proving a popular position vacant – Grosman is fielding five or six applications every day, which she vets with an initial questionnaire designed to weed out the arrogant guys who think they’re a “great catch”.
“If I like them, I’ll ask to meet face-to-face and have a coffee for about an hour,” says the 53-year-old, who set up Her Confidant male escort service earlier this year in response to overwhelming interest from female clients.
“They have to be emotionally intelligent, mature, have life experience, love all aspects of women, love making women happy.
“My clients are intelligent, they’re smart and they need that same quality in their gentlemen.”
Another must is height – applicants must fit into a sweet space between 5’10” (178cm) and 6’4” (193cm).
“Clients don’t want short men,” she says. “I’ve got one gentleman under 5’10” but he’s incredibly emotionally intelligent – he gives real Bridgerton vibes.”
Once Grosman has narrowed down her choice and they’ve been through police and health checks, she enlists the services of one of her “triallers” – a single female friend or colleague whose job it is to make sure the services are rendered.
She has several eager testers to call on who “know and expect a high-quality service”. Some are friends, others she has met through the industry. All are single – “I’m not here to break up marriages” – and range in age from 30s to 50s.
“The gentleman will pay for the hotel room because I want to make sure that they’re serious about this. This way I know they’re taking responsibility and accountability by paying for it, I know they’re going to rock up,” says Grosman, who has two men trialling for positions in Sydney and Melbourne this weekend.
“The simulated trials take two hours. The first 15 minutes is spent downstairs in the bar for one drink. They chat, making her feel easy, having a conversation, making sure they know how to approach a female trialler.
“After 15 to 20 minutes, they go upstairs to the room. I often ask for music or massage to be included in the two-hour bracket. They’ll put on music, have a shower if they want to, start off with a nice massage and then from there it turns into intimacy because I want to see if he’ll perform. I’ll get a phone call about 15 minutes later to get feedback from the trialler, then I’ll call the gentleman and say yes or no.”
In the past month, she has rejected two men who did not live up to expectations. “One man demanded a massage from my trialler and then refused to sleep with her because she wasn’t his type,” Grosman says.
Her Confidant is just seven months old but already Grosman has been floored by the demand. The nine men she has on her books to meet that need include yoga instructors, teachers and therapists. Three are based in Sydney, one in Byron Bay who travels into Queensland, one in Perth and four in Melbourne.
“Most have other jobs, I don’t want them to rely on this as a full-time job, that would give me more pressure.
“This is something they do a couple of times a week, it’s not a stable income every single day.”
Her complement of sex workers includes one Melbourne-based bisexual woman in her 50s who is “happy to jump on board for the ladies” eager to explore their sexuality.
“I’ve got quite a lot of females that want to experience a woman-on-woman sexual encounter,” Grosman says.
“Either they’ve thought about it since they were younger and they’ve been too ashamed to be judged. As women get older, they think it’s their space, their time, their choice and our service is very discrete, very private.
“I do couples’ bookings as well but the men are all heterosexual so there’s no touching of the man in the relationship.”
Her Confidant is Grosman’s second foray into the male escort business.
Twelve years ago, she started Aphrodisiac Male Escorts with an “open-minded” friend from her school days at Melbourne’s exclusive Beth Rivkah Ladies College.
That company launched in defiance of the stigma and shame associated with the male escort business at the time and tapped into a growing need among disenchanted women.
During its six years of operation, Aphrodisiac’s clientele swelled into the thousands, with customers across the globe.
“These women were sick of going to clubs and bars and picking up men,” says Grosman, who has been happily married for 30 years and has two adult sons.
“They were duds, the women didn’t feel safe and the sex was terrible but they didn’t know where else to go. The thought about Aphrodisiac was creating a space for women to feel safe and discrete. It was very successful and helped thousands and thousands of women.”
At the time it shut down in 2018, Grosman says the company was still thriving but her business partnership had ended.
Over the next few years, she changed direction with My Forever Matchmaking, a holistic approach to dating that included the services of a sexologist, therapist, lifestyle coaches, stylists and psychologists.
It exposed a gender disparity in the approaches men and women take to dating.
“The men felt like they didn’t need all the help – they thought they were perfect. The dating apps were just too easy and we were competing against that,” Grosman says.
“The women were coming but the men were very hesitant. Then with Covid, people were just not in the right head space.”
At the same time, messages started dropping into Grosman’s social media inboxes from women yearning for connection and begging her to reopen her male escort service.
The pleas came from women who had given up on finding romance – underwhelmed by the fickleness of the men they found on dating apps, nervous for their safety and desperate for a service that they could trust.
“I got a phone call from a lady who said she can get a man in five minutes, no problem for her to find gentlemen, but when they have sex, it’s all so shit, it’s all about them,” says Grosman, who was further inspired after watching the popular movies Good Luck To You, Leo Grande, with Emma Thompson, and the Australian version What Women Want, which both tell the stories of older women craving excitement in their lives and turning to male escorts.
“Too many women were asking me, saying they don’t want to be on the apps. There’s an epidemic of women who are not feeling safe, they’re scared for their safety.”
The lobbying worked and Grosman was convinced to revisit the escort industry. But the businesswoman found herself in a completely different landscape, with new laws that had decriminalised escort services in Victoria.
But Grosman says she was shocked to find that the pall of shame and stigma still lingered.
“I thought it would be much better by now but it’s really not. The stigma is still there, the shame is still there,” she says.
“A lot of women don’t really feel comfortable sharing that they are seeing an escort, they don’t want the judgment from their family and the judgment of ‘what’s wrong with you?’. These are gorgeous, strong women, in business, in boardrooms. They don’t have time, they just want a sure thing, no strings attached on their terms, organise what they want, who they want and where they want.”
Services don’t come cheap. A boyfriend experience – Her Confidant’s most popular booking – is $1600 for a minimum of two hours. After that, it’s $800 an hour and a standard $3500 for overnight or $5500 for a weekend escape and $20,000 for a full week away.
For those women who want an emotional connection with no physical intimacy, there’s the option of a $500 social date or $450 an hour for “hugs and loves”. And an icebreaking 20-minute meet and greet costs $200 for those who would like to try before they buy.
“I have got a lot of clients who just want to have the companionship, not sex, just being held and spoken with,” says Grosman, who describes herself as her clients’ “wing woman” and takes a 50 per cent cut of all fees for her management services.
“They want to be held by a man and don’t want sex, maybe a massage in a safe space that doesn’t lead to anything. When you go on a date, the men are always expecting to have sex. Everyone goes into escort services with boundaries and expectations.”
Grosman’s clients range in age from late 20s to those in their sprightly 60s and 70s who are “more hungry for sex than 30-year-olds, they’re really passionate and great lovers”.
She’s fielded inquiries from all over Australia, including Adelaide, where escort work is still illegal. Those women are contemplating a staycation in Melbourne built around a booking.
“The notion that women past a certain age lose their libido is definitely a myth,” she says.
Another misnomer is the idea that women should be ashamed of outsourcing their needs for intimacy and connection. In fact, Grosman thinks it should become a regular calendar appointment for women who need it.
“Male escorts should be on a retainer … just another tool in your self-care kit,” she says. “You have your personal trainer, you get your hair done or get a massage once a week or fortnight and you have your escort booked in.
“This kind of service only benefits my clients, it makes them feel empowered, confident, the courage that comes from booking is life-changing. Every single booking is so wonderful, it’s so special to be able to help women find themselves again.”
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