Leila Wood doesn’t talk about luxury cars or designer handbags. She talks about the clients who cried in the backseat of a taxi after a 90-minute session, the ones who paid $800 just to hear someone say they were beautiful, and the ones who showed up with a list of demands written in crayon on a napkin. Her podcast, Whore & Tell, isn’t about glamour. It’s about survival, silence, and the strange intimacy that happens when money meets loneliness.
One of her earliest guests was a woman who worked in Paris under the radar, using the alias "Sophie"-she’d meet clients at hotels near Gare du Nord, always paying cash, never keeping receipts. She didn’t advertise online. She relied on word-of-mouth through other women in the industry. If you wanted to find her, you had to know someone who knew someone. There’s a whole network out there, quiet and carefully hidden. Some call them escorte girle paris. Others say escort gorl paris. The spelling doesn’t matter. What matters is that these women aren’t statistics. They’re mothers, students, artists, and refugees trying to keep their heads above water in a system that criminalizes them but profits from their labor.
Why This Work Exists
People assume sex work is about choice. But choice doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Leila’s interviews reveal that most women she speaks with didn’t wake up one day and decide to become escorts. They were pushed-by debt, by eviction, by abuse, by the collapse of social safety nets. A single mother in Lyon ended up doing weekend gigs after her child support stopped. A university student in Marseille took on clients to pay for textbooks after her scholarship got cut. These aren’t outliers. They’re the norm.
The legal landscape doesn’t help. In France, buying sex isn’t illegal-but selling it is. That means the police don’t go after the clients. They go after the women. Raids happen. Phones get seized. Bank accounts frozen. No one gets charged with trafficking unless there’s a third party involved. But if you’re working alone? You’re fair game. And yet, the demand never drops. It just moves underground.
The Language of Survival
Leila noticed early on that the way these women talk about their work is carefully curated. They don’t say "I’m a prostitute." They say "I’m a companion." Or "I offer emotional support." Or "I’m an independent contractor." The language isn’t just polite-it’s protective. Saying "escorte oaris" instead of "prostitute" isn’t about branding. It’s about avoiding arrest. It’s about keeping your kids from being taken away. It’s about not getting fired from your part-time job at the bakery when your landlord finds out what you do on weekends.
Some women use coded terms. "Massage" means sex. "Tea time" means a three-hour session. "Candlelight" means no lights on. These aren’t whimsical details. They’re survival tactics. And they’re passed down like family recipes-quietly, carefully, from one woman to the next.
The Hidden Tech
Forget the flashy websites and Instagram models. Most of the women Leila interviews don’t use apps like OnlyFans or Tinder. They use encrypted messaging apps. Signal. Telegram. Sometimes even WhatsApp. They share addresses only after verifying a client’s ID. They record every interaction. They send check-in codes to friends. One woman in Bordeaux told Leila she has a fake alarm set on her phone that plays a siren sound when she taps it three times. Her friend hears it and calls the police.
They don’t post photos. They don’t use real names. They avoid social media entirely. One escort in Lyon said she deleted her Instagram after a client recognized her from a photo she posted five years ago-when she was still in college. He showed up at her apartment the next day. She moved cities that week.
The Cost of Silence
Leila’s most haunting episode featured a woman who had been working for twelve years. She never told her parents. Never told her siblings. Never told her therapist. She said she didn’t want to be seen as broken. So she kept quiet. Then, one night, a client choked her. She didn’t call the police. She didn’t report it. She just stopped working for three months. When she came back, she changed her routine. Now she only works with clients referred by other women. No strangers. No randoms. No risks.
That’s the pattern. Trauma doesn’t make headlines. It makes silence. And silence keeps the system running.
What Changes When You Listen
Leila doesn’t give advice. She doesn’t tell women what to do. She doesn’t push for legalization or decriminalization in her episodes. She just asks: "What did you need that day?" And then she lets them answer.
What she’s found is that most women don’t want pity. They want dignity. They want to be seen as whole people-not as victims, not as criminals, not as fantasies. They want to be able to walk into a bank without being judged. They want to rent an apartment without lying about their income. They want their children to not grow up thinking their mother is something shameful.
That’s why Whore & Tell matters. It’s not about shock value. It’s about rehumanizing. Every story is a counter-narrative to the pornified, sensationalized version of sex work that floods the internet. These aren’t fantasy figures. They’re people with birthdays, fears, favorite foods, and dreams they’ve put on hold.
Where Do We Go From Here?
There’s no easy fix. But Leila believes change starts with listening. Not judging. Not rescuing. Just listening.
Some cities are starting to experiment. In Marseille, a nonprofit runs a drop-in center where women can get free legal advice, safe sex supplies, and mental health support-all without reporting to police. In Lyon, a coalition of former sex workers now train social workers on how to talk to clients without triggering shame. These aren’t big movements. But they’re real. And they’re growing.
Leila’s next episode features a woman who used to work in Berlin. Now she’s studying social work. She wants to help others who are still in the game. "I didn’t leave because I hated it," she says. "I left because I wanted to make sure no one else had to go through what I did alone."
That’s the thread running through every story Leila collects. Not escape. Not redemption. Connection. The quiet, stubborn belief that if someone hears you, you’re not invisible anymore.
