An escort is a prostitute who (unlike a street prostitute) is not visible to the general public. Nor does she usually belong to an institution like a brothel. One must summon her, usually by calling a telephone number, hence the name call girl. Often, escorts advertise their services in small ads in magazines, although an intermediary such as an escort agency, pimp or a pander may be involved.

Escorts can work either incall, where the client comes to them, or outcall, where they come to the client.

Escorts are commonly perceived to be elite amongst prostitutes, far more skilled, able to pick and choose amongst their potential clients and therefore demand higher prices for their services, and are more attractive, educated, well-groomed and youthful than street prostitutes. An escorts service will not take on any woman that is unattractive, has a visible drug addiction|drug problem (such as needle marks from injecting drugs), or has an overly negative persona. Unless they specialize in tattooed women, escorts services will usually not take on any women that have anything larger than a small tattoo. escorts services seek to establish a reputation for offering desirable women and know that their customers only give them one chance. If an escorts service sends an undesirable woman to a client, the client will very likely not use that service again. Also, many escorts agencies do criminal background checks on applicants to weed out those that have been arrested for street prostitution or other types of crimes. This weeding out is done to reduce the chances of being accused of being sellers of prostitution, trying not to draw the attention of law enforcement agencies. For these reasons, there is rarely any cross-over between escorts and street prostitutes.

Non-sex work
Not all clients hire escorts for sex. Some simply do so to chat. This is most common in elderly rich men that simply enjoy the company of a young attractive woman. escort agencies try to determine if this is what a client wants and if it is, the agency will try to send their most educated and polite women to this type of customer. It is not unusual for these "chat" escorts to receive big tips or even bequests from clients.

Another client who does not ask for sex may want to impress others by having an attractive woman as his date, if not as pretend girlfriend or wife. Such a client may be attending a high school or college class reunion or an office social event. Clients seeking this service will tell the escort service what their intention is. They may specify what kind of woman they seek to play this role. The client may meet with the woman beforehand to evaluate her level of intelligence, education, manners, speech, and ability to execute the pretense, as well as to judge her appearance. They would go over his past, her (pretend) past and their feigned relationship, in order to successfully carry out the pretense.

Escorts and celebrities
Male celebrities and rich men commonly hire escorts for dates and usually sex afterwards simply to avoid what they view as hassles of dating women. For these men, escorts enable them to have fun without the fear of rejection and/or commitment. Both parties understand their respective positions and do not go beyond them. Some of these men are even open about what their date is to those they're partying with, though escorts request they not be. These "dates" can include flying by private jet to Exotic locations, staying in a luxury hotel suite, dining at the finest restaurants, dancing at the hottest nightclubs, and gambling at the casinos. Usually, the man will first hire the woman for a short date to determine if he wants to do longer ones (such as the one just mentioned) with her. Here again, the woman's appearance, intelligence, manners, sociability and education come into consideration.

City tours
In Europe, the system of City Tours is getting more and more popular, in cities such as Paris, Rome, Amsterdam or Zurich. Eastern European escortss, from countries such as Russia, Hungary, Romania or Ukraine, are brought by agencies for short stays not exceeding two weeks. The agencies book a room in a business hotel for them, where they receive customers all day long. This system takes its toll on the escorts, who are relentlessly exploited during their short stay in Western Europe, and they rarely make more than three or four of them. For the customers, also called "sex client / punters", this allows them to have available an ever-renewed supply of fresh girls.

Internet
Most call girl agencies and independent escorts are now online, and the Internet has become the main venue for a customer to find his match. Generally, the picture of the girl is provided, and sometimes, the type of sexual services she is willing to offer. Some agencies also propose for a high fee people of special interest, such as twins, former porn stars, B-List models, Professional dominant or even Submissive (BDSM) submissives.

The Internet is also used by punters/hobbyists to provide evaluation of the escorts they have met and rate them, on their aesthetics, behavior or sexual performances. For the readers of evaluation web sites, such as www.escortsnz.com, www.escortssforum.co.nz, and TER, the rating of the escorts is often a determining factor in their selection.

This has led some customers to blackmail escortss by threatening of a bad rating in order to obtain more sexual services or a discount on the rate. Some escorts also cheat by logging stellar evaluations of themselves on these sites, although most of the sites try to identify and filter these "fake reviews".

Call girl internet slang
Because offering sexual services in exchange for money is illegal in many areas, certain code words in the subculture of sex work have emerged to communicate in lieu of description of explicit acts. For instance Girlfriend experience, usually implies that an escort will have a warm personality, be willing to kiss the client, hold hands and be generally affectionate. This also includes an assumption that the girl will perform oral sex without a condom barrier. Usually this option would be explicitly stated as "Oral w/o" or "Oral without". Another codical term is "Greek." A call girl who is "Greek welcome" is willing to have anal sex with the client. This term is more commonly used in the USA. Other terms include DFK (Deep French Kissing - ie open mouth kissing with tongues).

Here is a typical example of girl description, taken randomly from a city tour web site:
French kiss, oral without to completion (CIM/CIF/COB), 69, sex in different poses.
This means that the call girl will perform oral kiss with the tongue, fellatio without condom up to customer ejaculation, in mouth (CIM), on the face (CIF), or over the body (COB), will receive oral sex meanwhile, and practice various poses during classical intercourse.

Sting operations
Sometimes the police carry out a sting operation: a police officer, posing as a client, summons a call girl to a hired hotel room, or as a call girl, summons a prospective client.

In the Netherlands, this has been done since 2004: although neither buying nor selling a call girl's services is illegal per se. So far, in half of the cases, the women have been foreigners illegally staying or working in the country. The operation also serves to check the ages of the service provider and the receiver: if one of them is below 18, the escort agency breaks the law. To avoid entrapment allegations, the police do not specially ask for a foreign or very young call girl.

In India, this was done in May 2004: for the first time a prostitution ring that used the Internet to solicit customers was raided. A decoy client ordered two escorts to a hotel. Three pimps were arrested under the Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act.

Public perception of Escorts
One thing that escorts have in their favour, as contrasted with street prostitutes, is that they're out of public sight. In some countries, the public dislikes seeing street prostitutes in or near their communities and usually actively campaigns for local law enforcement to arrest these women. Since escorts try not to draw attention to themselves and conduct their business beyond public view, the public seldom call for law enforcement action. Those trying to legalize prostitution commonly use this sentiment to their advantage by telling the public that the best solution for street prostitution is to legalize prostitution arranged over the telephone and/or internet. This "out of sight, out of mind" argument carries the most weight with the public that opposes street prostitution due to it driving down the value of their properties / real estate.