A girlfriend experience GFE is a commercial sex service. It ranges from a transactional sex relationship [ 1 ] to a client paying a sex worker to pretend to be his girlfriend during the session. In the sex industry of the United States and Canada, the term GFE is used to describe a sexual encounter in which the sex worker and the client provide each other with reciprocal sexual pleasure and some degree of emotional intimacy.
There is a focus on not just having sex, but also having more of a comprehensive experience. The details vary widely. The term "client" is often used to describe a person who pays sex workers for sex. Many clients seek a feeling of closeness without the commitment of a relationship, and to a certain extent GFE can eliminate the feelings of guilt or fear of "addiction" that some people associate with a relationship. Elements that make up a GFE such as conversation, affection and mutual sexual pleasure can occur in street prostitution but they are more commonly found in indoor prostitution.
Research in Cambodia published in identified a number of waitresses and bartenders who were also working as "professional girlfriends" with "western boyfriends".
They relied on these relationships for their livelihood but did not regard themselves as "prostitutes" and often sought love and marriage as well as material comforts. In these relationships, there was a performance of intimacy which lay somewhere between the feigned and the genuine.
In Thailand , some independent sex workers are reported to work as "professional girlfriends", providing company and affection to foreign men and middle-class Thai men, and only having sex with their clients occasionally. Their remuneration is provided in the form of things such as clothing and visits to the cinema. In the Philippines, Angeles City is known for the GFE provided to sex tourists by its sex workers, lasting anywhere from one night to a month or more.
