SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Preparing to give a lecture at the University of the Pacific, Veronica Monet pulls out a small suitcase that has a leather whip inside and says, "I like to teach people how to have better sex."

This is not something one expects to hear from a college teacher. But, then again, Monet's not giving a math or science lecture: she is a former escort turned sexologist.

"I like to consider myself a lifetime whore," Monet said.

Monet, a former online escort who claims she got paid $15,000 a date, teaches couples how to have better sex and gives guest lectures and seminars to college classes about the business.

Monet said she is not teaching students how to sell sex online, but instead showing and explaining why technology has made the sex business so appealing -- to both the customer and the seller.

"If somebody decides to take some of this information and do something lucrative with it, I have no knowledge of that, nor do I want to," said Monet, who called it quits as an escort a few years ago.

The special investigations unit at the Sacramento sheriff's department said they are seeing an increase in online prostitution in Sacramento, with escorts coming into town from the Bay Area or Fresno.

Sheriff's spokesman R.L. Davis said privacy and perception are the driving forces behind online prostitution.

"The perception is you’re going to have a higher quality, the Hollywood-style escort that we see on TV," Davis said.

For the students in David Hall's human sexuality class, who are sitting in on Monet's lecture, the idea is to find out why people would make prostitution a career.

"The ways people satisfy human needs, it's really important. Not that they're going to do it -- not that their going to become prostitutes," Hall said.

Monet, who wrote a book about the secrets of great sex she learned on the job as an escort, said there is a major drawback to the profession.

"I just got tired of being on the wrong side of the law. It's nerve-racking," Monet said.