“This is really depressing... the mental gymnastics it takes to objectify and racialise oneself while keeping the delulu narrative of empowerment”.
A white woman left this comment on the first article I wrote for Tryst. The article is called, “How to Navigate Advertising Your Race As A Sex Worker of Colour”.
I was already used to people commenting on my tweets and blog posts. But really, these were comments on Tulsi’s tweets and blog posts. As I’ve previously written, I see sex work as a way to explore a part of yourself, rather than a place to express all of yourself. So, however much authenticity there was in Tulsi, she was still an alternate me. She had a specific way of presenting herself, for a purpose. Some might say she was a brand.
This comment was the first time that someone was talking about me. My mind. I had suddenly transformed from a pseudonymous escort blog, to a real life manifestation of all the charges that feminists, academics, and lawmakers levy at sex workers: self objectifying, faux-empowered, and delusional about it. Depressing to all women.
I let this comment bounce around my skull for two days. Then, I decided it would be far more interesting to trace how we got here in the first place.
Everyone has different versions of themselves at work. It’s what helps us stay “in the zone”. Everyone journeys across different versions of themselves in their career. It’s what helps us grow as professionals, and as human beings.
I see sex work as a way to explore a part of yourself, rather than a place to express all of yourself.
Sex workers are, for the most part, no different. What sets us apart is that our workplaces are also our bodies, voices, and minds. We’re in the business of crafting fantasies while being very real with other people. We’re simultaneously living as personas, and being incredibly personal. It’s a tightrope of selfhood that most civilians don't understand, and will nearly always underestimate.
Sex workers of colour do all this and more. In all of Tulsi’s iterations, I’ve experimented with emphasising my race and body type to different degrees. Marketing my Indianness and curves sometimes felt like the most inevitable, path of least resistance approach. It could also be the most difficult – without meaning to, my brand and I would easily tip over into being a fetish. Marketing other aspects of myself, such as my BDSM experience, took more work, but felt more thoughtful. However, when I did, I found I was instantly competing with thin, white women in an already oversaturated market.
However I’ve crafted Tulsi, I’ve found that I’ve had to emphasise authenticity. When I was all about my race and figure, I wrote a lot on loving my natural body. When I was all about my mistress skills, I highlighted how much I’ve always enjoyed dominating men. Now, I'm all about a genuine sensuality. There is always an authenticity to these iterations. I am always the same personality, which I cannot switch off. I learnt early on in my career that I could not sustain my brand if it was a lie.
I also could not promote my brand if it was a lie. More than anything, clients want authenticity. They want to know that this is a real experience; that we’re consenting. It’s perhaps always been this way, but now all the more with increased online criminalisation. FOSTA-SESTA has given social media, credit card companies, advertising platforms, banks, the police, surveillance systems, data mining, facial recognition, and border control an increasingly tighter net to draw around sex workers and our advertising. More marginalised workers who don’t have passports to upload to ad sites are pushed out of the industry into less safe work, poverty and incarceration. Less marginalised workers are pushed away from advertising more explicitly, and towards more ambiguous girlfriend, companion, trophy wife, and increasingly even influencer roles. Ironically, FOSTA-SESTA has given more power to clients’ expectations. In this market, it’s not enough to be a little real. Escorts have to sell pure reality.
Which brings me to a strange, Charlie Kaufman-esque part of my brand. It’s no longer enough to be my brand when I’m at work. I have to make sure I’m Tulsi off duty, too.
Because of FOSTA-SESTA, and Big Tech’s monopolisation of the internet, sex workers’ online spaces don’t really exist anymore. We’ve moved from forums and message boards to Twitter comments, where everyone from clients to journalists to lawmakers can observe us. Clients seek out our sex worker-facing content, our personal social media, even our organising events, in a drive to know the “real” us. Journalists, feminists and policy makers consume both our brand’s output and our sex worker facing work, in an attempt to “understand” us before they talk about us.
It’s no longer enough to be my brand when I’m at work. I have to make sure I’m Tulsi off duty, too.
This conflation of sex workers and our brands means it’s not so possible for most of us to talk about our personal situations, complex lives, and nuanced views online. On one hand, it may affect how clients see us, and how often they book us. This is especially so for Black and brown sex workers, who often have to meet higher standards of class, femininity, comportment, and authenticity anyway. It’s no coincidence that the few sex workers who are both face out and public about sex worker politics tend to be white and Western. Most escorts have too much to lose.
On the other hand – but really, it’s the same hand – sex workers being fully open online may affect how civilians see the sex industry, how they report about us, and the laws they make about us. Most civilians devalue the work we do to walk the tightrope. So, they take our comments about our brands at face value, instead of placing them in the context of a marketplace that blurs personhood and performance. That’s how an article featuring Tulsi can reflect back on me as delulu, self-racialising, and the rest.
The comment on the article stops there, but the thought behind it casts a long shadow. SWERFS regularly blur their perceptions of our brands with their (lack of) understanding of us, leading to them seeing us as vapid, sex-obsessed liberals who don’t understand why sex work can be harmful. This is a politic that leads to sex workers’ voices on what keeps us safe being discounted, and to us being criminalised and ironically, surveilled, all the more.
The internet is being increasingly shaped by a type of whorephobia that demands sex workers be available to clients and civilians all the time. It's little wonder then, that sex workers might choose to mostly be our brands online.
Those who engage with sex workers online should remember that we are not just our brands, but also that we have to always represent our brands. Our openness, and increasingly open access, may give the appearance of being parseable. Some of us may seem to have a certain politics, or type of experience. But knowing us online will mostly be like viewing us through a fish lens.
That’s why, I think I’ve decided that I don’t mind if Tulsi seems a little delulu. We both know what we’re doing.
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
We started the tryst.link sex worker blog to help amplify those who aren't handed the mic and bring attention to the issues ya'll care about the most. Got a tale to tell? 👇☂️✨
