For many people who sell sexual services, the work is brief and context dependent. It is often undertaken not as a career, but instead as a short-term means of making money when other jobs are not available or do not pay well enough. This means it is common for someone to sell sexual services only a handful of times, or for a period of months, before alternative means of earning money are found or life circumstances change.
For many people who sell sexual services, the work is brief and context dependent.
Students are a group who are well-known for doing this, cam modelling or escorting to pay their way through university before leaving sex work to pursue the career which follows on from their studies. In other cases, there are sex working parents who take a break from selling sex in the early years of raising their child. Others sex workers may have always maintained another job alongside sex work which eventually becomes full-time and then makes up their sole income. We also cannot forget the number of sex workers who are forced to stop by circumstances outside of their control, such as imprisonment, controlling behaviour from a partner, or illness.
What are the reasons someone might come back, given all those different reasons to leave? Trying other jobs, which turn out to be exhausting or poorly paid, can make sex work an attractive option despite whatever reasons caused a former worker to leave the profession. A worsening financial situation can leave someone without other viable options. Why someone returns to sex work can be heavily influenced by why they stopped in the first place. If they stopped because of shame about the work, then work through their internalized whorephobia, they might return to the work perfectly content.
What are the reasons someone might come back, given all those different reasons to leave?
After having spent some time selling sex or making and selling pornography, even if that work is quickly abandoned, the threshold for doing it again in times of need is generally lowered. Especially if someone has already experienced certain consequences, like family members finding out and reacting poorly or becoming known to the border authorities, doing sex work could even feel less risky than it did the first time, because those threats have already been realized.
Some sex workers may return to the job after only a short break, or years later, depending on their situation. With rapidly changing laws and technology and the current social climate, it can be difficult to make sense of the things that have changed when returning to sex work.
Websites that sex workers use can disappear suddenly, such as with the closure of Backpage, or existing websites may change how they work. From new verification requirements to potentially confusing changes in the UI, even just creating a new account can be a daunting task.
One of the ways sex workers tackle this issue is by seeking advice from other sex workers. These might be people we’ve kept in touch with during our break, or they could be new people we’ve met through social media or in-person groups. In my experience, other sex workers are a wealth of knowledge and are frequently happy to support someone else in getting started on a platform. Asking them about how verification works also provides other sex workers with a chance to complain about frustrating parts of the process, and if there’s one thing sex workers love it’s complaining about the failings of the sites we use.
With rapidly changing laws and technology and the current social climate, it can be difficult to make sense of the things that have changed when returning to sex work.
Observing the advertising methods of sex workers is another way to re-learn the online landscape of sex work. When you look at what websites they are using, how much they are charging, and see which social media sites they are able to interact on without their accounts being deleted, it becomes clear which platforms are popular. Popularity doesn’t guarantee quality, but it does provide a place to start. Once you know which websites are commonly used, it’s easy to look up guides or search through forums to troubleshoot any difficulties with signing up.
In addition to the differences in how sex workers use the internet that can happen during a break from sex work, there can also be changes in the number of available clients and the etiquette. There are shifts in client behaviour which can happen over decades, like the average expectations about whether certain sex acts or kissing are included in a price, but they can also change incredibly fast with the right catalyst.
The number of clients paying for sex can drop significantly during an economic crisis, leading to a need to change advertising tactics. Every time I take even a short break from sex work, it feels like there is another drastic change in the world which makes me have to approach getting clients differently. The Covid-19 pandemic is a recent example which impacted sex workers globally, with lockdowns pushing many sex workers to shift from in-person work to online work, and causing others to accept riskier in-person bookings out of financial necessity.
Every time I take even a short break from sex work, it feels like there is another drastic change in the world which makes me have to approach getting clients differently.
Not only are there changes in the economy and public health, but as new laws around sex work are being considered and old laws rewritten in many countries, sometimes a worker will return to selling sexual services only to find that elements of their work are now criminalized which were not before. New laws require entirely new assessments of risk.
I take short breaks from selling sex often, and occasionally find myself overwhelmed with anxiety about how to approach the new sex work landscape. More than once, I have stopped doing sex work with the belief that I will retire for good, only to come back to it within a matter of months. Coming back to sex work after those times are the hardest. After repeating the experience a few times, I have found a way of thinking about it which helps me to overcome the anxiety attached to it. I remind myself that a long time ago, I sold sex for the first time, with no experience or practical knowledge. Returning to sex work may seem daunting, yet I must remember that I did it in the beginning whilst far less equipped than I am now.
Every time a sex worker returns to sex work after a break, we are more resilient and adaptable than the last time.
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
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