As a sex worker, much of my life is dictated by extremely wealthy men. If you’re not a sex worker, so is yours.
It's easy for most people to understand that a strip club expecting a percentage of sales after already taking $80 from each $250 VIP is exploitation, but don’t put the same scrutiny into their own paycheck. Club owners and hourly staff lining up at the end of the night for 'their share' from our pockets enrages me, but so does Wal-Mart making record profits in 2024 while still being one of the top 4 largest employers of people who collect food stamps in America. If you don't consider it exploitation to build generational wealth through underpaying your employees to the point that they need government assistance to afford food, what do you call it?
When I first got into sex work I was living in my car, fresh out of an abusive relationship, and trying to make enough money to get into the room I was lined up to rent in two months. I had been working as a home health aid, making around $9 an hour to do intimate care for people who needed assistance. One of the ladies I cared for eventually asked me how much I was paid, as she showed me what the company I worked for charged her insurance. She was being billed $25 an hour, and I, the person doing all the physical labor, was getting less than half of it.
It was around this time that I took up my first offer for $100 and a real bed to sleep in for the night, in exchange for a different kind of labor. I kept this to myself for a long time because I wanted to avoid the pity and concern that comes with admitting you had sex for money, especially for such a "low" payment. I never felt the same sense of shame for admitting I would be trading my life at the cost of $9 an hour in the morning.
I've heard a lot about how I'm selling my body since I started in this industry, and it makes me think of when I was 19, working in an Amazon warehouse with coworkers passing out from exhaustion and heat almost daily. It makes me think of my uncles who work in the trades, and my step-brother who joined the army at 17. The way I see it, we're all selling our bodies for the privilege of being able to eat and sleep with a roof over our heads. We all have to pick what we're willing to trade to survive, and the only real difference in what I choose to trade is that we've moralized sex in a way that we haven't moralized 14 hour shifts with no bathroom breaks or sending teenagers to combat training.
I've heard a lot about how I'm selling my body since I started in this industry...
To be clear, I’m not arguing that I'm not exploited, just that I'm no different from anyone reading this, regardless of what your particular trade happens to be. There's some pimp making a fortune off of all of us, yours just might be named Bezos, Walton, or maybe even Uncle Sam. Additionally, all of them will dispose of us the minute we're more effort than we're worth, and move on to the next body they can work to disability or death. Sex workers have a lot to contribute to the workers rights movement, if for no other reason than that so many of us end up as career sex workers because of disability and wage theft.
During my first week stripping, I went to the grocery store with a purse full of singles and almost cried when I realized I could afford the fresh fruit, as much as I wanted. It was a viscerally emotional experience that I've never forgotten. I almost felt pride to stand there counting out every dollar with the cashier, instead of shame. Though, as I picked out a mountain of berries, I was interacting with more trafficking than I had the night before in the strip club.
Misguided feminists tend to conflate consensual sex work and trafficking, as if the threat of starvation doesn't coerce most of us into doing labor we otherwise wouldn't. Agriculture is the biggest industry in trafficking, with so many migrant farm workers unable to afford to buy the very same crop they produce. If we want to seriously talk about ending trafficking, the best way to start would be to abolish borders as we know them, not further criminalize people just trying to put food on the table and provide for their families, whichever way they can.
If we want a better future for all of us, we need to stop throwing each other under the bus to try to get ahead. The sooner we realize that we're truly all in this together, the better. You can call me exploited, but remember that somebody is buying a yacht on the back of your labor too.
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? 👇☂️✨
