How to Date a Sex Worker

I recently dated a queer person who told me they were pro-sex work in one of our first conversations. They had made porn with friends years before, but when I tried to share about a juicy in-person session I had with a client, they "felt grossed out in their body".

Years ago I dated a bartender who was surprised and angry to see a text exchange I was having with a client that involved flirting. "I didn’t know you flirted with your clients!" Over a decade ago, my son’s father was so supportive of my work until I was debating doing full service–which he equated with him going and sleeping with someone else (unpaid). And when we got pregnant he tried to tell me I couldn’t do this shameful work as a parent, saying, "what will you tell our son?" Before that I dated a performance artist who giggled like a schoolboy about me going into work "to touch penises!"

It’s complicated because we hope that certain kinds of folks are going to get it. And when they don’t, it’s hard not to feel a little betrayed. You said you accepted this. This is my job.

For me, I’m at a point in my life where I’m not interested in dating people who are just okay with my work. I need lovers and partners who get it. Or are open to dropping their own baggage about it and expanding their understanding towards relationships. I need lovers and partners who are excited about me having great enjoyable sessions with clients. If you are a queer person who is triggered by thinking about your lover with a cis man, that’s yours to unpack. If you can’t own it, work on it, and let it go so that you can show up supportively for your lover to share about a blissful workday, then dating a sex worker is not for you. 

We don’t only need partners and lovers to hold space for us to talk about tough, challenging work experiences. We need and deserve partners and lovers who can share our excitement and satisfaction about positive work experiences. If you only support and hold space for sex workers when we are suffering, miserable, and hating our clients and work, you don’t fully support us. You’re not a real ally. You’re not even close to an accomplice. You can’t hold the full experience, the multitude of what our work looks and feels like on different days.

So many jobs include and require flirting, playing a role for your clients; that’s just customer service. Having a bartender be upset with me for flirting with my client, when I knew that his work included flirting with and charming customers every shift, felt crazy-making.

The giggles were the most innocuous. At best, I resonate because you know what, it is actually hilarious. It’s hilarious that it is so stigmatized–touching certain areas of the body–and we laugh because as Americans we are so weird and repressed about our sexuality and bodies. At worst its like, why the fuck are you laughing? Earn your laughter by going and touching a penis or two for money yourself. At worst, you laugh because you don’t get it and it makes you nervous and insecure. You reach for shared laughter to discharge the strange feelings you can’t sit with.

It’s complicated because we hope that certain kinds of folks are going to get it. And when they don’t, it’s hard not to feel a little betrayed.

In my opinion there are people who work in the military, homeland security, or in politics having their pockets lined by AIPAC who should be infinitely more worried about how they’ll explain their work to their children, rather than me, a healer hocking pleasure by the hour. Criminality does not equal bad, wrong or harmful, but I’ll shelf that thought for another essay.

It’s easy to say you support sex workers. Most of the people we would consider dating say this. It’s another thing entirely to actually have thought deeply about our work and what it means in the context of the country, culture, and world we live in, in the context of social norms and in the context of your own unquestioned beliefs and ideas around sexuality, in the context of your own sexual trauma from childhood and past relationships.

It’s rough out there in the dating world for anyone, but having a stigmatized and criminalized job where being the butt of punch-down jokes is normalized just adds another layer of shit to navigate. 

Not only am I an Aquarius with commitment issues and a tough-guy streak who also has work to do around making healthy boundaries in love, I also come with the magical layer of being a veteran sex worker. I’m not quitting anytime soon. You can’t put your own ideas of what my work is onto me because I’ve been at it for over a decade. For a while I took a break from dating because I thought that even though, or maybe especially because, I love my work and believe in it, I just might not find a partner who could really see the whole of me in this life. I mean someone who could really accept and love all of my bits, even the parts that trigger them. But surprisingly, with a new failure in my love life comes hope. I had a glimpse of what could be. I’ve been able to clarify my standards. I’m not giving up.

From my own experiences I’d like to share three tips for workers dating civilians for free, and three tips for civilians/allies who are getting into a relationship with a sex worker.

For Sex Workers:

1. Clarify your needs and boundaries around your work. How will you accept people in your life talking about it? What does being respected as a Sex Worker look and feel like in an intimate relationship for you? Get clear on this, communicate it, and then hold those standards and boundaries.
2. If your sweetie says that they support sex workers, that’s great. Now look for the actions and the behavior/language that align with or contradict that statement, and move accordingly.
3. If your sweetie has conflicting feelings: jealousy, judgement, feeling grossed out about your work, it might not be an automatic no-go if they are able to own these feelings and work through them to get to a place where they can truly be accepting, supportive of, and as excited about your work as you are. Whether you are excited or not, if they can’t support and hold exactly how you feel about your own work without shutting you down or making it about them, they are not for you.

For civilians and allies who are getting into relationships with sex workers:

1. Question everything you were taught and believe about intimacy, sex, and work.
2. Listen to your sweetie. Honor their experience of their work. We are all unique and so are our relationships to, and perspectives on, what we do. Even if you have known and dated other sex workers, try not to assume or project what you think you know onto your lover’s experience.
3. Don’t make a false parallel between sleeping with people for money and sleeping with people for fun. Being a FSSW does not automatically mean your relationships outside of work are open. There is a difference between work sex and personal life sex. How we each define the differences may vary but one thing is for certain: even when it happens to be fun and enjoyable, this is our work, and how we make the money we need to survive.

For all of us, we would be remiss to not apply a critique of the capitalist system we are all trapped in to sex work and all work. Be safe and brave and clear in your intentions out there. We deserve so much love, care, appreciation, kindness, and respect. Accept nothing else, my dear professional sluts!

For more on sex work and dating from the Tryst Link blog, see Are You Dating a Sex Worker? Here’s How to be a Better Partner and Practical Advice for Dating (as) a Sex Worker.

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? 👇☂️✨