“I think that new girl is, like, an escort.”
My coworker spat out that last word as if it left a bad taste in her mouth, before continuing. “I’m not comfortable working with her.”
Having just finished our shift, she and I were walking down a palm-shaded street in Los Angeles, chatting about a topic too delicate to discuss within our workplace – a rarity considering we were both professional switches at a commercial dungeon. In rooms appointed with bondage beds and St. Andrew’s crosses, we spent our days tying up, spanking and flogging clients, or allowing them to do the same to us. Yet ‘escort’ was, for many of us working at the dungeon, a dirty word.
She and I had become friends because of our shared workspace, a place that naturally encouraged close bonds between those of us within those dungeon walls. Though our job was technically legal, as we did not provide ‘explicit sexual services’ for our clients, we were still sex workers. What we did was considered taboo by most of society. We all had to hide our jobs from someone— be it friends, family, or employers in other workplaces. And even when we could discuss our profession, outsiders could never completely understand what it was like to spank a full-grown, naked man over your knee, or to be tied up and spanked by strangers on a regular basis.
And so, for us submissives, switches and dominatrixes, connecting with coworkers became both a welcome relief, and a necessity – one that led to friendships lasting far beyond the workplace.
In rooms appointed with bondage beds and St. Andrew’s crosses, we spent our days tying up, spanking and flogging clients, or allowing them to do the same to us. Yet ‘escort’ was, for many of us working at the dungeon, a dirty word.
Sex work brought coworkers like her and I together, and yet for many of us working in the mid to late 2010s, we created and maintained a clear distinction between the type of work we did at the dungeon, and full-service sex work (FSSW). We joked about how disgusting it would be to perform specific sexual acts with clients and we gossiped about any coworkers rumored to offer “extras.” As for dungeon employees who were also full-service sex workers – that was, as that horrified whisper demonstrated, a topic too scandalous to even discuss in our workplace itself.
She was one of my best friends, and I couldn’t admit to her that if our new coworker truly was an escort, I was more fascinated than I was repulsed. As a teenager I’d watched movies about brothel workers and call girls, like the classic Belle de Jour, which had ignited my own dreams of becoming a sex worker. I’d lacked the courage to act on any of my fantasies before I worked at the dungeon. And now that I’d finally found a community where I fit in, I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t want to risk being cast out by admitting that I didn’t condemn FSSW. So, I just answered, “Yeah, I don’t know about that new girl,” and ignored the guilty knots in my stomach and throat.
I couldn’t admit to her that if our new coworker truly was an escort, I was more fascinated than I was repulsed.
It wasn’t until I’d left the dungeon and started writing about my own sex work experiences that I encountered the words ‘whorephobia’ and ‘whorearchy’ – terms with variable definitions, but which always indicate the class system among sex workers. Workers who engage in in-person sexual activity with clients, such as escorts and street-based sex workers, will generally ‘rank’ lower in the whorearchy, and often become the target of whorephobic rhetoric from non-FSSW workers – i.e. strippers, online workers and dominatrixes.
Based on my own experience at the dungeon, I believe that these whorearchical distinctions usually come from a sense of shame about one’s own work, and are an attempt to differentiate oneself from those doing work considered more shameful, more reprehensible by wider society. Considering the centuries of sexual repression and judgment that hang over our culture, I doubt there’s any sex worker out there who hasn’t experienced a moment of shame. It’s almost impossible to draw a clear line between personal discomfort and internalization of the judgment cast upon us by society. In a world where ‘whore’ is a dirty word, the creation of the whorearchy seems almost inevitable – but that doesn’t mean we should just accept it, the way I did during that conversation.
I believe that these whorearchical distinctions usually come from a sense of shame about one’s own work, and are an attempt to differentiate oneself from those doing work considered more shameful.
I never told her I disagreed with her judgment, not at the time. And I never reached out to our new coworker or tried to get to know her better. Since beginning to write about sex work and connecting with a larger SW community, I’ve come to regret my choices. As a marginalized group faced with prejudice and lack of legal and societal support, sex workers do ourselves a disservice by enforcing further divide. By cutting ourselves off from those with whom we could share experiences, mutual aid, and understanding, we are only weakening our already vulnerable community. As workers who have been at the pointy end of such sharp judgment, turning that same judgment on our peers seems, frankly, ridiculous.
When I wrote my novel The Briars, set in a commercial dungeon much like the one I had worked in, I made a very intentional decision to include escorting as part of these dungeon workers’ stories. Some of my characters share their full-service sex working pasts openly, neither judging themselves nor fearing judgment from others. Other characters keep secrets even from themselves, until they finally feel safe enough to release the burdens of their past, and find comfort in the only community who can truly understand them.
In writing these characters and this story, I strove to rewrite my own sex work experience – to find the support and inclusivity I’d always longed for, and to make amends for never challenging the whorearchy at the dungeon. We learn, we grow, we do better. I hope that reading about my more three-dimensional sex working characters – whose feelings run the spectrum of shame and pride andregret and joy, about their work – will inspire civilians and fellow sex workers, to see this profession and those who pursue it in a new, more open-minded light.
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