Most people’s “knowledge” of us comes from harmful jokes, exploitative documentaries, and lurid headlines. Perhaps as a response to this stigma, and certainly as a response to criminalisation, sex workers live in much more secrecy than other communities. In a Moebius strip of whorephobia, its partly as a response to this secrecy that people assume sex work is a one-dimensional world. After all, most people have no interaction with, and therefore no awareness of, the complexity of sex work.
So, when they finally meet a living, breathing sex worker, they can’t always reconcile the three-dimensional person in front of them with the flattened stereotype in their head. They want to understand how someone they know, even like, could do something like sex work. Inevitably, they blurt out, “how did you get into this?”
My short answer: I was studying, and I needed an income I could fit around my busy schedule. My long answer: more complicated. To explain how I got into sex work is really to trace my journey through multiple worlds within sex work. To answer this question is to unfold sex work from a one-dimensional stereotype of a world, to a three-dimensional galaxy.
It started with domming. I was tired of failing to juggle low-paid jobs around my studies, tired of plastering on a smile to suffer through groundhog days with colleagues I hated, and tired of having no time to rest outside of labour. At the same time, I was curious about my dominatrix friend, who could go work on projects and other jobs when it best suited them. When I picked up the courage to ask them to train me, I wasn’t really thinking about becoming a dominatrix, just about becoming free. Over time, with practicing at their dungeon and reading some books, I was ready.
To answer this question is to unfold sex work from a one-dimensional stereotype of a world, to a three-dimensional galaxy.
Well, I was ready – but for the wrong thing. I assumed from my training that domming was what it appeared as at first glance – wearing black, cracking a whip, and shouting at submissives. So I advertised myself as a cruel domme who did so, and my first few clients expected exactly that. I had prepared, and they were happy with my latex skirts, high black heels, newly minted pegging skills, and harsh demeanour.
What I wasn’t ready for was keeping up an act. The persona that I assumed every dominatrix used didn’t come naturally to me. More than once, clients asked me to be less smiley! Besides, I wanted to connect with my clients in a friendlier way before jumping into seriously kinky scenarios. Over time, my outfit and “domme” persona felt just as exhausting to maintain as my civvie job had. When I went back to my friend for advice, they patiently explained to me that not all domming is the same. I’d picked a style based on my assumptions, not an actual exploration of who I was and what kind of work would suit me best.
This was the moment that sex work began to seem like a galaxy. I began to think of it as a beautiful origami shape which contained crags and hidden pockets of different skills, approaches, and styles. On the heels of this realisation, I decided it was time for me to explore different worlds in sex work. Seeing as I wanted to be more genuine with my clients, I tentatively transitioned to escorting.
On the heels of this realisation, I decided it was time for me to explore different worlds in sex work.
Surprisingly, full service felt much more natural to me. I didn’t have to put on a persona anymore. Of course, this didn’t mean I was fully myself, which would have been too exposing, and exhausting in its own way. I began to do what I now really consider to be sex work – bringing specific parts of myself to the fore, finely tuning them, and presenting them to clients with a smile. This was no different to the mask I’d had to wear in my civvie job. It’s just that I was finally being paid well for it. With that came more time off for creative work and rest.
I also felt more exhausted. I found that this particular world of sex work was far better for me, but also far more stigmatised, more criminalised, and as a result, lonelier and more dangerous. I could not generally share my work as a dominatrix beforehand, but I could be reasonably confident that if I had to, most people would just find it odd, not repulsive – or illegal. In the world of full service, I now had to lie to everyone from my GP to prospective new friends.
Yet I was still the same person trying to make a life, just like when I worked at a till, behind a desk, and in the dungeon. It was as a full service sex worker that I learnt there weren’t just different worlds within sex work – each world was shaped by different levels of stigma and criminalisation. One sex worker could travel amongst multiple worlds, and be treated as a different person each time.
I learnt there weren’t just different worlds within sex work – each world was shaped by different levels of stigma and criminalisation.
The funny thing about sex work is that every time I think I’ve found a reason to leave, I find a reason to stay. I’m someone who loves learning, and also working for myself. So I’m always drawn back to the flexibility, the freedom, and the chance to travel so many worlds, for better or for worse. Since starting escorting a while ago, I’ve worked as a fetish escort, a camgirl (thanks, pandemic!), a fetish domme, and as of now, high-end sensual domme and vanilla escort. I’ll likely stay for a while, but I don’t know where within this galaxy I’ll travel to next.
As sex workers, we should be proud that our world is so complex. Although those looking in - and newbie dommes such as myself all those years ago – may think they see everything there is to see, we know differently. So, next time a civilian asks us “how did you get into sex work?”, I hope we can all have the confidence to smile and ask back, “which one?”
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? 👇☂️✨
