I still remember one of the first things I ever read about sex work by a sex worker. It was a blog post, now removed, called “10 things I learnt from sex work”. The writer wrote beautifully about concepts that were, at the time, completely alien to me. She wrote about how sex work can change everything, from your relationship with yourself to your immune system.
The paragraph that most stuck out to me was titled “Your boundaries will change.” In it, the writer explained that every sex worker will end up breaking their own boundaries and creating ones they never thought they’d need to.
At the time I read this blog, all I thought was “not me!” When I first started seeing clients, I was understandably very worried about my safety. I thought that to protect myself from bad clients—and the whorephobic belief that sex workers deserve violence—I had to show everyone I had a strong, impenetrable set of boundaries.
Imagine my shock when I found myself crossing my boundaries. Having told myself I wouldn’t offer a certain service, in the moment I would then find myself saying yes to a request for it. Having told myself I wouldn’t tolerate rudeness from clients, I would watch myself, as though out of my body, giggling and fawning at behaviour I actually wanted to get away from.
Looking back, I realise I was trying to instill my boundaries from a place of fear and internalised whorephobia, rather than self-knowledge. Those boundaries didn’t feel natural to me at all, and in high stress situations I lost grasp of them.
She wrote about how sex work can change everything, from your relationship with yourself to your immune system.
Over time, I came to understand that my boundaries in sex work had to be strong, but they could be flexible too. Once I was able to separate out what I thought would make me respectable in others’ eyes from what would keep me safe and happy with each particular client, I was able to relax a little.
This helped me form genuine boundaries I could actually enforce. If I ever did cross my own boundary, I was able to offer compassion towards myself, and simply move on to better work.
The more I practiced this, the more I understood that no sex worker has to be something for everybody. Our work involves being authentic with clients. Over the years, I’ve found that no matter what my marketing has been like, I’ve only been able to do sex work without burning out by bringing a genuine part of me to the table. At the same time, showing all parts of ourselves to everyone isn’t authenticity; it’s chaos.
Sex work has taught me to highlight certain parts of myself for certain clients. Rather than pressuring myself to be one coherent whole, I give myself the freedom to be many selves. The sex worker I am with shy clients might be different from the one I am with louder clients, but it’s this separation that helps me enforce my boundaries with each client from a more authentic place.
I came to understand that my boundaries in sex work had to be strong, but they could be flexible too.
The irony of getting things smooth with the client side of things is that once work started going well, I was suddenly living with my boss inside my head. Any freelancer can relate to this! The nature of being a self-employed sex worker is that you become your own employee and manager at the same time.
I found myself constantly monitoring myself for maximum efficiency; turning every living moment into an opportunity for sex work. New outfits became content, and holidays became spots to tour.
It was only midway through my sex work career that I realised I had eroded my own rest—even though more rest was partly what I had started this job for. I had taken everything I had tried to get away from in civilian jobs and transported it back into sex work. Burnout was inevitable and one of the hardest lessons I’ve learnt from sex work.
It took me time to realise that the problem wasn’t the work itself; it was a lack of faith in myself. Deep down, I believed that if I took a moment off, everything would come crumbling down, and clients would dry up. In a way, I had eroded the boundary between “employer-me” and “worker-me”. All I could hear in my head was the nagging of a boss who didn’t trust me, rather than my own confidence in my ability.
I had taken everything I had tried to get away from in civilian jobs and transported it back into sex work.
Just like I learnt to enforce genuine boundaries with clients, I learnt to enforce boundaries with myself. I came to see myself as an employee as much as a boss. So, I had to talk to myself the way an employee might talk to a micromanaging boss! I set myself work hours, rest hours, and banned myself from multitasking, answering enquiries in bed, and checking emails on my days off.
The more I enforced these rules with myself, the more free I became to actually do what I wanted. I was so much more present when I actually was with clients. Even better, I had much more energy and time for myself. I spent some time getting back in touch with some of the hobbies and interests I’d let lapse. Other times I’d just sit in the sun and read.
Once in a while, I’ll meet someone who thinks that my job means I’m open to anything. I find it funny that a major part of whorephobia is seeing sex workers as unboundaried and “out of control”. Sex workers are some of the most boundaried people I know! To do sex work, you have to deeply know yourself—and also your many selves—and learn how to instill boundaries with all of them. In a way, my biggest lesson has been to always choose myself; everything else falls into place after that.
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