The craziest thing is that the life of a hooker is the most secure and stable I’ve ever been. Which might be hard to believe: I know I used to think sex work was all benders and yacht parties. In reality, I’ve spent much more time than I ever could have imagined replying to messages and resisting the urge to argue with men I’ve never met, debating topics ranging from if I in fact have to accept PayID, to whether or not I'm even "real". On top of that, my daily admin is liable to drive me out of my mind with boredom, editing endless pictures and tracking down receipts. Taxes that make me roll my eyes at everyone with a civilian job who complains about doing theirs is definitely not the kind of thing I thought I was getting into.
Sex work content highlights a very different part of the industry. Maybe that’s why I love it so much, the glamour of it all, even as someone who knows that’s only one part of being a sex worker.
Across social media platforms there are countless multi-media posts depicting a particular kind of sex work mystique. If you’re intrigued by sex work, endless visions of decadence and eroticism await you. You don’t have to search far to see strippers counting tips after a lucrative shift, their bespoke acrylics caressing literal piles of money. There are flawless women performing incredible feats of endurance, while appearing to effortlessly spin around a pole, amid crowds of adoring fans. Beautiful young women hold the disembodied hands of their sugar daddies on yet another cruise or shopping spree. On Instagram, images of seafood brunches on the beach and oysters followed by lobster halves dowsed in butter convey the luxury that sex work can afford people. The social media landscape generally venerates sex workers as the epitome of luxury, and this narrative only becomes more compelling as we enter a global recession.
The craziest thing is that the life of a hooker is the most secure and stable I’ve ever been.
At the same time as these images saturate social and traditional media, self identified “feminists” and conservatives advocate to save sex workers from their own self-imposed exploitation. Think-tanks and lobbyists co-opt feminist talking points in order to repeal the legislative progress for which sex work advocacy groups have fought for years. Immigrants are harassed and deported on the basis of their work, while even relatively privileged sex workers can be barred entry from the United States. Discriminatory and punitive laws are pushed to criminalise sex work under the guise of helping victims of human trafficking. Something they do not do.
In this way and others, sex work seems to have always been simultaneously romanticised and condemned by society. However it’s depicted, sex work is sensationalised, and that sensationalisation can be very sexy.
There’s a whole array of movies and tv shows about sex workers and their chaotic, beautiful lives. P-valley is one example, a gripping drama centring around the workers of a Mississippi strip club. The incredible performances of the workers of the stripclub the Pynk are front and centre and the viewer is often positioned as a patron of the club, granted a front row seat to their performances. The show is very much about the people who work at and run the Pynk, their humanness and lives outside of their work. Nonetheless, the illusory world and personas they create are a massive aspect of the intoxicating appeal of the series, a common theme across sex work media.
However it’s depicted, sex work is sensationalised, and that sensationalisation can be very sexy.
I’m drawn in by the spectacle as much as anyone. I love P-valley, and the pole performances are easily my favourite part of the show. I love ogling sex workers’ social media and their champagne lunches, not to mention their thirst traps. Every time I log on to twitter to self promote, I’m lost in the spectacle of beautiful women living exciting and opulent fantasies.
My day-to-day experience on the job hasn’t looked exactly like that. Far more often than going on shopping sprees, I’m just trying to make myself look presentable. I keep finding myself trying to dry the only four towels I have inconspicuously in the lounge room of an Airbnb, hoping that the next client has already showered so I don’t have to consider offering him a bathmat. Or gathering the strength to change bed sheets after a fourteen hour shift and struggling to make the pillow and duvet arrangement presentable. It sometimes feels like my job boils down to sitting around an incall, texting clients for hours on end.
This schism between reality and fantasy is pretty obvious to anyone in the sex industry. Although there are occasional moments of glamour, sex work is work; we’ve been saying this for years. Part of what I think people can miss in that statement is all the mundanity inherent to work. This is an important idea politically, to be on the same level and to have solidarity with all workers. I don’t think there should be distance between us and civilians on labour rights. It’s easy to get caught up in the illusion that the media creates, it’s part of the fantasy we sell and who doesn’t enjoy a bit of escapism? But it is ultimately a fantasy.
Although there are occasional moments of glamour, sex work is work, we’ve been saying this for years.
The day-to-day reality – all the uninteresting stuff – is what I love most about being a sex worker. I genuinely love giving intimacy and care to people, even just being able to provide physical touch to someone who doesn't get enough. I love having time and energy to prioritise my mental health and work on art, a privilege so few people get. I love having financial stability and getting off Centrelink, after years of ungracefully jumping from job to job and generally quitting or being fired between month one and two. And this is all with having almost as much privilege as you can have in the sex industry, and that certainly has made my experience as blissfully mundane as it has been. I’ve been very, very fortunate.
After living at the financial mercy of various bureaucrats, the consistency and financial stability I've gotten from sex work is such a relief. Sex work has been for me, sanity and calm within a crazy and wild landscape. I love that sex work is mostly unremarkable, however much I enjoy regaling my friends with stories of bionic dicks and golden showers gone awry.
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? 👇☂️✨
