14. Why we shouldn't destigmatize sex work, by a former escort
The dystopia of influencer meets whore
** I recommend listening to this episode as there’s a clip from another podcast. I’ve included the YouTube link below if you’re rather read and watch the clip**
Dedicated to my past self.
The woman who refused to acknowledge these things because she was too busy brainwashing herself into believing she had to escort and got lost justifying her actions.
DISCLAIMER: This article was written to address the issues with glamorizing sex work. It wasn’t written to further condemn people who feel stuck in sex work. The black and white about morality and habits of justifying apply to all sex workers but the tone of this piece is addressing glamorization - the emergence of the influencer meets whore. This article speaks on prostitution, though many statements can apply to all sex work.
I worked hard on The Escort: Deconstructed podcast advocating for escort rights for over a year. Spent all my free time working on it and didn't monetize it.
That's a lot of time and money. Lots of energy.
For what?
Why did I do it?
Do I disagree with what I said then versus what I'm saying now?
I know you have some questions, reader.
Perhaps some assumptions made about the timing of my decision. The obvious straw-man argument would be that I retired because I got what I needed out of the industry and now it’s easy to change my tune.
It’s not because I saved up enough money to retire, or because I’m in a committed relationship, or because I’ve lined up a new career.
None of those things happened.
It’s because I don’t know what my future looks like, but I know it doesn’t exist if I stay in this industry.
I won’t get into the details of it here. I’ve spent a lot of time pouring my heart, insights and experiences into a fictionalized memoir. In short, I waited for death; waited for each day to end for years. Prostitution made me an empty shell person with no soul. I stopped planning for the future a long time ago, I didn’t think I had one. Forever dreading for the next bout of unwanted sex I’d force myself to have, it didn’t seem like there was time for anything else or like anything mattered. All my time was spent trying to cope with reality, which involved endlessly dissociating because I was consenting to things that I wasn’t okay with on my own behalf with no end or meaning in sight. I tried to make the best of it. Told myself everything was fine, and I was just doing what I had to to survive.
I was self-destructing rather quickly, and the utter meaninglessness of prostitution played a central role. Misrepresenting my own desires and wants on my own behalf broke my brain and destroyed any pride I once had in who I was. Justifying my poor choices instead of fixing them is what led to a colossal mind fuck that lasted many years and resulted in a deep pool of nihilism.
My theory is sex work is bearable and something to be shrugged off if a worker feels what she gave in the transaction is commensurate to what she received. I think for most it’s also tolerable with a goal (purpose for the money) and retirement date in mind. Then, there’s meaning and an end date - it’s easier to see it as positive activity if you’re ‘HAPPY’ with the trade-off (happy hooker).
As I mentioned in past articles, I regularly gave away a large sum of earnings to random people trying to make myself feel better about how horrible escorting made me feel. Didn’t want to keep the money because it meant nothing. I earned it through self betrayal - it felt dirty. Subconsciously I wanted nothing to do with it, didn't see anything positive coming out of it. Didn't respect it, or myself. Thought giving it away would make me feel better. It did, temporarily, but also ensured I had to keep doing the soul-destroying work because I perpetually had nothing to show for it.
So, in this weird way I experienced ‘high-class escorting’ but never experienced feeling it was a worthwhile trade-off. This could be because I didn’t keep a lot of the earnings or because I’m not polyamorous enough or because I’m too much of a principled person or because it’s never a worthwhile trade-off.
I’m not convinced my podcast would’ve been popular if I hadn’t claimed to love being a prostitute and feel empowered by it.
Wouldn’t have been fun to listen to a podcast by a woman that gave up on her real life in favour of trying to make the best of her situation. I believed I had no options other than paid intimacy as time went on. That may be hard for some to believe or understand but I had to do a little brainwashing on myself to be okay with selling intimacy and access to my body. A podcast about how I was constantly in survival mode wouldn’t have set a great tone for entertainment.
However, the empowered escort talking about how she loves it and loves her life, now that’s digestible. We can get on board with the happy hooker. Not only is it more entertaining, its attractive to hire. What client doesn’t want the woman who says she loves being hired to make fantasies come true? Escorts must claim to love the work on some level or clients would rightfully feel weird about paying them for sex they don’t want to have. Any way you slice it the sex is always wanted by the client and unwanted by the worker; the worker wants the money not the sex. The only way to prove she wants the sex is if she’s okay not being paid for it, then it wouldn’t be sex work anymore.
I grew sick of being dehumanized and having to explain I wasn’t some degenerate, STI ridden, bad person with no agency in life just because I was an escort. So, I created a podcast so information about ‘who’ an escort was could be shared hopefully resulting in the destigmatization and decriminalization of prostitution. I thought I’d make a useful resource with first-hand accounts free from outside editorial bias or agenda. I conveniently omitted my bias and agenda and that of my guests - none of us is bias and agenda free in this life.
I barely had a personality on that podcast. I drank wine during almost every episode wanting to ensure I ‘performed properly’ - same as with clients, same fake persona was needed. I mostly agreed with whatever each guest said so they felt comfortable. I wasn’t trying to argue with anyone or influence what they wanted to say, just be a supportive host.
The ethos of the podcast was flawed, something I discovered over time which ultimately made me lose interest in continuing it. It’s important to say that I think each guest’s story is still valid, and I commend them for sharing so publicly. I recorded almost every episode in person, often meeting them for the first time that same day and found them all to be really kind-hearted people. I got hundreds of fan emails from listeners, other sex workers, clients, and more, saying how it made them feel less alone, among other things. I believe it’s a net positive resource which is why I’m leaving the episodes up even though my tune has changed. It’s good to leave up what I consider to be my evolution of being a prostitute.
I feel listeners liked my podcast because it made prostitution seem like something that didn’t guarantee negative consequences.
I presented it as an activity that could have positive outcomes. Something a worker could genuinely love, and a client could indulge in guilt-free. The podcast made every woman who’s accepted money for sex feel less alone and more empowered because I said I was. It made every client seeking to justify paying a woman for consent to sex, and access to her body, feel he was doing a positive thing because he funded her life and I confirmed I loved my agency-filled choice to consent. Must have been a big relief for clients, and a comfort for sex workers.
Only, it wasn’t real. I was lying to myself, trying not to break my brain, and by extension lying to listeners.
Sometimes I wonder if Pretty Woman, the movie I saw immediately before considering prostitution as an option, was the OG glamorization of prostitution that led to the emergence of many others wanting to make it seem like paid intimacy was something that could have positive outcomes and genuine connections. The director said originally Julia Roberts was supposed to die from a drug overdose but that wasn’t a happy enough ending for Hollywood so they made it a princess ending. Hollywood has unrealistically sold many ‘fairytale endings’ where they don’t belong. I’m unsure if Pretty Woman has had this influence, I just wonder.
Perhaps you liked the old Sienna that did the podcast better the current version writing this article. You’re free to prefer the old version of me. Know that I see old me as blue-pilled and current me as red-pilled. My red-pilled take means no more twisting reality just because it’s harsh.
Life was easier when I justified my self-destructive actions because my reality felt like punishment enough.
I had more bad feelings to face!?
Didn’t seem like something I could handle. But no matter how much I tried to pretend I was fine with it, I wasn’t. I didn’t need to look further than all the self-destructive coping mechanisms and endless brain fog that came from misrepresenting my own desires.
I’ve heard a variation of this sentiment many times,
“Well, what’d you expect when you made the decision (to escort) in the first place? You knew what you were getting into.”
Ha!
Sir, I didn’t sit down at a table and carefully consider each pro and con before coming to a well thought-out decision on the best plan for my future.
Are you serious?
It was a choice made out of desperation, young, alone, when I couldn’t come up with another way to solve my pressing problems. I didn’t want to be there. Why look at it like I made some thought out life choice about my future? Not what happened. That doesn’t excuse it, but I think ‘why’ matters nonetheless.
The only shot I had at getting respect from anyone, including myself, was by claiming that I chose it intentionally and loved my choice.
Otherwise, it’d be clear I was selling my soul for money.
Not so sexy.
My true, subconscious goal was to justify my actions and redeem my self-image by trying to create a positive resource out of my, ultimately, self-imposed adversity.
I’m not convinced I ever had to do sex work.
I’m convinced I gave up on myself at the exact moment many other things happened. I believed it was my only option in my depressed, isolated state. The need for the solution was real but my choice to consider prostitution as the only or best answer was subjective, not objective. Other solutions I didn’t think to consider objectively existed. I wasn’t living in a third world country, or a place where women didn’t have the right to work normal jobs.
Obviously, most women engage in sex work to change their socio-economic status, if not for immediate survival reasons.
Many of us tell ourselves that we ‘have to’ do sex work, but I don’t think that’s true. This isn’t to shit on survival workers. I’m talking to my old self who brainwashed herself for many years into believing she had no other options when that was not reality. I couldn’t see that wasn’t reality.
The thought that I never *had to* engage in prostitution to survive was too hard of a pill to swallow, so I opted for convincing myself I had no choice and that’s why I did it. Otherwise, what was my excuse for ever doing it?
Leaving the industry is hard for a variety of reasons, but it’s not impossible and life isn’t just about quick money. Not to mention, sex work isn’t a reliable job for most workers. Being a sex worker also often comes directly at the cost of not being a viable relationship partner for many men. It often means choosing money for sex from random men over a real relationship - time that could have been spent building a real relationship and building capital in non-sex related work.
For example, if you spend those two years right after graduating on sex work, that same time could have been spent in another field that would contribute to real skills. This looks different for everyone, many do sex work while in school or while in this or that, it’s not full time. The thing is, once you get used to relying on your income coming in this quick manner, you sort of don’t want to choose something else, but sex work isn’t something you’re going to want to do forever. In that way, it’s easy to sabotage oneself long-term by spending time on this dead-end, immoral thing. You’ll also be inclined to justify your actions, leading you down a rabbit hole of self-denials and excuses. Instead, could avoiding all that mental anguish in the first place. Not to mention, can’t undo your involvement in sex work which is why many stay in the industry longer than predicted.
Ideally no one would ever need to sell their consent to sex, or sexual intimacy, but I know we don’t live in a perfect world. It’s a tool that saves people at times. If you feel stuck in sex work in survival mode, check in to see if those survival conditions are objectively real. If they are now, they won’t always be. Will you recognize when that change happens, if it hasn’t already? I’m just saying, maybe the narrative you’re telling yourself isn’t objectively true (anymore, if ever).
That was the case with me, I wonder how common it is.
It’s easy to get wires crossed and start to view the sacrifice as noble, unfortunately it is not. The desire to self-sacrifice to improve life conditions, whether for yourself or your family, friends, or community is a noble sentiment but letting a man pay for access to your body and to your consent to sex is not noble. Understand I’m saying this because I’ve had to unbrainwash myself with reality. Commodifying yourself isn’t a noble or moral solution to money problems. The worth in your existence as a human being extends far beyond immediate financial issues.
Instead of admitting my error and facing hard truths, I opted to justify my actions for years. To get to the bottom of where I veered off course with lies, I had to check-in with what was objectively true.
The first hard pill to swallow — I never had to do sex work.
Other options always existed.
The second hard pill — I’ll exit the industry having nothing to show for all the unwanted sex.
The third hard pill — my low self-worth is what led me to believe I, in some way, deserved sex work.
I betrayed myself.
Gut punch.
Vomit.
Sob.
Trying to put meaning to bad experiences was never a bad idea. Justifying my bad choices instead of swallowing hard pills and being honest with myself was bad.
I’m still pro-decriminalization, a harsh reality is I do believe it is a luxury not afforded to everyone to avoid sex work. I think it does save many from bad situations when nothing else could.
Sex work is a societal evil, but it helps a lot of women escape abusive or destitute situations when it seems like no other options exist.
Sex work has saved many, but nowhere near as many as it’s destroyed. It presents financial opportunity, but that doesn’t make it good. It’s something akin to a lesser of two evils if it saves someone from a bad situation.
I think women have a lot of value and commodifying our bodies shouldn’t be a lifestyle we normalize as empowering.
People can have kinky sex with different partners if they’d like, I’m not admonishing people for wanting to explore their sexuality. Paying someone for consent to sex, or access to their body, and pretending it’s noble or something to be promoted as healthy is dishonest.
I recently heard Dave Smith go off on prostitution through his libertarian lens. I enjoyed several similarities in our takes and his perspective is that of a forty-year-old man looking at it from the outside, not a thirty-year-old female ex-prostitute. I could never express his perspective in the same way. So, I want to share his words.
Dave Smith’s episode from Part of the Problem from December 16th, 2022 is apparently now deleted.
Please listen! This article is meant to be consumed in conjunction with what he says.
The clip from Dave’s podcast begins at the timestamp 16:45 in my audio recorded version (accessible at the top of this page or through Spotify)
Dave says stigma is the libertarian answer to behaviours that are undesirable in a society. I want to agree.
I never meant to glamorize the industry.
I sought to make it easier to re-enter civil society by showing escorts are nice people just trying to make a living. Not long ago I found myself googling documentaries about ex-cons re-entering society after incarceration. Leaving the industry after feeling stuck in sex work presents some real issues.
I think I ended up glamorizing it trying to humanize it. Then wasn’t analysing the difference properly. I didn’t know what glamorizing sex work even meant when I started the podcast. I didn’t consider sex work glamorous, far from it, so it didn’t cross my mind anyone in their right mind would look up to being a whore. I certainly never did. I always felt anxiety and dread leading up to seeing a client because it was unwanted sex with complete or partial stranger at the end of the day.
I couldn’t admit to hating the work so much because then no one would have respected my other message of wanting to be accepted in society.
See the problem in the ethos and the behaviour here?
Glaringly obvious if you look at it.
I saw this tweet a week ago and it helped me understand how I ended up glamorizing sex work.
So maybe, de-stigmatize = glamorize.
That’s no good…
Stigma is attached to things we don’t want to promote in society. But how can it be a societal good to stigmatize workers who often hate sex work and don’t want to be there? We add these consequences on top of the unwanted sex? It’s like hot damn – what a dumpster fire of evil consequences to something you already don’t want to be doing.
But then, isn’t that sort of the point of needing to not make it seem like it’s a good thing? It’s dystopian to be promoting prostitution as a meaningful or good in society. We can’t attach ‘good, healthy or moral’ to the label of prostitute and paid consent. It’s not true. So, what now?
I take back what I said about destigmatization being a good idea, and instead vote for humanization. I still believe society dehumanizes sex workers and it makes things worse. Want people not work in the sex industry? Don’t condemn those already in it to it for life by saying they don’t belong anywhere else if they’re honest about their involvement. Most don’t want to be doing it. It isn’t morally superior to condemn workers to additional rape or other abuses without the ability to seek help, legal or otherwise. People will always engage in sex work whether one morally agrees with it or not.
I still advocate for decrim because I was fully consenting to this transaction. There are many who are not consenting, and conflating the two makes it harder to identify real sex trafficking operations. It doesn’t yield a larger societal good to criminalize paying for, or buying, sex therefore conflating the two. It just enables a predator’s playground. It doesn’t solve the underlying problems, often poverty in this case, causing people to engage in these ‘undesirable’ activities. Pointing to the wrong source of the problem in my opinion. Just pushes the activity into the shadows and it’s most often the more vulnerable party who further pays the price for the lack of safety.
I hold a libertarian stance on this - it’s your right to choose as a consenting adult. It’s simply dishonest to claim sex work should be normalized because it’s good for society.
This is the dystopic, harmful lie increasingly promoted by the influencer meets whore in our culture over the last decade or so, which I was part of.
In all honesty, the chances are if you get involved in sex work, you won’t feel like you got something commensurate out of it with what you gave up and you’ll end up with these feelings of self betrayal, shame, etc. Mostly because you were never okay with it but just hoped it would fix your problems. Basically, if it doesn’t, you’ll be very aware of what you gave up.
The happy hookers who feel they’re getting enough to match what they’ve given up will claim sex work is empowering. That’s my understanding. Doesn’t make the black and white not true for them, they’re still engaging in a societal evil in my books - something sad. They just have no desire or need to focus on the soul destroying parts because they’ve been paid enough not to care. Some happy hookers prize money above much else, some the power and attention they get, some are adrenaline junkies. I don’t see a fourth option but if you know one, feel free to comment.
The connection to a client could be real but you still don’t want to be giving them access to your body or having sex with them or you wouldn’t get paid. Sex has an inherent meaning and pretending it doesn’t is bleak for your soul, relationships, and society.
It’s a different experience to see seven clients in a day versus one client for a weekend trip. The percentage of people who do sex work and have the privilege of the weekend experience is very small in comparison. Ultimately, it’s the same thing at the end of the day - selling consent to sex and access to your body. So, it’s just a more worthwhile trade off to the woman who feels what she gave up is proportional with what she received. It’s easier to justify and claim to love it. That’s really the only difference I see.
There’s a million other things someone could be doing with their life than letting random men pay for their consent to sex. So, if it’s not financial woes then there’s something going on there. Either way, it doesn’t represent the majority of workers so hearing from the happy hookers about sex work truths is a misrepresentation to the industry in a way. Any sex worker actively working must claim to love it to some extent to get hired so it’s hard to tell who is happy or just marketing unless retired or anonymous.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
→ It’s hard to get a person to change their mind if they’re being paid to believe something.
That’s basically how I view the happy hooker and why including them in the discussion can’t yield honesty. It’s just dishonest because they’re being paid to stand by one message. It’s different when your income doesn’t depend on the narrative that ‘you do your work because you love it’.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There are young women (or whatever age) looking at the content we put out in society. I couldn’t and can’t live with myself thinking I in any way told them I think it’s good or healthy or moral to engage in paid intimacy. It’s not.
It's teaching young women all that matters in life is money. The only thing that matters is that you earn the highest amount of income you can now. It's spoken about like it's any other job, there's no repercussions, it's just sex! If you don't agree then you're hateful and harming sex workers! It's like no, you make a higher income literally in exchange for selling your body and soul to people. If you had a kid, you’d tell them being a sex worker was a great idea, having been one yourself?
I don’t buy it. If that makes me the bad, hateful, intolerant woman then so be it. That’s who I’d rather be. That’s the real advice from my heart.
Maybe sometimes when people steer clear of those working in the sex industry it isn’t because they think they are bad people or drug riddled or whatever.
Maybe it’s because they know there is misery, mental illness, unwanted sex, missing love, and many other probable bad side-effects that go along with sex work and they want to steer clear of that. It’s a real mind fuck.
Maybe it’s just trying to avoid the mental confusion that sex work necessitates, it’s not an admonishment of the people in it as bad people. Just an area of life that is best avoided.
My hatred is of myself for wasting so much of my life believing a lie.
I think it’s impossible to escape the industry without baggage from unwanted sex. Living on a tight budget should not be equated as equivalent to having a person you don’t know penetrate you or gain intimate access to you. Those situations are not equal, not they are not the same. It’s an illogical, insane straw man argument to make.
Why does it matter to act morally?
Good question.
All the confusing propaganda we see today is intended to de-moralize. Not meaning take the wind out of your sails but literally remove your morality from your decision making. Makes for a much more useful idiot.
I think it matters a lot that people stand-up for what they believe is moral and right in society today. It matters a lot that people care about acting morally. I don’t know what makes a person decide to care. Maybe that’s a post for another day.
Your application of your morality applies to everything you do in life. If you start not giving a shit about this, what else will you stop giving a shit about?
If I start down this path of justifying my immorality, where does it end? Am I so naive as to believe I can pick and choose when to be moral with no unintended consequences?
How will I know the difference between good and bad if I justify the bad things I do to make them into a good thing ‘when I do them’?
This is why saying the truth about my experience of sex work, even if it’s hard to admit how much I’ve betrayed myself, is essential.
I’d like to instead lead a life I can be proud of, that affects my bubble of society in the way I’d like to see the world actually be. A lifestyle that fosters good mental health and prioritizes doing the moral thing.
I couldn’t find a meaning before. Couldn’t find a reason to care.
Honestly, I still haven’t gotten there. I just have faith I’ll figure it out and decided not having a meaning doesn’t excuse selling access to my body. I’m not going to find meaning in that lifestyle. I’m not a religious person, but I believe in the divine in some way. My soul must be prioritized and being moral matters - not selling my body like an object. I think worshipping at the alter of quick money and justifying my poor choices is something best left in the past.
I’m interested in rediscovering what it means to be a healthy female with healthy femininity. I’d love to be a positive influence for other women perhaps confused by the messaging that doesn’t actually make them feel good at the end of the day, or after many years they find themselves asking how they ended up there if they did these ‘empowering’ things.
To each their own, but now that I’ve stopped lying to myself, my brand of femininity includes things that actually respect my womanhood. Selling access to my body through a manic smile claiming I love it isn’t me respecting myself. It’s quite literally me giving my power away for a small fee (money/attention v soul).
I’m not here to be anyone’s judge, but be a beacon of, “don’t believe the lie that you don’t have other options”.
I’m attempting to rectify any past harm I did by inadvertently glorifying this thing that was a complete and total self destructive nightmare for me.
I don’t hate other sex workers or clients. I’m being honest about what I would advise based on my experience if you’re seeking a healthy lifestyle.
Getting back to self-love for me includes being honest.
I naively and optimistically think I can coexist with the happy hookers, survival workers, outright abolitionists pro criminalization, and more. All I see is a gaggle of people wanting the same outcome - a healthier society, less harm, less poverty, more freedom, etc. Each group just has a different idea on how to get there, but I believe the end goal is the same.
This has felt shitty to write and honestly I think it’s way too long but I did my best to edit. It wouldn’t be enough for me to not at least try to put meaning to all the bad. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I don’t know what this resource will yield but I hope it’s something positive. The life we lead will still have happened once everything is said and done. Money comes and goes but what you did for money will always remain. There is a lot of life to live and it’s not all about quick money or an easy orgasm with a woman who wouldn’t touch you if you weren’t paying.
Each of us has the power to make a butterfly effect difference on those around us with our energies and actions. I just wonder what that version of reality looks like when we opt for spending time on the things we love that are good and moral.
Lots of love, reader.
Stay curious.
14. Why we shouldn't destigmatize sex work, by a former escort
I found this post very interesting, and really appreciate the authenticity in your writing. I think you touch on the conversation I haven't heard talked about much, which is, how do we have honest conversations where each person's full self can come to the table? It's easy when we talk about light stuff, but when it comes to someone's identity or deep values, we have a tough time talking.
I think that's where the morality/destigmatization situation often goes, is that because you're doing this thing with high stigma (sex work, drugs, etc), you become a stigmatized person. I.e. because you attach some value to that lifestyle, and I attach stigma to it, you get the stigma attached to you too. Disconnecting those two is something I'm really interested in seeing how we as a culture can do.
That's quite the epiphany. I hope the writing is helping, I know my writing was a form of therapy I used to get through some really tough times. Don't beat yourself up too bad and try to not live in your head too much. You are a good person and I bet there are lots of people who feel the same way about you. All I can advise for the moment is to be around positive people who add to your life.
Thanks for sharing.