But baby, just think of what we could do..

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brothels, couples, discrimination, feminism, friends and family, Love, money, parenting, personal stories, Relationships, sex industry, Sex Work, single mothers, south australia, stigma

Another love story. Complete with love, lies, sex, summer holidays and a little bit of communication. When I met Luke I was happily hooking in a brothel 2 shifts a week, studying part-time, working a ‘straight’  job and parenting but I still found time to do a little partying. I was single, my kids spent a couple of nights a week with their father and I was still young so every now and then I’d go out on the town with my besti’s and on some of these occasions I got lucky. Or I should say, sometimes I went home with someone and they got lucky!

By this point in life I had made a decision to keep my sex work job a secret. I had children to think of, I had an ex partner, the father of my kids, who I didn’t want to give ammunition, I had study, a straight job and a future. I was not ashamed of my sex work, it was just such a non issue that I couldn’t be bothered dealing with the stigma if I didn’t have to, and I wanted to protect my children from it. It was sex work that had allowed me study part-time, given me the freedom  to be a single mum rather than stay in an unhappy relationship, allowed me pick and choose straight jobs, only accepting those that were flexible and willing to work around my family and my study. It  was sex work that meant I could buy the expensive texts books I needed for Uni, and take my kids to overpriced music lessons and still left me with enough money to have a big night out every now and then. I was desperately scared of having to give all that up and I thought that keeping it a secret would prevent that from happening.

And it worked. I didn’t tell Luke the night I met him at the party. Actually we had met quite a few times over the years, but he had never really left an impression on me before. But that night he did and we spent the night together and then later in the week another night and then an afternoon. I didn’t want to tell him my secret because then it’s not a secret. What if we stopped  seeing each other after a short time and then he told everyone else. I decided it was none of his business and that if we were still seeing each other after 3 months I would tell him.

3 months came and went and Luke and I were still seeing each other. He spent time with me and the kids and it was getting fairly serious. I had dropped my shifts in the brothel back to only one per week, and I didn’t want to tell him. I knew by now that he would hate it. I knew that he would make me stop. I knew he would be upset I had kept it from him. And I knew it didn’t have to be that way. We were not living together so I still had my own expenses, and my brothel shift just moulded seamlessly into my busy and respectable life, I wasn’t technically lying…… I just said I was going to work.

I didn’t want to give up what I viewed as my independence and so I kept sex working and I kept it a secret. For nearly two years.

Possibly not the right thing to do, but I am certainly not alone. Half the people I worked with at the time were hiding it from their partners as well. It seems easy to justify when you know it’s just work. And as time went on, it just seemed more and more impossible to tell him. I wanted him to know, sometimes I felt like he just didn’t want to know. I mean, why didn’t he ask more questions, Even if he didn’t notice the extra money I was sure I was dropping hints. But no, I worked once a week in a brothel for more than 18 months and it seems my partner had no idea.

And then one day, in the middle of a big blow up argument, about something unrelated and I can’t even remember what now, I yelled the words at him. “I DON’T CARE, I’VE BEEN A PROSTITUTE THE WHOLE TIME YOU’VE KNOWN ME”

I meant it as a cutting end to our argument, to our relationship, to my lies, and possibly to my job. I had thought about what would happen if he found out and I knew he’d be pretty pissed! I wouldn’t have been surprised if he put a hole in a nearby wall. But I screamed it at him and he just looked at me blankly and said “you are not!”

And so I told him everything. His calmness floored me, so my manner changed. I lost my anger and I felt guilt and sadness for hurting him. I explained myself, I consoled him, I explained myself some more, I apologised and, of course, I did the inevitable. I promised to stop working. We  talked and to my surprise  he was willing to forgive me, and I guess that made him even more appealing to me.

I quit my job, took up extra hours in my straight job, and moved in with him to save money. I felt like I gave up some of my independence  but I was ok about that. I kept it up for around 12 months but after a year of no sex work, and less flexibility in my other job, I was suffering financially. So was my partner, he had acquired an instant family to help support and we were all feeling the pinch. I had been faithful to my pledge to not do sex work, but we were struggling. It was on my mind, and I began making jokes about it. The bills would come in and he would be complaining so Id say, “one night in a brothel, I could clear them for us”, he would ignore me or give me an annoyed look. But neither of us could deny that money was tight and something had to give. I kept making my jokes, but I started throwing in extra sweeteners “we could even go on a holiday!”

“But honey, just think of what we could do!”

He still didn’t agree, but he seemed more open to the idea the more I kept bringing it up. One day he snapped at me “Oh for gods sake, you want to go back to work, just do it then”. I nearly squealed with excitement, but thought that might be an unhelpful reaction. So we sat and had a very open and long conversation about it. I asked him what his main concerns were. He said he trusts me, he knows it’s just work. I reminded him that he knows it wont effect our relationship, because I had already been doing it in the past and he didn’t even know. Eventually he confessed one of his biggest fears about me being a sex worker, was that I might fuck one of his friends or colleagues as a client, or I might be recognised and outed in public.

Jealousy is an awful emotion, and one that is difficult to control. Everyone experiences it differently and for different reasons. His fear seemed silly to me, but I was glad he was able to figure it out and communicate it to me. It meant that we could find a way for me to do sex work that he could live with. We decided that I would go away to work outside Adelaide, where it was unlikely I would see anyone either of us knew and where I could remain anonymous. So for the next 12 months I went away once a month to rural and regional South Australia for working weekends with friends.

And because I felt privileged to be able to go back to work with my partners blessing I used my money very wisely. I knew we were taking a risk in our relationship and I wanted to make it worth it. In 12 months, I managed to pay off our credit card debt and saved enough money to take us on that holiday I had suggested.

I used to joke that I was bribing my partner to “let me” work by paying for us to go to the Greek Islands, but it wasn’t actually like that. I did have to convince him to be ok with me going back to sex work, but we were a partnership, and I felt equal in that partnership, we had developed an arrangement that worked well for us, and sex work had become a part of that arrangement.

And it is hard to argue while holidaying in the beautiful Mediterranean summer!

Do you ever have female clients?

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couples, disability, escort, fantasy, female clients, feminism, money, personal stories, sex industry, Sex Work, sexuality, south australia, stigma

This post is part of the Sex Work 101 series, along with other popular questions and answers such as what was my most interesting booking? What do you tell your kids? And various other questions to be answered in the future such as, do you pay tax and what’s the worst booking you’ve had. But this post will answer the ever popular question about whether I see female clients.

Yes. I have had female clients. But not many. The majority of my clients, by far are men. And I am fairly confident in saying the majority of most sex workers clients are men.

Most of the women I have seen were part of a male/female couple, who had booked me to join them. I have done many many bookings with couples over the years and have always really enjoyed them. When I take a booking for a couple I generally ask to speak to both of them to make sure everyone is equally as enthusiastic. The last thing I want is to get caught in the middle of an awkward relationship drama.

More often than not I am told that it was the womans idea to hire a hooker because she was wanting to experiment. Obviously there would be times when she just wanted to please her fella, but that was definitely not the case for most. There was one couple i used to see a lot, she was about 10 yrs older than her boyfriend. The second time I visited her she waited for her boyfriend to leave the room and whispered that she used to be a sex worker as well. I saw them lots after that.

These couple bookings are probably different to how you are picturing. Again they are heavily negotiated. I know what they want from me, what their rules are, what they don’t want. I am careful to respect both people and their relationship and nearly always focus most of my attention on the woman. Rather than being some kind of porn scenario acted out for the males pleasure, I often use these sessions to encourage the male to help me pamper the woman. It is very nice massaging a woman after massaging so many men.

I have seen some women clients by themselves as well. But in all honestly, I can count them on one hand. I know other sex workers have had more female clients than I have had, and there are even agencies and brothels that specialise in catering to female clients in the eastern states. But I have seen only a few. 3 of them were women experimenting, 1 of them was a lesbian, and one was a closeted married woman in her 50’s.

Even the male sex workers I know mainly see male clients. Although one of my friends has a number of female clients who have disabilities. They are women who have been very assertive about their sexual desires and pushed hard to get access to a sex worker. Often women’s sexuality is not considered and way too often a woman with a disability is considered asexual.

It also seems, anecdotally, that a lot of female clients are or have been sex workers themselves. I have stories from other workers about female clients who are or used to be a sex worker. They either wanted to see how it was on the other side or they just felt like laying back and being pampered. I even know a sex worker who hired another female worker when she was visiting Adelaide from interstate.  I have to admit, it does sound appealing, but I’m too cheap to hire a hooker 😉

Why so few female clients? Well, we can only speculate. Depends on what lenses you use to look at the world through I guess. Some will say, men need or want more sex and women can get it for free. Some say men are given access to women’s bodies due to patriarchy, and I say:

A little from column A) and a little from column B)

Men are often encouraged to embrace and promote their sexual urges. Men often have more access to a disposable income. Women are often discouraged from acknowledging their sexuality at all. Women often have less access to disposable income.

Combine that with an entrepreneurial instinct and a desire for independence and you have yourself supply and demand.

The sex industry is a reflection of society, warts and all (lol – see what i did there?). The sex industry is not the cause of societies problems but it is affected by them. But as society changes, so is the sex industry. There are many male sex workers catering to men who have sex with men, and the number of female clients is slowly increasing too. We know that the number of women viewing porn on the internet is huge, there are female only strip clubs and porn producers.

I look forward to a day when I can confidently tell you that 50% of my clients are women.