Would you Employ a Sex Worker?
By: Kit Bauer
Tags: Sex Work, Workplace, Discrimination, Work, Equality

Art provided by the wonderful Ishtar Hope. Ishtar is a former street based sex worker, and current brothel worker. You can find her art at @bogangoddess on Instagram.

I am constantly startled by the people I meet in the sex industry. Our job is both complex and stigmatised and, as such, it requires a mixture of resilience, compassion, and creativity that I had so rarely encountered in workplaces before I became a sex worker. Of course, I’d met people whose intelligence I admired, or whose ingenuity inspired me, but these tended to be the outliers in most of my workplaces. Whereas, in the first brothel I worked in, I was bowled over by the brilliance of the people around me.

There is a myth — a myth tied up in stigma — that sex work is an easy job. That all a sex worker has to do is put up an ad, wear some lingerie, bend over, and have enough money at the end of the night to buy a Chanel handbag. The people who believe this myth do not understand the complexities that come with sexually charged human interactions, nor do they understand how tough it is to run a business as a stigmatised professional.

I applied for a job earlier this year and it was the first time I’d updated my CV since I’d begun sex work. Fortunately, the job I applied for was with an organisation that provides services to sex workers. Being a worker was a strength and I didn’t have to hide any of my experiences; this organisation knows what sex workers can offer. But I know this wouldn’t be the case in applying for most other jobs. I know that they would see my profession and I would instantly be removed from the pool of candidates. I would probably be laughed at.

Not all sex workers want to leave the industry, but not all of us want to remain in it either. As a sex worker working in Australia in 2019, I am benefiting from decades of activism from my peers: I have a doctor, an accountant, a psychologist, stable housing, and friends who support me. But I wonder, how much longer will we have to fight before I can apply for a job entirely disconnected from the sex industry and be taken seriously?

And so, here are some of the skills that myself and my peers possess. This is by no-means an exhaustive list of all the skills that we obtain doing this challenging job. What do you think of them? What would you think of someone who had these skills but obtained them in another job? What would you think of a prostitute who applied for a job with you? Do your biases impact the way you view professionals like me?

Sex Workers are Expert Negotiators

Preparing for a Negotiation

Some people have a misconception about what it means to be a “good negotiator”. Some think it means you are good at getting what you want, but this is only a half truth. Being a good negotiator is about being able to read other people, give them what they want, while preserving and furthering your own needs. A negotiation is a success when both parties walk away feeling satisfied.

This kind of interpersonal skill is one that can be learnt in many jobs and via many social situations; some people will be naturally good at it, some people will learn it, and some people will blunder through life never needing to understanding that subtle skills that come with good negotiation. Sex workers become expert negotiators because it is part of delivering our service to clients, and because it is essential to our physical and emotional safety. The stakes are high when it comes to negotiation as a sex worker.

My goal for each booking is to receive monetary compensation that I deem fair, and to not cross any emotional or physical boundaries throughout the course of the interaction. This requires forethought and self-awareness to know where my boundaries are. Sometimes my boundaries will be service related: I find receiving oral more energy consuming than giving oral, I deem anal sex to be higher physical risk than vaginal sex, or I don’t have the skillset to provide some kink services safely such as rope bondage. Other times my boundaries will be related to my private lifestyle: I am having health issues and do not want to work past 10pm, or I haven’t been seeing my friends enough because they have weekends off and I often work weekends. Often my boundaries are emotional: a client may be messaging me too much and appears to be asking for a window into my private life that I am not prepared to give, or I am going through a breakup and the idea of providing intimacy to a stranger is too daunting. All these boundaries are overlaid with my financial necessities.

There are certain terms of my negotiations with clients that need to be agreed on from the outset: the time we will spend together, a rough estimation of the services I will provide, and the financial compensation I will receive. But the experience they are going to receive is something that is impossible to entirely agree on before we meet.

Ability to Read Non-Verbal Cues

So much of being a good sex worker is being able to read in between the lines; it is not enough to simply observe my client’s behaviour, I must draw inferences as to the underlying motivations behind their actions. I imagine this is how most negotiators do their job. First, you think about the other person and approximate their needs and desires. Then, you utilise all new information you receive to determine whether your approximations were correct and adapt your approach from there.

Gathering information about the person you are negotiating with gives you power as a negotiator. Unfortunately, a lot of clients do not provide a great deal of explicit information; either because they are shy, do not have the language to talk about sexual expression, or simply do not want to hand over information as part of the booking process. So, I have become good at gleaming information from the language of text messages and emails; and, when I meet them in person, I will watch them closely to understand how they are feeling and how I should conduct the booking. Noticing whether my client is comfortable, distressed, pressured or amiable can change the entire course of our interaction.

Often, I can tell if a client is nervous, intimidated by me, and eager to please from their messages. The most important thing for clients like this, is demonstrating to them that I want to be there with them. It is not enough to simply say “I want to be here” — voices of insecurities do not go away that easily — but eye contact, asking them questions about themselves, and giving them time to relax before initiating any sexual touch tends let them know they are safe with me.

Other times I will be able to tell that, for them, the attraction of seeing a sex worker is about having sex with someone novel. They tell me I am beautiful, but the compliment isn’t for me, but for them. It is a stroking of their own ego and a reminder to themselves that they are fucking someone beautiful. For these clients, it is about delivering them with a raunchy experience — the naughty feeling of being able to have sex with someone with very little conversation beforehand. For these clients I will be fun, assertive, and suggestive in bed.

Risk De-escalation

I can normally tell when a client is going to push my boundaries. These are the kinds of client who will haggle, change the time of our meeting, focus on the things they cannot get rather than the things I am willing to offer, and may insult me in an attempt to put themselves on a pedestal above me. These are the kind of clients that I am afraid of — the stalkers and the rapists.

In an ideal world, I would never accept these bookings, but as I mentioned earlier all of my boundaries are overlaid by financial necessity. Sometimes I will decide that I can handle the client and that the payment I will receive will make it worthwhile. We all have bad days at work, and bookings with boundary pushers are my bad days.

With good clients, I ensure my behaviour lets them know that I am trustworthy and want to work with them; with boundary pushing clients my goal is to hold onto my power and show them that they cannot mess with me. I will be cordial, professional, and remain focused on not letting the client visibly upset me. Getting upset only gives them a wound to pick at and, I feel, strips me of my power. Often saying an outright “no” to something these clients suggests creates a dangerous situation so instead these bookings become a delicate dance of luring them towards things that I am comfortable with, and far away from anything that I do not want to do.

I would be lying if I said these clients don’t bother me. I am a human and they treat me as less than. But, on the whole, I think I manage these clients well. I monitor risks and make decisions to ensure that I can handle almost all situations that I find myself in. I walk away from these bookings knowing that I deserve better and I take care of myself in a way that allows these bookings to slide off me, rather than traumatise me. They are after all, just bad days at work, rather than a sign that my job is unworkable.

Rapport Building

Negotiation underpins so much of our lives. Some negotiations exist in our personal life — such as buying a home or navigating schedules with loved ones. But workplaces are almost entirely governed by negotiation — whether it be negotiating deadlines with your boss or stakeholders, providing customers with good service, or just plain old workplace politics.

Being around someone who is a good negotiator feels easeful — they are good at putting people at ease and letting them feel heard. This makes good negotiators ideal for jobs in corporate environments, retail industry and many others. Good negotiators build good relationships with the people around them, rather than bulldozing through them. These skills are essential to regular clients and long-term stability in the sex industry.

Understanding and Working within Complex Legal Systems

One thing about trying to run a business as a sex worker is that you run into unexpected roadblocks frequently. Where I live there are some, limited options for legal sex work. These options are so limited that it is near impossible to piece together an income if you were to work entirely legally. The limitation on my business are varied: my advertising cannot include nudity, a list of services I provide cannot be published, some services are illegal to provide, and bookings are only legal if the client hosts me in their home or accommodation, I cannot host clients. All these trappings make life and business harder. The difficulties these pose reach from the merely annoying –having to expend time explaining services to potential clients via text, to the life endangering — if we aren’t working legally then dangerous clients know that we don’t have the protection of the law if they rob or assault us. It is up to me to understand the laws that govern my jurisdiction and make choices about how to run my business within their confines.

Each time I travel for work, different laws will apply to me. I have to research those laws, figure out what is illegal for me to do, research how those laws are enforced, and adapt my business accordingly. Companies that operate across various jurisdictions must go through a similar process of due diligence and make choices about how they are going to operate to their best efficacy.

I use online advertise mediums and my ads are hosted in various countries around the world. This means that I must also stay up to date with legislative changes around the world that could impact my online presence. In 2018 two bills passed in the United States of America, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA). These laws criminalised websites that allowed sex workers to advertise. The bills did not differentiate between consensual sex work and sex trafficking, and are viewed by many as an attack on sex workers rather than a concrete step towards helping trafficked people. Everyone from sex worker groups to the US Department of Justice criticised these bills.

Sex workers around the world were rocked by these laws. For some, it meant our income was lost overnight. For others, like myself, it made making a living much harder.

Understanding complex legal systems is part of the day-to-day business activity of a lot of sex workers. I am constantly conscious of what I am putting online, the risks I am taking with regards to the laws of my home jurisdiction in Australia, and the concessions I must make as a result of these various legal restraints.

Unlike other industries, it feels like no one wants us to prosper and succeed. They don’t want to see us organise and flourish. They want to stamp us out.

Yet we keep on existing.

Social Media Proficiency

Sex workers are 21st century business professionals, and like many other 21st century professionals we utilise social media. Social media is a great marketing tool. An ad can only offer so much information, but a sustained Twitter or Instagram presence allows clients to get to know the kind of professional we are, and figure out if we are the right worker for them. When I made the switch from brothel-based sex work to independent sex work around 18 months ago, Twitter was the platform that I relied on to connect with clients. The difference in my clientele as a result of this shift is like night and day; brothel clients would book me based on my looks and thus connecting with them would often be difficult, whereas by using Twitter I am able put my personality out there and target the kind of clients that I like working with. Now, my client base is largely made of people that I am chuffed that I get to work with.

Social media is also an important part of our activism and organising. By posting about our experiences in the sex industry on social media it gives people the chance to have a window in to a deeply misunderstand profession. Due to the systemic silencing and censorship of sex workers in mainstream media this window is invaluable for both sex workers and their allies. Social media is also how we organise with another. When SESTA and FOSTA was unfurling in 2018, it was via social media that I stayed abreast of what is going on. It is also how I hear about local events and rallies in my area.

Sadly, our presence on these platforms is under threat. Instagram and Facebook’s ever tightening community guidelines on sexual content and nudity make it difficult for sex workers to promote their businesses or advocate for their rights without having their accounts deleted or suspended. Tumblr removed all porn from the site in December 2018 which cut off an income source for many sex workers, and which eventuated in Tumblr’s losing almost one third of its users. Twitter still allows sexual content but even they search-suggestion ban sex worker’s profiles and mark our profiles as sensitive alongside depictions of graphic violence and hate group imagery.

The ever-increasing censorship of sex workers on social media fills me with fear. I fear the day that our voices are not deemed worthy of participating in social media. Until that day, I will capitalise on everything that social media has to offer my business and my activism.

Resilience and Adaptability

Sex workers constantly fight for people to see us whole human beings in public and political ways, but this fight also crosses over into our personal lives. We educate our friends, family, and lovers to look beyond the myths that surround our job and recognise our work for what it is — service-based labour. We do this often in the face of rejection, heartbreak, and a reluctance to engage in the education we are providing. We must search for providers of essential services — like doctors, psychologists, lawyers, police and accountants — that won’t pathologize our work, and deliver us with the services we require.

And we achieve things: we find partners that support us, we pay our mortgages, we support our families. We find people in power who are willing to listen to us, legislators that are willing to fight for systemic change alongside us, and we improve our working conditions. I cannot tell you how proud I am of my peers and the things I see them achieve. From workers organising art exhibitions to showcase our brilliance, to those writing books offering an honest and nuanced insight into our profession, to the people pushing for decriminalisation of sex work around the world.

We do not give up in the face of significant challenges. We know that things are not achieved overnight so we simply keep on chipping away at the stigma that oppresses us.

Sex Work is Skilled Work

Reading this you may think — why put yourself through this? Surely it would be easier to simply find another job? And maybe you are right, life would undoubtedly be simpler if I weren’t a sex worker. And I suppose I wrote this essay to be recognised as the employable professional that I perceive myself to be. But for now, I cannot imagine leaving the sex industry. Sex work has given me a kind of stability that I never thought possible. I have undoubtedly become a more confident and content version of myself because of the independence this job gives me and the support the community attached to it offers me. Other jobs wore me down, sex work built me back up again.

So, I refuse to let other people’s misguided views impinge upon my bodily autonomy. With every assault that is slung at my personal freedom: I grieve it, I adapt my business, and I continue with my work. Because I believe that fighting for my rights is more important than succumbing to outside forces that seek to control me.