Most sex workers keep their work a secret from at least a subset of people, if not most people in their life. Usually depending on how much stigma they face due to the type of work (legal brothel vs. street work vs. online onlyfans, as some examples) and their personal circumstances (whether they’re a parent, if they’re underage, if they have another job), sex workers face significant risk if they do tell certain people about their work.
Disclosing that you sell sex to coworkers in another industry can get you fired. Depending on how malicious someone is, they may even call new workplaces to tell them or contact your landlord or the police if the way you are selling sex is not strictly legal. These risks all have to be prioritized and considered before we can even think about the benefits there might be to having someone who knows.
Upon telling someone I sell sex, as someone who engages in in-person prostitution, there are many reactions I get. When I tell strangers, who I was much more likely to inform than coworkers or friends-of-friends until recently, their immediate response is often to tell me to stop. Since I am only 23, they frequently assume this is a very recent thing, or that I have only sold sex a few times and have done so very informally though dating apps and direct offers. Once I explain that isn’t the case, if I mention the exact number of years I’m treated as a victim in need of immediate help (because I started at 17) and they start suggesting I get another job or take out a loan as if these aren’t things I’ve tried or considered.
Sometimes when I tell people, they enthusiastically ask me lots of questions. I’m articulate and don’t tell most people about my history of abuse or of mental illness, so they see me as someone who is healthy and competent and they presume a certain amount of social status from the fact I seem educated. All of that means they are more likely to view me selling sex as a career choice based in desire, which I must enjoy. They find the idea of my profession fascinating because it’s taboo and so they ask deeply inappropriate questions, like what my best and worst experiences have been or whether my family knows or what the weirdest sex act I’ve been asked to perform is.
As I have gotten older, and have already faced most of the consequences of being “outed” that most others are trying to avoid, I have gotten more open. I am not in contact with most of my family and they’ve all found out about me selling sex regardless, so there’s no concern that someone might tell the wrong people. I reported a rapist to the police when I was 18 and disclosed that I had been selling sex in the report, so the police are already aware of me. I am on various lists for selling sex, which make it harder for me to travel internationally. In the end, I started doing activism under my real name and writing this blog under it – it’s not exactly a secret!
At another job of mine, I recently told several of my coworkers about having a history of selling sex. When I get into other forms of employment to supplement my sex work income, I generally don’t tell people there about the fact I sell sex out of a fear of being fired. The bar I’ve been working at has been immensely accepting of me as a trans person, compared to most environments, and so I decided my desire to be able to be more open and honest was enough to override the somewhat lower risk of being fired or ostracized in this instance. I told them I used to sell sex, and not about my current involvement in the industry.
Now that I’ve been selling sex on-and-off for about 6 years, I’m very practised in these conversations. This time, I pre-empted a lot of the initial comments by prefacing why I started and that I didn’t regret the decision and am not ashamed of it. Broadly, they reacted well to my disclosure. One coworker responded that it must have been difficult to start doing in those circumstances, which it was, and I appreciated the empathy. Another made me aware that she’d heard a little about the sex worker rights movement and supported the current push to improve legislation around sex work. I didn’t pry into her specific positions, which I’m fairly sure wouldn’t be ideal, and in avoiding that sort of debate I was able to have a calm conversation about being a sex worker.
However, revealing a history of sex work doesn’t mean I’m suddenly able to be open in the same way other coworkers with second jobs are. I’d never describe any graphic details to someone who wasn’t a close friend, but I know that I couldn’t mention still selling sex without it being seen as scandalous. I know that any stories I tell about my past where sex work tangentially comes up are still going to be awkward as a result – either explaining how I afforded to go somewhere while homeless, explaining why I was overseas (to see a client). Any conversation I have might end up having some relation to sex work in the same way other people might relate things to their other jobs. If someone at my work mentions getting STD tested every 6 months, I bite my tongue on saying I get tested monthly because that’ll be seen as excessive without the knowledge that I sell sex.
Even though the few coworkers I came out to as a sex worker reacted well at the time, since then one of them made a whorephobic joke and awkwardly followed it up by saying “obviously, sex work is work!” in a panic. In that moment, I wished I hadn’t told her, because then the remark would have passed by without being acknowledged, but now we both had to sit in that awkwardness. She realized the nature of her joke being harmful, which I suppose is a good thing, but now I had to deal with knowing she’d realized and yet having to take her vague and liberal platitude without even being able to state the reason the joke was harmful because we were in public.
What I ultimately want out of coming out to someone as a sex worker, and what I think many other sex workers want, is to be able to speak freely and openly in the same way other people I know can. I want to be able to tell a story and offhandedly mention a client or that it occurred when I was on my way home from a brothel shift, instead of having to come up with a lie that fits into the story I’m telling. I’d love to be able to be honest when someone asks why I don’t like a certain documentary or celebrity, or to be able to bring up knowledge I have about subjects that would undoubtedly get me questioned without the context of me selling sex.
When people talk about the efficacy of condoms or the rates of sexual assault in an area or sex trafficking scandals, I make a fantastic resource! I can only share any of the wealth of knowledge I have, and correct the misinformation I often hear being spread, if I don’t have to fear the questions people will ask about how I know so much. I’m tired of lying about working with sex workers or being friends with them instead of just saying I am one.
Not being out means our activism is stifled. Many of us have to hide our faces and talk about our work from behind anonymous accounts. If we do show our faces, even under fake names, there’s always the risk of being recognized by people we know in our personal lives or of clients recognizing us and then having our real names which makes us easier to stalk. That’s without even considering the legal repercussions that come with admitting to doing work which is either in a legal grey area or is explicitly illegal entirely.
The average person often doesn’t even know what the law is regarding prostitution, and so may presume it’s entirely illegal even in places where it isn’t. With online work, if they find out someone they know does it then they may attempt to look for their online profile so that they can see them in a sexual manner in a way that may well be deeply inappropriate depending on their personal relationship, from friends crossing boundaries all the way to employers lusting after their employees.
How are sex workers supposed to manage the toll on mental health that comes with keeping our sex work a secret, whilst also managing the physical and financial and legal risks that come with disclosing it? I want to have the option to come out, at the very least, even if I may choose not to make use of it.
As a phrase, “coming out” gets used often to talk about queer people and seems to have originated from describing us, but is also applied to other identities. I feel that as a trans and bisexual person, I see the parallels between disclosing being a sex worker and being queer as being very strong. There are social risks, and in many places there are legal ones, to both. People ask invasive or bigoted questions about both, they may harass you for it, there are similar risks to being ostracized.
Of course, as with any type of coming out, the ability to decide to self-disclose is not something everyone gets. For those selling sex on the street near their homes who get recognized, or people who are outed by ex-partners or friends, they don’t get the choice. Most people can’t afford to uproot themselves from their life and community and client-base, and so when they’re outed they’re stuck being around the people who know. In being able to ask whether it’s worth coming out to someone, we must acknowledge that there is a benefit to having the choice compared with a situation where we don’t get to weigh up our options at all.
When I’ve been outed to people, each instance has remained semi-contained. A friend once told her mother, who then harassed me and threatened to involve social services and the police when I was only 17, throwing insults but ultimately not following through on her threats. Another time, my mother who I’m estranged from tracked down my current social media and decided to tell many others I’m estranged from, which I only became aware of due to being informed by another family member. I was outed as an online sex worker, the only thing the person in question had discovered about me, to members of my university, which I subsequently dropped out of.
I’ve debated selling sex under my real name and giving up on separating the identities at all, giving up on any future job where an employer may look me up first. Given how many times I’ve been outed and the constant anxiety about it, I’m just tired. I feel compelled to speak up for sex worker rights, then worry people will connect my work identity to my real one. There may be many social risks I have already faced and that cannot repeat themselves (like family finding out), but the financial ones are still very real. People could tell my landlord, could inform whatever manager I have at whatever part-time traditional job I have that year.
I don’t even enjoy selling sex, it’s something that in an ideal world I wouldn’t do at all, and yet it’s always there as one of my best options to make the money I so often seem to need. I resent that no matter what I do, even if I did somehow manage to get into another career and my mental and physical health didn’t stop me, it will always be a part of my history and there will always be some sort of disclosure I would need to give to be able to speak as openly as my peers.
I still don’t know what the right answer is, as to whether I should disclose to someone that I sell sex. When I decide to value my desire to tell someone over the risks, is that a fair assessment I’m making to protect my mental health and let myself be open, or is it a self-destructive urge?
How am I supposed to work out if coming out is a good idea or not, when to ask people that question in the first place I have to be out to them?
I don’t know whether coming out to people as a sex worker, in the current highly stigmatized environment, is a good idea. What I do know is that I want to make sex work less stigmatized and to remove the legal consequences while introducing protections against discrimination, so that people in the future don’t have to go through this turmoil.
Beyond that, I hope that if I do face more severe consequences for being open about being a sex worker, those who care about me won’t judge me too harshly as being foolish.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 