There are a few ways that people fall for sex workers, so we’ll save some time by clarifying whether your situation is one where you should pursue those feelings. If you’re a client of a sex worker and you’ve developed feelings for them, without the sex worker themselves telling you they’d like to see you in a non-professional capacity, you should not try to pursue them. If you’ve met someone who happens to be a sex worker, but are not a client of theirs, then you can consider whether it makes sense to express your feelings.
Can you handle dating a sex worker?
Before you confess to your romantic interest in a sex worker, you should think about whether you could actually handle dating one of us. There are issues like jealousy, stigma, and even potential legal consequences to consider. Sex workers have to deal with enough whorephobia already, and it’s not ideal to put the person you like in the position of being an educator throughout your relationship. Work out what you can handle in advance, so that pressure is taken off of your potential partner.
When it comes to sex workers who have sex with their clients, or who perform for them on stage and in videos, there will consistently be people who are seeing them in a sexual context. These will not be people your potential partner is actually interested in, but nonetheless they will flirt with these clients be performing for them in a sexual way. Maybe that doesn’t seem like something you would become jealous over in the abstract, or perhaps you even find it sexually exciting, but as a day-to-day reality that can change. You need to consider how you’ll feel when your partner comes home from seeing a client, or finishes uploading a video to their porn subscription site, and whether you’ll grow to resent that. Don’t make a promise you can’t keep, about not taking issue with their job.
How are you likely to feel if your close friends and family find out that the person you’re dating is a sex worker? Even in cases where the sex worker you’re crushing on is very private about their work and aims not to be recognized, there is always the chance that it will come out and the people you love will know. You need to be willing to stand up for your partner, if your loved ones are bigoted towards them. The bigotry may also be directed towards you, and you need to be prepared for that too.
Dating a sex work also does not mean you’re always going to have amazing sex, and in fact having a sex worker as a partner may have some complicated impacts on your sex life. After a day of having sex with clients or giving private dances, your partner may not want to have sex with you, and you will need to make peace with that. There also may be times when your partner slips into “work mode” during sex, or needs you to do things to make a separation between the sex you have and the sexual activity they do for work.
What should you avoid if you do start dating a sex worker?
Don’t seek to become a consumer of their content or services. You do not want to be mentally placed into the client category, and you will find out about their work or see the behind-the-scenes as you form a relationship. Allow your relationship to be based on their real personality, rather than the one they put on for work.
Be careful not to make a sex worker feel like they have to choose between you and their job. Circumstances and feelings change, and even after taking many precautions you might find that you are no longer happy with their job. That could also happen to you dating people with various other jobs, each with their own drawbacks – do not make this into the problem of any sex worker you date. Either end the relationship, or work through your issues. Do not lay out an ultimatum that many sex workers have heard before and which compels them to choose between their income and their relationship.
Bragging about your partner being a sex worker is barely better than speaking negatively about them for it. You should only inform people at all if your partner says it’s okay, and even then you shouldn’t frame it as something especially shocking or cool. It’s a job, and it’s one that is already very sensationalized in society. Adding to the stigma around the work is not going to endear you to your partner, and they may feel fetishized if you’re making a point of telling people who excited you are to be dating a sex worker.
What can you do to be a good partner?
Learn about sex work from sources other than the person you’re interested in. The whole teacher/student thing might be a common sexual roleplay trope, but it’s not fun to be constantly teaching your partner. Seek out information not only about the type of sex work your partner does, but about all kinds, and focus on the issues your partner might face. Their work might impact their ability to travel and the payment processors they can use, which are things that may become relevant during your relationship.
Be an ally regardless of whether your interest in this particular sex worker ends in a relationship. If you’re only learning about sex work so you can get laid or have a partner, that lack of care will bleed through into how you talk about sex work and view other sex workers eventually. It’s fine if the person you like is the catalyst for educating yourself, but caring shouldn’t start and stop with them as an individual.
Accept that not all sex workers feel the same way about their work, and that your potential partner could have any one of a range of views about sex work. They might hate doing it and want to stop, in which case you should support them in quitting on their own terms, or they might enjoy it and seek to expand the services they offer and their popularity. Whichever they decide, you need to be ready to respect their choices.
A shocking number of people don’t even consider how their partner being a sex worker might impact their relationship, and the fact that you’re thinking about it is a great first step. Now it’s time to put in some work!
Jack Talks About Sex Work 