Why Are Sex Workers So Radically Honest?

Editor’s note: mentions of abuse.

Very little breaks taboos like shamelessly talking about selling sexual services. It’s the reason that many people work in secrecy and isolation. When we’re put in the position of having to lie to those close to us because of whorephobia, it can be such a huge relief to talk to other sex workers that it all comes spilling out at once as soon as we find them. We share our frustrations with clients, our joy over lucrative shifts at the brothel or the strip club, and we commiserate over how hard it can be to find partners and friends who understand us outside of the community itself. This is the beginning of the snowball towards radical honesty.

Once we’ve crossed the line of what’s acceptable to discuss once, it gets a little smudged. The more we do it, the more the line drawn in chalk that binds us only by our shame can be worn away in the company of other sex workers. Why should we feel comfortable discussing our clients sexual desires but not our own? Why would we speak about the discomfort we feel with certain acts clients want us to perform, but censor ourselves when it comes to our partners?

Abuse festers in the dark and sex workers don’t have the luxury of being in denial about our level of risk. I photograph the license plates of my clients’ cars and send them to friends who know exactly what I’m about to do inside of them, then return the favour of being a safety net by counselling them about the red flags their partners are exhibiting the next night. The only way I can have someone on standby to look out for me is by stamping down on that part of myself that insists the details are too personal or awkward to divulge.

Very little breaks taboos like shamelesslytalking about selling sexual services.

I’ve stepped into social events full of my peers where sex workers I’ve never met before will openly talk about their recent abortions and drug use without batting an eyelash, confident that every hooker and porn actor in the room will have their back if anyone dares to offer criticism. The stigma outside of these rooms full of sex workers is so extreme that something beautiful spills into our community when we crack under the pressure: the truth.

If I mention struggling with seeing clients on my period, there’s always a sex worker with a horror story about using a make-up sponge to stem the flow of blood and another with resources on safe menstrual sponges. They don’t hesitate to help me, unmired from their own humiliation about their bodily functions. I get support with the knowledge that their acts of kindness will be reflected back to them when they’re in need. No-one has the energy to maintain a constant level of embarrassment, especially seated next to someone talking about which sodas are best for fart fetish bookings on one side and someone giving pegging advice on the other.

Each time we share, our honesty is rewarded with the wisdom of our colleagues, whether we’re asking for advice in a group chat or in a workers-only area of a venue we work in. We develop blacklists that save lives, so we pass that protection forward by warning people about our own nightmare clients. People tell us the locations of the most sex worker-friendly STI clinics and we share that information with the newbies we meet. Before we know it, we’ve built a network out of our willingness to talk about things others would want us to hide.

I’ve learned more personal details about sex workers I’ve known for mere months than I have about my own family members in a lifetime. I can recite their hopes and dreams but not their legal names. The things we share with each other are the things that matter, cutting to the core of our experiences and personalities rather than filling the room with hot air and small talk. A room full of sex workers is full, no matter how few of us are in it, when we refuse to shrink like the rest of society wants us to.

Each time we share, our honesty is rewardedwith the wisdom of our colleagues...

Outside of our community, we are often forced to lie to our doctors and landlords and to police for our safety. Trying to get a job outside of sex work is enough of a nightmare with a CV gap to explain, let alone if we’re open about what we were doing during our time out of traditional employment. This isolates us and makes it harder for us to get close to people, whether they’re our new housemates in a shared flat or our colleagues at a new job. It makes us value the truth that much more.

In the absence of others to confide in early on in my time doing sex work, I felt like I was bouncing between the false persona I’d crafted for my clients and the subdued version of myself who couldn’t admit to my double life. I didn’t know how to shed these diminished alternate selves and just be me, because I had no-one to share it with. Making sense of who I am and how selling sex has changed me were things that I needed others to provide me perspective on.

At some point I reached my limit in ways that were unsafe. I revealed my work to people who wanted to use that information to hurt me, because I was bursting with the need to tell someone. This desire to be real and to acknowledge the things I’d be told to keep quiet about was innate, but it is other sex workers who taught me how to focus who I allowed myself to be so open with. I can’t help but be proud every time someone new learns the same way I did that it’s finally safe to be genuine somewhere.

The reason for sex workers’ radical honesty with each other is obvious to me; it is born out of necessity and maintained out of love. We see the benefits it has and we replicate it.