Sex work falls across several categories with the lines blurring as sex workers often get involved in the different aspects:
• Pornstars - record sex scenes released on mainstream and public forums aka home video and the Internet through various studios and distributors
• Porn actresses - record sex scenes for private clients that are not widely or openly distributed or limited promotional members only websites and often use sex work websites like SexyJobs to recruit participants which is legalized prostitution because it’s a recorded production performance
• Sex clubs / sex party participants - perform at private and members only events and gatherings for and/or with patrons, with the latter being illegal as it’s trading money for sex
• Content creators - create softcore and/or hardcore porn often working independently or with other content creators to film scenes together and leverage pay per view (PPV) and/or subscription based services to distribute content, i.e. OnlyFans, ManyVids, Clips4sale, IWantClips, PornHub/ModelHub, Twitter with marketing to boost sales being the biggest challenge
• Cam girls - film independent usually solo content often from home but could focus on fetishes or dabble in porn, i.e. Chaturbate, MyFreeCams, CamSoda, Streamate
• Exotic dancers / strippers - dance in gentlemen or strip clubs
• Legalized prostitution - is only in Nevada brothels in the US, ultimately when the term sex worker is used it’s mostly commonly referring to prostitutes
• Escorts - are higher class prostitutes that often screen clients which skirts legality because you’re booking them for time and companionship, including FMTY (fly me to you) and extended dates, so any sexual acts performed are between consenting adults meaning money cannot be traded for specific sexual acts and the Internet is saturated with these websites and active sex workers
• Meetups - are lower class prostitutes or hookers often marketing themselves on social media in a direct money for time and sex acts manner
• Street walkers – are the face of desperation in today’s digital prostitution age
Sex work is ultimately about the money and porn is just one type of sex work. Pornstars are seen as the pinnacle but porn is not glamourous. High production value US porn shoots can last 4-6 hours and European shoots can be all day. Pornstars will shoot up to 3 scenes in a day (typically solo, g/g, b/g) at $1500 per standard scene and up to $2500 per scene for the kinky stuff (anal, gangbang). Smart or well represented pornstars are strategic about their careers and loosen restrictions about which acts (anal, interracial, group) they’ll do on film as their career progresses to try and maximize their profits.
Success in porn depends on marketability, work ethic and frequency, entrepreneurial spirit to branch out into other areas, popularity, and longevity. So in a nutshell, pornstars are prudish about their sexuality to exploit demand to drive up the cost for performing various sex acts on camera, making rounds at each studio until it’s time to “unlock” the next level/act. Porn agencies can help book gigs in exchange for 10% in fees while unscrupulous agents will exploit naive girls and take upwards of 40%.
In porn, you perform to the camera but in all other sex work it’s about satisfying your client’s wants and needs. Escorts aka prostitutes might “spend time” with 2 clients per day 2 hours per client or 1 client per 4 hour night, 3-5 days per week at $500 per hour for $6k-$10k per week without a camera present. In porn you know what’s expected for each scene, whereas in escorting every client has their own desires and expectations and often ask for more during their sessions because they’re paying top dollar for their PSE (pornstar experience), GFE (girlfriend experience), and Greek (anal).
Knowing one’s rates and limits is essential to maintaining a healthy disposition as a small regular client base is more sustainable than open advertisements. So in a nutshell, escorts try to become the regular companion of a handful of wealthy typically older men to afford them their lifestyle. Escort agencies can help build regular clients by taking 50% as they feel they shoulder the legal risk.
How much sex you can have in a week when you have to perform for the camera changes your view of sex, intimacy and relationships. Similarly, in escorting having sex with 5+ different clients and satisfying their wants and needs each week alters your view of sex, intimacy, authentic connections, and relationships. Everything becomes transactional while intimacy and emotions come to mean less and less.
Somewhere in the middle, feature strippers can earn $7k-$10k per club visit if they’re well known. More than a few pornstars end up stripping and/or escorting during or after porn because it is far less demanding to navigate, comes with a lot of travel and is more consistent money if you can build a regular client base or high demand, which porn helps them do.
When I look at porn I see the levers of an industry moving behind the scenes to maximize revenue from each new starlet because the industry has such high turnover rate. It makes me wonder about the humanity of the people involved and at what point they trade something priceless for what they deem to be enough money. Many starlets enter so naive and excited on that casting couch thinking it easy work and easy money and exit so damaged and broken because it’s a dog eat dog den of crooks, liars and manipulators all out to exploit others for their own gain. That’s when I realize porn is just a microcosm of our entire society and world, the same way we all chase love and a relationship yet some of us end up jaded shells of ourselves with damaged psyches and emotional baggage.
The difference is porn becomes a public record like arrests and criminal charges forever present for everyone to see and judge you on. Once someone knows or has “connected” with you as a viewer or opponent, they project their values onto you and it alters how they’ll interact with you. The idea of “love” often creates the need to possess, to seek to control and porn is all about control. In the modern feminist movement which promotes free sexual expression, even those who seek to profit off it, the question remains: who is controlling who for money?
Women liberate themselves by profiting. Men embrace sex workers because they provide us with everything we wanted to see from them and do with them, and they make it easily accessible and affordable so we don’t have to work hard for it. Doesn’t everything in the world boil down to sex and money? We have all sought to make more money because it enables us to have more and better sex with the kinds of partners we want in better places and locations.
There are a plethora of reasons women choose to get into sex work and they’re often layered and complicated. Financial liberation is a very popular one. A dire personal situation coupled with the perceived lack of any other skills of economic value up to and including basic survival is another big one. Then there’s that not so uncommon thought, why not get paid for the sex they’re already having or want to have?
All actions have consequences and issues arise with sex work just like with any choice in life. Most sex workers are able to do this line of work because they can compartmentalize their experiences and emotions. Having sex with 1 person 100 times is the same as having sex with 100 people 1 time right? No, it’s not the same. Compartmentalization is like credit card debt, you can keep rolling it over month to month but inevitably one day you will have to face the baggage you have accumulated plus compound interest.
Sex is an emotional act regardless of how emotionally damaged, withdrawn or dissociative you might be. It’s an energetic exchange where you imprint on each other’s life and in transactional sex there is often the imprint of control and exploitation. We always need to consider the kind of energy we are inviting into our lives, especially when it comes to sex.
There is a huge difference between the explorative, adventurous, fun, consensual sex we seek in our personal lives and the harsh realities of sex work and the clients who enjoy paying for their transactional sex because of what it affords them and how they can be free to fulfill their deepest desires in these encounters with as much involvement as they choose. The difference is as simple as the energetic exchange when we share with lovers we care for and when we feel entitled to take what we want because we paid for it.
Besides, it’s remarkable to me the amount of faith and trust sex workers put into condoms to keep them safe and healthy. That piece of latex or polyurethane can slip off, break and doesn’t cover enough surface area to protect oneself during many of the acts being performed. If you ask me, the condom is the greatest delusional sex aid ever invented and contributes heavily to negative sexuality that often lacks accountability and deep connections.
If you watch enough porn, you will eventually notice the difference with sex workers who create content from a place of exploration, sexuality, sensuality, adventure, and art. Watching beautiful erotica enables you start recognizing the porn that is exploitative, degrading, controlling one sided fantasy fulfillment that objectifies women and men based on their physical attributes.
A fascinating trend in porn is couples that create content together and share their porn journey and with the world. It’s intriguing because you can see the real chemistry and genuine intimacy that comes across in the content they make and really connects with the viewers. You see it in the eye contact, the smile, the reassuring caress in the midst of multiple orgasm jack-hammering and viewers react and view things differently with a porn couple as opposed to watching pornstars constantly rotating through different "acting" scene pairings. The couples often attract couples who watch and the level of connection really hits on the voyeurism and exhibitionist fetishes so well, which I would argue are very healthy aspects of human sexuality.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, if your sex work has to be hidden then what you’re doing isn’t from a place of positivity and love and real happiness. Sure society is slow to fully accept sex workers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t build and maintain a network of close personal friends who support you and your work. I was talking with a friend the other day and she mentioned her friend is a burlesque dancer and started an OnlyFans to help with the bills. I immediately asked for her name and while I normally have a hard $10 limit per account, I paid my subscription to support her. It’s fascinating to me when you see the manner in which they’re going about their sex work is honorable and not saturated in the dark side of sex work.
People don’t always talk about or see or want to see the dark side to sex work and it has to do with control and who has it. The prevalence of mental health illnesses and issues, histories of abuse and substance use is rampant among sex workers and little is done to address their mental, emotional and physical health as they traverse the oldest industry. Enjoying sex sober and thinking it better when drunk or high is a slippery slope that can lead to wanting alcohol and/or more commonly coke to really enjoy the act because they believe it makes for better sex. Coupling chemical dependency with mental issues stemming from childhood trauma is a common recipe for exploitation.
Where there are wounded and vulnerable people, there are predators who seek to manipulate and control them. The problem with the sex work industry is because much of it skirts the line of legality it is riddled with unsavory characters who promise the glitz and glamour of easy money without addressing the long term impact of getting into this line of work creating and fostering unhealthy experiences.
So the sex work industry is saturated with those who seek to exploit young girls into sex work with promises of grandeur that all their short or long term dreams will come true. These girls believe these delusions and buy into the deception because it’s presented to them under the guise of self-empowerment and liberation. They sell you on what you desire most, insist they can help you attain it and manipulate you into doing what they want, which is often prostitution for their ring aka client base.
These pimps/madams/adult entertainment brokers are not truly motivated by helping these young girls, it’s about gaslighting, controlling and owning them. They know how to recruit, groom, invest, break, train, mold, keep and maintain them as well as any corporate recruiter and life coach. They maintain control for as long as they want by dangling what she wants most and making her do what they want as a condition to helping her take the next step towards getting what she wants, in true transactional fashion.
Once they’ve hooked their girl, they’re making all her decisions for her and she’s given away all control to them. She no longer decides who she has sex with and she becomes their sex slave, while they of course take 30-50% of all arrangements that they disclose to her. The only question that remains is whether they’ve manipulated her enough to allow her to come and go knowing she’ll always return to them and whether they’ll allow her to get away when she realizes she got conned and sex trafficked by them. The same way “smart” escorts have a set amount to make before they exit the business, pimps/madam have an amount of money they believe they make as a return on their investment (ROI) in a girl before they’ll give up and free her.
The reality is there is never a need to enter sex work with a pimp/madam. For porn, you can apply to be cast in a scene on every single porn website out there. You can self-start on OnlyFans, PornHub, ManyVids and cam within minutes. And of course there are plenty of established escort agencies and independent escort websites you can create free pages on if you prefer the riskiest path with strangers and the police. But a naive woman wants a guide through the business and ends up trusting the wrong people who exploit her and bend her to their will of what they want while convincing her they know what’s best for her, just like some corporate companies.
I was discussing the trauma of negative sex work with a friend and she revealed that her mom’s venture into the dark side of sex work (drugs, pimp/madam) resulted in multi-generational trauma. This trauma continued for years and claimed the lives of her sister and nephew while her and her family are still working to resolve it 20 years later.
Given all the factors, I still am sex worker positive. I have a great deal of support for what sex workers engage in, do and the stories behind why they choose to do it. But I’m a bit closed minded on one aspect, I strongly feel sex work needs to be done responsibly with honesty and accountability. I’m not always convinced trading sexual acts for money is what these women really need, and is instead a continuation of their self-destructive choices but everyone decides for themselves what they think they can handle and want to do with their life. But they should be able to get real help and not the help our broken system offers.
I had an encounter with the dark side of sex work that pushed me to reevaluate my stance on the issue. Someone I was dating, who was a former sex worker, decided to get back into sex work but the new opportunity involved a pimp/madam, increased drug use, deception, and pathological lying making it hard for me to see any of it as healthy.
I am actually open to accepting a certain level of sex work from a partner if there are extensive discussions around the motivation, choice and emotions. Getting into sex work is a conversation, many conversations and a lot of them involve how to keep everyone involved safe and healthy and what role sex has and will play in the relationship. It boils down to communication and in my situation it was one-sided at best.
If a partner wanted to get into cam and content creation, I could be supportive and even help create, produce, distribute and market the content. Heck, I could be convinced to participate in the content and simply hide my face. Let’s be realistic, a woman with 5000 subscribers on her OnlyFans at $5 per month is pulling in $25k per month plus any PPV sales. Who am I to argue with the ability to pay for undergrad and grad school, eliminate student debt and put a down payment on a house when you’re in complete control of your body and who and what you do with it?
Choosing to get into sex clubs and porn work, we’re crossing the line into open relationships and polyamory. Crossing the line into escorting and prostitution work, we’re giving away control and inviting risks involving strangers and safety, diseases, the legality of trading money for sex and redefining the terms of our relationship. Involving pimps/madams, we’re giving away all control and there’s no relationship anymore when someone chooses to indenture themselves to someone else.
A $400 escort in Miami once tried to convince me to bring her up to my hotel room. She bragged that she made 6 figures and drove a 5 series BMW. I countered that she better be saving, investing well, and own her own home because her demand drops drastically after 30 and she’s out of the business by 35 with no tangible work experience she can put on a resume. That’s why it’s so hard for sex workers to get out of sex work, leave the escort high life behind and return to normal work and life, just like pro athletes who have left the game. It’s no wonder the average adult entertainer’s life expectancy is under 40.
Legalizing sex work would allow for better access to the addiction, mental health and career resources sex workers often more desperately need to heal themselves. In legal Nevada brothels and countries like Netherlands and Germany, sex workers have access to these resources, undergo regular testing, and are allowed to work in safe, supportive environments that foster acceptance, nurturing and care. Removing the dark side of sex work, drugs, mental illness, crooks and manipulators, is essential to creating an industry more aligned with the positive aspects of human sexuality and fostering healing and growth.
Sex work is the oldest profession. Sex work itself is not degrading or humiliating, but people’s negative attitudes towards sex make it such. That’s why the sex worker label is often a death sentence for pursuing any other work for the rest of their lives. Sex work traps many women because they see it as easy and high paying money in the short term rather than building long term economic viability and sustainability. They take the immediate gratification route and then years later struggle to rebuild their life because they didn’t develop skills and experience they can put on a resume and apply towards a “normal” career when their peak earning potential has passed and the toll of sex work has become too much to continue.
It’s tough to go from having sex with 5 clients per week, 20 clients per month and earning $20k per month to building a more sustainable career from entry level. The only industries that seem to give any value to sex workers after their first career is over are healthcare, social work, therapy, and creatives. This is why you see many older sex workers washed up and battling substance abuse after escorting well past 200 sex partners in their life. I can’t say I know many healthy people, men or women, who admit to having slept with more than 100 people.
Sex should not be a taboo and in a world where sexuality is embraced positively, sex work could similarly stem from a positive place of exploration, empathy, intimacy, caring, nurturing, and healing. But instead, what happens hidden in plain sight are too often the dark undercurrents of deception, manipulation and abuse that ultimately exploit these women in the short term and provide nothing for them after their attractiveness has aged out. The healthiest prostitutes get into the business knowing exactly what they’re willing to do and how much they want to make and exit once they’ve accomplished both, often using sex work to fund their long term economic viability and sustainability. Who am I to argue against the responsible and focused beauty in that?