As sex workers we do a lot of the same emotional and physical labour - listening to male problems, fawning over them, providing sexual services - that our current society has deemed unworthy of acknowledgement or compensation.

Yet we are compensated, sometimes greatly.

I think that this is one of the many reasons that so many people insist on keeping us as illegitimate as possible.

Because if sex work is acknowledged and accepted as real work, that means all of the rest of the unpaid labour expected of women might also be real work and worth of acknowledgment. Or worse - compensation!

I admit that I am a privileged sex worker. I’m educated, white passing, and financially secure. However my privilege doesn’t blind me to the massive harm brought upon my less privileged sisters by systems and people who work to keep sex work underground, or to abolish it completely. Without any sort of exit plan or aftercare, of course.

I have a special hate for the ones who infantilized us and think they know better what’s good for us without ever having looked one of us in the eyes or spoken to us. Our having lived experience automatically disqualifies us from having any sort of input or valid expertise on what should be done to decrease exploitation in our industry.