The insecurities you get as a sex worker
I was inspired to write this post by a comment I received recently. I tweeted that I had a morning when I felt ugly and a man straight away had to say “How can someone like you ever feel ugly? Don't men pay you for sex and buy your porn?” Ugh…. This is the best way to show that you don't even see sex workers as humans. I bet this person has also never spent a single penny on me. It's highly ignorant to say something like this because you don't know anything about me. You don't know me, you don't know my finances, how I'm currently doing when it comes to work, how I'm doing mentally - you simply don't know shit.
I thought that by now it's common knowledge that everyone has their own insecurities. Even the most gorgeous people out there are fighting with their inner demons. And that also 100% applies to sex workers. I get that a lot of men, especially those with low self esteem, think that women just have it easy. Because if we get really desperate, there will always be a man ready to have sex with us. Men are serving us everything on a golden plate. Rushing to hold the door for us. Happy to take us to expensive dinners etc. Sorry to break it to you, but we live in a world where even Beyonce got cheated on. Thinking that every good looking woman had it easy is again - ignorant. Yes, we get rejected by men we are interested in. We get ghosted. We get friendzoned. We get cheated on. We don’t get a reply on bumble. And unlike men, we've been born in a world where society constantly dumps on us unrealistic standards when it comes to our looks and behaviour.
I'm a millennial woman. I literally grew up in a society that was telling me I'm not skinny enough, smart enough and good enough. I was constantly trying new diets, reposting girls with anorexia on tumblr and wanting to look like them, making myself vomit after eating too much food and wishing I was someone else. Even though I don't do any of these things anymore and my relationship with food, exercise and body image is very much healed, those feelings will never be truly completely gone and there will be days when I just feel gross next to someone gorgeous. Sometimes it's hard to remember that I am in fact a woman and my body is always changing during my cycle and one day I have a flat stomach and the next day I look pregnant. Sometimes I do forget that it's not the end of the world and that this is just what being a woman means.
The thing is that once I finally felt happy in my skin and I fell in love with moving my body not so I would lose weight, but for the mental health and endorphins, I started sex work. And at first, it boosted my ego tremendously. I've never felt sexier and more radiant than during those first months when I started onlyfans. I thought that feeling was gonna last forever, but it didn't. Because no feelings do. It was when I began following other sex workers and creators that the doubts kicked off again. I thought I was doing pretty well but suddenly I saw how many other women were making five figures a month and I was barely making four. You start spiralling: “Why am I not making more? Why is she doing better than me? Would I be making more if I had bigger boobs? Different hair? Flatter stomach? Whiter teeth? Do I need to spend all my money on invisaligns? Are my lips too thin? Am I seeing wrinkles in a mirror? If only I was younger. If only I was older.” For a good six months I was convinced I'll never do well unless I get a boob job. I was camming and my room was never really that busy and I barely got any proper spenders, yet all the women with fake boobs were making the big bucks. I convinced myself that my natural body was the problem. I mean.. I don't even like the look of fake tits. I actually absolutely love natural boobs of any size but I just completely hated mine. Luckily I got past that.
But once you get past the voice in your head, you've got the hate comments to deal with. It's a completely different story when it's someone else trying to drag you down instead of yourself. I was twelve when I heard from a man for the first time that I should lose some weight. That was face to face and there was no social media back then. Now the hate that basically anyone can get on the internet is horrendous. And imagine being a sex worker and putting your whole body and your whole image out there on a daily basis. No matter how hard you try, you will never be good enough for the haters.
Whore
Where's your boobs
Shave
Not even my grandma is this hairy
Are you a man?
You're so used no one will ever want you
That's the ugliest pussy I've ever seen
The only interesting thing about you are your tattoos
Why would anyone spend any money on you? I can get a better looking woman for free.
Shit like that will really get in your head. I began to be self conscious about things I've never even thought about before. I've been with many men in my life and none of them ever told me that my asshole was too dark. None of them ever went down on me and said: “Ahh I was hoping your pussy would be prettier.” But I've definitely heard that from men online. Sometimes I miss the times when I was living in an unknown land and had no idea that there are women out there who actually bleach their assholes. For 27 years I've never looked in a mirror thinking “Oh, why did I have to be born with a dark asshole?” Sex work gave me all these thoughts. I think the only thing that got me through my asshole issues was finding a reddit group called “darkasshole”. Kinda gave me peace of mind knowing that there are men who are into that. Just like there are men who are into a bush, hairy pits, etc. Because there was no way I was gonna bleach my hole.
For 27 years I had no idea that my vulva does not fit the beauty standards. I had no idea that most men prefer small pink labia and me having the complete opposite will turn some men into nasty pricks telling me mine is gross. I thought only men had problems with their own dicks and their size but suddenly I was holding a mirror looking at my pussy lips wishing my inner labia was smaller and wasn't brown-ish. Only in September 2021 Season 3 of Sex Education was released with the empowering episode of “All vulvas are beautiful” and the unforgettable vulva cupcakes. It's pretty sad we had to wait for so long for some vulva positivity in a mainstream tv show. I feel like us women were taught from childbirth to not hurt male ego by telling them their dick is kinda small or just not hard enough to fit it in. But clearly no one is teaching men to not say nasty things to women about their private parts. But as I said - that only happens online. In real life every man is gonna be blessed that he's actually getting some pussy no matter the shape and colour.
I could go on and on and on. Sure, you get the positive messages too. Actually sometimes too many of them. When you're taking care of numerous social media for your content and advertising you're constantly dealing with thirsty men, your DMs are always full and it's super overwhelming. Especially when barely any of them actually spent any money on you. It's draining, disappointing and makes you feel defeated. Then you start spiralling about what it is that you're doing wrong and if maybe simply you're just not pretty enough. Then the comparisons start and there we go again - it's a never ending loop.
Sure, it's flattering that men pay me to have sex with me. Sometimes. But come on, we all know that the male species are desperate to stick their dick into basically anything. It's not that hard to be a 31 year old blonde, petite woman. I mean, cheers for picking me instead of a monitor lizard. What an honour. It's more about the quality of men that want to pay to have sex with me. I'm constantly flooded by inappropriate weird messages from men and honestly I don't even know how they can get through daily life when they are completely unable to read a provider's profile and write a simple, polite email to them. Again - it's so discouraging when you're getting through a period of time when all you get is the trash that doesn't even see you as a human being.
I have also recently stumbled across a site where clients are reviewing escorts like if they were a vacuum cleaner. Even though there wasn't anything too bad about me, sentences like “She's fairly slim but not athletic” and “Pretty expensive vanilla and not sure if her rates represent the value for money.” really got under my skin. First - I never said about myself that I'm athletically built, second - after reading this and finding out this is how I'm being treated and talked about after putting absolutely everything into those dates and always making sure everyone has a good time, made me wanna delete all my socials, my website and completely disappear from the internet.
Imagine providers making a review site for clients? “Steve, 41, looked like he never worked out his whole life, painfully not funny but did my best and pretended to laugh at his pathetic jokes, came after 2 minutes into the condom and I noticed his cum had a yellow colour. Gross.”
The thing is - even if we did that, it would still be anonymous. I've never given consent to anyone to share private details about our encounter under my name on a random website full of pathetic wankers. It's been weeks now and it still makes me so damn angry.
We're living in an era where sex work is very much spoken about basically everywhere. On social media, movies, books. And especially on social media it's being highly glamorised and it's all about marketing. The twitter marketing hits the most. Photos of expensive gifts, 5 star hotels, fancy restaurants and romantic getaways. You see all the other providers living their best fabulous lives whilst all you got in the past week was a 24 hour date reduced to an overnight, two cancellations and couple messages of “hey you avail”? 100% this work for me is not at all about Chanel bags and eating tiny plates of food that cost a fortune. Most of the time I'm happy with just simple staying in bookings filled with laughter and a great sex, but I would be lying if I said that I don't wish for more longer bookings that are filled with different activities. Because otherwise they all just start to blend into one and it's hard to separate them in my head. I hate sounding like some sort of gold digger who doesn't care about the person she's with but hey, I'm also just a girl who likes to be spoiled and get pretty things. And when you see everyone getting it whilst you don't, you begin thinking that you only get trash enquiries because you're a trash yourself. The fact that most of the time I feel like I don't fit in doesn't help either. I prefer Vans over Louboutins. Vegan burgers that can barely fit into my mouth over oysters or Michelin Star restaurants. Gigs and festivals over opera and theatre. Wrinkles over botox. Thin lips over duck lips. I think Louis Vuitton bags are the ugliest things ever made and I'm definitely not elegant and classy. I consider myself more of a cute dork. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love these things about myself and I don't ever wanna become a person who wears a Louis Vuitton bag, but it does make me think that maybe I'm simply just not good enough for this. So far I still manage to hope and trust that I can do this by being myself because for me - life is too short for pretending I'm something I'm not.
This line of work is super inconsistent. One week you’re having the best times of your life and all your favourite regulars are booking you, and suddenly the week after you’re worrying you're not gonna be able to make rent this month. I mean, with so many irresistible gorgeous women out there, this is hardly a surprise.
Being a sex worker can be great but it's also a tiring roller coaster, so excuse me if I have one morning feeling ugly. I'm only a human after all. I'd also like to believe that most of my followers are aware of the fact that I always try to keep it real. I post a lot about how sexy I feel and how I'm digging my body after a consistent week of working out. To me it doesn't make sense to then not post the bad feelings as well. How could I ever be a relatable person if everything was just so great all the time and I love myself so much and I never have any doubts. That is just not realistic and those are exactly the online people I personally hate and don't even follow as they are not good for anyone's mental health. Share your ups but don't forget to also share your downs. Being a sex worker doesn't make me a super human. I'm literally just a girl.