Why I don’t want to be a sex worker anymore

“Maybe the problem doesn’t lie within the culture shifting. Maybe it’s me who has changed.”

I downloaded OnlyFans the other day. For years, I’ve been telling myself I’d start an account. I’ve imagined it in detail: reading my own erotic writing aloud within an old-school boudoir atmosphere, connecting with the audience I’ve built online in a more intimate way. It would be fun, I told myself. I love getting naked for other people. 

But after moving through all the logistics – the verification, the payment details, the endless layers of authentication – I’ve done nothing with it. I’ve simply let it sit there, untouched. And I’m starting to think that it might mean I don’t want to be a sex worker anymore. But when did this shift happen? And why?

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I started sex work at nineteen but it wasn’t something I planned. As a sexually curious person, it unfolded organically when a man asked to pay me to go on a date with him. I said yes, and he became a client.

I really enjoyed the work. Getting dressed up, taken to fancy restaurants and hotels and meeting some extremely powerful people. For a girl obsessed with romantic tropes, it was an endlessly interesting job. I learnt that powerful men were often the most insecure, like their motivation to work for power was to validate their own fragile ego. I found that the more power a man had in his work, the less he wanted in the bedroom.

It was like their insecurity was a mystery to them, despite having everything they’re told a man should want. Hence, me. With me, they’d try out the kinks they’d always wanted to: threesomes, sex toys, role-play. They’d also tell me all their secrets. I felt like a sexy therapist – a woman to stroke their balding head and fledgling ego, feed them a gin martini and tell them that they were doing great, sweetie. 

Being an escort was a behind-the-scenes ticket to see the lives of the powerful and rich. I loved its flourishes and beautiful backdrops, the nice food, the endless supply of good drugs. But at its core, it felt empty and boring. They’d buy a nice car, a fancy watch… and me, just to feel something. I (or the service I gave) was something they desired for my youth, care and sexual validation. For my fun.

For a long time, this role gave me energy. Swanning around in penthouse hotel suites, I’d feel sexy and powerful. I’d play Erykah Badu loudly through the speaker, stripping off a layer of clothing at a time and asking for more and more money with each piece of clothing that dropped to the ’80s carpet. Shocked at the power of my own naked body, I could see how much they needed me and I enjoyed that. It was an interesting flip in the power dynamic I’d once been led to believe, via a Catholic upbringing, that the women don’t hold the power.

But it’s a tiring job, giving so much of your body and your emotional space. For me, anyway, the work felt unsustainable for long periods of time. But after a break I’d always miss it and find myself back there again, in my lingerie, feeling powerful. Even in my last relationship I fought to do it because it felt like a part of me I didn’t want to give up.

Sex work is real, valuable work. It’s existed across virtually every known civilisation from Ancient Mesopotamia to now. It has historically filled the gaps created by restrictive marriage systems, gender inequality and economic imbalance. It still sits in that role, allowing people who feel suffocated by the societal labels they find themselves in to break free of them for a moment, discover their true identity, play, break the rules, explore their sexuality. 

I’ve always wanted to be a part of that world, the one in which people can explore the things that society deems to be ‘out of bounds’. It’s freeing to be a facilitator in that world. But I also think it’s a wildly personal job, and maybe not one that’s for me right now. 

Online sex work, like everything on the internet, comes with the good and the bad. You can make and own all your own content (good). It’s become more quantity over quality (bad). My observation of the sex industry’s evolution is similar to that of dating. There’s so much out there, so many choices and options and autonomy, that it’s become transactional. It lost its romance a bit.

What I loved most about working in the sex industry was the human element. Getting to connect with someone from a completely different walk of life on a deeply intimate level. Of course, it wasn’t always fun and indulgent, but I chose to embody the role in a performative and romanticised way. And I think that’s what’s missing now.

Kate Kennedy, a professional sugar baby and host of the podcast Make Them Pay, thinks that human element is exactly why the work feels meaningful. “I genuinely love meeting these men,” she tells me. “Rich, successful men often have fascinating stories. I meet people I would never otherwise encounter, hear stories I’d never otherwise hear. That part of it is real for me.”

But she’s also clear that what makes the experience good isn’t luck, or the era we’re in; it’s patience. “It takes a long time to find good ones. Sometimes months. They’re few and far between. The ones I choose, I often see for years — five years, ten years, eight years. Long-term arrangements. You have to filter carefully.”

Where Kate’s perspective complicates my own growing disillusionment is in how she views the role of the internet. Where I’ve felt like it’s made things less romantic, she sees it as a useful tool for women in the industry to connect. 

“The internet has normalised it, and yes, it’s oversaturated it. But it’s also made it safer,” she says. “Women can talk to each other now. Share experiences. I’ve learnt so much from other women in the industry sharing their tips and payment standards. That didn’t really exist before.”

Listening to her, I realised that maybe the problem doesn’t lie within the culture shifting. Maybe it’s me who has changed. Maybe the truth is I don’t have the patience for it anymore. Or the time, or the emotional energy. I found my first generous, long-term client almost immediately when I was nineteen, and perhaps I’ve been unconsciously chasing that same ease ever since.

Kate talks about months of filtering, years of investment, slow discernment. That kind of commitment to the process feels foreign to me now. Not because I don’t value it but because I don’t have the same spaciousness to exist in that world and curate it carefully, the way you do with any job you care about. 

I’m also in a long-term relationship now and yes, that does make a difference. Not in a ‘I’ve been rescued by the right man’ way (absolutely not the narrative), but in a practical sense. Doing sex work while in a serious relationship is complicated. It’s managing multiple emotional dynamics, having a lot of honest conversations about money, sex, power, boundaries… it’s layered. Right now, I’m just following my instinct to take a break from sex work. 

Lately I’ve had this feeling that maybe I’m not done with sex work altogether, just done with my past version of it. Maybe those conversations I used to have with clients have simply evolved into my writing, into hosting events, into being someone who talks about sex publicly. Or maybe a different kind of sex work is still ahead of me. Being a dominatrix has always intrigued me. Or maybe I’m just due for another chapter of exploring my own sexuality. Either way, it feels like I’m on the cusp of something. 

Because even though I don’t feel drawn to escorting or sugar dating right now, I miss it sometimes. I look back on those nights with real fondness. They were adventurous. I learnt so much about myself, about men, power, about the world we live in. I discovered the power of lingerie. I think what’s changed is I’m not willing to settle for anything that doesn’t match that energy, but that doesn’t mean sex work will never be part of my life again.

And I want to be clear about this too: I have enormous respect for sex workers. I genuinely believe they’re a vital part of society, whether people like to admit it or not. The fact that laws around sex work have only recently begun to shift is wild but also long overdue. Sex work is real work. It always has been.

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