1

"While you meet some really nice people, you’re also going to meet some truly awful/nasty/difficult people."

2

"That a client could flip out and murder you, and your local community will brush it under the rug."

3

"People with bad hygiene."

4

"Do you know all the memes about how horrible customer service jobs are? Now imagine you gotta fuck all these idiots."

5

"Many years ago, my best friend got into drugs quite badly and became a sex worker. Men would, quite often, remove the condom. She ended up with herpes for life, chlamydia, gonorrhea. If she was paid first, they’d beat her up and take the money back. She was robbed all the time."

6

"My friend has this regular client called Mr. Plates that always brings paper plates and drops them on her butt then he says IM DROPPIN PLATES ON YOUR ASS BITCH in the voice of the guy from Disturbed. She asked him if he likes disturbed and he got really weird and said that he didn’t know what she was talking about and that he made it up himself."

7

"A close friend of mine used to be a sex worker.

She talked freely about it. The worst part was that she was being pimped out and controlled by her then-husband to support him and his drug habit. He controlled her with violence and drug addiction. She only managed to escape because he died, and she managed to find a person (an ex-client) who was willing to take her in and have a much more normal relationship for years while she got her life turned around."

8

"I fell in love with a client who was a regular for over 4 years (I did SW for 6 years to pay for rent/healthcare etc. during med school.) We were in a hotel room (he invited me) where he beautifully decorated the table and we ordered food – when we started with the entrée I confessed my love to him while he was chewing salad.

He literally laughed into my face, while the pieces of chewed salad were falling off his mouth, telling me how I could ever believe, that I’d have a chance with a man that has his standing… (he was a medical director, quite young actually, 38 years old, he worked himself up really fast from resident and I was always impressed by his work ethic, since he also finished his residency with a publication that has lots of citings in Nature).

It still hurts me and I have never been able to look a guy I truley like into the eyes. I feel pathetic at random times. I also don’t feel safe going to therapy."

9

"I’m a male worker with female clients.

For me the flakiness is the worst. A woman will make a rsvp two weeks in advance, you have to plan around that, and then a few hours before she cancels. Or I have to travel an hour plus out somewhere only for her to ghost."

10

"The number of trauma vultures who think it’s fine to ask things like “what’s the worst thing that’s happened to you?”, “what’s the most fucked up thing you’ve been asked to do?”. Like goddam, I can answer you, but shit will get real dark real fast.

You wouldn’t (shouldn’t) ask other service providers that, why us?"

11

"I’d say it’s the way that we are treated by society and the stigma against us. People constantly speaking over us with misguided and uneducated opinions; thinking they know what is best for us when they have absolutely no skin in the game. So many refuse to listen to us or take us seriously. These things contribute to a foundation for the puritanical laws surrounding our work which create dangerous working conditions and put us in precarious situations."

12

"I’m a former SWer. The worst part of it for me was the fear of being blindsided/tricked/caught by law enforcement. I never did, but I’m pretty sure I actually had conversations with law enforcement multiple times, I just never directly incriminated myself and they couldn’t do jack shit. I’d ghost at the first hint of something being amiss. But that little twinge of uncontrollable fear of the what if, that was the worst for me."

13

"No union, benefits, insurance, little to no due process – it’s a high risk industry with a potential for fast growth but like any sex industry job, there aren’t any protections for people who have been harmed in the process."

14

"Getting requests outside of work and losing friends because their boyfriend/husband can’t keep their lewd comments to themselves at the community bake sale."

15

"Stalkers. Not being allowed to feel safe anywhere because weirdos will hunt for you is hell."

16

"The backlash from family and friends. Even if you love your job, people still try to tell you you should focus on something else."

17

"Maintaining a meaningful relationship either with a significant other or friends/family not in the industry."