I am extremely proud to announce another new web site I’ve created. This site is called, My First Professional Sex.
The basic intent behind this new site is to document the reasons behind why sex workers go into the line of work they’ve chosen. Sex workers are an extremely diverse group of people, and each has their own reasons, their own life experiences, their own set of circumstances that propel them into a line of work that is stigmatized by much of society. Sex workers include:
- Escorts and prostitutes
- Adult Movie Actors/Actresses
- Dancers/Strippers
- Phone Sex Operators
- Web Cam Girls/Guys
- Professional Doms, Dommes, and Submissives
- Sexual Massage Artists (massage w/ “happy endings”)
- Fetish Workers
Sex work involves people of all genders and all sexual orientations. Some are professional and some are amateur, and operate under a variety of different compensation schemes. The common bond, however, is that they all supply sex or sexual fantasy to earn their living (to one degree or another).
And while many detractors of sex work like to paint all of us as desperate or money-hungry, we’re not a monolith – we cannot be painted with one brush, one color, one line of reasoning. And I won’t allow them to continue doing that.
All of the stories are submitted by sex workers themselves in response to a standard series of questions. I’ve not edited anything they’ve said, with the occasional spelling correction and reformatting of a paragraph here and there to make them easier to read. What you see is what they have to say about why they chose to go into sex work. Many of the stories will be compelling, some may be exhilarating, and others may be sad and heartbreaking. I’m not holding anything back – you’ll see the good stories, and you’ll see the negative stories. All are equally legitimate and equally valid.
MFPS will be operated like a typical blog. I’ll post new stories as I get them and have time to put them online, and will announce the new updates via Twitter. You can also subscribe to the site’s RSS feed if you’d like the updates via your RSS reader. I am still tweaking bits and pieces of it, and experimenting with different layout options, so don’t let that confuse you if you stop by at different times and see something that looks out of place or what not.
If you’re a sex worker and would like to participate in this, go to the Submit Your Story page and read the directions. Send me your replies to the questions and I’ll put your story online. You can include a link to your professional site(s), your blog(s), Twitter(s), or any other site(s) in which you are a major participant.
For everyone else, feel free to stop by and read the stories. You can comment on individual stories if you like (at least, for the time being), but I wouldn’t count on being able to ask any of the participants questions expecting a response. Some may elect to monitor their page and reply (and are absolutely welcome to do so), but they are under no obligation to do so.
I hope you’ll find this project informative and enlightening.
NOTE: If you participate on forums or web sites where sex workers participate (any of those listed above in the bullets), please feel free to post a link to this post and solicit volunteers to submit stories (get the moderator’s permission first if they have issues with people posting random links to other sites). The more stories we have, the more representative the site will be.
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s an interesting project. I’m looking forward to read the different stories and I’ll be submitting mine soon!
Elsa
Elsa, by all means, please do.
I’m not surprised that you’d begin a project like this, considering your pioneering of similar ideas in the past, but I continue to be impressed with your resolve and conviction. What you’re doing isn’t easy and is going to meet more than its fair amount of resistance. You are a rare and good person. I wish you all the success in the world you aim to change. :)
This sounds like an interesting site and I look forward to reading it. I do have a concern, though — I’ve made money giving massage, but it wasn’t sex work (I did seriously consider doing sex work, but I decided not to). Blurring the difference between sexual and non-sexual massage services makes working more difficult for non-sexual massage providers and makes seeking massage more difficult for people who need massage for a non-sexual reason when the boundaries between sexual and non-sexual massage are blurred. Could you possibly consider specifying that you mean sexual massage?
Many thanks for your blog; not only is it worth reading on its own, but it’s sparked some musings I really needed to muse over at this time in my life.
Alexa, do you mind if I promote this project on the boards I have access to?
I think it would be so cool if this became a really big resource with several hundreds of stories… but then, you are the one managing it in your own free time.
Very interesting, Alexa. Perhaps you should have a page there where clients can describe their first professional encounter.
Juliet,
Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting.
I do have a concern, though — I’ve made money giving massage, but it wasn’t sex work (I did seriously consider doing sex work, but I decided not to). Blurring the difference between sexual and non-sexual massage services makes working more difficult for non-sexual massage providers and makes seeking massage more difficult for people who need massage for a non-sexual reason when the boundaries between sexual and non-sexual massage are blurred. Could you possibly consider specifying that you mean sexual massage?
On the site itself, I list it as “Massage Artist (with “happy endings”). Do you think that is sufficient, or does that still not do what you want? What would you suggest I use? I am very sensitive to the issue you brought up and want to make sure I do keep them as distinct as possible. I guess I could just list it as “sexual massage artist,” maybe?
Anyone else have any thoughts on that?
Thais,
do you mind if I promote this project on the boards I have access to?
Absolutely not. In fact, I’d beg you to do it. I’ll modify the original post, too, to reflect that I’d like anyone to promote it anywhere they can to get others to submit stories.
I think it would be so cool if this became a really big resource with several hundreds of stories… but then, you are the one managing it in your own free time.
Agreed. It doesn’t take that long for me to put each story up – maybe 10 minutes and perhaps a couple of clarifications via e-mail is all it has taken with most of them (once I get the basic design stuff done).
B.L.
Perhaps you should have a page there where clients can describe their first professional encounter.
That’s not a bad idea at all. Maybe once I get everything ironed out here, I can add a second section to the site specifically for clients.
Hello Alexa,
I love this phrase: Sexual Massage Artists (massage w/ “happy endings”). I think it communicates the work clearly while distinguishing it from nonsexual massage and sounding positive and upbeat. I’m very comfortable with that wording, assuming it works for you, and your willingness to listen to my initial concern warms my heart. Thank you.
One interesting thing that came up when I was considering posting my initial comment: I stopped and examined my motives to make sure I wasn’t doing it out of a sense of not wanting to be “tainted” by association with sex work. I was reassured to find out that wasn’t my motivation, and then it took me a while to put my finger on why it is so important to me to make a distinction between sexual and non-sexual massage, while supporting sex work as a valid thing.
And it comes down a bit to the work massage therapists have had to do to get our work recognised as nonsexual in spite of it involving a naked person. Part of that has been lobbying for changes in laws that make massage illegal, but I have to admit I’ve not done any of that lobbying myself yet. For me personally the crux of the matter is having seen people who are in pain shy away from the massage that might give them a bit of respite because of their discomfort with taking clothes off. I have little body modesty, so I had to stretch a bit to learn to be supportive of that discomfort, and I’ve seen that people from many cultures are unlikely to get past it. I’m now learning a different approach to helping people in pain without them having to find a way to get comfortable with being naked.
Anyway, this is roaming way off topic, so I’ll stop now. :)
Oh, I would love to read those client stories as well!
Congratulations on the new website! I for one think it’s a terrific idea you had, and am very curious to see how it evolves.
However, and though I would definitely agree with you that not all sex-workers are these poor victims who had a traumatizing childhood and are being abused and work in horrible conditions, I also think there’s a certain danger in hammering too much that a majority of them would really glow in their line of work.
The thing is: I don’t know. There are no decent market research on the topic to prove with a crude list of facts and figures for a country or an city, and divided by gender classification, if more than 50% of these workers would actually prefer to keep on with this job for other reasons than the social stature if they were given another choice with equal gratifications (financial or otherwise).
But the truth is, that as far as I know for the circle of escorts that I know and in the countries where I have been, that:
-most of them don’t openly admit to liking the job to me
-some of them admit to liking the job to G. which relays it to me (though they know I’m aware of the full extent of their situation)
-and a fraction of them admits finding the personal development they would wish for in this work.
And amongst the ones of the 2 last points, I still cannot help but to find similarities. Situations that brought them to the job, or some bits and pieces in their stories that just don’t add up with the “feel good” smile they carry on while they tell them.
I also cannot help but to think the training provided by some of the agencies some of these girls went to seems to me to be a brainwash, as they condition them in accepting without questioning it their new powers and enjoy the felicity of the so-called woman empowerment and realize they are godesses.
Not that I wouldn’t find any truth in it. I do. But from these girls I know, I’d swear on the Holy Grail if I were a Christian that lots of them just gulped it down and went on with it because, consciously or not, that’s a pretty way of seeing it.
Also, there’s always the dangerous wave of what I call the “circle effect”. Online as in real-life, you can (though that’s again a pretty unjustified assertion and a generalization) divide people in two categories: the ones who naturally and mostly want to get in touch with people with whom their share most of their attributes (physical, social, mental …) and those who don’t mind stepping over the other circles’ lines to go praise or yell at them for one reason or another.
We’ve all seen this. Had a boyfriend or girlfriend with whom the relationship doesn’t work because he’s or she’s too different for our tastes. Or the other way around. And similarly, it’s very hard to gather opinions objectively, especially online and by launching a new website in something that is already a niche, because your visitors are already your peers.
And like your girlfriend or boyfriend will tell you things “who the hell does that?” when you decide to cook a specific recipe with ingredients while he or she would have done otherwise, simply because in her or his circle it has always been done so, you’d have people clashing over ideas online and grouping by following them.
That being said, again, I welcome this initiative as I think it will give the opportunity to make it clear to many people that, like you said, sex-workers are not one and only. They come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes, with their own mindsets and heritage, and there will be ones who tried it, those who see themselves doing it as long as they possibly can, the ones who do it and go home crying after each session or burnout in a few months or years, and the ones who really look forward to seeing most of their client. There’ll be the ones who came from other (sex-related or not) lines of work and the ones who just impulsively went for it, or fell in it almost by mistake, by a chain of events leading to it. There’ll be the ones who like the therapeutic aspect of their profession for their clients while others admit to it being more of an experiment for themselves (and again, though I wouldn’t believe for one second that it’s the case of all or even most of them, I am also certain so pick that profession out of a desire for adventure or voyeurism, which is also something conditioned by your early development and environment).
Also, it will not only help in debunking the theories from both extremes, but provide valuable information for potential followers who are considering getting into the industry. And that is just priceless, and we should thank you and take our hats off to you for that (or any other social gesture of choice that goes along with your roots ant beliefs).
Looking forward to read these stories.
I’m sure they’ll bring a fair share of fascinating profiles, as well as a truck-load of heartfelt testimonies.