Selling Sex
Kate Saap sat down with ex-independent-sex-worker Lola Sinclair to do some market research.
Kate: What drew you to sex work?
Lola: The short-term cause for me was financial struggles. I had quit my hospitality job because I was depressed and struggling to work my shifts. I needed good money quickly to pay rent, food, and live. I kept joking with friends that it would be so much easier if I could just find a sugar daddy. And when I realised I wasn’t actually joking, I did a quick Google search and found a number of sites that served as my gateway into independent sex work.
As I reflect on my experience as a sex worker, I begin to uncover some of the deeper, long-term factors drawing me to sex work. I was sexually repressed as a child and consequently being a late bloomer — with my first ever sexual experience at 21 years old (I entered into sex work a year later). Deep insecurities stemming from failed situationships and feeling undesirable also had an impact, as my decision to be a sex worker felt like a powerful “fuck you” to past lovers who broke me down and used me. It was also an attempt to reclaim my own narrative from those who made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything serious, that I was the type of girl who was only good for a casual root. Ironically, a lot of my clients commented that they were drawn to me because I seemed like someone who didn’t belong in sex work.
K: Are there advantages of being an independent sex worker? Compared to working at a specific sex-on-premesis space?
L: It’s easier. Cuts out the middleman. All the pay came to me and I decided my own shifts, my own rates, my own conditions and place of work, and my own clients and times. It felt more convenient and covert to work this way. Sex work isn’t exactly a career that’s highly regarded in general society. Coming from a deeply restrictive ethnic and religious family, it wasn’t something I wanted many people to know about. Working in a brothel appears a lot more real and confronting, it seeps into regular life. Independent sex work felt like it reduced the risk of people finding out and it was also a way for me to detach from it or frame it how I wanted to.
K: How do you think sex work is perceived within the general population?
L: I think it’s definitely [negatively] stigmatised. Sex in general holds this weird place in society where it’s simultaneously revered and maligned. It seems to both fascinate and offend people; that conflict is exacerbated when sex manifests in more precarious forms, like sex work. I think people are drawn to it and interested in the topic at least, like our ears perk up at the mention of sex — but especially sex work because it’s this scandalous taboo,hot topic that we feel shouldn’t be discussed or acknowledged in open public settings.
There’s a kind of sinful attraction, or corrupt temptation, involved with sex work where it affords sex this special power in the collective mainstream consciousness — which is unusual considering it’s such a fundamental aspect of life. I don’t think sex work is discussed enough in a general mainstream public context, and not often in serious academic discourse either. When the topic is brought up, it usually carries an element of discomfort and sometimes even disdain; otherwise, there’s a sense of profound significance attributed to sex like it’s somehow different, more special and separate to other natural experiences like eating food or sleeping. There’s obviously some sort of issue where sex, despite being one of the most natural experiences of life, is stained with a warped view that it’s somehow shameful, immoral, tainted, forbidden and dirty.
K: Why do you think this is the case?
L: The image of sex in our society has been historically imbued with perversion. I think it probably has something to do with the level of vulnerability involved in sex, and the kind of intimacy and human connection it promises; with sex work especially, those things seem to be paramount and exist on this blurred plane where you’re providing a professional service but the kind of service you’re providing necessitates a relationship where its difficult to maintain detachment from your client. Sex is generally a deeply personal and intimate experience, and at some point we decided that vulnerability and intimacy should be admonished and rejected. This has created a glaring problem where people can’t reconcile their own sexual desires with their negatively skewed perception towards sex and sex work.
K: In an ideal world, how would you like people to perceive sex and sex work?
L: There are a lot of myths surrounding sex work. Some people romanticise it and think it’s more glamorous or cool than it actually is, others have a stereotypical image of sex workers in their minds that skews towards the negative. These people assume that doing sex work has a significant bearing on who you are as a person and that it’s probably an indication of other character traits, usually character flaws. This creates a culture that is largely negative, as these stereotypes about what a sex worker looks and acts like contributes to harmful narratives that don’t often reflect reality, certainly not mine anyway. It’s interesting that the same treatment isn’t afforded to other service industries,showing how the subject of sex is treated differently within society.
Ideally, the patriarchy is overthrown and we no longer view vulnerability and intimacy as something to be condemned or avoided or something that’s taboo. I think strong human emotion in its most powerful form is rarely given a space to manifest: sex offers one of the few opportunities where that sort of release of emotion is allowed. A lot of that probably has to do with sex being so personal, which tends to be frowned upon in open public markets due to the nature of our society and the dominance of outdated patriarchal ideals.