#upscalehotel may have been here

In November of last year, I finally got back to work. But slipping back into sex work was far more difficult than I’d expected.

Our sexuality is one of the most natural and human things about us and with the right people, it’s a great way to satisfy our physical and psychological needs.

Whenever my job is mentioned in newspapers, blogs, or magazines, the same tropes tend to pop up: moral panic, drug abuse, violence. Journalists quote us selectively, so that it sounds as if we’re living out the sex-negative, whorephobic stereotypes the public are used to consuming.

Whether you smell good. Whether you’re freshly shaved. Whether you’ve bothered to put on a clean shirt. When you make an effort, your worker knows you’re investing more than just money into the encounter - that you see the meeting as a special occasion.

Sex work as a sociopolitical issue is used as a scapegoat to avoid addressing larger issues like poverty and violence against femmes. Sex work is not the problem and trying to make it disappear makes the problems worse.