#vabeach may have been here

Want to find out more about sex workers? Unfortunately, mainstream media will only get you so far.

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.

We’re not different from you. We’re just doing a job, the same way you are. Any kind of person could be a sex worker. You probably know more sex workers than you think you do.

One of the best things about getting on social media as an out sex worker was seeing other queer, gender nonconforming, trans, gay as heck people in this industry.

Setting up business as an independent sex worker means putting a lot of information about ourselves online: our photos, our carefully-written advertising text, and our working names. This content is valuable because it brings in clients (and income).