What Sex Work Can Teach us About Community-Driven Kindness

The body is a political place. When decisions are made in government that influence how I care for my body, what I can do with my body, what is allowed or not allowed to be removed from my body, I cannot help but see it as a political object. Obviously, as a sex worker there have always been questions of whether or not I can charge money for people to access my body; whether or not that agency belongs to me or is merely granted me by other people. Whether or not, even if I say I like this and I want to keep doing it, I could’ve possibly been brainwashed, and that I don’t really know what I want at all.

When I was a younger and slightly more messy version of me I would go to clubs and get in without waiting because the promotors all knew me. They’d take me straight to a table and if the alcohol I wanted wasn’t there, there was never any hesitation in ordering it immediately to keep me happy. When it first started happening I thought I was going to have to be flirty and let these guys grope me; it seemed like a fair trade for a $500 bottle of Grey Goose. I was surprised though, when these guys would basically ignore me, only talking to me to ask if I had everything I needed, or if some guy was bothering me too much. I learned during those days that I was less a person and more a currency. A sign of wealth as easy to spot as a Birkin bag or a AP watch. The body is a political, and economic object.

The body is also a tool to connect intimately with others. We live in a society that has expectations for men/masculinity that often say “it’s too girly to have close friendships with your bros.” Often, the only allowable path to intimacy and affection is through close connections with women, and often even then only through sexual ones. It’s a very narrow range of expected avenues to get something that should be much more universally cherished.

We joke about it often in pop culture; there’s a running gag in Arrested Development where all the men in the family who see sex workers don’t actually have sex with them, they just cry in their laps and allow themselves the emotional release they don’t feel vulnerable enough to share in their normal lives. The vast majority of the time I spend with clients is not sexual; it’s just listening to them and being present. With all the distractions of the current world, what a truly special time it is to just sit with someone and hold space for them.

It’s in this space that I see a lot of clients getting softer. They become more open about themselves beyond their professional capabilities or surface level hobbies. They talk about their favorite moments in childhood, or things that really scare them. They relax and talk about what they hope their kids will study in school, or how they worry about getting the right price for the house because it’ll impact their retirement. I hear the anxiety about not being successful enough, about not being prepared enough, about worrying that they were wrong, or even worse, they’re right. Giving them the space to let all of that out has been my favorite part of the job and why I keep coming back.

I love seeing how having that space changes my clients too. Every once in awhile when something tragic happens, I’ll post something on Twitter about exchanging nudes for donations to a cause I feel particularly passionate about. I love how the nude is a catalyst, but almost always those clients tell me afterwards that it was the push they needed to be more caring in their local communities, to start volunteering more, and mentoring other people more. It’s amazing how feeling cared for so often extends into us paying it forward.

This week I’m thinking about that a lot, as economic uncertainty has pushed a lot of girls to tighten their skinny gucci belts an additional notch, but it has made me notice how much kinder and more caring clients have been in the last several years. That the intimacy we share in a hotel room can and should be extended beyond; that paying a sex worker for their time is not the same as caring for one. I’ve seen how clients have become more community-minded in donating to SWOP and Planned Parenthood and other pro-sex work causes and organizations; realizing that if we do not care for each other, those fragile spaces we build in which to enjoy each other will slowly disappear.

It is making me realize more and more that the biggest problem in our society is perhaps not a lack of unity in idea, but more a lack of intimacy in connecting to our neighbors and our bigger communities. Maybe if we had more opportunities to have those intimate moments with the people who surround us, we would be more effective in providing care for one another. If intimacy is a pre-cursor for kindness and care, how do we have more intimate moments in our offices, our commutes, our neighborhoods and our cities?

I’m on a quest to meet more people in platonic connections, to make them feel seen and heard and delighted in. Intimacy propagates love and community, and it’s time I start plugging in more.