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Sex work in stories

I've written a few stories on sex workers. In most of them, it was either a voluntary activity, just for money, and they controlled the action. Maybe that's not real life (although I'd like to see some accurate surveys of who's in the sex industry and why). But that's the way I like to portray women in my stories.
 
lovecraft68 said:
Now sex workers also include only fans and women on porn hub who are shooting vids with their husband/partner and they're all making bank from their homes. The sex trafficking industry on the other hand is a different story, but also 100% non consensual and criminal and that's not what's being discussed here.
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And often highly exaggerated. A lot of what we hear about sex trafficking comes from the same kind of people who'd have us believe that strangers are giving away heroin in the Halloween candy.
 
MelissaBaby said:
You can't understand sex work if you do not understand it as an economic issue. Women (mostly) who have no other means of providing for themselves or their families can earn money that would otherwise be out of their reach.
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I suspect this is why a lot of people have a very strong vested interest in not understanding it. Once you open the door to that kind of conversation, people who spend their time decrying the evils of sex work might have to think about how their cheap supermarket vegetables were picked, how their ten-dollar T-shirts are made, how their same-day Amazon deliveries are packed. That's not as comfortable a discussion.
 
Since the the term "sex worker" was mentioned, the short-term, part-time hooker (ten months total) Nora Meara in Freshman Hooker has this to say about the phrase: "I find the term 'sex worker' to be amusing. It gives the impression that I was on par with people in an auto assembly plant or those running a freight train." I just made that up, and I have no idea if anybody really thought that way. Usually Nora calls herself a hooker, 'working girl,' prostitute, or even a whore when she's feeling downbeat about she's doing. She definitely refers to it as a "job" and sometimes a "business."

I wonder if Tilan above is being a bit tongue-in-cheek when he says they are "actually the happiest people in the world." My impression is that it varies a lot depending on the person and what their individual situation is. This is a very big topic, but I think the majority of the performers in, say, porn burn-out sooner or later. If anybody has more information, I'd be glad to hear about it.
 
Bramblethorn said:
I suspect this is why a lot of people have a very strong vested interest in not understanding it. Once you open the door to that kind of conversation, people who spend their time decrying the evils of sex work might have to think about how their cheap supermarket vegetables were picked, how their ten-dollar T-shirts are made, how their same-day Amazon deliveries are packed. That's not as comfortable a discussion.
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Nora does have something to say about that in Nora Turns a Trick. "I wasn't exactly rude but neither was I friendly, but I had to project an attitude of detachment in order to protect myself from whatever emotional games those clients wanted to play with me. Yes, there really is a vast difference between paying someone to cut your hair and paying them to engage in some sex act with you."

Anyway, I've never had the exact jobs listed above, but I've had some similar ones. And the sad fact is that the majority of labor has an element of exploitation in it. That's always been true and probably always will be.
 
Bramblethorn said:
I suspect this is why a lot of people have a very strong vested interest in not understanding it. Once you open the door to that kind of conversation, people who spend their time decrying the evils of sex work might have to think about how their cheap supermarket vegetables were picked, how their ten-dollar T-shirts are made, how their same-day Amazon deliveries are packed. That's not as comfortable a discussion.
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Workers rights, fair living wages, freely available treatment for addiction would improve life for everyone, regardless of how they make a living.

Prostitution is not just another job.

Maybe I'm biased because I have only seen the negative side. A good friend slid into sex work through the combination of controlling partner and cocaine addiction. She was vulnerable because she had a brain injury that altered her perception of risk, made her very impulsive. Years later she has nothing to do with that lifestyle but it almost drove her to suicide.

Maybe I'm biased because I live in a city where trafficking and coercion are not rare at all. I see first hand how difficult it is for women to leave that lifestyle behind if they get pregnant or try to get an education, because organised criminals enforce debts and obligations with threats and violence. Survivors get help to relocate and start again if they're lucky. It's not like order picking or food production, although those jobs are difficult, they don't mess people up the same way.
 
I suspect, ultimately, it comes down to consent and safety. The cam girl in her bedroom is in a position of power so long as all interactions are virtual and anonymous. The woman working the streets can never be sure her boundaries will be respected, and the police and other authorities are very often just additional dangers.

If there's a moral dimension to it, it's not that sex work is definitively bad, or even that society creates opportunities for it to thrive. Even if no one were poor, there would be people in need of sex and people willing to provide it. No, the moral dimension is society's instinct to see any sex outside of the social hierarchy as a threat to be stamped out.
 
Winter_Fare said:
Maybe I'm biased because I have only seen the negative side. A good friend slid into sex work through the combination of controlling partner and cocaine addiction. She was vulnerable because she had a brain injury that altered her perception of risk, made her very impulsive. Years later she has nothing to do with that lifestyle but it almost drove her to suicide.
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I am glad your friend made it. I had a family member with a similar background: impulse control disorder, drug habit, maybe an abusive partner depending on whose version of things you believe. To the best of my knowledge he never did sex work, but that didn't save him from dying at thirty; if he hadn't overdosed, he'd probably have gotten himself killed ripping off the wrong person for his drugs.

There just aren't a lot of happy endings for stories which start out with that trifecta of drug abuse, vulnerable psyche, and dysfunctional relationship situation. I don't know your friend or her situation, but from what you've said here it sounds like the sex work wasn't the biggest of her problems.

Winter_Fare said:
Maybe I'm biased because I live in a city where trafficking and coercion are not rare at all. I see first hand how difficult it is for women to leave that lifestyle behind if they get pregnant or try to get an education, because organised criminals enforce debts and obligations with threats and violence. Survivors get help to relocate and start again if they're lucky. It's not like order picking or food production, although those jobs are difficult, they don't mess people up the same way.
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Trafficking, coercion, and violence are actually quite an issue in agriculture. (Specifically in the USA but also many other countries.)
 
Winter_Fare said:
Workers rights, fair living wages, freely available treatment for addiction would improve life for everyone, regardless of how they make a living.

Prostitution is not just another job.

Maybe I'm biased because I have only seen the negative side. A good friend slid into sex work through the combination of controlling partner and cocaine addiction. She was vulnerable because she had a brain injury that altered her perception of risk, made her very impulsive. Years later she has nothing to do with that lifestyle but it almost drove her to suicide.

Maybe I'm biased because I live in a city where trafficking and coercion are not rare at all. I see first hand how difficult it is for women to leave that lifestyle behind if they get pregnant or try to get an education, because organised criminals enforce debts and obligations with threats and violence. Survivors get help to relocate and start again if they're lucky. It's not like order picking or food production, although those jobs are difficult, they don't mess people up the same way.
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That's a reductionist argument. You're defining sex work by its most problematic elements.

"Sex Work" and "Street Prostitution" are not synonymous.
 
When I was a secondhand bookseller with a shop, two doors away was a professional lady working alone. That is legal in the UK.

I benefitted from her presence. Some of her customers, while waiting for her to end the session with the previous client, would drop into my bookshop, and usually buy a book or two to be collected when their session had finished.

She also was a customer when her business was slow.

As Vice-Chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce, I recruited her as a member. The benefits of being a member were a ten per cent discount for fellow members, which she offered to the other members of the Chamber of Commerce, and ten per cent for any work done on her property.

I was criticised for taking my role as 'Vice' too literally but she remained a member for ten years until she retired. She was a professional dominatrix and sometimes the sound of whipping could be heard in the adjoining house, except by the owners who were both elderly and deaf so they didn't hear it. Her neighbours were happy with her as the woman next door. Because of her presence, the police were more obvious than they would be elsewhere, but in ten years of operation, there was never any trouble in or around her property.

I talked to her frequently. She was not particularly happy with what she was doing but as an unskilled woman, she knew she made more money than she would in any other profession.
 
Tilan said:
You do the exact same thing. Taking the “aristocracy” of high escorts and strippers and projecting it to everyone else.
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It’s clear that you either have not read or not comprehended what I have said on this topic.
 
I wrote my story for the 2022 Pink Orchid entry ("Her Bucket List: Strip Club") about the wife and mother MFC having a long-time fantasy about getting onstage as a stripper. It received both positive and negative comments, but it averaged a rating of 4.46. In my story, the wife views it as having power over men "just by getting naked".

In real life, my wife often dresses enticingly and teases me by slowly taking off her clothes. Sometimes, when she's feeling particularly domineering, she'll do it until she's sure I'm hard and lusting for her, then she'll laugh and sit down to pick up the TV remote saying; "But not tonight.", leaving me frustrated. My wife has always known she has power over men with her flirting, and she exploits that knowledge whenever she feels like it. She's just never had to depend on that as a means of income (IRL a financial analyst), using her flirting merely as a sporting event.

Before her, in my younger years, I dated other women with differing experiences related to sex work. Some found it boring and just a means of "making a buck", while others had a glass-half-full attitude, getting some enjoyment out of "making good money" from it, while the husband watched the kids after his work.

I've been to strip clubs, and several had "amateur night" where girlfriends and wives would get onstage. So, regardless of the opinionated who judge strippers as demeaning work for women, there ARE many women who still hold that as a fantasy but won't act on it only because of those judgmental haters. Of course, my story ignores any of the negative aspects of sex work. But I think we can find negative and demeaning aspects in almost all work when people must do it to make a living.
 
I once dated a woman who, over the course of our relationship, revealed to me that she had worked as an escort earlier in her life. I was surprised, to say the least. One would never have guessed, based on her demeanor and on any stereotypes one might apply to sex workers, that she had been one. She didn't "need" to do it. She was married at the time, and her husband, who had a good job, knew and approved. She didn't do it for long but she made a lot of money and I imagine she was very good at it because she was very attractive and had an outgoing personality and lots of charm. It didn't bother me (and I admit I was somewhat surprised to find that it didn't bother me), although she was very worried that it would.

My only point is that we can't assume that our limited experience tells us what the "truth" is about something as big and varied as "sex work." People do it for all kinds of reasons and have all kinds of experiences, and every one of those is appropriate fodder for erotic stories. Write away, and don't worry that a close-minded reader is going to say, "Oh no, it's not like that at all."
 
Tilan said:
oggbashan forgot to mention that his neighbor condemned herself to a life of solitude.
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She started as a prostitute when her husband was jailed for 2 years for receiving stolen property, She continued after his release because he couldn't get a job as an ex-convict. When he was convicted again, she divorced him. When she retired she married one of her former customers, an elderly widower. He survived ten years of happy marriage.
 
TheRedChamber said:
A couple of things prompted this thread. First I published a short story in Romance about a proposal in a strip-club last week that got a negative comment basically saying 'never marry a stripper.' and a one-bombing around the same time. Secondly, I've been going through my draft stories folder trying to tidying things away for the end of the year and looking at my ideas list to plan for next year and for some reason I've seem to have just finished, be actively working on, or like the idea of a lot of different stories involving various women involved in some kind of sex work - cam-girls, centerfold models, strippers, street-walkers, high-class call-girls, porn-stars, and professional dominatrices feature, as do innocent young girls who have somehow found themselves behind the counter of the UK's largest sex shop (not strictly sex work I know, but adjacent enough to include). This was a bit of a surprise because although a couple of my stories have featured some kind of sex work, mostly my heroines previously have worked in bookshops and bakeries, been primary school teachers or nurses, or just plain old young students

(and before anyone says anything I have a few stories/story ideas featuring male sex workers)

Now, to be clear, the sex work is never the story in itself. 'Man pays for sexual service' is not particularly good drama on its own. The female characters tend to have lives of their own of which the sexual work, like any job, is a large part but not the sole part of and their work may inform how they meet the other characters or create its own drama, but isn't the sole focus of the character. My position on sex work is largely positive - there are dangers and downsides to it, but I don't protray it as bad or something that needs to be given up the moment the character meets their one true love.

There are obvious advantages to including sex work in short erotic stories - it allows you to get to the eroticism a lot quicker than if your heroine works in accounting. The promise of money for the worker and the obvious temptation for the client can get them doing things they wouldn't normally do a lot easier.

So I'm creating this thread as a discussion place to see how people write (or maybe don't write) sex work into their stories. What kinds of sex work has features and what kinds of adventures have your characters gotten up to? How have these been recieved? Do you have any particular do's and dont's for including sex work in your stories?
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Although I haven't yet tried this idea, it would interesting to give it a shot. I like the idea of female characters in regular jobs: teachers, nurses, secretaries, sales professionals also having a sideline in sex work. The sex work could be: cam girls, escorts, out service call girls, masseuses, street walkers, madams(formerly active), etc. In my scenario, I think the woman keeping it a secret from her family works best, but not necessarily her close friend(s). It would be fun for a sexily-frustrated wife of a minister having it as a sideline, and winds up with some of her husband's flock as regular customers.
(edit): I might add that the sex work wouldn't be the real story, but the charade of her every-day life. Of course it has to unravel, then see what happens from there.
 
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SimonDoom said:
... People do it for all kinds of reasons and have all kinds of experiences, and every one of those is appropriate fodder for erotic stories. Write away, and don't worry that a close-minded reader is going to say, "Oh no, it's not like that at all."
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Regardless of what the judgmental types say, there ARE people out there some might ask "Why would she do that?"
They do that because of some incident, learning experience, or life situation unique to them and their past which shaped them. And for whatever reason, theirs is a REAL life, too. I have such a wide variety of experiences and met so many different types of people, I have the attitude "It takes all kinds". I don't diss anyone for whatever kink, fantasy, or life choices they might profess, as long as they don't force it on me or my family.

As I said a year ago in the 5th series story:
Jan said. "After reading profiles, I said 'Wow! I thought those were only found in porn movies!' I never realized people actually want to do some of those things ... for fun!"

...June said. "...Some people are a little damaged, and have needs, whether to feel it or inflict it. Focus on getting into this with the attitude 'You're here for you, not them.' Don't get pulled into doing anything you don't like. ..."
 
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If one works on the premise that sex work is legitimate work (as I do), then contrast is usually provided by negative cultural impressions of the society that surrounds the sex worker.

I've referred to Freja sometimes having sex for money, and she and Jeanie have been camgirls. True, they were nearly murdered by an incel as a result, because sex work remains distressingly dangerous thanks to unhinged predators.

I've referred to sex work a few times in my stories so far, and while I've depicted negative reactions to sex workers, those people were described as simply ignorant or just plain bigoted and wrong. The sex workers are not innately in the wrong because of their choice.

I've contrasted choice of sex work with tragic addiction issues, leading people to sell their bodies to feed the addiction. My experience with these people in life is that they wouldn't be 'selling their wares' if they weren't compelled to by addiction.

On the other hand, I have a straight edge friend who is a domme because she genuinely enjoys the work. More power to her.

I'm not good at portraying sex workers as degenerates, which someone asked me to do in a story that I haven't got around to writing (go figure). I have portrayed them as illegal, if the law of the land says so, but that's the not the same thing.

It is indeed interesting hearing what people have to say, their perceptions and experiences. It's different for everyone.
 
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Tilan said:
Of course, I comprehended. You're Julia Roberts and I'm Richard Gere. let's go to the opera. La Traviata of course.
oggbashan forgot to mention that his neighbor condemned herself to a life of solitude.
And from Simon's story, it is implied that the husband who knew, abandoned her, and our passionate suitor also dumped her after getting what he wanted.

But I have no doubt that out of hundreds of millions of examples of ruined lives in the oldest profession, you will find the Cinderella/Roberts who found true love and long-lasting companionship.
I'll bet there are at least ten examples of that in the hall of fame in each category.

Lovecraft was right, I am thin-skinned. I feel sick. I think I've had enough here.
I can deal with readers' sexism, but not sure if I can deal with those who spread it.
Goodbye.
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Good riddance.
 
MelissaBaby said:
That's a reductionist argument. You're defining sex work by its most problematic elements.

"Sex Work" and "Street Prostitution" are not synonymous.
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The thread is about all different shades of sex work and how we as writers portray it. As far as stories go, conflict and angst can contribute, as can a rose tinted view of sex work, depends on the story to be told.
 
Bramblethorn said:
Trafficking, coercion, and violence are actually quite an issue in agriculture. (Specifically in the USA but also many other countries.)
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Yes! As I said, a strong culture of workers rights would leave far fewer people vulnerable enough to be exploited, sex workers included.
 
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