Queer Whore Collective: Straight for Pay
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As a demisexual lesbian, I don't enjoy sleeping with men. I really don't. Yet I keep doing it. Over and over and over again. I let them fuck me from behind, doggy-style, missionary or 69. Sometimes I fuck them. Hard. I ride them until their eyes roll back in their heads and they can't control how their faces contort. I suck them off, I lick their balls, I scratch their chest and bite their lips. Not too hard though – I need to provide the perfect girlfriend experience. I'm a lesbian, and I'm a whore.
Society often paints sex workers as hypersexual straight, cis women – sensual seductresses who enjoy the attention they get from men. This does not account for the many non-binary and trans sex workers, queer workers in general, and workers who don’t experience a lot of sexual attraction/gratification, if any. Demisexuality falls on the asexual spectrum; it generally means only being attracted to people after a strong bond has been formed. For many demisexuals, sex is not a high priority, even in relationships. For me, it often means thinking of sex makes me feel a bit grossed out, or that I simply don't feel like it. The majority of my physical needs can be met by hugging my friends, holding hands or cuddling. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy sex full stop, just that it doesn't rate high on my list of preferred activities.
When I first started hooking, I thought I could do it like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. No kisses on the lips, please. Turns out men who want a cute, girly sugarbaby get really upset when you don't want to make out with them. So I swallowed my disgust and kissed my first client (old enough to be my grandpa and with a moustache that smelled like the food he'd had earlier). And then my second client (grandpa age but far more racist and sexist). And then the client who could have been a whale – someone who spends a lot of money on you – if I had played my cards right, been more submissive, or if he had been less of a manipulative dick. But I digress. I kissed them, and when they asked for more tongue, I gave them more tongue. But when the whale asked for bareback, I decided enough is enough. I had told him I would never fuck without a condom, and at first he’d agreed, but now he was pushing that boundary. I could only see it going downhill from there. I made plans to return to my homecountry that night.
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You might ask yourself whether I can still consent to sex work if I started selling sex out of necessity rather than, I don't know, a wish for erotic adventures and a desire to please. Can I give my full consent to interactions I only have because I desperately need the money? When I signed up for a profile on a prominent sugar dating website, I was walking on crutches, incapable of working in hospitality or any other industry where I needed to be on my feet all day. I was depleting my savings with doctors visits on top of extortionate living costs. I had tried to get an office job for three months prior but to no avail. All I had to keep me afloat were small tutoring jobs. And here I was, in a foreign country, far away from my family and friends, and too proud to ask anyone for money for a plane ticket home. My parents are in a lot of debt; asking them for help was out of the question, and rent was due in a week's time.
I won't deny being disgusted by my first couple of clients; I won't pretend it was fun or that I wasn't scared getting picked up by them and letting them take me to dinner, to the cinema, and then to bed. But I did it anyway. I chose independence over crawling back to my family, admitting defeat, and I am proud of that. I would do it again. Sex work has opened a lot of doors to me. It gave me the chance to go visit my friend in another country after I fired the whale, it allowed me to save up for a deposit for a flat when I returned to the UK, it offered me a safety net when I quit my vanilla job, and it is making it possible for me to save up for my own property.
“As a lesbian on the asexual spectrum, I struggle to understand how others see me as 'sexy', are turned on by my body or my presence. That's not how my brain works.”
Not being attracted to men can make the job a bit harder, I think, but at the end of the day sex work is work for everyone. Some of my colleagues who do experience attraction to men have reported receiving authentic pleasure from the occasional client, but the amount of annoying messages we all get from clients spoils even that. At least I can tune that out and hyperfocus on something else. That's an advantage for me, being on the autism spectrum. I fixate intensely on the cues clients are giving me so as to provide them with the best girlfriend experience I can. After bookings, I take notes on my phone of everything I can remember about them: comments they made about their commute or their work, remarks about their family, their political leanings, the shows they watch or music they like, what kind of touch they preferred, how I got them off,... everything can be important for the next time I see them. It’s a clinical, scientific approach, and it works.
Over the years, I have learned to appreciate the advantages of being neurodiverse. I find it draining making small talk with clients, but I have done it for long enough now that I know how to make them feel desirable, to curate the perfect girlfriend experience. This simulated social ease, or ‘masking’, can be an exhausting front during bookings but the repetition of the job helps, as does getting to know some clients better. Familiarity in any setting helps. Although texting is easier than face-to-face chat (maintaining eye contact is uncomfortable for me), when I do interact with clients in person I find it helpful to turn my full attention to their body language and their reactions to me/my persona.
I learned early on that having long hair, wearing makeup, and generally presenting as femme makes most men – most straight people, generally – assume you are straight. Once they think you are straight, they assume you might be into them, and then it isn't hard to smile and flirt and convince them they are right. As Maya Angelou said: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And I excel in making my clients feel good. I don't have to be genuinely into them, I only have to convince them I am. I sell them a fantasy. That’s the enjoyment, or rather the satisfaction, for me.
Consent under capitalism is flawed. If we lived in a utopian dreamscape where everyone had free choice in how they spend their time and support themselves, I would make art and do care work and get reimbursed adequately for my time and effort. As it is, we all have to compromise in one way or another. If you are lucky, you get to decide to how much you are willing to compromise, you have choice in the matter. Yes, I often feel repelled by men. As a lesbian on the asexual spectrum, I struggle to understand how others see me as 'sexy', are turned on by my body or my presence. That's not how my brain works. I only feel sexually attracted to women I have been dating or have been friends with for a while. I rarely feel horny and the words 'sexy' or 'hot' are a bit alien to me. But I have learned to use my body to my advantage. I consent to sleeping with men for money. I chose this.
Ultimately I had to ask myself: What repulses you more? Having sex with people you are not attracted to a few times a month, or exhausting yourself working overtime for a company that doesn't value you as a person and doesn't give a shit if you're ruining your mental health trying to do a good job for them? Personally, I couldn’t justify working for a company that profited from the prison industrial complex. That disgusted me on a far deeper level; I'd much rather pretend to be straight for pay.
Nina Hart is a queer sex worker and writer based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her work explores themes around bodies, queerness, (mental) health, and sex work. Photographs by Betty. Part of Queer Whore Collective.
