In honor of International Sex Worker’s Day, June 2, we are posting perspectives from ace and aro people who are or ever have done any kind of sex work. We defined “sex work” expansively, including any kind of kink, fetish, or domination work, pornography, sensual massage, webcam sex work, phone sex, erotic performance, sexual surrogacy, full-service sex work, or any other kind of sexual services performed for money.
Sex workers’ profession is often criminalized, and sex work is stigmatized and demeaned in most communities, and that includes within asexual and aromantic communities. It is important to lift up the voices of sex workers and support them in their efforts to live their lives with safety, dignity, and without social shame. For more information on the history of sex work and how to best support sex workers, check out our list on Bookshop.org here: https://bookshop.org/lists/deconstructing-patriarchal-sexuality.
Thank you to all who volunteered their time and shared their experiences.
Introductions
Alice: aroace, I participated in video & text chat sex and kink scenes
Amber: I’ve done feet stuff, and I’m ace/demi.
Destiny DiMattei – I used to be a phone sex operator. I did it for a while in my early 20s but I do not do this kind of work anymore. I am Demi romantic sex averse Asexual.
Kitty Stryker – asexual, demisexual, queer
Type of sex work: I still dabble in pornography, but I have been a survival sex worker, a pro Domme, an independent escort, a cam girl, a phone sex operator, a live sex show worker, and more.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officiallykittystryker/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kittystryker
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kitty_stryker/
Questions
How does being a sex worker intersect with being aspec for you?
Alice: It can be a struggle to assert my own needs when they conflict with clients’ desires. It also makes it harder to find people who’ll pay for my services since i’m much more narrow in what I’m willing to do compared to many other sex workers.
Amber: For me, SW isn’t always inherently sexual for all parties – pretty much as soon as you eliminate touching in sexual areas. I get paid for people to rub my feet or clean my house or for me to dominate them. For them, it’s sexual or comforting. For me, I enjoy getting my feet rubbed because I walk a lot and I can’t be arsed to clean my house. I get a bit of a rush from having power over someone like that too but for me, it isn’t sexual.
Destiny: For me it was strange. I didn’t actually do the sexual acts I just pretended to do them. Some of that was from tips from a friend who got me into doing phone sex work. It was just like acting and it felt kind of weird to do.
KS: I think it took me a long time to recognize myself as aspec because I was doing sex work and not feeling any disgust or discomfort within myself about it. I enjoyed sexual performance, but it was less about the sex for me and more about the performance. I didn’t often orgasm at work, but that was kind of expected by everyone involved and we were all willing to suspend disbelief. When I came home, my partners wanted me to “be real” with them. They never wanted to hear the truth though, which was that I would rather watch Murder She Wrote and crochet than don sexy lingerie for free! Partners who wanted to be with me often thought I would have a high sex drive – while I was pretty sexually adventurous for a while, and again, I did enjoy that, I eventually realized that it was more because I liked the staging and the drama and the risk more than I cared for the actual act of sexual pleasure. I realized at some point that a lot of my frustration at home with my libido and sex more generally was in part because I just… didn’t care about having sex for the sake of it, and I resented performing at home for free when I was paid for it elsewhere.
How is your experience in aspec communities impacted by being a sex worker?
Amber: I think other ace people would understand (because they understand not all ace people are entirely removed from sex communities). But I don’t think non-ace people would so I don’t talk about it much with allo friends. They already have such a tentative grasp of what my identity means, if I dropped this on them they’d probably break.
Destiny: I haven’t spoke about it until now. At least not that I can remember. I told some of my closest family members including my Uncle Tom who knows that I am ace as well. For me it was just pretending and acting and it felt kind of strange. Even though the money was helpful I didn’t get very many customers and I don’t think I did a great job. Who knows maybe some people enjoyed it but it wasn’t for me.
KS: I don’t generally see anyone like me within aspec communities, which can feel a little alienating. I’ll see aspec groups talking about how sex is traumatizing for them, and how disgusted they are that sex is everywhere, and it makes me feel like saying I’m a sex worker in those spaces is going to lead to a lot of people telling me about how I should feel about sex and my body. I don’t aways feel up to guiding that educational moment, especially when I’m also looking for support! I absolutely support aspec people for whom sex is undesirable under any circumstance, but I do wish sometimes that it was ok in those communities to just… not feel horny, but also not feel like sex is gross.
How is your experience with other sex workers impacted by being aspec?
Amber: I don’t interact with many SWs but the one I am most close to understands it. More, she asks questions so she understands it more.
Destiny: The only other sex workers that I knew back then were my best friend at the time and her boyfriend. They didn’t know that I was asexual because I didn’t even know back then. I thought I just wanted to wait until marriage but if I’m honest with myself even back then I knew I didn’t want to actually have sex. Don’t know if they would’ve understood it or not. To my friend sex was the best thing.
KS: Honestly a lot of sex workers I’ve spoken to can relate in some capacity! I think that’s true of a lot of things we might do for fun that then become a job – my friends who fix computers resent the people who ask for their professional advice for free, with no acknowledgment that it’s labor and no expression of compensation. Other sex workers understood what I meant when I said I preferred fucking for money over fucking for free.
How could aspec communities better support you?
Alice: Pay sex workers. You can give money to sex workers online and in person without partaking in their goods or services. Fight against policies that harm sex workers, whether you are clients/customers or not.
Amber: Aspec communities could better support me by continuing to remind themselves that sex and sexual attraction are two different things. As are kink and sex or sex work and sex. We just need to keep differentiating between things that society keeps trying to group together.
Destiny: I don’t really know. This is my first time talking about something like this. I never really consider myself to be a sex worker but back then I guess I was. I guess just more openness would be cool.
KS: The main way I would like to see aspec communities better support me is to invite us to speak. Normalize us (and not just the slender, cis and white among us, but all of us)! I see a lot of aspec posts about how doing fetish modeling or enjoying wearing alternative fashions doesn’t mean that you want to have sex, and that’s true and good. But then in the comments I see other aspec people being almost vitriolic about the idea of having sex, because it’s not for them. The truth is, lots of aspec people have sex, consensual sex, for lots of reasons that don’t entail manipulation or coercion. We deserve to take up space too, without being accused of being traitors or making life harder for other aspec people.
What do you wish aspec people knew about you or other aspec sex workers?
Alice: We aren’t a monolith. Aspec sex workers, like all sex workers, aren’t inherently in the business against our will, but we also aren’t all here by choice.
Amber: A jobs a job. Sexuality does not equal sex in any form. And sexy things aren’t sexy for everyone. I legit just enjoy having my feet rubbed after a long day and this is the cheapest way to do it.
Destiny: I can’t speak for others but for me it wasn’t actually sex and although sometimes people wanted to actually hear it and I might not have been doing things right for me it was just using little workarounds and pretending. For example, if someone wanted you to be sucking dick you would suck on your thumb and pull it out pretty fast. For the sounds of fingering you or just stick your finger in an out of a container of Vaseline.
KS: Just because I’m asexual doesn’t mean that sex work was traumatizing for me. Sex work was a revelation for me. Doing my ideal work, I had a lot of control over who I saw, how much I wanted to be paid, and what my expectations were. I was able to have boundaries, clear, firm boundaries, in a way I didn’t feel safe in my personal relationships having boundaries. Sex work was strangely freeing, because I had a very academic, curious approach to sexuality and it was a useful way to explore the landscape without needing to be emotionally attached. Sex work was not always fun, and it wasn’t always easy; it was a job, and it was a job I liked better than working retail at the mall. I certainly preferred the financial stability and the time it afforded me to spend on things I did care about, like activism and writing.
What do you wish allo people knew about you or other aspec sex workers?
Alice: This really goes for all sex workers but WE HAVE BOUNDARIES! If someone says they don’t do X thing, respect that. If you go to a non-sexual kink dominatrix and ask for sex, you’re the one being unreasonable, not them for telling you to piss off.
Amber: I wish allo people knew a lot more than they’re willing to research tbh. I’d like them to understand that sex and sex work and sexual attraction are all different things. Sure, they overlap. But how much they overlap and where is different for everyone. So, mostly, I’d like them to stop projecting.
Destiny: Just because I did that it does not invalidate me being asexual. Some people just need the money. Also, some asexual people still enjoy the act of sex itself but just don’t have sexual attraction to anyone. Some people can still get aroused.
KS: I mean, besides the same “being ace doesn’t mean sex work was traumatic for me” statement, I wish allo people understood that it’s possible to enjoy the RESULTS of having had sex without really caring about the sex part itself. I’ve had sex to encourage the hormones that foster emotional connection, I’ve had sex because I wanted to show someone I cared about them, I’ve had sex for comfort, I’ve had sex because it was easier than being angry, I’ve had sex for money. Those are all legitimate reasons to have sex. I shouldn’t have to be enthusiastic to be able to give my consent, and when you insist that the only consent that matters is enthusiastic consent, you are creating a norm in which I have to lie. I don’t want that, and you shouldn’t either.
What do you wish other sex workers knew about you or other aspec sex workers?
Alice: We’re all in this together, we’ve gotta look out for each other.
Destiny: There are many different types of sex work and different people have different needs, wants and limitations. Also just because I’ve done sex work doesn’t mean that I am not asexual. I am asexual.
KS: I hope more sex workers feel safe talking openly about sex work and being somewhere on the aspec spectrum, to be honest. I think there’s been a lot of stories wherein sex workers feel the need to overemphasize how much sex work hasn’t impacted their sex lives, because so often we’re fighting judgment from all sides. But it’s ok to engage in sex work and not be enthusiastic about the sex. It’s ok to be enthusiastic about the money. It’s ok to prefer the boundaries that are so explicit, often, in sex work to the grey areas of sex outside of that bubble. It’s ok to not be horny all the time. So I mean, I guess I just want to open my hands to other sex workers and say, hey, if you feel this way too, that’s totally fine!