A tale of the taboo: how sex work is more than drugs, shame and... sex

Through the perspective of an Australian sex worker, sex work is more than its stereotypes and is its own brand of importance.

Struggling to make ends meet with a family and a business seven years ago, Nikki embarked on a new journey in her life: becoming a sex worker.

With dyed rainbow hair and an effervescent attitude, she combats the norm of the job as well as embracing it.

Residing in Australia, 36 -  having to advertise herself as 30 to avoid the angry comments about looking younger than she was - recalls how it was a positive experience from the beginning since putting an ad up. “I read a negative article before putting an ad up about sex work and had thought that there was more to it than that, surely. Then I put the ad up and learned that I loved it and decided to keep going.

“The job I had before was just the ediocre info call centre stuff as a second job and that was utterly soul crushing work. But, sex is such a strange and wonderful activity so how could I have hated it?”

The ‘norm’ of office work did not align up to the something missing from her life - something that did not even exist.

Although she was married for ten years, four of which she was a sex worker for, her and her partner had separated. “There was no stigma or discomfort with me being married and doing sex work - it was normal.”

Being newly introduced to sex work, which can be alienating as it is often discouraged, most individuals have to navigate the job alone. Nikki says, “When you first start, no one helps you or guides you. Some people will just stick with what most know - brothel work but it took me about two years to figure out if I was interested in kink, girlfriend stuff or porn, really.

“I knew I loved the work immediately but I was always anxious about my ability to do it. I couldn’t talk to my partner or anyone about it, really - I was alone.”

Legally, sex work is permissible in Australia but it is illegal to entice or encourage people to talk about it, so Nikki turned to TikTok, being taught and teaching.

“I was woefully undercharging when I first started out but through the internet, I learned more. I had even met this worker in a brothel who had told me that she went into this work because of me and realised that I did have an impact.”

A common generalisation about sex work is that workers must be single or destitute - shameful work that could not have any positive connotations. Whilst those generalisations can be true for most people, it is not the case for Nikki.

“There’s this idea that sex workers are drug addicts. It makes a story for people to assume all sex workers are like that and people get put off.

“Sure, most guys don’t want someone who sleeps with other people, just them but I would want someone who wants me. With any job, or any person, you’ll always kind of nitpick something about them or want them to change but I think they’re great - just not for me. So, I wanted someone who wouldn’t change me,”

she says.

Part of these generalisations also come along with stigma and challenges: when do you bring up to a partner that you are in sex work; where do you find the time to balance children and the job and so forth.

Nikki says, “It probably is one of the more challenging questions but luckily for me, when I met my new partner, he already knew what I did.”

With an online platform on TikTok of over 200,000 followers, Nikki had built up a strong online presence, in which her current partner, Doom, had come across her. They both had internet personalities, with his revolving around ‘kink’ and hers about her sex work, meeting and getting to know each other with plentiful information.

“He all but fell in my lap really,” Nikki says, “He understands me and didn’t want me to change or be anything other than what I was: a sex worker.”

Balancing family life with her partner and young son for an ordinary sex worker is unique enough but when it comes to Nikki, who is a touring sex worker, it becomes even more of an unheard account.

To be a touring sex worker is to essentially book different accommodations in different towns, advertise and stay for a few days before moving to the next. And that is what Nikki does. “I don’t typically go for larger towns, just regional areas, and they’re typically between 30-50, males of the tradesperson sort and surprisingly, only 15% of my clientele have other peoples in their lives.”

The stigma of sex work does not only apply to the people working, and who they are as people but their clients.

Nikki says, “There’s a certain expectation that the people who come for sex work are low lives but really, a lot of the time, they’re just people seeking companionship.

“There are so many different reasons for why people don’t have companionship and it’s not my job to judge but to help.”

She had expected the work to be sex centric but it was not. Men would open up post-sex and there was more intimacy involved than people would realise. “The intimacy to open up with a stranger allows them the freedom to talk - like pseudo-therapy for men,” Nikki says.

Nikki recounts one of her most memorable clients as a neurodivergent forty-year-old who had never had a girlfriend.

“He was just so lovely. He loved going through manuals of rockets and just getting to know each other. Australia doesn’t really help in that regard of helping him connect with girls because intimacy was difficult.

“I saw him for around eighteen months, we talked, did different acts each time, took our time and then he got a girlfriend. In a way, we built up skills for him.”

Among those expectations, there have always been ideas that sex work is dangerous, risky and whatever other farce movies spin but throughout Nikki’s career, there have only been three ‘almost’ accidents, eradicating that belief.

“One time, a client had turned up, with what I thought was a screwdriver that he kept waving about, and obviously I had become kind of nervous about that as anyone would be,” Nikki says, “It actually turned out that he had a prosthetic leg and it was an aid so that was as dangerous as it got for me.”

Sex work, although not always dangerous and often generalised, still comes along with health and safety measures: preventative measures are one of them that most workers take very seriously.

“These measures aren’t always 100%. I have a lot of sex. Numbers will not be in my favour,” Nikki says.

With her online platform that she uses to share stories and educate others, she shares pregnancy test results and explains safe sex.

She also shares other aspects of sex health, too, such as workers using sterile sponges on their periods that are used specifically for that. Nikki says, “It’s a woman’s life: get a period and keep on working.

“I mean, I don’t even take the sex pill purely because I don’t like it and people are always surprised. I don’t really get periods because of PCOS but even still, sex work is a business and business can only run if workers take care of themselves.”

With sex work being a business, there are no definite wages that each individual abides by but rather it depends on the area and the person.

According to Nikki, the prices that some workers charge can vary depending on race, colour and location of different clients; “I think people are always surprised by the ‘average wage’. Sex workers aren’t always making big porn industry money."

However, the work is still rewarding to Nikki, who sees this job being the correct direction for the future and says, “The changes of wages and the uncertainty of the job, not knowing if hotels will accept my booking or if payments will go through can be one of the worst parts but it also allows flexibility for me to write and see my son - the sex is pretty good, too!”