Writer and sex worker Jessie Sage Credit: Photo: By Dawn Hartman

This morning while scrolling X, I came across one of my friend’s tweets. New York City-based freelance writer and stripper Reese Piper tweeted,

I feel like stripping cured my rejection sensitivity. Every shift, dudes are like ‘No,’ ‘No,’ ‘No.’ Then I’ll meet a guy who’ll say, ‘I wanna spend 1000 dollars on you.’ Dancing has taught me that it’s ok if ppl reject you. There’s always someone else who thinks you’re amazing.

For those unfamiliar with rejection sensitivity, it is a disorder that makes those who suffer from it prone to extreme emotional distress or dysregulation when met with rejection. While neurodivergent folks commonly experience this — indeed, Piper has written about being on the spectrum — I think most of us, especially if we are marginalized in any way, know how painful rejection can be. Surely our response to rejection doesn’t have to be pathological for it to be painful.

While I don’t have rejection sensitivity in the technical sense and have never been a stripper, I still deeply resonated with Piper’s tweet. There is something about sex work that inoculates you against the negative impacts of rejection. In my case, being a plus-size sex worker in my 40s who is very visible online has opened me up to more public criticism and scrutiny than I would have ever imagined before moving into this line of work.

When it comes to rejection, sex work can be akin to informal exposure therapy; with each rejection, snide comment, and criticism, the impact lessens. If we survive in sex work, it’s in part because we learn not to take the opinions of strangers too seriously — we can’t because our bodies, values, career choices, fitness as parents, and so much more are constantly being scrutinized.

Like the chorus of ‘no’s’ that Piper has heard in the club, I have been subject to hundreds (if not thousands) of trolls commenting on why I will never make it in an industry where I’ve already had measurable success. This juxtaposition is the crux of Piper’s point. The scale of people we interact with, as sex workers, means that for every person who is not attracted to us and feels the need to share their opinions, there will be another who will sing our praises with just as much enthusiasm.

I remember being shocked by this when I first entered the industry, getting my toes wet on cam sites like Chaturbate. I watched people come into my cam room and point to things about my body that I didn’t like with an adoration I hadn’t experienced before.

I was reflecting on some of those early experiences this past weekend as I sat on a panel about sexuality and fatness at Philly’s FatCon, a fat-focused convention in its second year. As folks in the audience were asking me and my fellow panelists questions about navigating sexuality in a fat body, my first thought was that I wished they could have just a fraction of my experiences as a sex worker because it would cure them of any doubt about the desirability of their bodies. While certainly there are people who would say ‘no’ to a fat body (or any body), there are many others who take delight in it; who, in Piper’s words, “thinks you’re amazing.”

I certainly don’t think that everyone should become a sex worker, nor do I think that every sex worker learns to brush off the criticisms in a healthy way. For some, especially those who suffer from body dysmorphia or other body-related issues, this intense focus on the body can be harmful.

That being said, I want to tell you what I told the audience in Philadelphia on Saturday: my time in the sex industry has taught me that what a desirable body looks like — and who can think of themselves as worthy of love, desire, and pleasure — is so much more expansive and varied than we are taught. I have learned that all bodies carry within them enormous capacities for pleasure, connection, and beauty. I have also learned that we waste a lot of time being afraid of rejection, time that would be better spent finding the people who will love every inch of us.

The keynote speaker at the conference Roz the Diva, who makes a living as a fat fitness coach and professional pole dancer, gave the following advice to everyone there who let perceptions of their bodies stop them from pursuing what they desire: “Still do the thing, but do it scared.” In doing things scared, we may hit up against some ‘no’s’, but if we do this enough, as all sex workers will tell you, you will find the people who sing your praises, just the way you are.

Jessie Sage is a Pittsburgh-based sex worker, writer, and the host of the podcast When We’re Not Hustling: Sex Workers Talking About Everything But.