Who are sex workers' clients? Probably not who you think

Years ago, I was talking to an acquaintance who was running for local office on a feminist platform, and I brought up the importance of decriminalizing sex work. She flippantly said, “Oh that, leave the workers alone and lock up the Johns.”

Those of you familiar with decriminalization models will recognize this as the Nordic model: partial decriminalization that ceases to prosecute sellers of sexual services (believing them to be victims), but not buyers. The goal of this model is to “end demand.” Many people assume this to be better than our current system of full criminalization (punishing buyers and sellers alike).

Sex workers intuitively know, and now have data to back this up, that criminalizing our clients just makes our job less safe. Clients under the Nordic model, for example, are disincentivized from providing real names and information during the screening process when they think it puts only them in legal jeopardy. Moreover, we also know that partial criminalization does nothing to end the demand for our services (sex work, as the oldest profession, is going nowhere).

I don’t bring up this anecdote, however, to talk about decriminalization models, but instead to talk about the broader picture of how clients of sex workers are conceptualized. What does the kneejerk belief that all clients should be “locked up” tell us about our societal attitude toward people who buy sex? Who, in other words, do we imagine these clients to be?

For people like my acquaintance, for whom sex workers and their clients are entirely abstract concepts, it is easy to believe that clients are all shady, violent men who want to extract as much as possible from (presumably female) sex workers, without showing any regard for their labor or humanity. In other words, clients are violent criminals and sex workers put themselves in danger every time they work. There is little in our cultural narrative around sex work to counter this image.

There are certainly violent and abusive clients; violent and abusive people exist in every sector of the economy. Yet, to assume that a client is, by definition, violent and abusive is to overshadow the beauty and connection that many of us provide and experience in our work.

I could certainly tell you about the clients who have pushed my boundaries to the point that I had to cut them off, or who scared me, annoyed me, or otherwise behaved badly. Every sex worker has these stories to share. However, I could tell you just as many stories about my experiences in academia that match those descriptions.

I would rather tell you stories of clients who treat me kindly and want to see me thrive.

I want to tell you about my autistic client who feels safe not masking with me because he knows that I have both a partner and a son who are also autistic. Every time we part he tells me to say hello to my nerds at home.

I also want to tell you about the client who saw me complain on Twitter about the crab grass in my yard and sent me money to hire a lawn service and instructions on what treatments I need.

And about the disabled client whose sister booked a session with me so that he could experience tender touch, and who was so happy at the end that he texted her from my room to tell her it was the best birthday gift he could imagine.

I want to tell you about the 86-year-old client who could no longer get an erection due to age and illness, who wanted to explore what it would feel like to be a “male lesbian” — to re-imagine himself as a sexual being in his current body, one without a functional penis. I want to tell you that when I opened the door for him and answered affirmatively after he asked me if I knew how old he was, he threw his arms around me, smiled, and said, “And you're still here, thank you!”

I want you to know about the client who affectionately calls me “The Food Domme,” and lets me pick all of the restaurants we go to, each time expanding his food pallet a little more.

And about my client who’s a master carpenter, about how he integrated into my house for months while he built me the breakfast nook of my dreams, working with an HVAC colleague to move all of our radiators around to keep my partner happy.

And, I want to tell you about the client who believed in my writing enough to cover all of the expenses (including childcare expenses) for me to go to a writing retreat off the coast of Vancouver for a week, cheering me on every step of the way.

What I can tell you about clients is that they come to me for many reasons. They are lonely; they are touch starved; they have desires that don’t fit within their romantic relationship(s); they are recovering from illness and are trying to get back in touch with their body; they are bored; they are nostalgic for the feeling of falling in love; they don’t have the bandwidth to date but they crave intimate connection, etc.

Most importantly, they come to me because sex is a natural human desire, and seeing a sex worker is one way to fulfill that desire. Most clients are not monsters who should be “locked up.” Most are just people trying to meet their needs in ways that make sense given their circumstances. Some are divorced, some are workaholics, some are single parents, some are old, some are disabled, some are virgins, some are just horny. All of these are good enough reasons. But the thing is, they don’t even have to have a reason. Seeing a sex worker should be as normalized as getting a massage, talking to a therapist, or going to a show. We are social and sexual creatures with complex needs.

I suppose that the reason that I am thinking about who clients are and why they seek out sex workers is, in part, because I recently went through the process of hiring a sex worker for myself for the first time, 10 years after becoming a sex worker myself.

I am not lonely (I’m an introvert who is often overwhelmed by the amount of social interactions I’m expected to have). I am not touch-starved. I am in love with my partner of 10 years and still enjoy our sexual dynamic. As a married sex worker, there is certainly no shortage of sex in my life. I hired a sex worker because I wanted to be able to have an asymmetrical experience that I was not in charge of. I wanted to have the freedom to ask for what I wanted with no expectations of reciprocity and to give up a little control (which I maintain in my work for obvious reasons).

In other words, I reached out to a sex worker with a desire to have an experience that I can’t have with clients because of the structure of our interactions or with my partner because of our intimate knowledge and familiarity with one another.

My own desires and the desires of all of the clients whom I highlighted do not fall into the “lock them up” narrative so common in both conservative and liberal discourse about sex work clients. Lock an old man up for wanting to feel alive? Or a skilled tradesman for exchanging fun dates for skilled labor? Or a disabled adult whose needs for intimacy have been ignored up until his late 30s?

But perhaps only sex workers and their clients know how varied and special these relationships can be. And hopefully, anyone who takes our stories seriously. Perhaps after I have my first experience, I will share that story with you as well.