Servicing the Sex Service Industry

How sex workers are using creative entrepreneurialism to combat rejection by mainstream businesses

Thanks to the stigma associated with the sex industry, particularly sex work, the othering that takes place leaves people ignorant as to how sex workers run their business. Whether it is the shock that yes, escorts are using tools like LinkedIn the same way that everyone else is, or people asking where sex workers like myself advertise their services, the general consensus seems to be that sex worker marketing must be vastly different from the rest of the business world.

In many ways, the sex industry is not as dissimilar from the tech industry, or the general business community, as people would like to believe. As modern technology has advanced, a slew of new approaches to business have been given the opportunity to flourish…including those of independent sex workers. Like the tech industry, the sex industry has spawned everything from legal and accounting service companies to business coaches to sex worker exclusive tip-sharing forums to crowdfunding platforms that cater to the fetish and adult communities. There are sex work exclusive accountants, web designers, photographers, outreach coordinators, medical professionals, and writers.

Although many of these services could be provided by mainstream professionals, the aforementioned othering of sex workers has inspired them into hustling to keep their businesses alive. Veteran sex workers have had to learn so much on their own, including web design, marketing, tax and criminal law, safety techniques, administrative organization, customer service and accounting. As the internet has grown in ubiquity, sex workers have joined the masses in learning how to wield its power for their benefit. Recently, the visibility of the sex worker movement and the increasing openness about their experiences has led to a shift in the way that they advertise.

The stigma against private entertainment has led to limited options for advertising platforms, even with this boom in sex industry oriented start-ups, but that is starting to change. For a long time, sites like Backpage, and previously Craigslist, have served as advertising platforms for sex workers (primarily indoor sex workers), with few other reliable options. Particularly, there are a small handful of sites that have dominated the high-end indoor sex work advertising market for the past fifteen years or so.While the sites are essentially functional, their design has barely changed over time, and their usefulness is extremely variable from entertainer to entertainer and region to region. Most importantly, their increased dependency on third-party advertising has created potential security risks for visitors, as well as cluttered their sites and detracted from the visibility of their advertising. Furthermore, according to business coaches like Donia Christine, third party advertising on sites that advertise escorts further “de-legitimizes private entertainment by encouraging [potential clients] to seek out more socially acceptable forms of sex work.”

Thanks to social media, the sex worker movement, and the power of putting their money where their mouths are, sex workers are starting to demand better and provide better. The creative endeavors by sex workers to provide business services that sex workers have otherwise been locked out of have started to create a tight-knit group of people serving as an exclusive “for us, by us” referral network within the industry. In spaces like the recent Desiree Alliance conference, sex workers and their allies came together to share tips on the best options for running their businesses, staying safe, and of course, maintaining unity within the sex worker movement.

Businesses like Sexquire, The Safe Office, and Slixa were all represented at Desiree Alliance as some of the most relevant, useful businesses that are currently offering the finest professional services to this underserved community. Each of these companies outshine the previous, soon-to-be outdated generation of companies that will happily take sex workers’ money, but refuse to be active participants in the movement that is seeking to de-stigmatize sex work as a whole (that is, until it starts damaging their bottom line).

While there have surely been downsides to the limited options for sex workers in terms of business services, the thriving creativity and the increased insistence for ethical, supportive business models in exchange for our money have allowed us to sustain and expand the livelihoods of working and middle class sex workers. Hopefully the increased strength of our voices and the growing support of our lives and our industry will allow us to fight for the labor rights and physical safety that are still out of reach. As long as mainstream businesses and old-school entertainer focused businesses aren’t providing what sex workers want or need, and are working against what the majority of the movement is fighting for, we will continue to work toward these goals on our own terms.