Sex work has always been a complicated gift for me—something I’ve found empowering at times, something I’ve absolutely hated at other times, and something I’ve certainly lamented over in my share of writing. Still, every now and then, I find myself thinking about what I wish I’d known before I started.
I came into the industry at a time when the landscape looked very different—less saturated, less regulated. This was pre-FOSTA/SESTA, pre-OnlyFans. And truthfully, I didn’t seek out advice from seasoned workers. I just jumped in, full of naivety and no plan—like a sexy little idiot.
So here’s my attempt to offer what I never thought to look for: things I wish I’d known before starting sex work, from someone who’s both apathetic and thankful it happened.
Your Relationship With Your Body Will Probably Change
Everyone has a different experience with their body. Mine has always been complicated, and sex work didn’t help those negative feelings—it magnified them. Editing my own videos meant watching my body over and over again, noticing every perceived flaw. I started to pick myself apart.
I often felt reduced to my body, like that was the only thing of value I had to offer. That was especially intense working in a fat fetish space, where certain parts of me were hypersexualized in ways I didn’t always feel good about.
People will comment on your body constantly—from forums to DMs to fan pages—and it’s a lot to absorb. You don’t have to internalize all of it, but you do have to prepare for it.
Set Aside Money for Taxes
You should overestimate how much you need to save for taxes. Independent contractors get royally screwed. I recommend setting aside 35 to 40 percent of your income just to be safe. And in that same vein: price yourself and your services accordingly. Account for taxes, platform cuts, transaction fees, and your time. You’re running a business. Treat it like one.
Your Content Will Probably Get Leaked
These days, I don’t know if it’s realistic to expect that your videos or photos won’t get leaked. Whether it’s forums, fan pages, Telegram groups, or questionable Dropbox links, once something is on the internet, you can’t fully control where it goes. This isn’t to scare you. It’s to ground you. Decide what you’re okay with living forever online. Assume nothing is private, and plan accordingly.
Your Boundaries and Goalposts Will Shift
When I started, there were things I told myself I’d never do—until I did them. Sometimes it was out of comfort. Other times, it was out of desperation. There’s nothing inherently wrong with moving your boundaries. Survival is survival. But you should check in with yourself often. Are you still okay with what you’re doing? Is this work still feeling sustainable? If it’s starting to feel like too much, that matters.
There’s a Whole Game to the Industry
Like everything else, sex work has a strategy layer. From PR firms for creators, to pay-to-play awards, to who-you-know referral circles, there’s a game behind the scenes. Networking matters. It can lead to clients, press, or more visibility. It can also be isolating and frustrating. But if you want longevity, you’ll have to engage with this side of it eventually.
If you’re in it short-term, maybe this doesn’t matter as much. But if you’re trying to grow your brand or audience, it wouldn’t kill you to interact with other creators in your niche. Sex work is a job. Treat it like one, and you’re more likely to get the results you want.
Learn to Spot a Scammer (and a Time Waster)
There isn’t a universal rulebook for this, but there are red flags. If someone’s asking for personal info right off the bat? No. If they’re pushing boundaries, avoiding payment, or just won’t commit to anything? Also no.
Time wasters are a specific flavor of scammer. They’ll message you for hours, try to get free content, flirt endlessly, and then disappear when it’s time to pay. I set firm boundaries around how much unpaid engagement I give. You don’t get unlimited access just because you’re thinking about spending money. Pro tip: always get payment upfront for customs. Keep receipts. Keep screenshots. Be smart babe.
Your Own Intimacy Might Be Affected
This one’s harder to talk about, but yeah—sometimes your own sex life gets impacted.
When you’re performing sensuality all day, or constantly in your own head about content, it can leave you feeling depleted. It’s affected my relationship in subtle ways: feeling less desire, struggling to feel confident, not having the emotional or physical bandwidth for intimacy. For some I’ve even heard that when you tie money to sex, doing it unpaid can feel not great. It's not the same for everyone, but it’s something to watch out for.
Build Transferable Skills
Not everyone wants to do sex work forever. Totally fair. So while you’re in it, focus on building hard and soft skills. If you do clip work, learn video editing, audio, or social media strategy. You can spin those into vanilla or normie freelance and creative jobs. Learn how to manage systems: organize your content, test performance, track analytics. That’s how I learned to understand metrics, which I now use in my current job.
For in-person work, there are so many soft skills—hospitality, communication, emotional labor—that apply to other industries. You might not be able to put it all on a resume, but it counts. Treat it like skill-building. Educate yourself or read, or whatever.
Get a Good Team
Seriously: get a good accountant. Someone who can help you navigate deductions and keep you from getting burned at tax time. Get a good therapist, too. Someone you can process all this with. And get a support system—friends, other workers, people who won’t judge you and who will hold you through the weird and hard stuff. This job doesn’t need to be done alone.
Build the Persona You Want
When I first started sex work, I put a lot of my authentic self into it. So when a clip didn’t do well, or someone didn’t want to book me, I took it as a personal failure. Like, a moral failure. And yeah—it really fucked with my head.
But eventually, I got tired. I started thinking about the image I actually wanted to put out into the world. One that was still profitable (very important to me, lol), one I felt confident performing in, and one that felt just familiar enough to my real self without being me.
And so, my persona was born. Creating that separation helped me take rejection way less personally. It made it easier to not give a fuck about how people saw me, because they weren’t seeing me. They were seeing something that only exists on camera. My persona isn’t real. It has pieces of me in it, sure—but it’s not someone anyone gets to access.
Well, that was a lot to digest. If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me.
My biggest takeaway? Be smart. Be hot. Be kind—to yourself and to others.
Wishing you luck, whatever your future looks like.
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