The reality of being a sex worker | You Can't Ask That | Full Episode

Added: 2026-06-08

[00:00:04]How long have you been in the industry?

[00:00:06]>> Um in and out for 20 years, so I'm just getting back into it now.

[00:00:10]>> Actually, is your tie on straight?

[00:00:15]>> Shall we start?

[00:00:16]>> Over to you.

[00:00:17]>> All right. First question. Okay.

[00:00:20]>> No 8-year-old says, "When I grow up, I want to be a prostitute."

[00:00:24]>> Why did you?

[00:00:25]>> I didn't.

[00:00:26]>> How many people really get to have their dream job?

[00:00:29]>> I didn't sit there when I was a kid going, "Oh, I want to work the poles when I grow up." Like, what the hell?

[00:00:35]>> I could say no kid ever wants to grow up to be a cleaner. No kid wants to grow up to be a taxi driver. I'm probably making all those cleaners and taxi drivers feel really bad about their job, but yet people sort of see us as fair game.

[00:00:47]>> I don't know, some 8-year-olds might say that.

[00:00:49]>> I think I was kind of that 8-year-old that said, "Yeah, that's not so bad."

[00:00:53]>> I was working a normal office job, and I met someone who said, "You should be an escort." I should try being an escort. I was 25 at the time, and I just said, "Yeah, why not?"

[00:01:04]>> into sex industry for money.

[00:01:06]>> Money buys security.

[00:01:07]>> Yeah, and security gives you happiness.

[00:01:09]>> Yeah.

[00:01:10]>> When I was younger, I'd experienced a period of homelessness, and the beautiful um thing about um I guess being homeless at that time was I was able to find other um queer homeless people. And what queer homeless people were doing at the time was um was they were doing sex work.

[00:01:28]>> I think I was 18, I tried a bit of that kitchen hand work type thing, hospitality, and realized, "No, I don't like this. It's dirty."

[00:01:37]>> I was [music] um 19 and doing gender studies at uni, so I needed money, but I also had this like intense curiosity about sex that had existed from a young age, and that's why I was having sex in my private life from a young age. To bring sex and money together, that was when I became interested in money.

[00:01:54]>> I I my last straw with men, and I just sort of fell into it by accident. I didn't think for a minute I would have gone through with it. And now I'm really, really glad I did because it's changed me as a person.

[00:02:04]>> I think it was the autonomy involved in it. I get to pick my hours. I get to, once I'm there, decide if I will or won't do a client.

[00:02:13]>> There's like a big wage gap between men and women. Like the sex industry is the only industry where women actually earn more than men. Until like women are earning the same as men in every other industry and and are as [music] able to get jobs as men are, like why wouldn't we turn to this industry?

[00:02:26]>> People think you must be six men a week or [ __ ] get into them toys when you're home on your own.

[00:02:31]No.

[00:02:32]>> [laughter] >> Prostitute means passive victim, and yeah, I have a real problem with that.

[00:02:38]We're sex workers. Sex work is work and needs to be respected.

[00:02:42]>> How many people have you slept with?

[00:02:45]>> Simple answer is I've no idea.

[00:02:47]>> I don't even want to think about it.

[00:02:49]>> Do you think people really count these things?

[00:02:51]>> No.

[00:02:51]>> [laughter] >> I've slept with um I think 35 men in my life and about 20 women.

[00:02:57]>> I think it might only be around 100 women.

[00:03:01]>> After 20 years in and out, at least 1,000, I suppose.

[00:03:05]>> At many times my sex work hasn't involved what people understand to be like penetrative sex, you know? Like cuz, you know, there's sex work is really diverse.

[00:03:15]>> I've got a client, and he's actually um paralyzed from the neck down. Yeah, so for him, sex has to be completely mental.

[00:03:22]>> I've slept with thousands of people both through work and through pleasure, and I can't really I I hate making that distinction cuz I often get pleasure at work.

[00:03:33]>> What's been the weirdest request you've had?

[00:03:36]>> [laughter] >> Really?

[00:03:38]>> How much time have you got?

[00:03:39]>> Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:40]>> I don't know. There's lots of weird requests, isn't there? I mean, what's weird?

[00:03:44]>> my problem is I don't really consider any requests that I get weird.

[00:03:47]>> I suppose when I first came in, I was surprised at how many men would request a golden shower and things like that.

[00:03:54]>> Like I'll I'll gladly pay on someone.

[00:03:57]That's fine. I just I wouldn't really want to do anything else on someone.

[00:04:01]>> He wanted me to go to his place, chain him all up, do things to him, and then leave for 3 hours and come back. The whole time I was gone, I'm thinking, "Oh my god, what if he's dead?

[00:04:14]His my fingerprints are everywhere."

[00:04:15][laughter] >> I did have one person that was like really like had this giant box of sunglasses. I just had to kind of like pose and he'd just like put place the sunglasses very carefully, you know? And it was like it was probably like 100 pairs of sunglasses.

[00:04:31]>> First time I ever had cybersex was like online on a role play where I was role playing a horse and I had gay cybersex as a male horse with another girl who was being a male horse.

[00:04:41]>> Do you have a um a barbecue was one of them and do you have a axe? And I'm like, He actually wanted me to cut it off and cook it.

[00:04:52]>> It's the more mundane um requests that can sometimes [music] be the most unsettling. So, someone who says, "I just want you to hold me."

[00:05:00]>> Mhm.

[00:05:01]>> You know? And then your mind starts to wander into places like, "Why is this so important for someone?"

[00:05:07]>> Do you have a pimp and what cut do they get?

[00:05:10]>> Woah.

[00:05:10]>> No and nothing.

[00:05:12]>> [laughter] >> I don't think pimps are too common.

[00:05:16]I think um we dragged that idea out of America, don't we?

[00:05:20]>> I would never have a pimp.

[00:05:22]I ditched my last pimp.

[00:05:24]>> [laughter] >> It was my boyfriend who thought he was my pimp.

[00:05:26]>> Particularly if you're a woman and particularly if you're an Asian woman, you know? Then you must be somehow being exploited.

[00:05:33]>> No, definitely not a pimp.

[00:05:35]>> [laughter] >> Don't know many people that do have a pimp.

[00:05:37]>> No, I don't have a pimp.

[00:05:39]Sometimes I wish I did because it would make life a hell of a lot easier.

[00:05:42]>> Do you know some street based workers that will have a guy that's a watcher for them, and that's about their safety.

[00:05:49]>> I do um have a taxi driver who I class as my safety person.

[00:05:55]>> When I was working on the street, I kept all of my money. And then when I started working um in a range [music] of different legal ways, that's when I started to have to pay other people.

[00:06:05]>> Brothels, if you work at a brothel, they usually take half of what you earn, and I didn't like that because I thought that I did more than 50% of the work.

[00:06:13]>> I can handle them taking their cut because it's a lot easier than me having to sit at home and screen all my own calls, and then have to worry about motels or strangers' homes. My agent takes a cut, um and in return for that cut, she takes the phone calls, arranges the booking, arranges my security, pays for my advertising. So, the cut I give her versus what she does for me is actually quite small. If I'm working, I can't be on the phone while I'm working. It's a bit awkward, bit rude.

[00:06:45]>> Do people treat your body like it's a rental car?

[00:06:48]>> [laughter] >> First gear.

[00:06:51]>> They don't fill up my tank at the end of the session.

[00:06:54]>> Yeah, no. People treat my body with respect, and if they don't, I kick them out, and I don't have to spend time with them, and [music] I won't spend time with them. It's like it's a heavily negotiated service, you know what I mean? It's not like, "Okay, here's your car, off you [music] go."

[00:07:10]>> You pay for a very basic service in a brothel, and that will be massage or a sex. Anything extra you want on top of that might be negotiable or just might be a service they don't provide.

[00:07:20]>> I'm not selling my body when I do sex work. I am getting money for a set of services, which sometimes involve the use of my body. Sometimes I talk to people for a full hour.

[00:07:32]>> They want you to have a really good time, but you really annoy the crap out of you because they're saying, "How do I make you come? How do I make you come?"

[00:07:36]And it's like, >> First stop, don't say that to me.

[00:07:39]>> People think they can use my body like a rental car because society says that's okay.

[00:07:43]>> In their minds, I'm being treated like an object.

[00:07:47]So, that's their opinion of of how it works.

[00:07:49]>> I have great clients and they treat me well. And if they don't, a big burly security man comes and removes them.

[00:07:55]>> They're not treating my body like a car rental. I'm [laughter] treating their body like a car rental.

[00:08:00]>> Is there something wrong with people who have to pay for sex?

[00:08:04]>> Not at all.

[00:08:05]>> No.

[00:08:05]>> No.

[00:08:06]>> No.

[00:08:08]>> People think, "Okay, they're deviates, they're uh pedophiles, they did this, did that, rapists." Those sort of people will never come and see us.

[00:08:15]>> There's nothing wrong with people that are willing to have sex for money and there's nothing wrong with people that want to pay sex for money.

[00:08:22]>> There's something wrong people who think there is something wrong for people who have to pay for sex.

[00:08:26]>> There are a lot of reasons that clients will go see a sex worker.

[00:08:30]Not being able to get it somewhere else.

[00:08:33]A lot of the time your generally isn't one of them.

[00:08:35]>> People want me to justify my work by talking about all the people I see who do have issues. Somehow that makes it more palatable to people. They're like, "Oh, it's okay cuz she sees people with disabilities, so it's all right cuz she's That's why she's doing it."

[00:08:48]>> I'd be hard-pressed to give you a type.

[00:08:53]>> Sometimes it's just something particular service they're too afraid to ask their girlfriends for. And it's a safe place for them to explore.

[00:09:00]>> I have uh men who come to me whose wives are ill and can no longer have sex and have have actually sought permission from their wife to seek sex other way other places.

[00:09:09]>> She just basically she wanted to lose her virginity on her own terms before her 21st birthday.

[00:09:14]>> 18-year-old virgins that actually didn't want to have sex cuz I think they realized once they were in that room, they weren't heterosexual and they weren't interested at all. And that can be good for them to know.

[00:09:24]>> I just had a client recently who sobbed on my shoulder for an hour because he'd walked in on his wife cheating on him with his best friend.

[00:09:30]>> People go out and pay for massages because >> [music] >> it helps them relax and it feels good.

[00:09:36]So, why can't you do the same thing with sex? I mean, what it is I don't know what it is about sex that why there is such a stigma.

[00:09:42]>> Some people come to me cuz they want to shag. I like shagging. That's fantastic.

[00:09:46]Let's have a shag. How much do you cost?

[00:09:49]Well, depends.

[00:09:53]I have charged 200 for sex, and I've also charged a grand for sex. Price on application.

[00:09:59]>> You know, you might be booking 20 minutes, which really isn't much, but it's not that hard for me, either. Or you might be booking an hour, which obviously is going to cost a lot more.

[00:10:07]>> It's what I'm comfortable with and what I believe those services are worth. And I mean, people pay it, so.

[00:10:16]>> My standard rate is $400 an hour, then 300 for the first hour, $300 every hour after that.

[00:10:22]>> The average is 200 for half an hour.

[00:10:25]>> I'm doing a dinner date, I might go out for 2 hours out to dinner with someone, and then 2 hours back to a hotel room.

[00:10:30]That's $1,000.

[00:10:32]>> It depends [music] how much money I think the client has on them. If it's a businessman coming in drunk for Christmas party, I'll charge more.

[00:10:38]>> My big one is price according to attitude. If you come across as a bit of an [ __ ] you're going to pay.

[00:10:44]>> [laughter] >> I offer filming, and because I film for actual companies, my price for me is quite high.

[00:10:50]>> If a female client has a a fantasy that they want to fulfill and it's more full on than just a a boyfriend type experience, that is $1,000 for 2 hours. 24 hours with someone it might be $4,000, which after you take in sleep out of that, it might be $250 an hour.

[00:11:07]>> As long as you are working smart, not hard, you're going to make a lot of money.

[00:11:12]>> How do you have sex with someone who's ugly, smelly, or repulsive?

[00:11:16]>> Well, if they're smelly, I'll tell them to take a shower.

[00:11:20]>> What is ugly?

[00:11:21]What is ugly? Like, I've had sex with people who aren't conventionally attractive in my private life. Like, it's a horrible thing to value someone off their looks.

[00:11:27]>> Once you're giving a service, you're not worried about how attractive they are.

[00:11:31]You're worried about how they're going to treat you, really.

[00:11:33]>> What matters is that they're hygienic, that their sexual health is good.

[00:11:38]>> Somebody who may not look like a model, but is um but treats us with respect, is infinitely someone who I'm more able to have sex with than someone who looks amazing, but is an absolute douche.

[00:11:53]>> You find one [music] nice thing, and then you find out that they're really nice people, and now I'm not um I don't have a type because everybody has something to offer, and everybody's special in their own right.

[00:12:04]>> It's not about me.

[00:12:06]It's about the person walking in my door. I get off on getting other people off, right? [music] I get to get someone and make them happy and make them feel good, and I [ __ ] love that.

[00:12:15]>> Society thinks about sex in a very particular way. You know, somebodies are sexual, somebodies are attractive, whereas we as sex workers know that everybody is sexual.

[00:12:25]>> Well, I don't turn around and like ask some woman who's walking with her husband, like, "Do you have sex with him?"

[00:12:31]>> [laughter] >> Yeah, right. He's so ugly and unattractive and smelly.

[00:12:35]>> A lot of people I see, I think, you know, I would never saw them in the real world. If they'd come up and offered me a coffee or whatever, I would've just gone, "No, thank you."

[00:12:43]>> [music] >> But, they're the ones that need it the most, and they need to be pampered, and it's it's my nature anyway. There's some really nice nice guys out there that are just so lonely, and yeah, and they're just wonderful people.

[00:12:57]>> [sighs] >> Yeah, so there's no ugly, smelly, or repulsive.

[00:13:03]>> What happens when you tell a date your occupation?

[00:13:06]>> Oh, you wouldn't.

[00:13:07]>> [laughter] >> I usually date women. I've actually found that women have a generally pretty cool with it. Like, "Yeah, you [ __ ] men for money, you [ __ ] me for fun."

[00:13:16]>> It very much clears out all the douchebags very, very quickly.

[00:13:20]>> I'm honest from the get-go. I don't want to have awkward conversations down the track, but um I am single and will probably remain that way for the foreseeable future.

[00:13:28]>> I would never date. I did date probably in my first year of starting this for a couple of months with a guy that met me through my occupation. That went horribly wrong and I swore I'd never ever do it again.

[00:13:40]>> You might think, "Yeah, I'm just going to be honest." That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to be me and be honest.

[00:13:45]>> And that can go either way for you. If they're happy with what you do, they're a pimp as far as I'm concerned.

[00:13:51]>> I find it's something I constantly have to keep negotiating with my partner.

[00:13:55]>> He was aware of it before we got together.

[00:13:57]>> But it's not what they think.

[00:13:59]>> It's what their [music] mates think.

[00:14:00]>> Yes.

[00:14:01]>> what their friends think because you could date a porn star, you could date a sex worker, but can you take her home to meet your mother? Probably not.

[00:14:08]>> I hate that assumption that you can't be in a relationship. Like your clients are like, "Well, you're obviously not married." And it's like, "Well, I'm not damaged, you know?"

[00:14:17]>> Does all that come fill the void in your soul?

[00:14:20]>> Oh my god.

[00:14:21]>> The answer is no. I I don't swallow.

[00:14:23]>> I also hate that assumption that you're just waiting for someone to save you.

[00:14:27]You're waiting for that rich client to come along.

[00:14:30]>> Cuz I got to be honest, I tried having a sugar daddy once and I hated it.

[00:14:35]>> No one man deserves me.

[00:14:37]>> [laughter] >> What's the scariest situation you've been in?

[00:14:41]>> I struggle with that. I struggle with that a lot because [music] I have to try and assure my mother that I'm safe even though deep down we both know that there's an element of risk with this that's got nothing to do with my health and everything to do with the way people treat me.

[00:14:56]>> I've never thought, "Oh my god, this could turn out really bad." I've always thought uh it's not right and I don't feel right about it, but I think I can still work with it and I always have. [music] >> Uh the scariest situation I've been in was when I was sent on an outcall from a massage parlor and I got to the hotel >> 3:00 in the morning to an industrial area, so there's nobody else around >> [music] >> and there you are in this little factory and you're expected to do it on a concrete floor or something and you're thinking Yeah, this is pretty wrong.

[00:15:28]>> The guy I was smoking ice which like, you know, it's [music] fine to smoke ice. Lots of people smoke ice. Like, whatever you want to do with your life, but he was quite agitated.

[00:15:37]>> He was on something cuz he couldn't get hard, but he did get there and he seemed really, really happy and all that sort of stuff.

[00:15:44]>> He wanted to bring a drug dealer up to the room to buy more meth.

[00:15:48]>> And then he left and he rings me back probably about 5 minutes later and I said, "Hello." He goes, "Okay, where's the 50 you took out of my wallet?" And I said, "Who's this?"

[00:15:58]>> I was like, "I don't want another man in the room. Like, I, you know, then, you know, I'm outnumbered." He was like, "Oh, but it's just a drug dealer." So, then what I did was I was like, "I'm going to go to the bathroom." And then I just left out the hotel room door.

[00:16:09]>> I don't want my house burnt down. I'm there by myself. And I said, "Look, I said, if you so strongly think that I took your 50, I said, you come back and you take 50 of what I earned from you."

[00:16:20]>> I had someone try and choke me recently.

[00:16:23]They put their hand on my throat and I was [music] like, "We don't do that here."

[00:16:26]>> She was trying to find out my real name, my real date of birth. She wanted my passport information. She was also contacting me 20, 30 times a day.

[00:16:36]>> And then they did it again, except they used two hands and literally tried to force me through the mattress.

[00:16:41]>> She would send emails, she would leave voicemails, she would send text messages, she would send Facebook messages. And then when I didn't get back to her in time, she said she had a breakdown and ended up in hospital and that it was all my fault.

[00:16:51]>> You don't want to upset anyone on anything and you just don't want to [ __ ] You let them.

[00:16:57]>> I was raped on the job and it was when I worked in a massage parlor [music] and I could do nothing.

[00:17:03]Um, this is the reality. We can do nothing. We have a police force that unfortunately [music] works against us in a lot of ways. Is it rape or is it shoplifting? My death, if it happens, won't be treated as as important as the death of good girls because I kind of asked for it cuz of what I do for a living.

[00:17:26]>> I knew this was coming.

[00:17:28]What does your mom think of your job?

[00:17:35]They know what I do.

[00:17:38]We don't talk about it.

[00:17:39]>> My mother passed away about 25 years ago.

[00:17:43]She would have been cool with it. I don't think she's too concerned. She knows it's something I've chosen. I decided to stay in. It's not that I have no other options or anything like that.

[00:17:55]So, she's quite supportive.

[00:17:57]>> The most common is not what we would have picked.

[00:18:00]>> Right? But >> [music] >> um as long as I'm safe and healthy and happy, they support me.

[00:18:07]>> My um mom reacted how you'd expect. [music] >> But mind you, before that I was a drummer and she was >> miserable about that, too.

[00:18:16]>> People who are close to me know me, support me, um >> [music] >> and they're always you always tell them the nice things of paraplegic or or all the sad stories and the the heartwarming stories as to why you need to be there.

[00:18:29]>> My mom comes from a very from a very traditional religious background. She's um she's very Catholic. And when I came out as queer, um she rolled out all these stereotypical "Oh, it's just a phase." And when I broke up with my boyfriend at the time, she prayed for me to pick the right girl.

[00:18:44]>> Same as family, found out recently, and they are not happy about it. I'm being prayed for, but seeing as they were not >> prayed for, too.

[00:18:53]>> But it was interesting when I told my mom that I was a sex worker. My mom's response was infinitely more graceful.

[00:18:58]She said, "You're a grown-up person who makes grown-up decisions."

[00:19:02]>> What won't you do?

[00:19:04]>> Oh, a lot of things.

[00:19:06]>> Yeah.

[00:19:07]>> What stuff?

[00:19:08]>> Um >> BDSM's it's I mean, I've never been trained in that, so I wouldn't offer it.

[00:19:15]>> I'm not comfortable with a session being recorded.

[00:19:17]>> I have no problem doing disabled clients at all. They're generally very lovely, but once I have difficulties communicating with them, that can be slightly take away from their experience, so I feel bad [music] and prefer they sort of professional.

[00:19:33]>> Scat?

[00:19:34]Sexual play involving feces?

[00:19:37]>> Yeah.

[00:19:38]>> [music] >> Scat is a hard limit for me.

[00:19:41]>> I would not do anything with another guy.

[00:19:44]>> At the moment, I don't do sex, so you know, what people understand [music] to be >> Sex, penetration of penis in the vagina.

[00:19:50]>> in vagina sex.

[00:19:51]>> I don't have unprotected sex or natural head jobs. They can have the all natural titty [ __ ] >> BBBJ, which is bare back [music] [ __ ] you know, like without a condom. I don't like doing natural services.

[00:20:02]>> I'm not a big on the fetish, the um infantilism fetish, the the baby like the diapers and stuff. It's just not my thing.

[00:20:12]>> I'll never let anyone call me mum.

[00:20:14]They can call They can call me their teacher, their auntie, whatever, but I've got two adult boys. They're not allowed to call me mum. That to me, that's not right.

[00:20:23]>> they can be a million things. Like what won't I do? I won't shoot someone.

[00:20:26]Actually, like won't go and join the army and shoot people, which people seem to have less problem with.

[00:20:31]>> I won't my job.

[00:20:32]>> I won't apologize for what I do.

[00:20:34]>> Yeah, that's also a good one.

[00:20:36]>> Is it ever actually enjoyable for you?

[00:20:38]How often do you fake it?

[00:20:40]>> It is often enjoyable for me.

[00:20:41]>> You know, I'm a sexual being as much as the next person [music] and it can be enjoyable, for sure.

[00:20:46]>> Sometimes I enjoy the sex, but sometimes the sex is really hard work.

[00:20:52]>> Well, I just tell them good luck to get me there.

[00:20:55]I don't fake it.

[00:20:57]I either do or I don't.

[00:20:58]>> I do recall an instant when that kind of like there was just kind of like a really strong kind of attraction happening and I was like, "Oh, you know, don't No, I I don't want to see this guy. When I first started in the industry, sometimes I would orgasm with a client and I was really conflicted about it. Like I was like, what implications does that have for my private life if I'm orgasming with a client? Does that make orgasms less special? Felt like it was probably I would likely cross my own boundaries. So, >> [laughter] >> it was better to kind of, you know, stay away from >> Danger.

[00:21:30]>> But like now, like as I've been in the industry longer, for me like an orgasm is like a bonus >> now.

[00:21:35]>> I've had clients stay in a oh my god, I bet you've never done that before. I bet you've never come at work before. And it's like, no. No, that's what you need to hear. I see [music] some of what I do as education. If what you're doing does not work for me, I will tell you.

[00:21:52]>> It's a bit hard [music] for guys to fake it.

[00:21:54]>> And I think we fixate so much as a society on the destination, on this orgasm, that it means that we lose the ability [music] to just enjoy sex.

[00:22:02]>> I get enjoyment out of making other people happy. If they're getting out of it what they want, I'm having a good time.

[00:22:09]>> And especially to give a client something they haven't been getting [music] for potentially years and years and years is really satisfying and really rewarding.

[00:22:19]>> If they don't think you're enjoying it, how are they going to be able to enjoy it? That's just the nature of sex.

[00:22:24][music] You got to fake it a bit for all of them, don't you?

[00:22:28]>> Sweet. Well done. That's everything.

[00:22:29]Fantastic.

[00:22:30]>> All right, then.

[00:22:31]>> Yay! Hooray!

[00:22:32]>> Yay!

[00:22:34]>> It's a reversal of public duty like >> Cool.

[00:22:36]>> That was fantastic. You were a rockstar.

[00:22:39]>> [laughter] >> I get a little bit worried.

[00:22:41]>> All right, girls. Well done. Thank you very much. That was Fantastic. You survived.