One of the strangest parts of working in sex work is that people often assume you’re not a serious person. They imagine someone who doesn’t think very far ahead, who floats from one good time to the next, and whose biggest concern is looking attractive. It’s an interesting stereotype because it couldn’t be further from my reality.
Most people only ever see the finished product. They see a woman who has her hair done, makeup on, and a smile on her face. They see the couple of hours we spend together, but they never see the forty hours that made those few possible. And if I’ve done my job correctly, you’ll never even suspect those forty hours ever happened.
Those forty hours are filled with things that are far less glamorous. They are spent answering emails, updating my website, studying analytics, experimenting with SEO, writing blog posts, editing photos, tracking advertising performance, maintaining my home, balancing a budget, screening clients, paying taxes, and trying to figure out why WordPress decided to break something that worked perfectly yesterday. More recently, they’ve also included an embarrassing amount of time researching pool chemistry and mosquito traps. None of it is particularly exciting, but all of it matters.
The funny part is that I actually enjoy it. I like solving problems. I like building systems that work better than they did yesterday. I like collecting data, looking for patterns, and making small improvements that add up over time. Maybe that’s the accountant in me. Maybe it’s the entrepreneur. Either way, running the business has always been just as satisfying to me as the business itself.
Before I entered sex work, I spent years teaching accounting. Looking back, I realize I wasn’t just teaching accounting. I was watching entrepreneurs learn how to think and how businesses actually worked. Intelligence absolutely mattered. The most successful businesses were often run by very intelligent people. But what separated those businesses from everyone else wasn’t IQ alone. It was the ability to plan ahead, adapt when things changed, and understand that success was built through thousands of small decisions rather than one brilliant idea.
Ironically, at least to everyone but me, I’ve found those same qualities throughout this industry. The people who build careers that last are rarely impulsive. They think about reputation, safety, finances, marketing, customer relationships, and long-term sustainability because they have to. That’s how any successful business works. There isn’t a manager to solve problems for them or a company to absorb expensive mistakes. When you own the business, every decision belongs to you.
I sometimes wonder what people would think if they could quietly follow me around for a week. I suspect they’d be disappointed. There are no wild parties or glamorous adventures waiting behind the curtain. There are spreadsheets, calendars, writing, planning, grocery shopping, yard work, and entirely too much time spent trying to improve things by one or two percent. It’s a surprisingly ordinary life.
Maybe that’s why the stereotype has always fascinated me. We only see our doctor for a few minutes during an appointment. We might talk to our attorney on the phone a handful of times a year. Most people only hear from their accountant around tax season. Yet somehow we all understand that their professional lives involve countless hours of work we’ll never see. We assume there are meetings, planning, continuing education, paperwork, problem solving, and all the other things that make them good at what they do.
Why would running a successful business in sex work be any different?
No matter the industry, the visible part is usually the smallest part. Every business is built on work that happens behind the scenes. Mine just happens to be easier to stereotype.
I happen to work in sex work. I also happen to love building a business, solving problems, writing, learning, and thinking several steps ahead. Those things don’t compete with each other. They simply coexist. The truth is, the few hours you see are only possible because of the forty you don’t.
📈 Charlotte