I've noticed something fascinating about my clients from professional backgrounds. They genuinely believe they understand financial precarity because they've read some Guardian article or watched a documentary about poverty. But they don't. Not really.
Take Mark, a solicitor who makes about 80k annually. He'll sit in my flat, postcoital and pontificating about 'economic structures', and I'm thinking: mate, you've never actually been uncertain whether you'll make rent. Never experienced that low-grade panic where every euro matters.
My work isn't just a 'service'. It's economic strategy. When I moved back to Waterford from Dublin, I calculated precisely how many clients I'd need to match my previous office salary. No romance, just cold mathematics. The middle class loves to romanticize survival, but survival is ruthlessly pragmatic.
What they don't get is that sex work isn't about the sex. It's about negotiating power in a system that's fundamentally unequal. I'm selling a performance, a carefully managed interaction where I'm always three steps ahead. My autonomy isn't compromised. If anything, it's enhanced.
But try explaining that to someone whose entire worldview depends on maintaining comfortable illusions.