Lately, it seems as if the glamour of being a performer or sex worker is everywhere. As a long time fetish, burlesque and sideshow performer as well as FS (full service) sex worker and fetish provider, I've worked in many and varied performance spaces. From private sex-on-premise parties, swingers events, dingy back alley nightclubs to huge theatres – with audiences boasting more than 1000 people – as well as corporate conferences and expos. For well over a decade I have had the privilege of using my body and my brain to create art. Highbrow theatrical pieces to the sleaziest, sluttiest strips, celebrating sex in all its kinky forms. In my personal experience sexy performance art and sex work have never been as widely touted or as glamorised as they are right now.
There is something about how we use social media now that just hasn’t been there before. I grew up before myspace was even a thing, or tumblr or the widespread proliferation of chat rooms. To see how fellow performers and workers of all kinds have had their need for the internet explode in recent years, is overwhelming. It’s no longer about putting an ad in the classified section of the paper, or asking for a list of available workers and performers for a gig, or asking at your local adult store if they know of a nearby dungeon to hire a pro dom. Nowadays it’s putting your life out there on instagram and twitter (X or whatever he’s called it now). It’s showing off every iced latte with plump pouty lips and bouncing titties. Its sneak peeks of costumes and props with a long line of tantalising thigh and ass taking up the shot. Its stories and feed pics and reels and curating your grid, and… tiktok.
For well over a decade I have had the privilege of using my body and my brain to create art.
The tiktok thirst traps are a whole new way of showing brand(ed) content that I frankly struggle to keep up with. What new words this week will suppress your content? Have the new censorship workarounds dropped yet? Are they too ridiculous to even say with my fully-grown-adult mouth? It’s a lot. I am well aware I sound like the old man shaking his cane at the clouds meme thank you. In a way, I am. See, the thing about all this constant content creation that we make and consume is that its all little highlights. Snapshots of the very best of a shoot, a performance, a session. We show the absolute best because that’s the fantasy we sell to entice you to buy the tickets to see the show or send the email to book a session. But the reality is never going to go up on social media - even more so when you are disabled.
There is a huge overlap between the disabled community and artists and sex workers. The amount of disabled people I know who are both performers and sex workers is frankly, astounding. So what is the reality for a disabled performer/sex worker? Allow me to enlighten you on what my average day is: I have several physical chronic health conditions as well as being AuDHD (autistic and ADHD), as well as the co-occurring mental health disorders that come along with it. It would take me too long to explain them all to you so let’s just get into it. When I wake up I access my body. How much pain am I in today? It’s never less than a 2 but often less than a 5. Now 5 is less than 10, but it’s not nothing on the scale, and it’s not normal for me to wake up over a 5. I average around about 3 - if I wake up at a 3 that’s fairly ‘normal’ for me and I don’t have to stress. I check what time it is and log how many hours of sleep I had. If I’m lucky, I’ll have gotten 5 or 6 hours, if I’m unlucky, only 2 to 3. Then I check my calendar and emails/messages. If it’s an admin day I’ll often stay in bed on my phone responding to people for an hour then roll over to try and get another few hours sleep. If it’s a day I have a client, I’m teaching a class/workshop, a performance or a combination of all 3, I’ll still have all the same things to do, but I will set an alarm to make sure I get up after that set hour of attempted extra snoozing.
The reality is never going to go up on social media - even more so when you are disabled.
Chronic fatigue and insomnia are like 2 angry school kids playing tug of war and my body is the rope. Shower and prep time. Usually I need to sit again after my shower, I usually do my skincare routine (if my fulltime pup submissive is home, he makes me a cup of tea). I check what venue I’m in and how accessible it is –where I live in Australia, the buildings aren’t that old but they do reflect the taste of the colonists at the time–which means narrow, multi stories with twisty staircases and uneven floors. I might be lucky and not have to deal with any staircases, but on the flip side, not every venue has a dressing room for me. Which usually means I’m given the disabled toilet to use instead.
I check all of these things in advance so I can plan accordingly. After all, it’s not that I can’t climb stairs or use a toilet as a dressing room, it’s just that, well, it causes me more pain to do so. Both increased physical pain from my chronic health conditions, but also from overstimulation. I am particularly sensitive to noise, smells and textures so often even when there is a dressing room, there is almost never a quiet space for us autistic folks. So if I'm performing in a venue with no dressing room and lots of stairs I might take my mobility aid with me. Or plan to go home directly after a show, rather than hang with the cast and crew for drinks after. Maybe I'll only make myself available for one or two clients rather than the four or five I could have seen, had the venue been more accessible to me.
Okay, I’ve checked the venue and planned accordingly for both the accessibility and for my personal pain/fatigue levels of the day. Now it’s time for hair and makeup and to pack. Again, if I’m lucky my pup – who is the goodest boy – will ask me what acts I’m performing or what kind of pro dom sessions I have booked. He will often fetch those items for me, every good pup loves to play fetch, and pack them into my suitcase. That takes a lot of strain off me, but sometimes he isn’t available. So of course I pack my things and take another short rest. Then I sit and do my face and hair. Then, if I remember, I’ll berate myself for not eating yet and hunt for something in my house I can snack on without ruining my makeup. Okay, it’s time to get going. I can’t drive so the question is, can my body handle public transport with my gig bag or do I need to pay for an uber? Most of the time I will have organised myself in advance and gotten a lift with a coworker, or my pup, but every now and again I get a last minute booking.
Maybe I'll only make myself available for one or two clients rather than the four or five I could have seen, had the venue been more accessible to me.
When I say last minute I mean sometimes the morning of the show or client booking. I cannot take a booking with less than three hours to spare because it takes me that long to get ready without risking a health flare up. Something that could put me out of action for days if not weeks. It’s a boundary I had to learn the hard way. Let's assume I got a lift or paid for an uber and I am now at the venue. Let’s also assume that it’s a ground floor, maybe only a few small steps at the front door. I’m sharing a dressing room that is actually a storage closet, with a few other performers. We hug and kiss hello and I try to find an unobtrusive spot to put my bag. I notice that there are no chairs, no stools or small tables for me to sit and conserve energy while putting on a frankly ridiculous costume/wigs/headpiece, shoes, etc. I've done as much work at home as possible so I don’t have to worry about the lighting–of which there is either none, or its yellow fluorescent, tragedy allround – but it’s a common saying in performance, “30 minutes to get the costume on for a 3 to 5 minuet act.” Don’t get me started on getting into latex, leather and corsets for a client who has paid specifically for these things in a dingy accessible bathroom with 3 other people while the one other disabled person in the building knocks on the door needing to use it.
Ok we are nearly there. I'm in costume, I've warmed up my body gently, the MC is hyping the crowd up, there are calls of chookas all round. I step out with a seductive smirk on my face to the cheer of the crowd, whip in hand and immediately want to cry. The producer and the venue did not tell me that there were stairs up to the carpeted stage. Fuck. This specific costume has no movement in it until I unzip the skirt for the reveal, or the heels I'm wearing aren’t good on the carpet and now I'm risking serious injury. If I had known in advance I could have changed things but now I have no options. Oh well, the show must go on! It’s a great show! I have a wonderful time with my coworkers or my clients. The day is done, after a bunch of selfies and backstage videos because we need content for social media and can’t waste the excellent makeup, and I can get into my comfy tracksuit and head home. Most of the time, I don’t get to hang out with my friends post show. I’m exhausted, I’m in pain and I’m sick of masking that my disabilities don’t affect me for every second of my life.
I leave my suitcase in the loungeroom, have a shower and fall into bed and take my mountain of medications. Sometimes I’m in enough pain that it shows on my face, and my pup will make me a hot water bottle and coax me into taking the good pain med s– the ones I am oh so sparing with. Then I look at what's on tomorrow, and plan out every single step I need to take and how long it will take, with rest breaks included so I can do the thing I love more than anything in this world, my job. The truth of being a performer and a sex worker who is disabled is that the reality is never glamorous.
I look at what's on tomorrow, and plan out every single step I need to take and how long it will take, with rest breaks included so I can do the thing I love more than anything in this world, my job.
It's a huge amount of emotional and mental labour to try and mitigate the many things that could cause an injury, pain flare or autistic meltdown. It's the huge amounts of help and support my pupboy gives me on top of his full time job. It's knowing, from experience, that if I were to post a selfie backstage or in a dungeon with my walking cane, that I will receive hateful comments for being a visibly disabled, fat person. It’s having to check venues in advance due to the lack of accessibility. It’s the amount of future pain I will be in because it’s just assumed access is not necessary in my profession. It's the assumption that disabled people cannot be sexy or sexual. It’s the surprise from people when they find out I am disabled. It's the ‘but you don’t look disabled/autistic/chronically ill’. It's asking why I would want to be a fetish provider or performer if I am disabled. Or why I even work in venues that aren't accessible (spoiler alert, that's all of them). Like, am I just supposed to stay home out of sight? (yes, unfortunately) For an industry that is full of disabled people, we don’t really talk about the realities of being a disabled performer or sex worker, enough. That needs to change.
Are you a sex worker with a story, opinion, news, or tips to share? We'd love to hear from you!
We started the tryst.link sex worker blog to help amplify those who aren't handed the mic and bring attention to the issues ya'll care about the most. Got a tale to tell? 👇☂️✨
