The holidays are drawing close. Whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve or Chinese New Year, during the festive season many of us find ourselves in proximity to old friends and extended family. And, thanks to sex work stigma, it’s not always a fun experience.
Of course, everyone’s relationship to family is different. I have friends who were thrown out of home at sixteen because their parents couldn’t handle their being queer. In comparison, I’m lucky. I had a very supportive middle-class upbringing; the kind where nobody gets disowned for being the weird kid. My parents championed my strangeness, up to a point..and they’d drop everything and rush to my rescue if I ever needed them.
Even with these privileges, I find the holidays hard. Lately, every time I go back home, I discover something else that makes me feel as though I don’t fit in. Being queer, being nonbinary, learning to be sex-positive…and, of course, being a sex worker.
Coming out isn’t always the answer.
There’s this popular narrative about coming out as being queer - that if you’re just brave enough to tell everyone, your friends and family will support you and you’ll be glad you did it. But that’s not always the story. Family and friends do sometimes take a while to adjust…and sometimes they never come around. The same is true of coming out as a sex worker. Sometimes, being ‘out’ is just as complicated and stressful as being ‘in’.
I first started doing shifts at a brothel in Melbourne back in 2020. Terminally honest, it was one of the first things I shared with my parents when they visited for the holidays.
I’d moved to Melbourne only a month or so beforehand, moving between backpacker dorms and friends’ couches. Thanks to a few long but rewarding brothel shifts, I’d managed to scrape together enough cash for rent and bond on a one-bedroom apartment in Flemington. It was bare of furniture, but I was so proud. I showed them around. Then I dropped the bomb: “I’ve started doing sex work.” Silence. Without missing a beat, my dad walked over to the kitchen cabinet, opened it, took out my bottle of Johnny Walker, poured himself a generous glass, and downed it in one go.
It would be another four or five years before my folks felt comfortable enough to actually talk about my job. Coming out was simply the start: the decade-long process of trying to figure out what we felt comfortable discussing at the dinner table. I don’t think we’ve ever really figured it out. Twelve years later, my folks swing between extremes: my mother shouting ‘respect prostitutes!’ at the TV whenever sex work is covered in the news (it’s not the right word, but I’m impressed by her sentiment). Then Dad suggests I should start writing about something other than sex, as though a ‘respectable’ career would be a better choice. Other family members simply never bring up my work, assuming that our relationship will be fine if they pretend this aspect of me doesn’t exist.
This isn’t about politics. It’s not because they don’t care. There’s a cultural gap, and it’s growing every time I discover something about myself that doesn’t mesh with the lived experience of my family. Yes, they’re well-meaning and they love me - and I love them. But sometimes we can’t bridge that divide.
This makes Christmas REALLY awkward.
Sometimes, I feel sorry for my family, having to cope with the weirdness of our modern world. Sometimes, I also feel sorry for myself. As I move further and further from cultural norms to find happiness, will I always be making the people around me uncomfortable? Everyone else just wants to enjoy their white-picket-fence lives…will I always have to choose between being myself, and feeling at home?
When we get together, innocent questions such as, ‘What did you get up to on the weekend?’ are hard to answer honestly. I suspect this is the reason why my fam rarely asks, ‘How are you?’ or ‘What have you been doing lately?’ They’re afraid of the answer. Or perhaps my reluctance to share, given that I don’t know how it will be received, has led to a gradual shutting down of the kinds of conversations that keep relationships going.
During the holidays, I often feel cut off from the things that make me feel supported and safe. My family lives interstate and ‘going home for Christmas’ feels like a trip to a foreign country - a week or two spent in a place with a culture, customs and social norms that are completely out of step with my own. Conversations around the dinner table centre on work and kids, or where folks are going for their next vacation. My favourite topics - sex, religion, and politics - aren’t a good choice (although, to be fair, when you get my mum going about the perils of climate change, she really delivers!).
There are continual reminders that I don’t quite fit in. Last year, my dad and I swapped musical recommendations, and played tracks from our favourite Broadway productions on Spotify. But after dipping into shows like Avenue Q and Book of Mormon, I realised that my favourite musical numbers were a bit blue for his tastes (and the neighbours probably didn’t appreciate being subjected to ‘The internet is for porn’ on boxing day.) After a few panicked smashes of the ‘skip’ button, I felt anxious and ashamed.
Luckily, I know how to look after myself.
As I get older, I’m coming to realise that I’ll never have the ‘happily ever after’ experience promised by Netflix seasonal romance movies. Christmas will always feel awkward. Instead of hanging on to unrealistic expectations, I’m changing the way I do things.
Something that’s been super important to me (especially as the holiday season rolls around) is redefining the concept of family. I need to make sure I’m surrounded by the people who understand and support me the most. Christmas - and Thanksgiving, if you’re in the USA - are often seen as a time when family comes first. But I’ve adopted a ‘relationship anarchy’ approach. Relationship anarchy is a bit of a silly term, but it’s a great concept. Basically, it says that all the relationships in our lives are equally important. So, for example, rather than prioritising monogamous partners and immediate family, relationship anarchy understands that friends, lovers and other folks in your community may be just as worthy of your time and attention.
My close friends all hail from polyamorous, queer and sex-positive circles, not because these subcultures are inherently superior, but because these folks understand that my work (and all the other weird and wonderful aspects of my life) okay, even admirable. When the end of the year rolls around, I’m making sure I spend plenty of quality time with my ‘bubble’.
For me, December is also a chance to enjoy solitude. And by God, do I need it! Sometimes the holidays are the only time we can slow down; once the drinks have been drunk and the wrapping paper has been torn off everything, and the rest of the family are taking much-needed post-lunch naps….we can finally access that quiet, reflective space that we rarely indulge the rest of the year. I take this a step further, spending days alone at home or on vacation. Although it’s not for everyone, not speaking for a few days is a wonderful therapy for me. And, having just prioritised my family and their enjoyment, it seems logical to also prioritise myself. Without this break, I reach the end of the year feeling even more exhausted.
Another huge step: letting go of the idea of ‘returning to your roots’. I love my family, and we do share some values. But their way of life doesn’t hold a lot of cultural significance for me. When it comes to who I am as a person, my genetics and upbringing are only part of the story. I don’t need to see the trip home once a year as deeply meaningful. I suspect this could be even more important for people who come from dysfunctional backgrounds - folks who have struggled with their pasts and are one-hundred-percent self-made. The lives we build for ourselves are just as important as where we’re from.
Finally, I try to remember that we can choose our own celebrations. Whether your perfect idea of ‘holidays’ is being surrounded by family, being surrounded by friends, or just being alone and enjoying your own company, don’t be afraid to adopt the rituals that work for you. I used to be a member of a close-knit gym community who would get together and work out on New Years Eve, finishing at midnight with a modest glass of champagne. I have friends whose yearly Christmas pilgrimage involves spending a week camping with their chosen family. You don’t need religion or family traditions. You just need to be willing to invent your own itinerary.
The holidays aren’t fun for everyone.
I love a good Christmas movie, but they’re misleading. Those happy families are fiction, and often real life doesn’t follow suit. Part of the bittersweet experience of being a sex worker is the realisation that I’ll never feel one-hundred-percent comfortable, and that some social situations will forever be demanding and isolating. That’s certainly true for spending time with my relatives over the holidays.
So, if you’re dreading that Christmas dinner, or avoiding it, because you know it will go badly, I’m with you. If you aren’t able to see your folks at all - if you’re low-contact or no-contact thanks to their opinions about your work - I feel for you. It’s not your fault. We should all be living in a better world, one where the people around us don’t have hang-ups about sex and sex work. Hopefully, one day, we’ll get there.
But until then, it’s okay to let go of the idea that the holidays should be perfect, or easy, or happy. And it’s okay - essential, even - to look after yourself.
