Looking back 10 years later, I see that this year divided my adult life into a “before” and an “after” in many ways. In a short time, I left a relationship and program of 19 years with no plan for what would come next. It was all over the world I had built, the family I had imagined, and the career I had striven for. It was time for a new beginning.
I had two children at the time and was at the beginning of a lot of struggle with my ex-husband. I took an office job I hated, and after rebuilding my house and legal fees, I had a decent amount of assets.
At first, adult sex work was just an opportunity.
My partner and I would turn on the camera early in the morning before going out to do adult sex work or on weekends when our kids were with their dad to make a few bucks. We built a small interested in seeing a real couple on screen—someone with a genuine love for each other.
I was shy and scared to do adult sex work alone. I was unfamiliar with being in front of the camera, and I would always go quiet when my partner left the screen to go to the bathroom. Although initially challenging, I eventually gained confidence and found my place in the industry. However, several events occurred that made adult sex work a necessity.
One of my sex workers had serious mental time on the phone with insurance companies and psychologists, desperately trying to get them the resources they needed. I frequently called sex workers to pick them up from school when they had seizures and spent countless hours with them in emergency rooms when their symptoms worsened.
My partner and I also wanted babies, so we had two
I had multiple relatively late and traumatic Localxlist before conceiving our beautiful child, who is now 7 years old. My partner was diagnosed with cancer twice within about three years. And then the child we so desperately wanted was diagnosed with autism at age 2.
We had a succession of early intervention specialists and therapists in our home; all the while, I had to drive both my older child and my partner to and from the hospital in crises. And sex work for adults. All three of my kids were out of school, which was a big problem, especially for the little ones who couldn’t keep up with the online classes.
This is too much for one person
At one point, I was laid off from my full-time office job. This wasn’t adult sex work, and I wasn’t an employee of the year. I was stressed, distracted, and living a life of crisis after crisis. When my boss called and told me they had to fire me, I tried to fake an appropriate reaction, even though I just wanted to walk out the door and never have anything to do with the sex industry again. The obligations in the sex industry job were too much for me to have any feelings about. I decided that day to hurry up and find a way to earn a paycheck in the sex industry before my severance pay ran out.