EVEN MORE Truths about Dating as a Sex Industry Professional: THE UNABRIDGED NOTES

In March of 2022, Fun Factory USA inter­viewed me for their blog post, "6 Truths about Dating Sex Industry Pros."

I — along with four oth­er sex­u­al­i­ty pro­fes­sion­als — spilled the tea on what it's like to date us, from com­mon mis­con­cep­tions (what peo­ple think is the fun stuff) to the real fun stuff.

The fin­ished post is a beau­ti­ful con­glom­er­ate with quotes from the oth­ers and me. For read­ers who want more, I found my orig­i­nal, unabridged inter­view answers in my old notes!

Take a look behind the scenes for a deep­er delve into this sex blogger's dat­ing life — and maybe take some notes if you plan on dat­ing some­one with a spicy job.

When you're on a date or flirting, how do you describe what you do for a living?

In the begin­ning, I may tell them that I'm "kind of like an influ­encer, but slight­ly more old-​fashioned" since most of my con­tent is on my blog. That gets the idea across. Other euphemisms I've used or heard were "hand mod­el" (my hands are often in the prod­uct pho­tos!) or "adver­tis­ing business."

In gen­er­al, though, I tell peo­ple the fuller truth as soon as I feel com­fort­able. If I don't feel like myself around some­one, is hav­ing 2 or 3 dates real­ly more "suc­cess­ful" than 0 dates because I nipped it in the bud upon find­ing out someone's atti­tudes towards sex­u­al­i­ty? I don't think so. My time is valuable.

If they're com­fort­able talk­ing to me about social pol­i­cy and mak­ing dirty jokes, I tell them soon­er than oth­ers. That being said, there's only so much I can evade the top­ic. "What do you write about?" I do prod­uct reviews. "What kinds of prod­ucts?" Uhhh, per­son­al care prod­ucts. "What… does that entail? Like, creams, sup­ple­ments, skin­care? Is it a giz­mo? It's a gizmo!"

What range of reactions do you tend to get?

"Is this a joke?" No, I'm dead seri­ous. Are you telling on your­self about how bor­ing your life is?

"Oooh, that's hot!" I'm not a fan of this one. If some­one likes my work, I want it to be for the right rea­sons. My plea­sure is for me. My writ­ing serves women. If a man is self-​centered enough to assume that I'm a freak for him, he's prob­a­bly self-​centered in oth­er ways that don't gel well with me.

Indifference isn't ide­al, but it's not the worst. Not every­one is pas­sion­ate about their job; they may see writ­ing and sex edu­ca­tion as "just" work.

My peo­ple would say some­thing like, "YES, I LOVE YOUR BUSINESS SAVVY AND YOUR MISSION. You built a sex edu­ca­tion plat­form from noth­ing, doing what you love, mak­ing the world a bet­ter place, and not answer­ing to any­one you don't want to. That's SCRAPPY AS FUCK. I FUCK WITH THAT."

What's the best reaction you ever got when you shared that you were in the sex industry?

Someone to whom I shared my prod­uct pho­tos respond­ed, "Please, keep show­ing me more! I want to learn from the best."

What's the best way to flirt with somebody who works in your field?

Talk nerdy and nov­el to me. Show me that you under­stand the ever-​evolving field of sex­u­al­i­ty research. And that you appre­ci­ate how var­ied sex­u­al expres­sion and plea­sure can be.

Do people ask you intrusive questions? What's the worst one you ever got?

Yes, but I don't think the lewd ques­tions I get are spe­cif­ic to being a sex edu­ca­tor. They're more the gen­er­al harass­ment towards women on online dat­ing platforms.

One guy asked, "What's your favorite thing to do in bed? Besides sleep"

"Read."

"Hahaha, you're sooooo fun­ny. Want to do anal?"

"No."

"Want to get burgers?"

I screen­shot­ted and unmatched with him short­ly after that.

Also, shar­ing my work blog and social media with some­one isn't a small deal. While I appre­ci­ate peo­ple ask­ing, I usu­al­ly don't show them for a while. Most of us under­stand that going through someone's Facebook posts from 5 years ago, while not uncom­mon, can feel inva­sive to many people.

So binge-​reading my old blog posts when you're try­ing to date me is like that on steroids. Since those posts, I've grown; I want to share my cur­rent, more nuanced views.

How does working in the sex and pleasure industry affect your perspective on dating in general? Do you think your job affects what you need from a partner?

I think more about the long term than I used to. It's easy for me to say, "Well, I'm dat­ing you. I'm not dat­ing your friends and fam­i­ly." I'm fierce­ly individualistic.

But if someone's def­i­n­i­tion of togeth­er­ness includes being buddy-​buddy with their fam­i­ly, and we can't give each oth­er that, there's only so much I can work with the sit­u­a­tion. At that point, it's not "me vs. my part­ner." It's me vs. all of these peo­ple or me vs. society.

Definitely not the major­i­ty of my exes' fam­i­lies were uncom­fort­able with me, though. One ex's mom was a hip­pie flower child in the late '60s and '70s, so the extent of her reac­tion was, "Well, I'm not sur­prised." My most recent boyfriend and I land­ed on rip­ping off the Band-​Aid as quick­ly as pos­si­ble since his mom was quite a curi­ous conversationalist.

We also thought about jok­ing, "She's a strip­per," to poke fun at the stereo­type of army dudes' dat­ing choic­es. The truth about my work would be pret­ty tame com­pared to that.

In short, I don't "just" want to be around some­one I like. I want a sanc­tu­ary from how harsh the world can be towards a woman advo­cat­ing for plea­sure for women.

What do people misunderstand about dating a sexuality professional?

They have a nar­row con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion of this dom­i­na­trix with gimps in latex at an orgias­tic club bathed in red light and cham­pagne. Like, I'm not a par­ty ani­mal. I'm a sex writer. Much of my work­day is spent seat­ed in front of a com­put­er screen. And I'd argue that most of us are introverted.

Another assump­tion is that sex­u­al­i­ty pro­fes­sion­als have slept with a lot of peo­ple. Meanwhile, to me, sex is a broad sub­set of the human con­di­tion. Writing about sex is like writ­ing about food or love or the mean­ing of life; there are many ways to expe­ri­ence it. Some of us are demi or asex­u­al or monog­a­mous or strug­gle to orgasm due to med­ica­tion. There is no sin­gle "nor­mal" sex­u­al jour­ney. And there is no sin­gle mono­lith­ic way that a sex­u­al­i­ty pro­fes­sion­al is.

Similarly, some assume, "You're a sex­u­al­i­ty pro­fes­sion­al, so you must be good at sex." I'm like, no, while I can be com­mu­nica­tive and atten­tive, "good at sex" is high­ly sub­jec­tive. You don't expect a doc­tor to know every­thing about the human body; we have spe­cial­ists. Sexuality pro­fes­sion­als have dif­fer­ent fortes.

"Sexpert" also feels icky to me. It often comes laced with the fol­low­ing assumptions:

• That I know how to please them. (Again, humans are com­plex. And my plea­sure does not exist for you.)
•  That I'd be harsh and crit­i­cal of their per­for­mance, like some car­i­ca­ture of a Romanian gym coach.

Sometimes, I'm like, "Aww, why do peo­ple keep telling me I'm intim­i­dat­ing?" And then I joke say­ing, "I AM THE ROMANIAN GYM COACH OF THE BEDROOM," or "I ASPIRE TO SHAPE A WORLD WHERE A WOMAN EXPERIENCING 10+ ORGASMS IN ONE SESSION IS STANDARD, NOT EXTRAORDINARY."

Maybe I am a lit­tle hard­core. I don't mean for that to feel like an impos­si­ble stan­dard. I want peo­ple to real­ize that it's more achiev­able than the con­ven­tion­al media would have you believe.

What's the best part about dating a sex and pleasure industry pro?

Your kinks and sex­u­al vices are safe with me; I won't judge you. I've heard it all, and I've resolved not to kill the part of me that is cringe, but to kill the part that cringes.

Oh, and simul­ta­ne­ous orgasms can be pret­ty hot, too, I guess.