Women do pay for sex, and this is why Assumptions around sex work are undeniably heteronormative; women sell sex, men buy sex, and that’s that. Only that’s not that. […]

Assumptions around sex work are undeniably heteronormative; women sell sex, men buy sex, and that’s that. Only that’s not that. It’s not even close. Sex work is a vast spectrum of gender, sexuality, services, providers and clients. But, phallocentric scripts around submissive female sexuality are so entrenched that many simply do not consider the fact that women engage sexual services to satisfy their sexual needs. But they most certainly do.

When I set about writing this article I sent out a tweet asking if any women who have paid for a sexual service would like to share their story. I had hoped for maybe one or two respondents, but within an hour my email inbox resembled the Dursley’s living room when the invites to Hogwarts start to arrive. I had so many responses that I had to delete the original tweet because I couldn’t possibly do all the stories justice in a short piece. But, to all the women who came forward to say ‘I DID’, my most sincere thanks.

Why would a woman pay for sex?

The most frequently asked question is why. Why would a woman pay for sex? This question is rooted in heteronormative assumptions that men want sex all the time, so why would a woman pay for something that is freely available and plentiful? We live in a quick sex world, where a penis is only a right swipe away.

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But what about good sex? How easy is that to come by? The kind of sex that is just about you. An experience where you are free to give voice to your most deeply concealed fantasies and live them out in safe, judgement free space? What about sex with someone who knows exactly what they are doing, where everything is completely under your control? How often do you have that kind of sex? The women who spoke to me weren’t interested in just any old sex; they were after something far more fulfilling than that.

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‘Joele’ is one such woman. Joele is a 78-year-old retired high school teacher, who has been in a committed and loving same-sex relationship for 23 years. She regularly visits a female sex worker with the full knowledge and support of her partner. Joele found that as they grew older together, her sex drive remained high, while her partner’s cooled. “I hadn’t run out of sexual steam and she was left with barely a puff.”

While on a business trip to Reno, Joele suggested they visited the infamous Mustang Ranch Brothel, and while her partner sat in the bar reading a book, Joele was shown around the brothel and introduced to the women who worked there. Far from creating distance between them, Joele found seeing sex workers has brought her closer to her partner. “I don’t have to bottle myself up or feel like I’m bothering her with my sexual needs, and she doesn’t have to feel guilty about rejecting me. It has cleared the air of underlying unexpressed pressures and resentments on both sides.”

A difficult fantasy to live out

Joele sought out a sex worker because she missed sexual touch and intimacy. But many of the women who contacted me had visited a sex worker because they had sexual fantasies of being spanked, tied up, or dominated in some way.

Although this is an incredibly common fantasy, it’s not an easy one to live out. The levels of trust required are considerable. Many of the women I spoke to described feelings of shame around their fantasy. Others spoke of the difficulty of inviting a partner into their private fantasy life, and of not quite getting it ‘right’ when they did.

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Take ‘Lucy’, for example. Lucy is a 23-year-old travel agent from Gloucestershire, who has been with her girlfriend for 18 months. Lucy has held a deep desire to be spanked throughout her adult life. Like most of the women I spoke too, Lucy had a very detailed fantasy that had developed over many years, and despite experimentation with various partners, it never quite captured the scene she played out in her mind. As she put it: “It became clear to me that what I wanted was more than the odd slap on the bum when fooling around. What I was looking for was structured disciplinary spankings. For whatever reason I also felt the need to be spanked by an older male authority figure, I guess maybe returning to the ‘old-fashioned’ perception of spanking.”

So, Lucy sought out a professional male dominant and together they discussed how to recreate her fantasy as closely as possible. After the first session, Lucy was able to feedback precisely what she wanted to change or do more of. Four years later, Lucy still regularly sees her dominant with the full support of her long-term partner.

‘It made me feel closer to my husband’

As Lucy explained, BDSM fantasies are difficult to live out with your partner. This is something I heard throughout the interviews conducted for this piece. Women like ‘Cheryl’, a 49-year-old librarian, who saw a dominatrix when she separated from her husband of twenty-two years. Cheryl had tried repeatedly to bring kink into their marriage but found her husband really struggled with it. When the marriage ended, Cheryl decided it was finally time to explore her fantasies of being dominated by a woman. Scared, hesitant, and deeply unsure of herself, Cheryl arranged her first session with a sex worker. Together, they planned her session down to the last detail.

“The enormity of me being with a woman for the first time was not lost on [the dominatrix] and before she removed all my clothes she stopped and told me what an honour it was for her to be able to share this with me. I then had the most mind-blowing orgasm that just went on and on. I think it was 30 years in the making combined with over two hours of stimulation. I have never, ever experienced anything like this. We then spent time cuddling and she talked to me about what I had just experienced and how I was feeling.”

‘Chloe’ is a 46-year-old stay at home mum, who has been married for nine years. Like Cheryl, she has long held bi-sexual fantasies, but unlike Cheryl, Chloe’s husband encouraged her to explore this side of her sexuality, and she first saw a sex worker while they were on holiday together in Amsterdam. Reflecting on her experience, Chloe said: “This experience definitely made me feel closer to my husband. I do want to try the threesome thing with him though as the thought of watching him with another woman is a huge turn on for me. I know that’s an unusual attitude for married people, but I think if you have someone’s heart that it is much easier to share their body in a trusting way.”

‘Having that fantasy, being able to experience it, having a partner that understands and helps you achieve it, is amazing’

Chloe’s experience is not all that unusual for married people. Many other women have engaged a sex worker to fulfil threesome fantasies with their long-term partners. Women like ‘Regina’. Regina is 37-years-old and has been married for twelve years. She and her husband decided to fulfil their fantasies at the Love Ranch brothel while on holiday in Las Vegas. She vividly remembers both she and her husband were so nervous beforehand they almost didn’t go through with it. But, Regina found the experience to be transformative for them both. “Having that fantasy, being able to experience it, having a partner that understands and helps you achieve it, is amazing.”

Guilt – and total liberation

Of course, not everyone who came forward has been able to be as open with their long-term partner. ‘Anita’ is a 49-year-old mum of three who lives in Brighton. Although she loves her husband deeply, she has long felt they were sexually incompatible. Anita has spent most of her married life sublimating strong BDSM and bisexual desires. She hoped such urges would go away, or that her reserved husband would suddenly develop a kinky streak, but it never happened. She tried to raise the possibility many times, but her husband’s embarrassment shut down the conversation immediately. Her frustration was palpable. “So you want to experiment and you’re married? Well you can’t, that’s it. I guess I see that logic, but some of us feel those feelings stronger.” So, Anita secretly arranged to see a female dominant with a male friend of hers.

Although the experience has left Anita processing feelings of guilt, she describes her session as a ‘total liberation’. When I asked her why she chose to see a sex worker, rather than meeting someone online or in a bar, she replied: “With a partner, there are so many worries as to whether they will like your bits and bobs, or pressure you to do things you don’t like. But, there was none of that there. For the first time, I felt like I could be very self-indulgent.”

What a male sex worker thinks

It’s extremely difficult to pinpoint the differences between the men and women who pay for sex, but a need to create a safe space in which to explore sexual desires was a reoccurring theme with the women I spoke too. Seani Love is a London-based, straight male escort specialising in Tantra and kink. He explained that his clients are all women, predominantly in their thirties and forties, “who are wanting to explore a part of themselves that they know exists, and who are wanting to reclaim something that feels lost to them”. I asked him what he has learnt about women and why he felt clients came to him.

“I assumed at the start women wouldn’t pay for sex, but I’ve learned that it can be super empowering for my clients to hand cash over in an act of reclaiming their sexuality akin to ‘taking matters into their own hands’. I’ve learned how much women have been socialised to please men and it can be a huge thing for them to clearly ask to be touched how they want. Many women have never received erotic contact purely for their own pleasure and so visiting a sex worker can be a major milestone on the path to reclaiming their right to receiving erotic pleasure.’

‘Sarah’, 40 from London, is one of Seani’s clients. She spoke about how she has struggled to talk about sex for most of her adult life. When she left a 10-year relationship, she hoped that by seeing a sex worker, she could learn to communicate and connect more intimately during sex. “I was very curious and feeling a need for and missing good quality physical touch and intimacy. I wanted to give myself some love and care, learn something about myself and have a new experience.”

Far from regretting the experience, Sarah found it comforting, nurturing and healing to receive focused attention. “There are many types of relationships where I can receive and give those things of course, but I think a relationship between a sex worker and a client is an equally valid one, and I’m very glad that I was able to access a high quality of these things at a time when I felt that I needed them.”

Research into women who pay for sex is about to change

Women who pay for sex is a very under-researched area, but that is about to change. Dr Natalie Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University and Dr Sara Kingston, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Lancaster have recently completed a pioneering project on this subject, funded by the British Academy. Their book, ‘Women who buy sex: Intimacy, companionship and pleasure’ will be available by the end of the year.

When I caught up with Sarah and Natalie, I asked what their research had revealed about women buying sex. Although she had been unsure of what the data would reveal, Sarah recognised her preconceptions were challenged by “just how similar some of their motivations are to men”. Natalie added that women paid for sex for a range of reasons, “such as wanting to experiment or having a mismatched sex drive with their partner – wanting sex, but not an affair. This parallels what we know about male clients – they come from all walks of life and pay for sex for a range of reasons.”

‘After articulating all this here, I may get her a thank you card to let her know the impact it had on me’

The women I spoke to held deep emotions around their experiences, but all had felt empowered by their choice to engage a sex worker to meet their physical and emotional needs. Whilst we shouldn’t think that their experiences are universal, just listening to their stories is a hugely important step forward not only in understanding the complexity of sex work, but in understanding and destigmatising female sexuality. I asked all the women who shared their stories what they wanted people to know about women who pay for sexual services. This was Cheryl’s answer:

“Most cis men I have come across think that sex workers are women who look like porn stars who are there to fulfil their every fantasy. They don’t think about experiences like mine, or people who have been through trauma and all the other reasons people may engage in these services. I also see sex workers as educators. My sex worker made this an incredible experience for me. After articulating all this here, I may get her a thank you card to let her know the impact it had on me.”

Natalie and Sarah are interested in talking to more women who have paid for sex, so if you’d like to contribute to the study please email n.hammond@mmu.ac.uk or s.kingston@lancaster.ac.uk