The Unanticipated.

What I didn’t expect when I quit sex work.

There were many topics I wanted to write about before I quit the adult industry. It would be a waste not to continue exploring them over the next while, to get it out of my mind, to share it with others to see if it helps them, and to explore if I’ve got any left over feelings about it.

People kept telling me I’d have some kind of ‘moment’ after I quit, maybe an epiphany, an emotional break down, deep regrets, some self-disgust, Something. And I’m just sat here still waiting, knowing big things so rarely phase me.

This blog I’m posting for the women who asked me what it felt like to quit. The ones who were looking at me, thinking or saying ‘She’s mad, but she’s brave’ and are watching my next moves from a distance. Hello ladies!

There were many things I did expect when I quit sex work. Those have mostly rung true. More time to myself, more time to think, far less stress.

It’s all the things I didn’t, or couldn’t, have foreseen that I’d like to share today. In no particular order:

• I earn, well, nothing right now, but I’m finding so many of my old expenses were directly or otherwise, related to old-job. I barely spend anything now.
  

• I am starting to question if I got fed up of sex work, or just the concept of anything that requires me to adhere to a schedule and talk to humans.
  

• My skin is incredibly oily at the moment. Part of me thinks this is because I don’t need to shower or do my make up so much anymore, but could it be that all the men were right? Maybe semen was good for my skin.
  

• I only shave when things get prickly. Word got out & I’ve been nominated for a local re-wilding award.
  

• You can sell a lot of old-work kit, but Ebay only allows you to sell new stuff, so you’re suddenly polishing dildos for the final farewell, deep in group-chats, posting the most innocent photos of the weird and the wonderful.
  

• Given that I’m still checking the old phone, because it’s filled with potential contacts I can sell my old work-kit to, I find myself occasionally replying to people trying to get hold of old-me. Except, I don’t Have to be polite anymore. I’m choosing to meet like with like. Polite and innocent messages get responses in kind.

  But I have fired off many ‘are you literate?’ messages. Suddenly find I’ve got the time and the patience to explain to a small handful of people what I actually thought of them, now I don’t have a reputation to uphold. Someone’s gotta tell them. For the greater good & all that.

  My favourite moment was one ex-client seeing my remaining work-profile photo, and noting the symbolism. It had been there for a couple of years, and I left it on what remains of the profile, because I had my back to the camera, walking away and it felt fitting.

  Another ex-client messaged to say ‘Ooh nice new photo’.
  Two types of men? At least..
  

• My vibrator’s put in an request for annual leave.
  

• When I think of having sex right now, there’s no hatred or hurt, or any weird feelings. Just the inner monologue stating a firm, indisputable, ‘Nope.’

  Nothing’s been inside my vagina for a month. Nothing. Its become password-protected and typical me, I lost my log-in details.
  I’m fully expecting to try to use it one day in the future and find it’s not there anymore. Don’t use it you lose it eh? The self-doubt will kick in and I’ll wonder if I ever even had one.

• Nobody has seen me naked in just as long a time. And that’s fine. I don’t think I’m an exhibitionist at heart, and if I am, I can just take up streaking at football matches.

• I’ve been turning up to restaurants, gifting stuff I won’t use, to friends who are still in the industry.

  Presented one woman with a big old bag of working-girl-tampons in the pub.

  
  Upon realising I wasn’t likely to get through all the condoms I still had before they expired, I gave those to a friend too. The realization it would have been easy to leave a Disney themed tote bag of several hundred condoms, in 5 different dimensions, underneath a table for the waiter to find. I wish we had. I really do.

• My tiny rescue dogs are more relaxed, or as I’ve come to think of them, ‘piss-filled hot water bottles of dubious continence’.

  
  Before, every few hours they’d be running towards the door to assess an intruder. One would be barking to the effect of ‘Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are? I’ll Fucking Bite You. Come Here. Now, if you could just bend down and insert your hand into my mouth, right-hand side where the remaining teeth are please, jolly good. Gnash Gnash’

  The other used to be screeching ‘Who The Fuck Do You Think You Are, coming round here and not immediately ruffling my belly? Fuss me or get out.’

  Admittedly hard to differentiate for the outsider. Stressful for all.

  
  Nowadays, I dance around the house, one dog under each arm. As we dance, I make up little songs entitled ‘Piss is why we can’t have nice things’ and ‘You’ve pissed on everything I ever owned and loved, except for the toilet.’

  And then I buy more puppy pads, my current biggest expense, and use them to absorb my tears.
  

• Some clients, whilst wishing me well, expressed that they hoped I was rich ‘enough’ to quit, that I should be driving a Ferrari by now.
  Don’t get me wrong, I am comfortable and a pension is planned for, but between HMRC and a divorce, I’m not rolling in it.

  What is rolling? My wheeled storage trolley, the one in my Ferrari-less garage. Because Audi wanted £685 to fix my front parking sensors and I prefer a cheap, slow-motion crash each time I get home. Who am I kidding? As if I leave home.
  

• Quite a few people have, very kindly, wished me well as I venture forth into new projects, telling me I’m a bright lady who could make a success out of anything. In a lot of ways I know this to be true. The abilities I lack, I make up for in bloodyminded determination. I am extremely good at setting my mind to something and getting shit done.

  What I also know is, earlier this year, within an hour of my 2:1 law degree certificate arriving, I had superglued 3 of my fingers together. Upon returning from the sink having prised my fingers apart, I picked up the scissors I had been using, only to find those too were glued permanently shut. My project? I was lining tiny dog jumpers with extra thermal material.
  As academic ability increases, common sense departs, cause & effect yet to be established.
  

• Watching the bdsm cage get collected was eventful. I promised myself selling off furniture was going to be a good thing, that I’d be redeeming myself somehow, letting go, detaching from the chaos that the industry brought to my life.

  And then the couriers turned up at the exact same time the local secondary school emptied out. Each time I passed another section out of the window, another pre-teen narrowly missed decapitation.

  Instead of putting it straight in the van, they leant each chunk against the side of the house for a while and pottered off towards the van to rearrange the space.
  

• I fumbled my words as I tried to make candles recently, substituting Wax Melts for a typo of Max Welts and being gripped by a sudden fear of what my browser history might say about a subconscious desire for violence.
  

• A relative kept telling me, over and over, that I must avoid accidentally having ‘scary men’ as clients when I do massage work.

  And I thought she knew. For all those times that she made comments which I interpreted as ‘I know you’re an escort, but I’m not going to directly say it’.

  I just don’t know what to think anymore.
  

• I was on another massage course in Glasgow a couple of months back. I had to giggle to myself. We’d practised techniques for the foot on the first day. As the other pupil arrived on the second day, I could say ‘hello, nice to meet you, would you like to touch my feet?’ With a near-straight face.

  It was also the first occasion for someone to politely ask to politely touch my ass, possibly ever.

  And it’s moments like this, where I find I don’t need to lie about what I do anymore. I think I shall relish that going forward. Just being able to talk openly, wherever I go, whoever I am with, is going to be such a novelty.

What I’m going to end on today, is that I was right all along.

For all those years when people looked at my patchy-purple lower limbs and went ‘OOOOH, what have you been up to? I bet it was kinky. You’re filth you are’
I am STILL covered in bruises. My legs are cosplaying as 101 Dalmatians, even though nobody has touched me. I know this information is of no use to you, I’m just enjoying the vindication.

KH xx