What It Was Like the First Time I Exchanged Sex for Money

Sex work is often misunderstood and requires more effort than people give credit for. Here, one woman has opened up about how she found herself immersed in that lifestyle, and how years of partying led her to a career in sex work. The woman says she hopes that by sharing her story, people will learn to treat sex workers with the respect they deserve.

Sex worker. A woman named Lucy Foster tells Broadly’s Sirin Kale about what it felt like the first time she got paid for sex, and how differently it’s portrayed in media versus what it’s actually like. She hopes that by sharing her story, people will sort to treat sex workers like any other person.

Lifestyle. Foster explains that from the time she was 13, she got involved in a life that included a lot of heavy drinking and drug usage. While she didn’t know it at the time, Foster was suffering from mental health issues that she was unknowingly making worse by drinking and doing drugs.

Mental health. "I haven’t fully unpicked everything that was going on back then, but I think if there had been more awareness about mental health when I was growing up, my life would have turned out differently,” Foster tells Kale, for Broadly.

Partying. Foster says that as soon as as he turned 17, she moved to Amsterdam, where her partying ways only got worse. Foster was financing her lifestyle thanks to a job as an Au Pair. Unbeknownst to the family, Foster was staying out all night, and getting back just in time to care for the children.

Couple. But one day, everything changed. Foster met a couple who promised her she could make far more money than she was earning at her babysitting job, and was intrigued. The man she’d met gave her his card, and hours later, Foster found herself dialing the number.

Escort. "I met up with this woman who was working for the escort agency in a hotel, and I remember thinking she was the most glamorous person I’d ever met. She had amazing nails and was really beautiful and she told me she’d also been an escort until she’d fallen in love with her pimp, and now she helped manage the agency,” says Foster.

Client. The woman explained to Foster how things worked, and that she’d need a nice set of lingerie before going to meet her first client. Foster's first client was a young man who she met at a motel, and would be paying her almost $60 an hour.

Awkward. "I got into the room and it felt really awkward. I remembered what the woman from the escort agency had said, and suggested we have a bath. So we go into his bathroom, and it’s tiny! We both climb into this narrow bath and sit there with our knees up to our chest, and I could see he was kind of amused, like, I was obviously a really unprofessional hooker,” says Foster.

Exhausted. After that first client, Foster continued being driven from client to client, to the point where she was so exhausted she was begging to go home. Despite being exhausted, Foster was satisfied with the amount of money she’d made.

Boundary. "A lot of sex workers talk about this feeling of crossing a boundary, the first time you’re paid for sex. It’s a transgression—once you’ve done it, you can’t go back. You’re marked by society for life. Although I see sex work as a job, not an identity, society doesn’t see it that way—it’s not something you can easily do and then put behind you,” explains Foster.

Relationship. Foster continued escorting for several years, until she got a job as a bartender and got into a serious relationship. However, the relationship was unhealthy and soon enough, she was back to escorting again.

Activist. "We were together for four years, and after we broke up I never thought I’d go back to sex work. But I met some sex workers and became aware of the activist scene, and thought I’d give it another try. It went really well, and I’m genuinely proud of the business I’m building up now—I don’t work for agencies any more, and I’m making good money and saving,” says Foster.

Stigma. Not all sex workers are drug addicts, or abuse victims, and Foster is working towards trying to change that stigma that sex workers see, to have. She’s also hoping that soon, sex work will be decriminalized and considered a normal career.

Labor. "I hope that one day this job will be treated like any other form of labor, and that the people working within it are allowed to organize, and work, as they want, with basic labor rights,” says Foster, via Broadly.

You. What do you think of Foster’s story? Be sure to share your thoughts with us!