Let's get to the down and dirty details right away. I am a 27-year-old woman who is an escort. I've never thought much of monogamy because of my profession. (Yes, I do like my job.) But I've met someone, a 35-year-old male, who also didn't think much about monogamy until we started dating. The problem comes down to this: We became monogamous because we are happy with each other and satisfied sexually. I've stopped work for a short time to open discussions with him about what it means to date a sex worker. I want to start work again but remain "monogamous." Sex at work is exactly that: work. I'm getting paid to have relations with others. It's totally transactional. I'm faced with this: If I do go back to work he wants to be able to have sex with other partners too. I feel this is not "fair." He says he's happy being monogamous and would only see others if I start work again. I have asked him not to see others because it is not the same as what I do. I do not get to choose someone I am attracted to on my own free time, like he would be doing. I'm having relations on my "work time" and 99% of the people I see aren't even people I would see in my free time. Yet he's convinced I might dump him for someone I meet through work because two of my colleagues happen to be in long-term relationships with former clients. Ultimately, I feel my "providing services" puts money in the bank towards our future whilst if he is having relations with others it is not productive to our future. Am I wrong for wanting to continue this monogamous relationship even though I am a sex worker? Is his request "fair"?

Hooked on Love

I got online and tossed your question out to #SexWorkTwitter, HOL. Here's what some of your peers had to say...

From Kit Bauer:

Regardless of the fact she is a sex worker getting insecure about her leaving him for someone else spells trouble and control isssues to me
This is a risk whether she is a sex worker or not, and it isn’t fair of him to make her responsible for managing this insecurity of his.
— Kit Bauer (@foodsexwater) January 9, 2018

I would also be extremely wary of dating someone who is fundamentally misunderstanding how I interpret my job.
Dating people as a worker is often hard enough as it is - i need them to at least understand the basics of how I feel about my job (that it is WORK not dating)
— Kit Bauer (@foodsexwater) January 9, 2018

Unless she has the emotional energy to do some serious re-educating then DTMFA. His request is very unfair to me.
🖤🖤🖤Kit x
— Kit Bauer (@foodsexwater) January 9, 2018

From Cyd St. Vincent:

Power tripping as hell. He’d be happy being monogamous if you didn’t work? That’s all about leveraging power
— Cyd St VincentXXX (@CydStVincent) January 9, 2018

From Nina Hartley:

I don't think it's fair at all. He's being manipulative and, imho, the usual jerk who says he's okay w/#SexWork, but really isn't. I'd leave yesterday.
— Nina Hartley® (@ninaland) January 9, 2018

From Lance Navarro & Cyd St. Vincent

Even though I understand her perspective that the sex she is having is for work, I don't think it's fair to ask her partner to be completely monogamous. Just because it's work doesn't mean its not satisfying and pleasurable and he deserves to enjoy that with others too.
— Lance Navarro (@LanceNavarro) January 10, 2018

I think for me the difference is that he is saying he'd be happy to be monogamous if she didn't do sex work, if he always wanted to be non-monogamous that would be a different story but the bargaining makes it seem less like a genuine desire and more like a power play
— Cyd St VincentXXX (@CydStVincent) January 10, 2018

Agreed, though I would say that power play and conflict are inevitable in a relationship. For example, the partner with the lowest sex drive has the power when it comes to sex. I think, if handled with respect and love, conflict and confrontation enhances a relationship
— Lance Navarro (@LanceNavarro) January 10, 2018

From Tash Murphy:

Sex work & casual sex are completely different things and it seems like her boyfriend doesn't understand that. Tbh I would struggle to be with a partner who didn't recognise the legitmacy of my job and didn't trust me to exercise my own physical/emotional boundaries with clients.
— Tash Murphy (@tash_murphyxxx) January 9, 2018

From Maya Midnight:

He's got some silly ideas about sex work that make it inadvisable for a sex worker to date him at all. I have some unpleasant suspicions about how he'd act if they agreed to non-monogamy and she dated in addition to working. (And I don't think that's even what she wants.)
— Maya Midnight (@MsMayaMidnight) January 10, 2018

From the Naked Therapist:

Sounds like he sees sex work as the same as having multiple lovers & being poly. I got a lot emotional satisfaction escorting while having a boyfriend, it was easier as we were open from the start. Being monogamous while doing full service GFE escorting is harder to navigate.
— 𝒥𝑜𝓎 𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓈 𝒮𝑒𝓍 (@Naked_Therapist) January 9, 2018

From Kim Cums:

The boyfriend's argument that her other friends are dating ex-clients is irrelevant. You could meet someone else during ANY type of work, not just sex work. Workplace romances/affairs are common place in any job.
— Kim Cums (@KimCummms) January 10, 2018

Now Ally Brinken, Mistress Matisse, and Maggie McNeill:

Yeah, sex work and poly are so very not the same thing, and putting them into a tit for tat bargain with a demanding partner is a recipe for disaster. Sex work is work. Relationships are relationships. If he can’t see this, I don’t think they have much of a future.
— Mx. Ally Brinken (@AllyBrinken) January 10, 2018

Speaking of someone for whom the boundaries of those things are often little fuzzy: I will just say that if you can’t accept your partner as they are, and trust them, the relationship is not going to work. At least not anyway that I would find fulfilling.
— Mistress Matisse (@mistressmatisse) January 10, 2018

I'm with you here. I'm not comfortable with drawing big, thick red lines between ways of interacting with other people and loudly declaring "THESE THINGS ARE NOT AT ALL THE SAME!!!!!" Trust and acceptance are the keys, not division and contrast.
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

More from Maggie McNeill:

I really like @mistressmatisse's answer to this, but I'd like to add that I see both parties being unreasonable here *in different ways*. He clearly doesn't see her work as work, but as recreational, and that's going to cause problems down the road NO MATTER HOW they... https://t.co/tiV7HK4dVC
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 9, 2018

...resolve this situation. I absolutely guarantee that whether she quits working or not, he will at some future time hold her sex work over her head, because 1) he clearly equates it to promiscuity, and 2) he thinks of promiscuity as something "lesser" if not quite "bad".
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

Furthermore, what's her alternative if she quits sex work? Doing some shit job in an office working for ab boss for far less money? That's going to breed resentment. I quit sex work TWICE for "love", and it was a bad idea both times. https://t.co/D8j1YqsLeG
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

At the same time, I don't think she's really being reasonable either. SO WHAT if his reason for having other partners is different from hers? Setting up a hierarchy of motivations ("My reason for doing X is more acceptable than your reason for doing a not-dissimilar thing")...
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

...is also a recipe for resentment in the relationship. People are different; they have different views and different priorities, and comparing them to one another is just as damaging to a relationship as demanding that both parties get exactly the same thing out...
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

...sex or other cooperative activities. As a woman who has a lot of difficulty achieving orgasm, should I demand my partner not climax until I have, and that each of us has to have sex for personal pleasure and ONLY for that reason each time? Of course not; that would...
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

...be unreasonable & sabotage the relationship. Yet our culture worships "mutuality" in sex as though it were a cultic totem, even though it's as undependable and ultimately meaningless as "love at first sight".
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

So what I'm saying is, as Matisse pointed out, each person has to conduct themselves as they feel they want & need to, with honesty & without unrealistic expectations of some kind of parity. And if the other person is OK with that, then the relationship will work.
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

But the second EITHER of the parties starts bean-counting or saying "you can't do that", or "if you do that I'll do this", or "it's not fair!", that relationship is headed for a really rocky road without a spare tire.
— Maggie McNeill (@Maggie_McNeill) January 10, 2018

There's a lot more advice, discussion, and debate on the thread under my original tweet — a big "thank you!" to all the sex workers from all over the world who took the time to respond!