Queer Whore Collective: Autistic Whoring, or An Anti-Work Manifesto
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There are not that many things that are for certain, in this life, but so far, this much I know for sure: put a comraderie of sex workers in a room, and leave them to chat about anything, and two things are almost guaranteed to happen. We will always start complaining and swapping horror stories about clients - we all have some, whether scary, disgusting or funny, and sharing them in those makeshift, spontaneous circles is one of those rituals that keep us sane and heal us from stigma. And there will always be someone who mentions being neurodivergent, followed by at least one other who will chime “Me too!”, as excited as the only two visibly queer people at an extended conservative family function. The thrill of joy in recognition of shared experiences never gets old, at least for me.
Neurodivergence is a broad category. The term was coined by an autistic sociologist, Judy Singer, to move away from overtly pathologising descriptors and emphasize that ‘divergent’ neurotypes, while potentially impairing, are not in and of themselves ‘disordered’, but rather a part of natural human diversity. Other than autism and ADHD, neurodivergence encompasses a number of different ‘conditions’ (reductive and controversial though this term may be), such as dyslexia and dyscalculia, Tourette’s, OCD, and a host of other developmental/learning disabilities. This, plus the variety of ways each of these can present in every different person affected, mean that there are virtually infinite possible perspectives on sex work and neurodivergence (and mine is limited to only what I have experienced - namely, on how autism and ADHD affect full service sex work).
There is no current scientific evidence, that I am aware of, of links between being neurodivergent and engaging in sex work. Google scholar doesn’t have any input on the topic, and, given that civilian academics often treat us less than kindly, I can’t say I’m too sad about it. The anecdata, however, abounds.
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It might be difficult to imagine why an autistic person, stereotyped as incapable of talking to strangers, making eye contact, and coping comfortably with sudden sensory inputs, would willingly choose this profession. After all, for us, projecting an image tailored to attract a certain type of client is half the work, convincing someone we’re genuinely into them, despite being bored to tears, is the other half, and tolerating disgusting cologne on our skin is a routine requirement of the job. None of which is easy for neurotypicals, either.
The stereotype is not always necessarily true, though, or not completely. Many of us, who, if dropped in the smoking area of a club next to a friendly acquaintance, would be fighting for our lives to come up with one single cogent attempt at small talk, don’t necessarily struggle with the scripted-in-advance nature of the social aspects of sex work. My dear friend Marcelle Nuke, talented screenwriter and former sex worker, maintains that while her autism makes it sometimes difficult to approach social settings, meeting clients has never been a problem. Men are easy, after all, and men who have already decided that they’re attracted to you are easier.
But of course, none of us is truly willingly choosing any job, sex work or not - I am sure if we could just be paid enough to live comfortably just to sit around, look pretty, and pursue our hyperfixations at our own leisure, we’d all take that deal in a heartbeat. Except maybe for the hustle culture girlboss multi-level-marketers, who could keep throwing product placement parties for each other until the rescue industry chooses them as their next target victim golden goose egg.
Until then, we, unfortunately, Live In A Society, where disabled people need to either be lucky enough to find the few jobs that are accessible and well-paid, or to resign ourselves to endure ones that make us sicker, or the debasing farce that is the process to become eligible for disability support payments. So much has been written about the horror and violence of proving ‘unfitness to work’ in front of the official authority of the State, about the astounding number of deaths while waiting for a response from the DWP, that I don’t think I need to explain why disabled people of all kinds are overrepresented, among sex workers. We were working from home way before 2020, because that was the only work we could do.
Even with all the added challenges my autism poses, sex work is still the most accessible job out there for me and plenty of others. When the pandemic hit, and neither I nor my clients could leave the house, and my brief stint at attempting a transition to online sex work crashed and burned (I am too neurodivergent for an OnlyFans posting schedule), I had to, instead, find myself a civilian job in the service industry. Every minute I spend there, I spend it grateful I could find a fall back plan, and still counting the days until the next time I meet a client, until I can quit and go back to full time sex work.
My friends have, sometimes, responded to statements like those above with confusion - especially those friends who have heard me complain about my clients in all the gory gruesome details. And yet, I’ll happily take all the days of frantically re-doing hair and makeup in the short break between clients; of training for world record for fastest bedding change, to make sure skid marks don’t ruin the illusion for the client who booked me for 6pm and requested he be ‘first of the day’ to see me; of squeezing myself in uncomfortable outfits to please someone’s grandpa’s niche fetish; of keeping up the charmed and delighted act up, no matter how long Johnny boy spends explaining, immediately after giving me a “donation for my time”, how much he does not need to pay for sex.
“If the alternative is low paid work, where every request for accommodation needs to be backed up by paperwork and justified in terms of increased productivity, it shouldn’t be surprising how many of us cling to this line of work.”
All of those scenarios, and many more and worse ones, are a challenge to live up to, as an autistic person. And very few of those are half as hard, for me, as spending eight hour days in a busy, loud, chaotic environment, for little more than minimum wage, with a schedule that is not regular enough to build a routine around, but also not flexible enough to allow for the necessary wiggle room to accommodate for days where, for example, my capacity to cope with any noise at all is severely limited by things like not getting a good night’s sleep. When I have days like those while hooking, I get to work less, or take a day off with no explanation, or pretend I’m really in the mood for them to go down on me (they won’t do it well, because I don’t tell them what I like, but at least they won’t be talking).
Not to mention how having to be on my feet all day at my civ job is worsening a yet-to-be-diagnosed physical condition that causes chronic muscular and joint pain. But the most important of access needs that sex work meets for me, that no civilian job ever could, is time. Time to rest after social functions I want to attend but that tire me out for days afterwards. Time to pursue my creative hobbies, to engage in grass-root politics, to continue the studies that I had to drop out of due to autistic burnout. When you can make enough money for a month’s expenses in a really good few days, it’s a significantly smaller problem if you’re too autistic to do anything but hibernate for the rest of the month.
I still don’t think sex work is a great job. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, especially not without thorough and in-depth research, and without learning to tell the difference between sex workers frankly discussing their work, and sex workers rose-tinting their experience to market to clients and stay off the wannabe saviours’ radars. The fact is, though, sex work is the best option for so many. Despite being notoriously an incredibly dangerous and stigmatized job, despite us going through trauma at work, be it due to clients, police, or being outed. If the alternative is low paid work, where every request for accommodation needs to be backed up by paperwork and justified in terms of increased productivity, it shouldn’t be surprising how many of us cling to this line of work. And none of us are ‘happy hookers’, or too privileged to know what we’re talking about. Sure, we might be happier being hookers than waitresses, or shop assistants, or secretaries. Sure, we might resent needing to work for a living at all. Don’t you? It’s 2022 - I don’t know anyone who genuinely enjoys the grind, except for Elon Musk fanboys.
Words: Viola di Stefano | Illustration: Wild Iris | Part of Queer Whore Collective.
