Wow, I wrote about being injured at work. The food service instance required me to wear an arm brace for a month, and the incident on set required similar recovery. Are there times when I’m late or forget to turn my phone down? Sure, I’m human. Do I deserve to be hurt and have my injuries ignored by my employers? Seriously?

No one is talking about professionalism. People who are easy to contact will do better, true, but what does that have to do with abusive behavior? There is a huge difference between a client who decides not to book with me because I took too long to answer a text and a client who tries to sneak the condom off. Your comment was out of line.
(Typed on broken phone because, argh.)

Turn my phone OFF? That is awful, dangerous advice. You know what the priority in my life is all of the time? My safety and wellbeing. That comes first, everything else is a distant second.

“The reply was about abuse and workers’ right, my point being is that acting professional will incite being treated as a professional. Not a lecture, just a basic business concept.”

It WAS a lecture and an utterly inappropriate comment to leave on this thread, IMO.

Furthermore, I’m a complete professional (and a “lady”) who treats my clients with dignity and respect, and I’ve been cheated out of wages, bullied, and harassed–oftentimes by white-collar Masters of the Universe–than I care to recount. Unfortunately, many of these clients do not consider us to be “professionals” and they do not consider what we do to be work.

“…acting professional will incite being treated as a professional.”

Um, actually, that’s not true. If someone is an abusive asshole, they will be an abusive asshole whether you are behaving professionally or not. Please see: So, so, SO many customer service jobs. Oh, and wait…sex work! Yes, yes, this applies to sex worker too.

Implying that a lack of professionalism is at the root of being treated poorly suggests that the accountability for abusive behavior should be held with the victim, rather than the perpetrator. Which is wrong.

Also, I love that a male-female escort *couple*, who seemingly only does doubles, is lecturing other sex workers on how to stay safe. Hey, could it maybe be possible that having two people, one of them a man, makes you less likely to be assaulted by a client? No, no, I’m sure it’s just that you remember to turn your phones off.

Hmmm I wonder why I was assaulted by a client then, because I was behaving exactly as you recommended. Maybe I totally deserved it for behaving unprofessionally at some point in the past, that must be it.

“…acting professional will incite being treated as a professional.”

So by that logic, “unprofessional” behavior is to blame for — what, exactly? Spell it out. Being cheated out of money earned? Police harassment and abuse? Workers’ rights aren’t earned with good behavior, but with principled demands. When nurses stand up for the rights, they don’t do it with a stethoscope and a lollipop in hand. This quote isn’t about how sex workers “behave” with customers, which has little to no bearing on systemic violations of our rights.

The reply was about abuse and workers’ right, my point being is that acting professional will incite being treated as a professional. Not a lecture, just a basic business concept.

In my view, professionalism belongs to me, not to them. I compare sexwork to running a restaurant; there will always be no-shows and cancellations, but once we have accepted them in, then it’s up to us to provide the best service possible, even if they are complete arseholes, right up until the point we ask them to leave. Punters are like diners and if they think I’m flaky and unprofessional then they will seek to take the piss. Of course it’s not a 100% solution, we all have horror stories and have left a guy or kicked him out, that’s the same as asking someone to leave your restaurant. It’s a cheesy as fuck film from the 80s, but there’s a great line from Roadhouse:

“If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. I want you to remember that it’s a job. It’s nothing personal. I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.”

Professional service does not mean agreeing to everything they want, you’re a peer not a subservient service provider. In all walks, acting professional gets a more professional response and inevitably leads to a reduction in abuse.

In the case of the early finisher, then professional is being ‘nice’ and smiley, despite having to deal with a complete twat. I can’t comment on that specific incident, I wasn’t there, but IMHO professionalism means that they feel less like they have the right to ask these things.