Hello!
I’m a current sex worker and though I usually enjoy reading mumsnet rather than contributing, I feel I have to say something here before I implode in exasperated fury.
I've just posted this exact post on a similar thread elsewhere, and am quite frankly sick of repeating myself so forgive me if I come across as a bit aggressive. I also suspect I'm less formally educated than many of you so my post might read as being a bit blunt...
I also appreciate that my situation does not reflect that of all sex workers, but I wanted to share my experience and view to at least give a little more balance to the debate aside from the common narrative about prostitution.
There’s so much insulting, belittling, uninformed drivel in this thread already that I’m not entirely sure where to start, so I’m going to number what I want to say (for my own sake):
1.) I choose to sell sexual services. Please note, I do not sell my body (or any other part of myself). My body is still mine and, at the end of my working day, I merrily take it home with me to curl up in bed with my partner.
My body is not being ‘used’ by anyone but me. I repeat – I sell sexual services, not my body.
This distinction is extremely important and really needs to be hammered home to those outside of the sex industry.
Ideas about women ‘selling their bodies’ is exactly the kind of negative, socially ingrained, language used around sex work that lands sex workers with clients who feel like they own us in our entirety for their paid time, and that just isn’t the case.
We sell a physical and intimate service, not our bodies.
2.) I am not a drug user, I do not drink alcohol (been tee-total for years) and resent the insinuation that to be a sex worker involves some kind of substance abuse.
I enjoy sex immensely, I enjoy the money I earn, and I enjoy the freedom to set my own working hours or take holidays whenever I please.
I resent the idea that my chosen form of work could be taken from me (along with my autonomy over what I choose to do with my own body in the privacy of my own home) by a collection of uninformed, middle-class, moral crusaders who haven’t even bothered to listen to what the men and women working in this industry want or need, and are so far removed from the situation that they don’t even care what we feel about it anyway (in fact, our feelings seem to be brushed aside as an inconvenience).
These people, for their own ideological reasons, would see my safety reduced, my income removed and my autonomy squashed, and for what? So they can sleep well at night under the delusion that they’re being a good ‘feminist’?
3.) Not all clients are misogynistic, sleazy or harbouring a sense of entitlement. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I meet more men with sexual entitlement in my private life than I do in my working life.
Clients are as varied as any other random collection of men, few of them have much in common with each other, and their reasons for meeting with me are even more varied still.
Disabled clients, lonely single clients, experimental female clients, couples, ‘lads’ looking for no-strings fun, elderly widowers, carers of severely disabled spouses… the list is endless.
Often-times, the sex isn’t even the focus of a booking – the intimacy and closeness to another person is. My job is to make my client feel as amazing as possible, to build their self-esteem, distract them from their problems for an hour or two, to help them feel desired and attractive or simply have a laugh and some fun. It really isn’t as simple as a quick shag (though it can be that too sometimes!) and this really isn’t something you can understand unless you’ve visited an independent sex worker or worked as one yourself.
I hope me telling you now can help with that though…
4.) The Nordic model makes me very, very frightened. However, would it stop me from working in this industry? No, it would not.
Would the Nordic model make my job less safe?
Yes, of course it bloody would! And it takes a great deal of mental gymnastics (or deeply imbedded ideology against sex work) to come to any other conclusion.
Criminalising the clients would eliminate all the lovely, sweet men who come to visit me. None of them would continue to see me if it became illegal to do so.
However, do you really think criminalising the purchase of sex will stop someone from raping me? Robbing me? Assaulting me? Murdering me?
No, it wouldn’t. The men who could potentially do me harm would already be breaking the law by raping/robbing/assaulting/murdering me under our current laws around sex work, so why would an extra law stop them?
Criminalising the clients only removes the good, law-abiding and safe clients, leaving independent sex workers like me with the unlawful remainder.
Are you really willing to put my life at risk for your own moralistic ideology? Or take away my income? Or my right to decide what I do with my own body, behind closed doors and with both parties consenting?
5.) Trafficking is a red herring. We’ve been down this road several times already over the years and the fishing industry still beats the sex industry for the numbers of people trafficked into it.
6.) If sex work isn’t an industry, can I stop paying tax on my earnings please? 
7.) What are my suggestions as a sex worker?
Full decriminalisation. I currently work alone in my own flat but would be significantly safer if I could legally work with another lady on the premises or with my own hired security.
I’d also like to see a huge change in the way we discuss sex work/sex workers. If people stop treating us as though we are inherent victims then perhaps we might stop becoming actual victims.