A year ago I came out publicly under my real name to share stories of sex, work, stigma and to set myself free. This is an abridged version of my sexual revolution story.
Hello my dear readers, supporters and thirsty lurkers! My name is Melissa Mermin. You may have seen my work as a wedding photojournalist and event photographer who’s been published in print media and online over the last 25 years. And for nearly a decade I’ve also worked, lived and breathed a semi-secret life that’s been unknown to most of my family, colleagues and acquaintances who’ve know me as Melissa. When I slipped into this world, it was a place I had only read about in books and watched in movies—it was a trap, dangerous and sometimes violent, especially for women— a world where all the bad and broken people lived. But it also had a magnetic allure as it was taboo and forbidden. I had gone down a path where I felt brave enough to see what was behind the curtain. Once I arrived, I found myself in a sea of beautiful badass mermaids living under secret agent names, superhero masks and self-created personas. These women were like graceful swans who paddled fast under the surface without leaving a ripple—hustling hard for high-paid gigs, never revealing a bead of sweat as they shook their hips and hypnotized thirsty men. They were female pirates dancing with drunken horny sailors and financially thriving in a stigmatized, criminalized industry. I was wide-eyed as I watched, I took notes and learned everything from them—there was no course or training for this job. It was lonely and isolating at first as no one would talk to me until I became a vetted insider within the community. There was no manual on how to explain to civilians about this intricate life in that exists in the shadows and how to debunk myths in the media that portrayed us all as villains, bimbos, lazy, slaves, victims, human traffickers, delinquents and damsels in distress who needed to be saved.
In short: I became a sex worker.
And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?
After leaving my then-fiancée in 2005, I moved across the country to San Francisco to start a new chapter and figure out who the fuck I really was at age thirty-five. After sleepwalking through my twenties and thirties, not having sex with my partner and questioning if I was simply “frigid”, I arrived in the right place to wake up and start exploring my sexuality. The week I got settled into my bachelorette studio apartment, I started with sex play experimentation— finding hookups and one-night stands online through Craigslist’s “Casual Encounters” section to feed my curiosity and simply learn what I liked. At the same time I also had a profile on Okcupid, a more traditional online dating site to find a steady partner (Tinder, Match and all the other dating/friend/hookup apps didn’t exist and smartphones weren’t a thing yet.) I tried the mentally exhausting dating game Find the Needle In a Haystack To Meet Your True Love (not a real game show) but it was so much easier scoring strangers with no expectations for flings (this was long before The Batchelor was on TV. I was ahead of my time.) Casual sex was like looking at lot of cool apartments for rent but never actually signing a lease and moving in. I really wanted to find home, to love someone and have a long term partner to nest with, but that wouldn’t happen until over a decade later. I had to a lot of house hunting and neighborhoods to explore first.
After a year of living in the Bay Area I was riding my bike every day (after dealing with long Boston winters and humid summers, I loved spending every minute outdoors enjoying the springtime weather year round.) I lifted weights and did cardio twice a week at the gym and started eating healthier. I went from a size 14 to a size 6 without really focusing on losing weight, I just felt good. My pallor New England complexion now had a California sun-kissed glow and I grew out my hair long with blonde highlights. It was around that time I decided to ask for something I wanted for years but never had the confidence and I didn’t think I deserved it. It was expensive, I had to borrow money from my dad (which was hard for me to ask for) and put off buying a car for a while. My “feminist” thoughts wrestled me, telling me I was only submitting to “the male gaze” and I would turn into a shallow bimbo, but finally I gave into what I really desired since I was a teenager: I got plastic surgery. A breast lift and liposuction on my thighs which gave me a huge boost of confidence. My inner thighs no longer sweated and chaffed when I walked in skirts, my pants fit better and for the first time ever, I felt comfortable— even turned on— having sex without wearing a bra or a shirt to cover up. I had perky Playboy tits at age thirty-six and damn it, I was excited to show them off every chance I could. After a few months of healing I finally felt sexy, seen and alive like I never had before. I was still on dating sites to meet Mr. Right or to just find a steady friend with benefits, that was my new part-time job. I had a few on-off relationships that lasted a few months and I hated going on awkward dates with guys from these sites that never went anywhere, it was a huge waste of time. But I excelled at casual hookups, at least we were both getting something out of it.
In my work life, I struggled to get photography shoots in the Bay Area and I continued to fly back to the east coast for projects. I was chronically underemployed so in my spare time (which I had too much of) I spent most of it online searching for work opportunities, tweaking my dating profile and searching other’s profiles. One day I stumbled on an “arrangement dating” site. At first I balked and told myself could never do that— it was kind of taboo, kind of a cross between dating and prostitution and that is just WRONG and I am NICE girl, I thought to myself as I read the profiles of boring anonymous men who couldn’t bother to use spellcheck and the young attractive women with curated perfect selfies. The site was cheesy looking with chauvinistic language and most of the men’s profiles didn’t even have photos. On the other hand, it combined the two things I was good at (sex) and what I needed (my rent and bills paid). After weeks of self-debate, I finally created an online profile to connect with “genteel mentors and wealthy generous benefactors”— but let’s take off the pretty gold bow and call it was it is: Seeking Sugar Daddy. (The site has since changed its name from Seeking Arrangement, the biggest “sugar” dating site out there and re-branded itself as “luxury dating”.) *
“Dating” in the sugar world was like getting the lead part in a play for a dramatic sexy role but you never knew when you’d get paid or get a lunch break so you could exhale and be yourself again. I had some decent arrangements that had mutual benefits— at one point I was given an actual 9-to-5 job at biotech company through my Sugar Boss, but I knew I was really hired as eye candy to be stared and poked at, sitting at a desk doing basically nothing of real value (it was a small start-up with all male scientist employees and I think they knew I had no business being in a lab all day.) I was simply grateful to be on payroll making $25 an hour with full paid health insurance before I was terminated a few months later. In the end, I was a broke-ass Sweet-n-Low enfant terrible (excuse me, Sugar Baby) and a still broke-ass underemployed photographer. Sugar babes do a sticky sweet dance trying to get their financial needs met without making Daddy feel that they’re just there for the money (there’s the game) so they do a lot of ego stroking so Daddy doesn’t think he’s “paying for it” (because he believes only losers pay for sex but smart guys trick women into doing it for as cheaply as possible.) The site posted everywhere that no escorts, ‘pros’ or clients were allowed in their wholesome sugar community and to report anyone suspected of prostitution— even though our profiles listed a dollar amount of how much money (“allowance”) we expected to receive or give per month. In the few years of short-term “arrangements” I had in the sugar bowl, I look back on that time in my life and see it for was it really was: I was an underpaid escort putting up with over privileged, boundary pushing cheap-ass clients. What we shared in common is living in denial of the true nature of our relationship: I would not have been with them if they weren’t compensating me in gifts, money or employment. They would not have been with me if I wasn’t attractive, a master ego stroker and an award winning mattress actress.
I had never even heard the term ‘sex work’ at the time. It wasn’t until I clawed my way out of the delusional sugar bowl and crossed the line going “pro” I could look back and see I was controlled by denying the truth. I was trying to be a “good girl” denying I was a “whore”— apparently women who want money for their time so they can independently pay their rent, mortgage, medical bills, go on vacation, fund their kids’ college accounts, 401Ks and build wealth— those women are desperate whores. Sugar babies (good girls) are “spoiled” by Daddy and paid in gifts for being sweet and submissive— fancy dinners, business trips and expensive shoes.
The sugar game made me vomit in my mouth, but it also taught me valuable tricks of trade that served me later— I can spot time wasters, energy vampires and predatory men from a mile away. Listen to your gut she’s always right. Get clear on your boundaries and communicate them. Listen to little red flags over big flashing green dollars, no matter how good it seems. When you close a door on a red flag, a window of opportunities and better clients will appear. Practice saying No with eye contact and a smile. Practice being a “bitch” (because you’re not, you’re just stating your boundaries and stop being a “nice girl” who’s a doormat.) Men will act like five year-olds having a meltdown when they don’t get their way or you’ve made them look foolish (remember your boundaries, especially when it comes to your body.) Get a deposit upfront before meeting in person (if they have “skin in the game” they’re much less likely to flake.)
I had an epiphany after I saw my first client (as an escort): I was a sex worker all along. It shattered my beliefs and tropes about “those women”. We understood boundaries, presented an upfront time/money container, communicated clearly our pay for an hour, day or a week. We fired clients or quietly put them on community shared blacklists. In our civilian jobs (food service, retail, HR department, admin assistants, bottom rung sales jobs- I’ve done them all) we had to put up with sexual harassment from our bosses and male colleagues, but now we were our own bosses making the rules.* I started my sex education in the school of one-night stands and graduated into sex work in my forties. At that age I felt like a dinosaur starting out in the oldest profession (many retire from the industry by age thirty-five), but at least I had some armor of experience under my belt.
I was ready to be a pro heaux but it terrified me at the same time. The police stings I read about—cops view all sex workers as puppets having no agency, shaming and “rescuing” (arresting) them. Being doxxed, losing my reputation in my photography business (it still worries me as I become more visible writing my story but I also hope it opens new doors.) How I was going to stay safe and stay sane living a secret double life. The stigma and my own internalized whoreaphobia (that I still wrestle with today.)
In November of 2013 I walked through the door into this secret underworld. I designed my website, gave myself a name and persona. I booked a professional boudoir photoshoot (where I was in front of the camera for the first time and had no idea how to look sexy or pose), bought my first lingerie sets at Victoria’s Secret (I kept the labels on and took everything back the next day after the shoot as I was too broke to keep them), shelled out a few hundred dollars for some online ads and POOF!- I launched “Jenna Devreaux” on to the internet and branded her as a high-end escort. I specify “high end” not to say I was better than my colleagues who were charging a lower rate and offered shorter sessions (many of them made much more money than I did in the long run as they had a large roster of regular clients and worked a higher volume of sessions.) I defined my brand the “Girlfriend Experience” (GFE). Our dates (sessions) took place over a few hours with dinner, drinks, conversation or an outside activity besides just tumbling in the sheets in a hotel bed.
Being candid and outspoken attracted my favorite clients to me and generally repelled the ones that wanted a blow-up doll for thirty minutes— I would sometimes get snarky with junk emails: Why waste your money seeing me? You’re right, I am way too expensive, who the hell do I think I am? You are correct, I really do have a gold plated pussy! It’s very luxurious but it’s cold, you wouldn't like the feel of it. You should stay in the comfort of your home and masturbate to all the porn you want for free. You’re welcome!
I think being in my forties I had some advantages over women in their twenties, many whom were the same age or even younger than their client’s daughters. I was closer in age to my clients (most were in their fifties and sixties) and we could connect easily in conversations with less of an awkward generation gap. We didn’t raise eyebrows when we were having dinner together in public, I could pass as a work colleague. I also attracted clients in the opposite age direction— I saw a client for many years who met me for the first time a few weeks after his 21st birthday. A sensitive “old soul”, he was sweet and unsure of himself. He had a bit of a “mommy domme” fetish and we had a great time role playing his fantasies. I mentored him through his dating and relationship struggles, took him to his first Red Sox game at Fenway and he taught me how to Salsa dance while I whispered mi pequeño in his ear.
In addition to making more money than I had since the height of my photography career, there were many perks of the job I loved and sometimes I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to experience so much joy and fun. I got to play out my Miss Piggy fantasies, getting dolled up and and stuffing my pie hole at the fanciest-of-pants restaurants in San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and New York. I flew business class to Europe and got a taste of the good life which was delightfully addictive and fueled my sexual appetite. My second favorite activity was stacking and counting Benjamins, newly printed crisp bills, fresh and warm from the ATM— for me, that was the best foreplay. Being handed a stuffed birthday card at the beginning of my sessions (generally meeting in a public place) was the real taboo part of my work (criminalization) that I had a love/hate relationship with. It felt elicit and thrilling like we were undercover agents doing a secret business transaction and I loved feeling the power exchange as I slipped that thick envelope into my purse like a loaded revolver. But it was always an awkward dance with new clients to nudge them on etiquette—(cough, wink wink, um, did you not read my website about protocol?) and if they didn’t get the hint, discreetly asking for our fee (or the “donation” as some of my colleagues called it— believing undercover cops won’t arrest us if we pretend we’re collecting for a GoFundMe campaign?)
The physical act of sex was a much smaller part of my sessions, it wasn’t really the main course. At the core of my sessions I tried making a difference in my clients’ personal growth. Connection, deep listening and empathy was behind the cleavage, batting my eyes and dirty talk banter. Helping men overcome shyness, loneliness, inexperience or in their shame that their bodies didn’t look or sexually function like they used to. Having honest conversations about desire, attraction and sexual self-expression; being a trusted confidante. So many of my clients shared their darkest secrets they didn’t even feel comfortable telling their therapists or wives. To have them be seen as sexy and receive the adoration and attention that their wives and partners had no longer given them. Many hadn’t had sex in years. I also saw a few couples who wanted to hire a sexy “unicorn” for their first threesome experience but also wanted to feel safe with a professional who wasn’t going to bring their own drama or jealousy to their dynamic.
This led me to moving to a new path after a few years of being Jenna. I transitioned into more circumscribed therapeutic work doing one-way touch, sexuality and relationship coaching. Under other names, I worked as a somatic sex educator; a Sexological Bodyworker; a neo-Tantra practitioner; a Dominatrix and couples’ sensuality and relationship coach. In my sex work evolution I’ve come full circle back to my creative roots as a photographer and filmmaker, shooting artsy nudes, boudoir and fetish content for my colleagues and other badass femmes.
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anaïs Nin
I couldn’t take another day of holding my truth as I’ve grown into middle age and become more aware that life is passing me by faster each day. After a decade underground, in early 2022 it was time to come out of the closet. I needed to rip the band-aid off all at once, come out directly to the world and let family and acquaintances discover it. I connected my real name with my badass Superhero world online (really just my sex work Twitter account), something until a year ago had been one of my worst fears in the world. I would be the one to set myself free and defuse the power it held over me.
I did come out to my dad a few years ago in stages. After I did my training to become a certified somatic sex educator in 2015, I wanted to test the waters and see how he reacted when I explained my sessions as bodyworker and sexual healer (clients are typically naked on a massage table and we use genital touch to guide and teach clients about their bodies, pleasure and directed self-touch.) At first he was apprehensive and worried for my safety, but eventually he called my work noble and he told his friends I was a sex therapist (which made me feel kind of like a fraud as I don’t have a PhD and it’s not fair to actual licensed sex therapists who can’t touch clients without losing their license, but that’s a story for another essay.) Then a year later when he asked about my bodywork sessions, I navigated the conversation into the deep end, telling him about my work as an escort. I think he must have suspected something was up since I stopped borrowing money— I had been a financially struggling freelance photographer until that point and soon after I even bought a house with no financial help from him.
He’s been mostly supportive but doesn’t understand why it’s been important for me to go public with my real full name online as he fears stigma and retaliation against me. There’s a trope amongst SWERFs that perpetuate the myth you can only do sex work if you’ve been neglected by your dad (“daddy issues”), molested, raped or sex trafficked. My dad is a very open-minded and accepting man, but he’s also the patriarchy and he’s eighty-two years old. Through his eyes I’ll always be his little girl who needs his help no matter how old I get. He has his own shame and insecurities of what other’s will think of him as a father, like he somehow failed as my dad if others know I’ve been in the adult industry. He yelled at me over the phone when I told him I was coming out publicly online last year. “Why can’t you just write privately in a diary or write publically under a different name? Why do you have to be a god damn martyr?”
Writing my story under my real name feels like how I imagine bungee jumping: Every time I publish an essay I leap off a cliff and I pray each time that I don’t get hurt— but it’s so liberating. To exhale and free all the secrets and shame that have been eating up my energy for years, giving myself permission to stop running and hiding, putting my hands in the air and say “I surrender” to the fear. It feels vulnerable to be fully seen and possibly judged and rejected—way more vulnerable than posting thirst traps for men who feel entitled to criticize, troll, jerk off but won’t acknowledge and pay for the work I created. I’ve been doing this ‘coming out’ in baby steps, revealing more in each essay as I get more confident in my own skin.
I know I’m very privileged to be able to come out publicly under my real name as I don’t have young children that could be taken from me by the courts. I own my home so I don’t have a landlord that could evict me. I don’t have a civilian job that I could be fired from. My partner knows all the different hats I wear to pay my bills, still loves and accepts all of me. However, I don’t believe everyone should simply surrender to their fears and come out of the closet— there can be a steep price to pay and sex workers have no protections under Title VII anti-discrimination laws. I spoke to a woman this year who was a school teacher in California public middle school who started an OnlyFans page, was outed to her employer by an ex-boyfriend and fired with no recourse. Another former school teacher I know was fired when her school found out she had been an escort years ago as she wrote about her experiences as a journalist. Landlords in Oakland CA can evict sex workers (even if they are not working out of their home.) Several online sex workers had their bank accounts closed when their legal names were linked to their porn names. Most payment processors ban sex workers selling anything connected to the adult industry as well as sex educators and tech companies. A short-term home rental company routinely bans sex workers using AI software but won’t publicly admit it. Meta/Instagram bans sex worker accounts that don’t break their rules regularly without giving a reason. My mentor lost the support of her entire family when she came out as queer and an erotic content creator. One of my closest friends who knew I was a sex worker for years sent me an email a few months saying we could no longer be friends when he discovered I came out publicly under my real name. It still aches to lose a friend of fifteen years but it’s also revealed who my trusted friends and allies are.
I wish there was a way to make coming out painless and safe but given a choice, rotting away in a closet of lies until I die is worse than offending someone.
I’m sure there will be some members at the family reunion this summer who might point at me across the room and whisper, make jokes or avoid me. But for all the people that I might offend, I might just be a superhero to one relative who feels all alone, scared or even suicidal being in the closet for just being who they are— queer, trans, non-monogamous or a sex worker. The more of us who can afford to come out and normalize who we really are, what we do for money, to survive, to thrive, for pleasure and our sexual self-expression—
Collectively, we can peg the patriarchy.***
* The site took away any mention of the words Sugar, Daddy, Baby and changed their name from Seeking Arrangement to get away away from the stigma of “arrangements” and the legal ramifications being loosely connected to sex work. On an interesting side note, before they did all this rebranding it was the site where Matt Gaetz met underage women and paid for sex.
** I’m not saying there isn’t harassment and power imbalance in sex work. Strip club owners are notorious for treating their workers like shit, bullying, stealing their pay and workers have very little legal bargaining or labor protections. I’m talking about myself and colleagues who’ve worked minimum wage “civilian” jobs who are often sexually harassed by male bosses and colleagues but have no power to say anything for fear of losing our jobs. I’m also not saying that sex work is always empowering, that we don’t ever put up with shitty clients for the money, that violent predators and human trafficking doesn’t exist. That’s a future essay on sex worker politics, feminism within capitalism and our fight for decriminalization.
*** Sex educator Luna Matatas coined the term: “Peg the Patriarchy is about subversion, not about an anal sex act and not about men. It’s a metaphor for subverting the system that requires subservience within a gender binary.”