While I was in the process of leaving my abusive ex-partner, I confided in my social worker (after asking at length about her confidentiality policy, which she assured me was full proof) that I had previously worked as a sex worker in a parlor. She agreed to leave this off my notes but informed that had I still been working at that time, she would have informed child protective services. When I asked why, since I was based away from my house and my children were looked after by family while I was at work, she said that “prostitution is usually indicative of other issues.” Later, speaking to a friend of mine at the brothel about this, she told me that her child had been removed from her care because her ex partner told child protective services about her job during a custody dispute. There did not need to be “other issues”; the assumption of other dysfunction and ignorance of the realities of sex work was enough that she lost her child to the state. Another friend of mine from the same parlor was threatened by her soon to be ex-husband with being outed if she obtained legal council during their separation. Rather than take the risk of losing her children and her family, she lost her house, financial stability, all her savings and everything she had worked for up to that point. Her ex-husband took everything.

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