Self-revelation isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but when it comes to sexual self-revelation, we’re probably interested. And if the sexual revelation is from a sex worker, some of us will probably be very interested indeed.

“We’re not trained as performers,” explain the two MCs of Paying For It at the Fringe Bar last night. And the audience doesn’t get a performance. Instead, we hear first-hand from five sex workers – three men and two women – about their impressions and experiences of the world’s oldest profession. 

“I like people wanting me because I’m weird,” declares the first speaker. He’s small, disabled and trans gender. “I have good self-esteem because people give me money.”

The second speaker, a woman, is an activist for sex workers. “The sex industry needs more public faces.” Her background is one that many of us would imagine a sex worker has, with drug and alcohol addiction prominent. She introduces the term ‘sugaring’ – a new one to this reviewer (living in a relationship in return for financial reward) – but admits that this blurs the line between the emotional and the professional. 

Some scenarios, serious evidently for the client, make for amusement when related. The third speaker, another woman, recounts one client’s request for castigation for political purposes. He voted for Trump! – and having realised the error of his ways turns up for punishment.

Then we hear from a sex worker with a difference. This man is a sexual surrogate – he acts as a friend, a comforter, a shoulder. His account of working with a client of particularly specific needs is moving – and provokes awareness of those in similar plights.

Last to take the stage is a strikingly slender youth who professes his love for what he does, despite its occasional weirdness and drawbacks. He recounts his journey – from horny adolescence to developing another persona for work purposes to finding himself in a brothel.

In what is my favourite story of the evening, he tells us about an incident in small town New Zealand in which the client wouldn’t let him go! “He took my bus ticket!” What to do? Escape was finally effected when the client fell asleep, and our man, alone on the streets at 3.00am, turns to Grinder (a gay version of Tinder), explains his plight, and asks to be rescued. Hurray for Grinder! – help arrives …

Think what you may of sex work and those who do it, you have to salute their practicality, their sense of humour, and their ability to survive.

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