Category Archives: Ethics

Sex work, disability, and the NDIS (again)

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Back in May of 2020 the federal court of Australia ruled that the National Disability Insurance Scheme should not deny disabled people the right to use their NDIS insurance to pay for sex work services if they could show that it was “reasonable and necessary”.

I can’t emphasise enough how important this recognition of both sex work and the rights of people with disabilities is.  It cannot be understated.

Governments world wide have long pushed sexuality and sex work to the margins of society, with hugely detrimental consequences.  New South Wales in Australia, where I work, in fact was so plagued by corruption of it’s police force and politicians, due to the criminalisation of sex work that it became the first place in the world to decriminalise sex work (and thus remove that blight of corruption).

It seemed for a brief moment there that as the states and territories in Australia embrace and/or implement decriminalisation that the tide was turning.  Even the federal court has recognised sexual expression as an integral part of human existence.

Then last week federal minister for the NDIS, Stuart Robert went on a conservative radio show to once again display his ugly conservatism. 

“I never thought you and I would be talking about prostitutes.”

Robert said NDIS participants were “welcome to avail themselves of anything that is lawful and they can pay for themselves” but not with taxpayer funds.

The Guardian – Stuart Robert Condemned

Firstly it’s worth noting the derogatory language.  Stuart Robert knows that the preferred and respectful term is “sex worker”.  He has used it in the past here (https://amp.abc.net.au/article/11298838).  So his choice of words when talking to Ray Hadley on the radio was intended to rile up listeners and shame people who pay for and provide sexual services in front of a conservative radio audience.  It was deliberate.

The federal court stated that if a person with a disability can make a case for the NDIS to cover the cost of sex work services then those services should be covered.  Which seems quite reasonable.  It’s not giving anyone with a recognised disability a blank cheque to see sex workers every day of the week on the government’s dime.  It is simply recognising that there are people in our community who’s disability means that they can’t safely and readily participate in an integral part of the human experience – their sexuality – that the rest of us take for granted. 

What most people who oppose the NDIS funding sex workers don’t stop to consider is the risks that people with disabilities take when they try to engage with people for a relationship and especially sex.

Most of the clients I see and have seen over the years who have a disability are extremely physically vulnerable and require significant care 24 hours a day.  It is virtually impossible for a person in this position to “just get on Tinder” for instance.  Most have never experienced sex at all when they contact me and are looking for someone who understands their disability, how to communicate and work with them safely.

This isn’t something you get with a random stranger off the Internet.  Imagine being wheelchair bound and unable to speak trying to meet someone to have sex with – for the first time.

This is what Stuart Robert ignores.  And it’s a huge over site for the minister in charge of the NDIS. 

The only way that you can justify excluding sexual services for people with a disability is if you believe that sex and sexual expression is a privilege.

From the NDIS website:

The main objective of the NDIS is to provide all Australians who acquire a permanent disability before the age of 65 which substantially impacts how they manage everyday activities with the reasonable and necessary supports they need to live an ordinary life.

NDIS – Operational Guidelines

So the test that the NDIS claims it applies to supporting people with disabilities is “does this disability prevent you from living an ordinary life?”

I would suggest that a life devoid of sex is not an ordinary life – and I have over ten years of experience working with people, both able bodied and with disabilities who tell me all the time how important being able to have sex is to them and much it improves their lives.

Sex is a part of our ordinary lives and if minister Robert Stuart was honest with Australians he would accept the federal court’s ruling and stop fighting against people with disabilities.

His latest attack on people with disabilities is try to force through a definition of “reasonable and necessary” that will exclude sex work from NDIS cover.

“I will move to actually define what is reasonable and necessary so we can meet community standards, because I do not believe … that the federal government using taxpayer’s money to pay for prostitutes meets that standard, I just can’t see it,” Robert said.

The Guardian – Stuart Robert Condemned

Every time he claims that it would be against “community standards” he is applying his own moral, religious, and/or political beliefs to a question that should not be influenced by any of those things ever.

And claiming authority by citing “the community” is nothing more than cowardice. At least own your discrimination Stuart.

John.

It’s ok to want what you want – AND it’s ok to ask for it

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I don’t think that it can be said often enough, clearly enough, and loudly enough, but…

(provided it’s consensual) IT’S OK TO WANT WHAT YOU WANT.  AND TO ASK YOUR PARTNER FOR IT.

Of course this is complicated infinitely by the dynamics of relationships, their history, your collective insecurities, children, age, physical issue, and more…

But at the end of the day you are allowed to want what you want. You are allowed to be turned on by what arouses you.  And you are allowed to ask for it.

I think that many people – while they may know all of this at some level – find it very hard to consciously accept it – let along to act on it.

It has happened many times that women who have made bookings with me have told me later that they didn’t feel that they could ask me for what they wanted. To be clear – I don’t blame them for this. It’s the result of a much larger problem that we have as a society around sexuality and sexual expression.

But it emphasises the scope of this problem. Everyone who books with me is buying my service and we have a discussion about what they want. But many women still don’t feel free to say “hey I would like us to do XYZ”.

I do my best to draw people out about their needs and wants, but I do have to be gentle about it. Some people genuinely don’t know what they want. Most of us are on a journey sexually and we are learning what works for us and what doesn’t every time we have sex with someone new (or are prompted by a partner). So I try to avoid pressuring anyone who may not need to, or want to start exploring their boundaries.

All of this though is to say – as clearly and directly as I can – that if you do want to try something or are even just curious to talk about a subject with me, that you should always feel free to ask. Even if it’s was something that I personally didn’t want to do – I will never judge you for it or be critical. At the worst I would politely decline and perhaps offer an alternative.

As a society, we need to be better at talking to each other about sex. The first step in that process though is being better about accepting our own sexuality and being able to have that conversation with ourselves. If we can’t even do that then it makes it almost impossible to have an open conversation with other people – like partners and children.

John

How to hire a sex worker – from a woman’s point of view

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Sex worker Georgie Wolf published an article a little while back that I wanted to share with you. As her the title of this article, it’s a primer on how to hire a sex worker (male or female), written for women who may be contemplating this indulgence. You can see it here…

https://www.aboutescorts.info/one-for-the-ladies-three-useful-ideas-for-women-who-see-escorts/

All of the points that Georgie (who hires sex workers herself occasionally) are good, but I can’t agree more strongly than with her first point: do your research.

It is the single most important part of having a good experience with a sex worker. Get to know as much as you can about them. It will become obvious if they are a good fit for you. If they aren’t – then move on to the next person. There are lots of us out there and there is probably someone who is right for you.

I have always maintained that I do not want to see every client possible – I just want to see the women who I am well suited to and who are well suited to me. That way we are going to have the best experience together possible.

So ladies – I know I don’t have to tell you this, but it’s always worth repeating – as Georgie says: do your research!

John.

Sex for the first time – for best results, do it more than once!

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Every year I see about five or so women who want to experience penetrative sex for the first time. Now if this topic is of interest to you and you have read my posts and articles about it, you will know that I recommend a longer date – preferably overnight, but at least a full evening. The reason I do is that is it allows you to try sex more than once – preferably up to three or four times. That’s basically impossible to do in a one or two hour booking.

But why does it matter? If you’ve done it once, then you’ve done it right?

That is true – but it’s not the path to the best experience, and personally I think trying sex multiple times puts you in a much better position to enjoy sex the next time you have it.

Some background: when you have sex for the first time you are probably going to be tense and at least a bit nervous. You aren’t going to be really relaxed, even if you really want to do it. All of that is perfectly natural, but it means that the experience of having something as big as a penis in your vagina for the first time is going to be a challenge. It shouldn’t be badly painful – if it is then there is a problem and you and your partner need to slow down and perhaps go back to finger play and things that let you get used to the sensation and experience of penetration. At worst it should be just uncomfortable, with some occasional twinges.

Then there is the simple biological reality of the muscles of your vagina learning to stretch as required. In this regard, they are like any other muscle in your body – if you want to do the splits, then it takes time and patience to lengthen the muscles in your legs so that they can stretch easily without pain. Granted, vaginal muscles do this quicker and more easily, but it still takes time.

So. The first time you succeed having penetrative sex, you have mostly covered all of the stuff above. But it wasn’t going to be great sex – just like doing stretching exercises aren’t as much fun as getting to your goal.

And if that is where you leave the experience – especially if you are seeing me and don’t have options to try sex again soon – then you are going to look back on the experience and at best say “oh well, it was ok, but nothing special, what’s the big deal about sex?”

Well, the “big deal” may start to become apparent the second time, or the third time you have sex. I have seen it happen so many times – a woman having sex for the third time and saying “oh… now I get it! Yeah it’s still a bit uncomfortable, but it’s starting to feel gooooood!”.

So this is what lead me to recommending that women wanting to have sex for the first time book a longer date. When it’s over, you are going to walk away seeing the pleasure potential of sex and probably having actually enjoyed it. And that to me is the goal – not just to give you an experience that lets you say “well that’s done” but to leave you ready to explore your body and looking forward to finding out just how great sex can be.

I do realise though that a long booking may be financially difficult for you, or you simply may not want to commit to doing the whole thing in one go. In that case I recommend three or four short (two hour) bookings instead. Arranged close together, say over a few weeks, you basically get the same outcome and we can arrange it so it doesn’t cost more.

In conclusion: our society fetishises “virginity” way too much, to the point of it being unhealthy. But that statement also fails to recognise that having sex for the first time genuinely is a big deal for most women, regardless of their age or other experiences, and it really should be treated as such. Most men don’t respect that fact enough and society as a whole needs to find a balance between *OH MY GOD YOU’RE A VIRGIN” and “Virginity is a social construct!”.

It makes me happy to be a part of this conversation and to be able to offer an experience that many women want and need.

John.

For a good time call…

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You know the cliche – scrawled on a bathroom wall, or in the lyrics of a song – “for a good time call…”

But it begs the question: why shouldn’t we call someone when we have a sexual need that we want fulfilled?

In Western cultures especially, everything is comercialised. Food. Water. Healthcare (even when it’s free, the provision is still paid for), entertainment, transport. Everything beyond the air we breath has a price on it – and we, generally, see that as perfectly normal and acceptable even if we grumble about prices.

But not sex.

Even when sex is being sold and paid for legally – as a society – we don’t like to talk about it. We don’t like to admit that some people happily sell sex and others happily buy it. That some people sell sex out of necessity and are grateful that they can. That some people have few or no other options to get the sex that they want and are grateful that there are providers who will see them.

In short, even here in New South Wales where sex work is decriminalised, “social norms” have not caught up with the law. It’s a good thing that the law is more progressive than people. We get to have things like same sex marriage and the right to sell sex services even though the general public, if they think about it at all, might tend to oppose it.

But as someone who might be considering buying sex, you have had to make a journey from one side of that divide to the other. It’s not an easy journey. It may require a person to question unconscious beliefs. To challenge (even in their own mind) the narrative they hear from friends and family, the media, and of course religion.

So many barriers. So many hurdles. But here you are reading an article written by a man who is paid by women to provide sexual services to them…

That, to me, is quite remarkable. I love that despite the finger wagging. Despite the rhetoric. Despite centuries of indoctrination. Despite our very way of life, our social norms declaring that monogamous relationships are the only way we are allowed to indulge in sex that isn’t somehow improper –

Women and couples still choose to own their sexuality. To say no to convention. To ignore the people who push shame and guilt on others. And to pay for the sex that they want and need.

Sex work is the best work I have done in my entire life. I love it and I love the people who it brings to my life.

So if you are thinking of engaging my services, then as the cliche goes… “for a good time call John, 0437 520 539” (or text, or drop me an email!).

John.

Living our best lives

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I have to admit that I live in a bit of a bubble. I don’t watch commercial television or listen to commercial radio. I don’t read newspapers (online, or paper).

I have terms like “Donald Trump”, “Scott Morrison” and “politics” blocked on Twitter.

I really don’t need the ongoing train wreck of Western politics in my face – even occasionally.

And then there’s commercial TV and radio – swamped by cheap to produce reality TV, “current affairs” programs that platform racists in the name of “balance” and ignore the very real problems in the world in favour of tabloid sensationalism.

I’m happy in my bubble honestly. I spend my work times with interesting people who on the whole care about the sort of things I care about – social justice, tolerance, freedom – people who understand that the world is bigger than them and requires an open mind.

As I write this, I am in Canberra. I stopped earlier at a self serve car wash to wash my car and (disappointingly) had to listen to a commercial radio station for the 15 minutes it took me to clean the car.

It reaffirmed to me that I haven’t been missing anything. From the inane banter about clothing to the news items delivered in the most effective way to make a listener feel stressed about things that don’t actually matter.

It was all just noise. Noise that, if you let it, will drown out the things in life that do matter. This is the very real problem with the “modern condition” living in a place like Sydney.

I heard recently of a man, who emigrated to Australia from India and settled in Sydney. He found employment and has been living like so many of us do – working to pay the rent and have some free time and money to enjoy himself.

His realisation though is profound: he has decided to return to the small town that his family comes from in India – because the quality of life there, while modest, is better for him than the kind of life that we live here in Sydney. In his home town he doesn’t have a lot of money, but he has time – time to spend with friends and family doing whatever they want to, or even nothing at all. He may not have great restaurants to go to like we do, but food is cheap and he and his family have time to cook and share good meals.

The list goes on, but I think that you can see the point I am making – we sacrifice a lot living in a place like Sydney. Our lives are driven by work. Our free time is seriously restricted by the daily requirement to earn money to pay rent.

A semi-rural lifestyle with limited money may not seem like the best life to you and me – we have grown up in a different way and have different expectations – but I think that it can still teach us something.

That lesson is: we shouldn’t see work and the assumption that we must all do it all the time as an inherently good thing. For most of us it is a necessary thing, but it tends to draw us away for the fundamentals of human nature – that is connections with the people around us, the sharing of simple pleasures, and time to just “be”, rather than “do”.

I think that this lesson is particularly relevant when considering my industry. Paying for the services of a male escort like myself absolutely costs money. But it’s trading money not for another “thing” in ones life, but for an experience. The older I get, the less interested I become in having things in my life and the more I value the experiences I have with other people.

Much like the gentleman from India, what I really want is to live a life full of people and new experiences with them. I think that, if anything, is the way to live a fulfilling life.

John.

Minister Stuart Robert! The NDIS should fund sex services

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You may be aware that an Australian woman living with multiple sclerosis challenged our National Disability Insurance Scheme and won when they rejected her request for the NDIS to fund a therapist to provide her with regular sexual release.

You can read about the case here:

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.abc.net.au/article/11298838

This is a huge step forward in the recognition of sex as a natural and fundamental part of the human condition and that people with disabilities deserve it too.

Sadly though that is where the politician stepped in (from the article).

“Minister for the NDIS, Stuart Robert, said that ruling was out of line with community expectations.

‘The National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) intends to appeal the recent decision,’ he said.

‘The current position continues to be that the NDIS does not cover sexual services, sexual therapy or sex workers in a participant’s NDIS plan.'”

First – can I just say that it is nice to see a politician (particularly a conservative one) using the term “sex worker”. It’s rare and appreciated.

Sadly though Stuart Robert then fails to be a leader and reverts to nebulous conservative morality to justify appealing against the decision.

He claims that the NDIS funding sexual service for people who cannot experience sex because of their disability is not in line with “community expectations”.

There is a lot to unpack here.

The first is the idea that “the community” has a right to tell people what they can and can’t do in the bedroom. I think that we have, through things like the decriminalisation of homosexuality and indeed sex work here in NSW (and the Australian Capital Territory, and New Zealand), established that “the community” has no right to tell consenting adults what they can and can’t do to each other.

The second is that a minister of our government is hide bound to follow “community expectations”. This is absurd. Ministers make unpopular decisions regularly, they do so – they will tell you – for the good of the nation, to protect minorities, the environment etc.

So Stuart Robert claiming that he is duty bound to challenge the ruling because “the community” wouldn’t like people with disabilities being able to enjoy basic sexual release is nothing more than abdicating his responsibility as a minister and failing to be a true leader. Stuart Robert – if you are listening: man up and do your job.

Also – has Robert Stuart actually asked “the community” what we want? I’m fairly sure this question has never been polled anywhere, that being the case it’s even worse than abdication. He’s just deflecting and using the presumed moral authority (of “the community) to avoid having to take a stance that his party and his (presumably conservative) electorate might not like (read: he’s afraid he won’t get re-elected if he lets people with disabilities have an occasional shag).

As a straight male sex worker (escort) for women, I have been working with women with disabilities for almost my entire career. I know absolutely how important having intimate touch and the ability to enjoy and experience their sexuality is.

But personal experience shouldn’t even be necessary. Do we – does Stuart Robert – have no ability to empathise? Has he ever stopped to imagine never having someone touch him again in a sexual way? How about never being touched and being unable to even touch himself?

This is the reality of life for many of my clients with disabilities. And it’s not their fault. It’s just what they live with because life dealt them a shitty hand.

We happily fund or subsidise (through the NDIS) education, physical therapy, medication, accommodation, travel, and more for people who we as a society recognise are unable or disadvantaged to get those things for themselves because of their disability.

The only way that we can justify not funding sexual services as part of an NDIS plan is if we believe that sex isn’t an integral part of the human experience. I know that I personally need sex in my life to be a happy and fulfilled person. If I don’t have it, then it seriously impacts on my quality of life.

This is a message that I hear from my clients – able bodied or otherwise – regularly.

So why would “the community” have a problem with the NDIS allowing people with disabilities to occasionally enjoy what most of us take for granted?

John.

The chance to say goodbye

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Just to clarify before I continue – I am not retiring! This post is a celebration of my ongoing experiences as a sex worker and a reflection on the ebb and flow of people from my professional life.

I have been a straight male escort for women and couples for almost ten years continuously. In that time I have met and had the good fortune to spend time with many, many lovely people. It has been a transformative experience for me in many ways. It lead me to a balanced and happy relationship with my sexuality. It made me financially stable and secure. It has allowed me to explore my other passions like photography and film making.

Sex work has been an enormous net benefit to my life.

I like to also think that – based on what many of my clients say – I make a difference to their lives as well.

As a sex worker I am not owed anything by my clients beyond the terms of our booking and the basic respect of any interaction with another person. This means that I give my clients privacy and allow them to dictate things like when we communicate. I am there for them when they need and want me. That’s the deal that I accept and respect as a sex worker.

Clients have come and gone as the years have passed. Some I see just a handful of time, others stay for many years. But because I don’t feel that it is appropriate for me to intrude, when a client moves on with their life I rarely get the chance to say goodbye.

This week saw the last booking that I will have with a client who has been seeing me regularly for almost five years. She is moving overseas, so this is a natural end to our professional relationship. I was lucky in this case, because the circumstances allowed us the opportunity to say goodbye, to reminisce, and to close out a chapter of our lives with smiles, hugs, fond memories, and some tears.

It’s a relatively rare thing for me to have this privilege. I understand that I am not owed it. So when it does happen it makes it even more special.

When it doesn’t happen, I am satisfied with the knowledge that a person is moving on with their life, hopefully with good memories, perhaps with new confidence. Some will have found a partner, fallen in love perhaps. Others have outgrown the need for companionship of the kind that I offer.

But I always feel a little wistful looking back over the last nine odd years and wondering where those people, who I was lucky enough to share a little piece of their lives with, are now.

I hope that they are happy. And I want to say thank you, even if I can’t reach out and say it directly.

John.

New South Wales and New Zealand – sex work paradise for clients and workers

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As the only places in the world to have officially decriminalised sex work, NSW and NZ are simply the best places to be a sex worker for women, like me – or to be a client of sex workers.

If you are reading this article, then you are at least aware of the existence of sex work for women as an industry, which is great. But you probably don’t know much about its regulation – for which you can be completely forgiven.

The reality is that in most places in the world (including other states in Australia) my work would be either heavily regulated, or outright illegal. Which means that most of my peers – male, female, et al live and work with a lot more risk to their health, and to their legal and physical safety.

This of course also applies to our clients. There are movements around the world (and even here in Australia) trying, more or less successfully, to explicitly criminalise clients of sex workers.

While things are much better for many sex workers these days even outside of NSW and NZ thanks to the Internet, we live in dark times. The same tools that allow sex workers to find and vet clients are used by zelots to expose and out us, to shame us publicly, to entrap us and to block us from the online tools and resources that allow us to work safely

In the US in particular, this hysteria has even started to overflow onto the public in general and women in particular. Hotel chains, jumping on the wildly over blown “sex trafficking” band wagon are blocking single women from their bars (on the premise that if a woman isn’t accompanied by a man, then she must be being exploited by someone). It’s truly like something out of The Hand Maids Tale and genuinely scary to see women’s hard fort for rights being eroded so quickly and easily.

The lack of rigor (lets be honest – sheer stupidity) of this kind of thinking may, to the average Australian seem unbelievable, but it is representative of the general lack of sophistication of the discourse being had around sex work by people who are not sex workers.

So I wanted to take a moment to highlight just how lucky we are – as both sex workers and as clients to live in a place like Australia (or New Zealand). We are (mostly) free to go about our work. (Mostly) protected by the police and the law from harm (don’t forget that as a client of a legal business like mine, you are always protected by consumer law and the police).

At the end of the day, decriminalisation is good for everyone. It’s good for me, it protects you as a my client, and I would argue that it is good for our society in general.

Here in NSW we don’t waste police and government resources harassing consenting adults who just want to exchange some money to have sex in a safe, consensual environment.

When you are inside this system it seems natural and reasonable, logical even – and I think that we should celebrate that. I love my industry and the fact that I have the opportunity to meet the people I do through my work. And I hope that knowing a little bit more about how our work is regulated may help give you the confidence that you need to engage the services of a sex worker who is right for you!

John.

“I never thought that I would be doing this…”

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John Oh portrait

A regular refrain that I hear from new clients is: “I never thought that I would be doing this…”.

Growing up, we are fed narratives about how life is going to be, from before we can even understand the concepts. Fairy tales are full of “happily ever after” tropes that the real world simply cannot ever deliver to us.

I want to talk about who we are as humans and how finding yourself in a situation where you are considering paying for sex – that while it might feel like a kind of failure, if we listen to the fairy tales – is in fact the exact opposite. It represents personal power, choice, and liberation. Not lack of choice and failure.

But that’s not how society at large sees the choice of buying sex. Most of my clients won’t confide in anyone that they are seeing a sex worker for fear of judgement. And that is a very reasonable assumption to make. People, especially when they are unsure if they themselves may be judged, will revert to expressing conservative values to be safe.

If you are having a conversation with a group of people about sex and possibly sex work, then the group assumption will be that expressing an overt interest in sex is a bad thing. So everyone will try to avoid sounding too interested.

However, there may be one person who is prepared to take a bit of a stand and challenge the group narrative. And while you can be sure that some people in the group really are conservative about sex, you can also be certain that some, like you, aren’t!

It is a sad truth that many of us (most even?) live our lives wanting to explore our sexuality, but not having people to talk to about it, let alone do it with.

This really needs to change. There are some small signs that things are changing – like therapists starting to refer women to me. But in general, we remain conservative and cautious about sex and sexuality when we are in groups.

For some people though – the women and couples who I meet through my work – they reach a point where they need to act. They don’t want to upend their lives, marriages, or family to be able to explore their sexuality further, but they also don’t want to live their lives wonder “what could be…”.

So, like most problems these days, people turn to Google and some of them land here on my website.

If you have made it this far – congratulations! – that is I think the hardest part. Once we realise that we can take control of our sexuality, then it’s just a matter of finding the right solution for you.

For some people it’s Tinder. Or that person at work you always felt was interested. For others though, a sex worker is ideal – we are safe, we are discrete, we are convenient, we are experienced, and most of all we are non-judgmental.

So what is the lesson here?

For me it is: “society” doesn’t want you to own your sexuality. It definitely doesn’t want you to explore it in ways that don’t align with “traditional values and systems” (like marriage and monogamy). And it will always try to police you to make you conform.

The good news is that once you realise that you don’t have to comply with society, then the options available to you to find sexual fulfillment are wide open – and if sex workers are appropriate for you, then we are here and ready to help.

John.