Sex work

What is sex work?

Sex work is the providing of sexual services, performances, or products for payment. The English-language encyclopedia describes it as “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation”. The word covers more than prostitution, and it was deliberately chosen as the name for a profession.

Where the word comes from

From a room full of feminists at odds with each other, and that isn’t an anecdote but the core of the word.

Carol Leigh coined sex work in 1978, as the title for a panel discussion at a conference against pornography. She was a sex worker and activist herself. What she got out of it is put in the encyclopedia this way: she developed the term “to combat the anti-pornography movement by coining a term that reflected the labor and economic implications of the work”.

Everything is in there. The words that existed, whore and prostitute, describe what someone is. Sex worker describes what someone does, and puts the word work next to it. That shifts the question from morality to labor: not whether this is proper, but under what conditions it happens.

The term broke through in the 1980s, helped by the anthology Sex Work: Writings By Women In The Sex Industry from 1987. In Dutch it shows up in print from 1984 onward. The Dutch-language encyclopedia gives the reason: the word puts the emphasis on the “provider” rather than on the client.

What all falls under it

More than most people think, and that’s exactly why the word exists.

Sex work includes work with direct physical contact between buyer and seller, and work without that contact. Escort, in-home visits, window work, and club work fall in the first group. Striptease, cam work, phone sex, and pornography in the second. They share the transaction, not the act.

Prostitution, then, is a subset. Anyone who uses the two words interchangeably turns a whole industry into one profession. That’s also why sex work is the word researchers and the Dutch government use, while prostitution stays in the law books.

My own work falls in the first group. I’m a gigolo: I offer company and intimacy to women and couples, for payment, usually at an agreed place outside my own home. In the trade that’s called escort.

How big the Dutch industry is

Smaller than the figure that circulates everywhere, and nobody knows exactly.

In 2021 Regioplan carried out the baseline measurement of the Dutch sex industry on behalf of the WODC. The researchers say right away why there’s no watertight count of sex workers: that’s “difficult”, so they count permits and advertisements.

What they found:

• 373 licensed sex businesses across the Netherlands, estimated by extrapolation. Earlier research from 2014 still came to 833.
• More than 27,000 unique advertisements over the course of 2021 on the ad sites studied. At any given moment, 6,500 to 7,000 are active.
• 54 percent of municipalities have a policy for sex work. In 2014 that was still three-quarters.
• 167 euros an hour asked on average in the internet trade, with an average stated age of 30 years.

The number you hear more often, 25,000 sex workers, isn’t a measurement. It appears in countless publications and has never been substantiated.

One finding from that report decides the rest of this page: “by far the most sex workers who advertise state that they are women”. Men who do this work are the exception in the Netherlands, and men who do it for women are the exception within that exception.

Where men stand in this profession

In a corner of the research that’s only just being looked at.

Rigmor Berg, Sol-Britt Molin, and Julie Nanavati mapped out what’s known about women who buy sex from men in The Journal of Sex Research. They open with the observation that most research into paid sex frames “men as buyers and females as sellers of sex”. Their review found 46 studies, of which 25 examined this subject directly, and most of it is from the last fifteen years.

Their conclusion: there’s a “female consumer demand for male sexual services”, and it’s, in their words, possibly growing and diversifying.

Now the honesty that goes with it. The picture that comes out of those 46 studies doesn’t fit my work and doesn’t fit the Netherlands. The researchers describe women who are adult and financially independent, against men who are young and socioeconomically vulnerable, and they name, alongside sexual need, a racialized fantasy as a driver for those women. That’s because the literature is dominated by research into sex tourism in a handful of countries. It’s what has been measured, not what there is.

What the review does establish is that the demand exists and is growing, and that hardly any thought has gone into it. I notice that in my inbox. Women often first write a paragraph explaining that they don’t actually do this.

Why the stigma stays

Because it clings to the word and not to the work.

The Dutch government names it itself, on its page about prostitution: “Because of prejudices about the work, sex workers are too often not treated like other working people.” That’s not a small sentence for a government. It acknowledges that the law can allow something while the surroundings keep holding it against you.

For you as a client, that same stigma works the other way. There’s no neutral word for a woman who pays a man. The language fails you before you’ve done anything, and that’s one of the reasons the first email so often begins with an apology.

What people get wrong about sex work

“Sex work and prostitution are the same.” Prostitution is one form of it. Cam work, striptease, and phone sex also fall under sex work and involve no physical contact.

“It’s a euphemism.” It’s a professional term coined in 1978 with a clear aim: to name the economic and labor side. Researchers and the government use it, not out of politeness but because it’s more precise.

“In the Netherlands everything is allowed.” Sex work is legal, but the rules sit largely with municipalities, and almost half have no policy for it. Street work and window work are banned in many municipalities.

“There are 25,000 sex workers in the Netherlands.” That number has never been measured. The research that exists counts permits and advertisements, and says pointedly that a count of individuals can’t be established.

“Male sex workers work for men.” Some do. The international literature long assumed that was the whole story, and the review by Berg and colleagues exists precisely to show that the female demand exists and is growing.

What you can do with this

• Use the word that fits the question. If you’re looking for a man for a date, escort or gigolo is the word that finds what you mean. Sex work is the umbrella term.
• Assume you’re dealing with a businessperson. Someone who does this work independently sets their own rate, schedule, and boundaries. A conversation beforehand is normal, then, not a special favor.
• Ask about the way of working, not about the story. How a date is prepared and what happens with your details says more than someone’s motivation.
• Don’t take on the stigma. There’s no word for what you do, and that’s down to the language, not to you.
• Know that the age limit is 18. The government announced in May 2026 that it wants to move to 21. That’s an intention and not law yet.

More reading on sex work

Within this glossary, boyfriend experience and pro-dom cover two concrete forms of this work, and discretion describes what you can expect of the way of working.

Beyond this site, the Regioplan baseline measurement gives the Dutch figures, and the review by Berg and colleagues lays out what’s known about women as clients. The Dutch government keeps the rules.

Where this fits on this site

I do this work. That’s why this page names the figures instead of talking around them: I sit in the smallest corner of an industry that’s mostly women, and most of the women who write to me have never spoken to anyone who does this.

The question is almost never about sex alone. It’s about attention and about time without rush. And often about whether it’s strange to be sitting here thinking it over. What a first date looks like is on the page about intimate togetherness, and anyone who ends up here after a divorce will find on sex after divorce what’s different about that.

Sources

• Women Who Trade Sexual Services from Men: A Systematic Mapping Review. Rigmor C. Berg, Sol-Britt Molin & Julie Nanavati, The Journal of Sex Research 57(1), 104–118, 2020 (PMID 31264896, DOI 10.1080/00224499.2019.1624680). Gives the observation that most research into transactional sex frames “men as buyers and females as sellers of sex”, the size of the literature (46 studies, 25 of them directly about women as buyers), the finding that most of it dates from the fifteen years before, and the conclusion that there’s a “possibly growing and diversifying” female demand for male sexual services. Also gives the profile this page explicitly qualifies: adult, financially independent women against young, socioeconomically vulnerable men, with a racialized fantasy as one of the drivers.
• De Nederlandse seksbranche. Een onderzoek naar omvang en aard, beleid, toezicht en handhaving. Yannick Bleeker & Gianni van den Braak, Regioplan, Amsterdam, December 10, 2021, publication number 20105, carried out on behalf of the WODC. Baseline measurement. Gives the 373 extrapolated licensed businesses against 833 in 2014, the more than 27,000 unique advertisements in 2021 with 6,500 to 7,000 active at once, the 54 percent of municipalities with a policy against three-quarters in 2014, the average hourly rate of 167 euros and the average stated age of 30 years, the finding that “by far the most sex workers who advertise state that they are women”, and the lifting of the brothel ban in 2000 as the moment municipalities became responsible.
• Prostitutie. Dutch government. Gives the sentence that because of prejudices about the work, sex workers are too often not treated like other working people, and the confirmation that the government itself uses both prostitutie and sekswerk.
• Kabinet wil minimumleeftijd prostitutie verhogen naar 21 jaar. Dutch government, May 13, 2026. Gives the current minimum age of 18 and the intention to raise the minimum age for sex work from 18 to 21, explicitly as an announcement and not as law in force.
• Sex work. English-language encyclopedia. Gives the description “the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation”, the range from direct physical contact to indirect forms, the attribution to Carol Leigh in 1978 with her aim “to combat the anti-pornography movement by coining a term that reflected the labor and economic implications of the work”, and the term’s breakthrough in the 1980s.
• Sekswerker. Dutch-language encyclopedia. Gives the definition of a person who performs sexual acts with or for another for payment, the reason the word puts the emphasis on the provider rather than on the client, and the finding that the term appeared in print from 1984 onward.

Related terms

Sex work is the umbrella term; the terms below are the forms and the arrangements around it.

• Boyfriend experience. The form where the company resembles a relationship rather than a transaction.
• Pro-dom. The man who offers dominance professionally.
• Prodomme. The same role, filled by a woman, with a history of its own.
• Dominatrix. The best-known word from that corner, and the oldest.
• Discretion. What happens with your details and why that’s the first subject in this profession.
• Safe call. The arrangement you use to cover a meeting with a stranger.
• Consent. The consent that payment doesn’t replace and doesn’t run ahead of.
• Aftercare. What can be needed afterward, even when nothing heavy has happened.
• Safer sex. In this profession a fixed condition rather than a case-by-case call.
• Deposit. The amount up front, and what the law does and doesn’t set down about it.