As we all know, the adult industry is built around sex. For many people, sex is the all-gratifying expression of deep desire. It can bring both fantastic pleasure during the act and much-needed tranquility when basking in the afterglow — or at least, that is the general idea. When you involve sex in your work, however, it can entirely change how you understand, experience and ultimately enjoy sex.
When Sex is Your Business
Working in this industry comes with unique challenges, but it also gives us the opportunity to use pleasure to achieve our life goals.
For sex workers, the goal is to help those who enjoy our work melt away anything that may be troubling them. We use our sexual energy to create a fantasy for them to indulge in, and in return we receive an agreed-upon monetary payment. Whether the fantasy we are creating fits our own personal desires is irrelevant. We might love the acts we perform, but we interact with our scene partners on a professional basis, adjusting the dynamic when the cameras roll. Often that means focusing less on connecting with our partner and more on achieving the needs of the scene. We are performing the act of sex for others.
Engaging in sex for personal pleasure involves an entirely different level of vulnerability. Unsurprisingly, not having a camera in your face or 13 lights glaring in your eyes changes the ambiance of the moment pretty significantly! Hearing your partner moan your name means something completely different in this situation. Having the chance to connect intimately with another person, exchanging authentic pleasure-seeking energy, offers a sense of freedom and control. We can focus on feeling good, and enjoy what we truly want.
As sex workers, therefore, we experience sex in two radically different ways. Unfortunately, this sometimes comes at a cost.
Balancing Act
Maintaining loving relationships and nurturing intimacy in your personal life, in ways that feel different from your work, is very important. If you can’t distinguish the difference between sex in your work and sex in your personal life, it can make the enjoyment of sex fade altogether. Some professionals feel like they can’t trust men in their personal life to not treat them like their porn persona, so they’d rather not try. Others feel dissatisfied with their partners, finding that their relationships lack the depth and connection they desperately crave. We begin to feel cynical about love as well as resentful about the industry, even though we greatly benefit from it financially.
Fortunately, there are ways to properly balance sex in work and love so that we can enjoy ourselves in all aspects. I have learned this through my own experiences and by speaking with industry friends and colleagues.
It Comes Down to Knowing What You Want
Successfully navigating the intersection between sex in your personal life and sex as part of your industry work begins with knowing what you want, and being able to communicate that clearly to your partner or partners. This is true of any relationship, of course — self-knowledge and communication are the foundation of all healthy interactions.
Sex work can blur that line between business and pleasure, however. That’s why we must make sure we can distinguish between our personal and professional relationships. Just as we are responsible for doing our job on set, we must hold ourselves accountable for our behavior in our own lives.
Most importantly, we must make a special effort to rediscover and reconnect with our own personal desires and boundaries. The more you know about yourself, the better you can attract what you want and need. This requires looking profoundly within yourself and asking: “What do I want my life to look like? What do I want in my relationships? What am I willing to compromise, and what are my deal-breakers?”
A Personal Perspective
For me personally, finding those answers has involved exploring two things in particular: polyamory and kink. While those are things that plenty of people outside the industry enjoy as well, I have found that they offer particular advantages for sex workers.
Polyamory encourages open, frank discussions about desires, behaviors and emotions. This gives you space to be able to communicate how you might better receive pleasure, and to set and respect specific personal boundaries, which helps establish a level of trust.
Kink is deeply consent-focused and can allow partners to reveal themselves to one another in honest and vulnerable ways that intensify and strengthen intimacy. Kink is therefore a wonderful way to discover and indulge what you enjoy most in the sexual realm. The more I learn about kink, the more I learn about myself and my deepest desires. Kink also helps many people deal with and heal from trauma. The kink community is one of the most welcoming, loving, educational and safe environments I’ve ever found myself in. Since diving deeper into the different facets of kink, I’ve had a myriad of unbelievably sexy and pleasurable encounters that will stay in my mind for years to come.
With the help of these dynamics, my husband and I have developed a relationship that is strong and secure in both its sexual and platonic aspects. While everyone is different, I believe that we all have the ability to build the life of our dreams. If love and intimacy are things you seek and value, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to achieve them.
Working in this industry comes with unique challenges, but it also gives us the opportunity to use pleasure to achieve our life goals. Let’s take advantage of this and enjoy everything life has to offer.
Zariah Aura is a Latina adult entertainer, content creator, and fashionista. She has worked for studios including Grooby, AdultTime, Kink, GenderX, Evil Angel, TransSensual, Kink, Transfixed, TransAngels, Deep Lush, whyNotBi, and Devils Film. Zariah was the first Grooby Girls Ambassador in 2023 and was named the final cover girl for Transfixed’s Muses series in December of the same year. She has won three TEAs trophies: Hardcore Performer of the Year, Best New Face, and Best Trans-Masculine Scene, and has also been nominated for numerous AVN, XBIZ, Pornhub, TEAs, NightMoves, and Fleshbot Awards.
