When mum-of-two Emily Mai began working in a strip club in 2014, she was inducted into the ‘whorearchy’.
The non-pc term is a social stratification system within the sex work industry which is reinforced by the women (and men) that earn their living this way.
What you offer, how much you charge and how much skin you’re willing to show all impact your social standing.
Now a Melbourne-based OnlyFans creator of seven years, 34-year-old Emily earns about £20,000 per month, and has plenty of insider knowledge when it comes to which sex workers will sit at which table.
‘There are people within every part of the adult industry that think they’re better than others,’ Emily tells Metro. ‘People think their type of sex work is better than others.’
In a corporate environment the hierarchy is easy to decipher; you have your CEO and COO, then managers and staff, but the whorearchy isn’t as ‘clear cut’.
So, who sits where? Let’s get into it.
Full-service escorts
When it comes to full-service escorts, it’s the high-end sex workers who rule the roost.
‘I have a lot of full-service friends and there’s a lot of judgement of escorts people feel aren’t charging enough,’ Emily explains. ‘If you’re on a private website, they aren’t impressed if you’re charging too little.’
There’s a belief hourly rates should start around $1,000 Australian dollars (£525) rather than other escorts charging $600 (£315).
‘And if people don’t charge extra for anal or those kind of services, girls might gossip about that and say “you’re undermining sex work”,’ she adds.
Escort Lillith Lodge has previously revealed to Metro that she charges well over the £1,000 mark per appointment, and charges extra for things like a condom-free blowjob (£156).
Anal is usually, but not always, part of a PSE or porn star experience package which also comes at a premium, so if you’re an escort who doesn’t charge more, there’s a belief it sets a bad precedent.
‘That guy might then book another escort and expect the same thing as part of the girlfriend experience,’ she points out. ‘Some escorts offer a girlfriend experience, then porn star experience, and then you still pay extra on top of that for anal, because of the prep work that goes into it.’
Content creators
Full-service sex workers can also look down on the OnlyFans girls and content creators who don’t do in-person work.
‘They feel like we aren’t sex workers, because we don’t go through the same difficulties,’ Emily adds. ‘Because content creators are less likely to get attacked at work, and don’t deal with people face-to-face, they don’t feel like they’re on the same level.’
Many of the most prominent OnlyFans models like Lily Phillips, and Australia’s Annie Knight both perform face-to-face content for their subscribers, but it’s Bonnie Blue who is the most critical of the women who don’t have sex on camera.
‘The f**king lazy majority of the people in my industry are just sluts, there’s nothing else to them… but that’s the difference between me and them,’ she told the Liam Tuffs Podcast. ‘They expect men to subscribe, to want to talk to them… but you should work for it.’
Emily herself has felt this rejection at adult industry events, despite being a prominent sex worker on OF.
‘A full-service provider came to speak to me, because she thought I was another provider, and asked to work together,’ she explains. ‘But when she found out I only did content her whole demeanour changed. The conversation just died.
‘They feel like “you’re not really one of us”. It’s disheartening, just because I’m not doing stuff in person doesn’t mean I don’t have my own difficulties. I still deal with horny men.
‘I always feel this need to justify myself, and be like, I’ve done stripping, I’ve done topless waitressing.’
On the other hand, you have content creators who don’t want to be associated with full-service escorts.
‘I’ve spoken to content creators who don’t do sexual acts in their content, who say “I’m not really a sex worker. I don’t have sex for money, I don’t sleep with guys”,’ Emily explains.
‘They have a bit of shame around the industry, because they don’t want to own the fact that they’re sex workers.’
The content creator is familiar with one OnlyFans model who brags about making $50,000 per month (£26,270) from ‘non-explicit content’. They largely post bikini photos from when they were 18, but have progressed to feet pictures and the odd topless photo.
‘They don’t make explicit videos, they don’t spread their legs,’ Emily says. ‘They’ll brag about how they “didn’t have to do anything”. These girls have gone from just having regular jobs straight into content creation, they haven’t experienced anything else in the adult industry.’
Sophie Rain, who describes herself as a virgin and a christian, has 8.9 million followers on Instagram and is one of the highest OnlyFans earners in the world. She falls into this category, posting skimpy pictures where she jiggles her breasts.
‘You can still be in this industry without being super sexual,’ she told GQ. ‘I don’t post crazy content either. I do bikini pictures and stuff.’
Across the pond, the content creators who do show everything don’t want to work with people who ‘don’t take this seriously’.
‘They’ll look at the creators who don’t film explicit content, and won’t even shoot marketing content with them, because they don’t see them as serious creators,’ Emily adds.
Guilty by association
Then there’s who you choose to mix with, and the OF creator says it’s important to be mindful of who you’re meeting.
‘If you want to collaborate with someone you need to fully vet them and speak to other people to see if they’re a safe person,’ Emily says. ‘Have they taken advantage of someone else or spoken poorly about the industry?
‘There’s a lot of politics where people will say “I don’t want to work with you because I don’t know enough about you, or I don’t know if I want my brand associated with yours”.’
Emily also films content with a lot of full-service providers, which then makes people wrongly assume she does full-service work through brand association. So word travels fast.
Strippers
Where there is a lot of comradery is the strip club changing rooms, which Emily thinks back on fondly.
‘There’s a sense of everyone’s in this together, we’re all chatting, we’re sharing stories about this super drunk guy or this amazing client, and I loved that,’ she recalls. ‘It was so much fun.’
She adds it’s very much sex work because you’re still naked and having intimate moments with men, and that pole dancing and stripping are typically gateways into the adult industry.
But, it’s not safe from the whorearchy dynamic. ‘There are strippers who will say “I don’t do full-service, you only see me at the club and I’m not going to sleep with anyone”,’ Emily adds.
Don’t let the whorearchy get you down
In a perfect world, there would be no hierarchy. This is the view Emily takes, and with so many livelihoods riding on sex work, it would make life easier.
‘At the end of the day, us women, men, trans, non-binary workers are all just trying to make money,’ she says. ‘I don’t think it’s internalised misogyny, but there might be some shame.
‘To me, whether someone chooses to sell pictures of just their boobs or someone chooses to suck a d**k, it’s still all sex work.’
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