John Oh
John Oh
Occupation: Full-Service Sex Worker for Women
Location: Sydney, Australia
The Sex in My Business: As a full-service worker, sex is the primary service that I offer.
A Typical Day: I see clients from Wednesday through Sunday and only schedule one client per day, which limits my bookings to three or four per week. Most of these bookings are either two hours, an evening, or an overnight date. When I am not seeing clients, much like in any other business, I spend time doing administrative work: managing and updating my website, responding to client inquiries, negotiating sessions, and cleaning and preparing for these sessions (changing, washing linen, etc.). My business is well established and ticks along quite nicely these days, so it doesn't require a lot of work, just care and attention. This leaves me free to engage in online advocacy and to explore my other passions, such as photography.
The Best Part: The best part of my job is definitely the people that I meet and the experiences that I have with them, both in and out of bed. My clients enrich my life in many ways, more than just financially.
The Worst Part: The lack of routine is the most challenging part of this work. It makes it impossible to establish a regular sleep pattern.
How I Got Here: I used to own a successful IT business, but the global financial crisis of 2008 killed it. I still needed to pay the bills and support my partner at the time, so I began doing full-service sex work as a means of meeting those needs.
What Society Thinks: Sex work and sex workers make for easy targets. Despite recent gains made in other facets of Australian society and throughout the West more generally (such as same-sex marriage, for instance), we live in increasingly socially conservative times. Consequently, there are people who understand full-service sex work and accept it privately, but very few who will publicly endorse it due to the significant social stigma surrounding it. I enjoy the support that I get from my clients, peers, and close friends, but beyond that I avoid interacting with the general public about sex work. It can sometimes feel like an endless tidal wave of ignorance and prejudice, which can make life pretty miserable if you engage with it all the time, so I mostly stick to myself. Sadly, this reality has made it disconcertingly difficult to form genuine friendships.
When I’m Not at Work: I love photography and filmmaking, so when I’m not working you can usually find me doing something related to one of those.
For more about John, visit his website.
Published Aug 4, 2019
Updated Nov 10, 2022
Published in Issue II: The Business of Sex