Sex Worker Search

The platforms sex workers use for advertising all have terms and conditions pages listing their privacy policies. I have taken a close interest in reading these policies since it seems that many directories give themselves permission to sell our personal details, and even our identity documents, to advertisers and to hand over our identities to the authorities without requiring a subpoena.

Escort directories have been hacked and raided before and will get hacked or raided again. Unfortunately, many directories take copies of our identity documents and selfies and just leave them lying around unencrypted.

Our identities have value in that they can be sold to spammers and used for leverage to make a deal with authorities. I don't see why escort directories need a full non redacted copy of our identity documents and an un-blurred selfie.

My recommendations

• If they need to know your year of birth, fine, send them a copy of your ID with everything except the year of birth hidden.
• If you're "face in" on your ads, why shouldn't you also be "face in" on your verification? Blur your face on your ID that you send in.
• If they get hacked, do you want your identity stolen? Put a cross Through your ID saying "for X Directory verification purposes only." (replacing the "X" with the name of whichever directory you're verifying for.)
  

Example

I sent emails asking about privacy policies to Tryst.link, Eros, Megapersonals, Slixa, Listcrawler, P411, Eroticmonkey, Ourhome2, Humaniplex, Adultsearch, Theeroticreview, Leolist, Terb, Adultwork, Vivastreet, Eurogirlsescort, Scarletblue, Ivysociete, Escortsandbabes, Massagerepublic, Rentmen, Hunqz and Sleepyboy.

These are my findings.

Discovery

Here are the questions I asked:

• Do you require personally identifying information from sex workers for verification?
• Identity documents?
• Selfies?
• Can these be partially obscured or redacted?
• Do you sell our identities and/or personal details to third party advertisers?
• Do you take any steps to secure our identities from hackers or in case your servers were seized?
• Are our identity documents and selfies deleted after verification?
• Stored offline?
• Encrypted?
• If you were told you could protect yourself from prosecution by freely handing over the identities of sex workers to authorities, would you do so?
• Or would you put up a fight and demand that they get a subpoena?
• Do you honour deletion requests?
• In entirety?
• How long does this take?

I sent the emails on September 2nd 2024. Only P411, Hunqz and Rentmen have replied. Tryst said they will respond to my questions in a few weeks time. (They have responded and it is included below.)

Table of platforms and known privacy standards

Note: The data displayed here is based on either responses (if received from my request) or determined by the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policies found on those sites.

Scroll down to the "Details and Responses" section to see responses along with links to their site policies and questions or concerns I have about them.

Platform	Accepts partially obscured or redacted identity documents	Refrains from selling personal details to third parties	Encryption used to secure our identities	Identity documents and selfies are deleted after verification	Withholds identities from authorities unless subpoena provided	Honours deletion requests partially	Deletion requests honoured entirely	Processing time for deletion requests
Tryst	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Instant
Eros	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	18 months?
Megapersonals	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Slixa	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Listcrawler	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
P411	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No
Eroticmonkey	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Ourhome2	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Humaniplex	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Adultsearch	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Theeroticreview	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Leolist	No	No	No	No	No	Yes	No	No
Terb	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No
Adultwork	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Vivastreet	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Eurogirlsescort	No	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No
Scarletblue	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Ivysociete	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	30 days
Escortsandbabes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Massagerepublic	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Rentmen	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	7 days
Hunqz	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	1 day
Sleepyboy	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No

Operating Locations

Where a platform is located can impact the laws and policies of a company.

Eroticmonkey, Ourhome2, Humaniplex only operate in USA.

The USA approach to privacy laws is more fragmented and industry specific than the GDPR in Europe but they do have the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Act.

The FTC enforces rules related to consumer protection, including privacy and data security practices. Under the FTC Act, the agency can take action against companies engaging in unfair or deceptive practices concerning the handling of personal data.

Several other states besides California, like Virginia, Colorado, and Connecticut, have introduced comprehensive privacy laws similar to the GDPR. These laws grant consumers certain rights over their data and place obligations on businesses handling personal data.

Leolist and Terb are exclusive to Canada.

Privacy laws in Canada come under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

PIPEDA is the federal law that governs how private-sector organizations collect, use, and disclose personal information in the course of commercial activities across Canada. Key provisions include:

• Consent: Organizations must obtain meaningful consent to collect, use, or disclose personal information.
• Data Access and Correction: Individuals have the right to access their personal data and request corrections if necessary.
• Reasonable Use: Organizations can only collect information necessary for the purpose they have outlined, and they must handle that data responsibly.
• Safeguards: Organizations must protect personal information through appropriate security measures.

Scarletblue, Ivysociete, Escortsandbabes list sex workers based in Australia.

Australia's primary federal privacy law is The Privacy Act 1988. It regulates how personal information is handled by government agencies, organizations with an annual turnover of more than AUD 3 million, and some smaller organizations. Key elements include:

Australian Privacy Principles (APPs): The act is based on 13 Australian Privacy Principles, which outline the standards, rights, and obligations related to the collection, use, disclosure, and storage of personal information. The APPs cover areas such as:

• Open and transparent management of personal information
• Anonymity and pseudonymity
• Collection of solicited personal information
• Use and disclosure of personal information
• Data security and access rights to personal information
• Consent: Organizations must generally obtain consent to collect, use, or disclose personal information, unless exceptions apply (e.g., for law enforcement purposes).

The remaining directories all operate in Europe.

Tryst.link, Eros, Megapersonals, Slixa, Listcrawler, P411, Adultsearch, Theeroticreview, Adultwork, Vivastreet, Eurogirlsescort, Massagerepublic, Rentmen, Hunqz and Sleepyboy all list advertiser profiles based in Europe so they are all required by law to comply with GDPR.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union law that sets guidelines for the collection, processing, and storage of personal data of individuals within the EU. It aims to enhance individuals' control over their personal information and imposes strict penalties on organizations that fail to comply.

Details and Responses

Tryst.link

Tryst's Privacy Policy and Tryst's Terms.

Tryst.link has replied to my email:

Do you require personally identifying information from sex workers for verification?

Identity documents?

Yes, a form of government issued ID is required to advertise on Tryst. This became a requirement as a result of changes made by Payment Processors in 2021.

Selfies?

To sign-up for Tryst, we require two different selfies which is processed internally by our verification team:

1. A selfie where you’re holding up your identification. This helps us to make a match your face to your ID. These photos (and any additional photos of ID) are automatically deleted as soon as possible, for example within 24 hours after approval.
2. A selfie where you’re holding a handwritten sign. This photo is stored until your account is deleted.

Both selfies are processed at the same time, ensuring that the person in the first selfie is the same as in the second. The selfie with the sign is kept for the life of the account to help match future photo uploads and assist in verifying your identity if you lose access to your account.

Can these be partially obscured or redacted?

We can’t accept redacted identification documents as a result of the requirements set out by Payment Processors terms of service for adult sites.

You can read more about these changes and the impact financial discrimination has had on the sex working community via the #AcceptanceMatters campaign and the Free Speech Coalition’s: financial discrimination report. You can also find out more about our verification process in our Age verification on Tryst.link knowledge base article.

https://help.tryst.link/en-gb/14/142

Do you sell our identities to third party advertisers?

No, we do not and will not ever sell any data to third-parties.

Do you take any steps to secure our identities from hackers or in case your servers were seized?

• Tryst is a collective of current and former sex workers and technologists, we know how damaging a data breach is to the community and to our reputation. We take the security of our platform seriously, and commit to notifying our users if there was ever a data breach.
• We tightly control who has access to your information. We think it's important that your sensitive information is only viewed when it needs to be, and only by the person who needs to see it.
• We use multiple layers of encryption when accessing and storing your information, where each layer adds additional protection to the one inside it. These layers include encryption of your data, held on encrypted servers, accessible only via encrypted connections and authenticating with multiple factors. We also log all access and have auditing processes that monitor access to this information.
• We specifically chose to host your sensitive data only on servers in the EU due to the higher level of protections provided through the privacy and international human rights laws that apply there.
• While technological protections are important, they're not a complete solution. We also have strong internal policies and processes that minimise how much of your personal information our team members see. This includes deleting your data as soon as we can, once we are in compliance with the requirements we needed it for. We audit the access logs regularly and make sure that there are no unapproved actions.

Are our identity documents and selfies deleted after verification?

As soon as we can, answered in more detail in the answer to the ‘selfies’ question.

If you were told you could protect yourself from prosecution by freely handing over the identities of sex workers to authorities, would you do so?

From our reading, we take this question as “Would we hand over all of our users data if it meant we’d walk away from prosecution” the answer is no, we have not, do not, and would not.

Or would you put up a fight and demand that they get a subpoena?

As a standard, all websites should require a valid and verifiable subpoena for data requests to ensure its upholding basic legal standards, and most importantly the human rights and privacy of its users.

All data requests must be accompanied by a valid and verifiable subpoena. The subpoena must be issued by a recognised authority and comply with all the relevant legal standards. We will thoroughly verify all legal requests for its authenticity and scope before considering the release of any data, and will only disclose information when legally obligated to do so.

Do you honour deletion requests?

Yes. We try to minimise the data we store on active users, as well as deleting inactive accounts, which you can read more about here. https://help.tryst.link/en-gb/23-profile/174-what-happens-if-i-stop-using-my-account

https://help.tryst.link/en-gb/14/142

In entirety?

For all profile information, including photos, yes. With the caveat that we are required by law (as disclosed in our Terms) to maintain financial records.

How long does this take?

This depends on how the deletion request is initiated, you can delete your account at will (https://help.tryst.link/en-gb/14-faq/142-how-do-i-delete-my-tryst-account) or you can raise a support request (https://app.tryst.link/support/new) with our team who can assist if you’ve lost access to your account, but this will take some additional time as our team will need to verify you to complete your request.

For inactive accounts, see this article on our knowledge base that outlines when we consider your account to be inactive, how long you have to reactivate it, and when each step in the process to deletion happens (https://help.tryst.link/en-gb/23-profile/174-what-happens-if-i-stop-using-my-account).

I also asked Tryst.link some follow up questions.

Tryst.link Privacy Terms state =

"We may disclose personal information to: third party service providers for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services, including (…) marketing or advertising providers, (…) (and to) courts, tribunals, regulatory authorities and law enforcement officers, as required by law, in connection with any actual or prospective legal proceedings, or in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights; "

Why does it say you disclose personal information to advertising providers? and to defend our (tryst's) legal rights without mention of requiring a subpoena?

“Why does it say you disclose personal information to advertising providers?”

This is considered a standard clause because of how the internet works, but when we say “We may disclose personal information to third party services for the purpose of enabling them to provide their services” this means we may share some of your information with other services who are acting on our behalf to run the platform - it doesn’t mean we are selling your data.

For example, let’s consider analytics, we pay a third-party company to license their software to process that we host to process this data internally. In the event we require support from this company, we would be obliged to give them access to our system in order for them to provide us that support, which in turn, may result in the disclosure of information but access to our system and data is covered by confidentiality and licensing agreements.

“and to defend our (tryst's) legal rights without mention of requiring a subpoena?”
There are two parts to this question, both are fairly standard clauses:

1. We have used broad language in this clause such as “as required by law, legal proceedings, regulatory and law enforcement authorities” to ensure that we cover the different type of legal obligations, including subpoenas and their local variants.

To reiterate, we will thoroughly verify all legal requests for its authenticity and scope before considering the release of any data, and will only disclose information when legally obligated to do so.

2. When a policy states “In order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights” it means that if a user of the platform makes a legal claim or accusation of wrong doing against the platform, the platform may be required to use or share information about the user to legal representation or the courts to defend against the claim.

Also Tryst.link terms says "Upon termination of your account, in accordance with our Privacy Policy, the platform will remove your profile and photos but we will keep data required for business operations such as but not limited to; verification information, payment information, support conversations, and audit history."

Does that apply if someone deletes their own account? The verification information you keep according to that quote doesn't include the selfies and pics of identity documents since you said those are deleted within 24 hours of approval?

"Upon termination of your account, in accordance with our Privacy Policy, the platform will remove your profile and photos but we will keep data required for business operations such as but not limited to; verification information, payment information, support conversations, and audit history."

There are two parts to this question, the audit history and the verification information:

Audit history is referring to the actions taken by a team member (such as the outcome of a photo review) but when an account is deleted, the associated user data (any identifying information and the actual photo) is removed, but the audit record is kept to state that this team member performed an action on our platform.

This clause is worded this way to cover instances that fall outside of the platform, specifically our support system. This system falls into its own data retention schedule which is separate from the platform, and depending on the classification of the ticket it will determine how long it’s stored for, such as if it’s business critical that has regulatory requirements, or non-business critical tickets such as account deletion where a user has lost account access and must be verified to action.

To add to that, support tickets that are deleted will include a record that it was deleted, the time it was deleted, the ticket number, and an anonymised user for record integrity.

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Eros

I didn't get a reply from Eros. Their data processor, based in Switzerland, with this email address: [email protected] ignored my email.

Of all the escort directories, Eros has by far the worst track record regarding privacy and data security.

They've been raided before by Homeland Security , had servers full of unencrypted sex worker identities seized and it's rumoured they continue to operate due to some kind of deal involving continuing to hand over the identities of sex workers.

Their privacy policy makes no mention of allowing people to obscure any part of their identity documents or selfies used for verification.

They do sell our personal data to advertisers. Their terms say:

"We may use your personal information or share your personal information with third parties to: (...) Serve marketing or advertising materials to you; and Provide any other good or service to you with your consent."

They also give themselves permission to hand over our identities to the authorities.

"We may disclose your personal information to third parties, without notice if, in our sole discretion, we believe that it is reasonable to do so to: (...) Protect ourselves."

Their terms are clear about retaining personal information.

"We reserve the right to retain publicly available information and de-identified information for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent."

Their terms say they will delete personal data on request.

"Right of erasure/deletion/omission ("right to be forgotten"): You have the right to request that personal data relating to you be deleted immediately and the personal data must be deleted immediately if one of the reasons listed in the Swiss or European legislation applies, for example that the data are no longer necessary for the purpose for which they were collected."

But I have screenshots of emails to prove that when this is requested, they refuse and tell people to just log out and leave their accounts inactive for 18 months and then their data will be deleted automatically. I have screenshots of follow up emails from after the 18 months to show that even this did not happen.

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Megapersonals

[email protected]

Megapersonals' Privacy Policy says:

"authorized agents may require you to provide additional information as necessary to verify the accuracy of your identity and your information."

Doesn't say whether identity documents and/or selfies are required in all cases or whether these can be partially anonymised.

They do sell personal details to advertisers.

"To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you."

They make no mention of any measures taken to secure our identities or personal details. They do say regarding if they get hacked...

"...we shall not be liable for any recording or release of private information, personal data, or your Posts, and you hereby release us from all liability and claims associated therewith."

The paragraph "We will fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities or orders from courts of competent jurisdiction which request or direct us to disclose the identity or location of any user in breach of these Terms of Use, in accordance with our privacy policies, law enforcement policies, and applicable law or regulation." implies they don't care about subpoenas or court orders and will identify us to any and all authorities who ask.

Regarding deletions:

"Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully, or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request."

So they might delete your personal data. Partially. Maybe.

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Slixa

[email protected]

Slixa Advertiser Agreement "requires that all advertiser accounts are subject to age verification. Advertisers must supply a true and accurate color copy of a current, valid, government issued ID via the website’s secure verification page."

Doesn't say if the ID can be partially redacted or if it's deleted after verification.

Slixa's Privacy Policy says Slixa does use our personal details to "tailor marketing". Does this mean they sell our identities to advertisers?

A big win for Slixa with their data security statement:

"We use all reasonable measures to protect Your personally identifying information that is stored within our database (including data encryption, SSL, strong password requirements and firewalls), and we restrict access to member information to those employees who need access to perform their job functions, such as our customer service personnel and technical staff."

That's what we like to hear.

Slixa will share our identities with third parties

"6.1.1 To comply with any laws including, but not limited to, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act or any other legal or governmental requests for information;

6.1.2 If disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or to bring legal action against a person who may be in violation of Slixa Terms and Conditions;

6.1.3 As is reasonably necessary to operate the Website;

6.1.4 To protect Slixa, its Users, its Advertisers, and the general public. Slixa will only disclose a User’s information when it is compelled and /or required to do so by law (for example, in response to a court order or subpoena). Where permitted by law, Slixa will not disclose any information pertaining to any User without first presenting the User with an opportunity to object to said disclosure."

If it was just 6.1.4, that would be perfect.

Doesn't seem to say anything about deletion requests.

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Listcrawler

[email protected]

Listcvrawler's Privacy Policy says they'll give our identities to anyone who asks for pretty much any reason:

"We may disclose IP addresses, and/or associated email address, telephone numbers, or other information about, if (i) required to do so by law, court order or subpoena, or as requested by other government, law enforcement, or investigative authority, (ii) we in good faith believe that such disclosure is necessary or advisable, including without limitation to protect the rights or properties of the Site, (iii) we have reason to believe that disclosing your personal information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing interference with our rights or properties, or has breached an agreement, or if anyone else could be harmed by such activities or interference, (iv) if we determine an ad posted violates our Terms of Use or the rights of a third party, or (v) there is an emergency involving personal danger. We may also share information if we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, or as otherwise required or permitted by law."

Doesn't say anything about data security, selling personal details to advertisers or deletion requests.

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P411

[email protected]

P411 replied to my email.

"Thanks for taking the time to write.

The only time we would release that information is if a Spanish court (we are in Spain and abide by Spanish law only) issued a subpoena specifically asking for that information. Of course, we would have our legal counsel review the subpoena first before doing anything. To this date, we have never been subpoenaed for any information.

We retain age documentation images to match account holders to other accounts. This is particularly important when it comes to accounts that have suspended or revoked for negative behavior. However, it's much less important when an account has never shown us any indication there are any issues, and those identification images would be deleted by request."

P411's Privacy Policy says:

"COMPANIONS: When you sign up for a companion account, Preferred411 collects some personal information for verification purposes, including and not limited to: full name, e-mail address, telephone number, website url, etc. Preferred411 also requires images of you and your government identification to prove that you are over the age of 21. These images are kept as encrypted data to ensure that companion accounts are not shared with anyone other than the account holder. We also require a username, email address and security questions."

Regarding Deletion of Information 

"Other than your P411 Id, all information found on your profile is wholly within your control and can be updated at your convenience. You can view what other members see about you, by clicking Companion View (admirers) or clicking on your thumbnail (companions). If you would like your information to be completely deleted from our servers, provide us with a detailed written request. This will result in your account and information being permanently removed from Preferred411 and the complete loss of use of member areas of the site. In limited cases, where we suspect unfavorable, fraudulent or criminal activity is taking place, as well as any activity that violates our Terms & Conditions, your information will not be deleted for the protection of Preferred411 and/or its members."

Their data security policy:

"The entire Preferred411 site is secured by using 128 bit SSL technology. Every effort is made to ensure the security of our servers and the data we retain. However, we are unable to make any guarantees that our measures will prevent an illegal hacking, which could result in the data on our servers being compromised. You assume this risk by voluntarily providing your information to Preferred411, with the understanding that such hacking incidents can occur despite reasonable security measures being in place."

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Eroticmonkey

[email protected]

Eroticmonkey's Privacy Policy doesn't say whether they require ID or selfies or what they do with these.

They talk about personally identifying information (PII) in their terms and say

"We will never sell, rent, or loan your PII without your express written consent. We sometimes use third parties to help with some of the services available through the Site, such as third party software and service vendors, partners and consultants. When we supply PII to these third parties, we require them to use it only for the function they are helping us with. (...) We will disclose PII as required by law, or if in our judgment it is necessary to protect our company or our users from loss or liability."

So they won't sell PII to advertisers but will give PII freely to authorities without requiring a subpoena to protect themselves.

No mention of deletions.

Re data security

"We keep PII you provide on servers that are protected by industry-standard firewalls and other technological means against intrusion or unauthorized access. They are located in a physically secure facility, and only our employees and agents with a need to know the information are given access. While no amount of security can give a perfect guarantee, you can have a high degree of confidence that the personally identifiable information you give us is protected from unauthorized access and use."

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Ourhome2

[email protected]

Doesn't have a Privacy Policy.

All they say on the subject is:

"Only anonymized registrations are allowed; as far as GDPR/CCPA goes, OH2 follows the protocol outlined below: Anonymous information, as information which does not relate to an identified or identifiable natural person or to personal data rendered anonymous in such a manner that the data subject is not or no longer identifiable'. The GDPR/CCPA do not apply to anonymized information."

This is not very helpful eg if you're a sex worker who wants their personal details deleted from their site.

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Humaniplex

[email protected]

Humaniplex's Privacy Policy doesn't say whether they require sex workers to send identity documents and/or selfies for verification.

They do say loud and clear:

"Your Information Is NEVER Used for Marketing, Promotion, or Advertising by Third Parties! - We do not sell or lease personal information. Many websites, specifically socials networks such as this one, choose to sell their users' personal information to third parties so that those third parties can advertise to you. Worse yet, many sites profile your browsing habits to try to generate a picture on the things you might buy and then sell that information to third parties. That is not the case here, and never will be."

This is the best statement I've seen on the topic on any of the escort directories. All the directories should have words to this effect in their privacy policies.

Sadly their statement regarding legal requests is a failure.

"If we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law, we may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters). This may include honoring requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards. We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Terms of Service. This may include sharing information with lawyers, courts or other government entities."

There's no need for this. Just say "We won't give your personal details to any law enforcement, legal or government entity unless we receive a subpoena from a court of law."

They don't say anything about deletions.

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Adultsearch

[email protected]

Adultsearch's Privacy Policy uses almost the exact same phrase as Eros re:

"We may disclose your personal information to third parties, without notice if, in our sole discretion, we believe that it is reasonable to do so to: (...) Protect ourselves."

The full quote on Adultsearch says:

"we may disclose passively-collected information about Users, (...) for any reason without notice if, in our sole discretion, we believe that it is reasonable to do so, including, but not limited to: To satisfy any laws, such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, regulations, or governmental, or legal requests for such information; To disclose information that is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our Terms of Use and other policies and procedures; To operate our Services properly; To protect ourselves, our Users, and the general public. We specifically reserve the right to disclose any and all information to law enforcement in the event that a crime including, but not limited to, fraud-related offenses is committed, is suspected, or if we are compelled to do so by lawful criminal, civil, or administrative process, discovery requests, subpoenas, court orders, writs, or reasonable request of authorities or persons with the reasonable power to obtain such process;"

I don't like that bit about "reasonable request". It's far too ill-defined and open to interpretation. If you require a subpoena, just say you require a subpoena.

In the next paragraph they say:

"We do not intend to cooperate with private-party litigants and others seeking information unless compelled to do so through lawful court or administrative process, such as subpoenas, court orders, or writs."

So why do they need to they need to give themselves permission to give our identities to whomever, to protect their own interests, without requiring a subpoena via that "reasonable requests"?

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Theeroticreview

[email protected]

TER is primarily a review site aimed at getting clients to register and write reviews about sex workers.

It is possible to register as a provider but I couldn't find anything in their terms saying whether ID or selfies are required, whether they can be partially redacted or whether they're deleted after verification.

TER's Privacy Policy says:

"we will keep your Personal Information private and will not share it with third parties, unless such disclosure is necessary to: (a) comply with a court order or other legal process; (b) satisfy our legal obligations to cooperate with law enforcement or other investigating agencies; (c) satisfy any laws or regulations, or, governmental or legal requests for such information; (d) protect our rights or property, or the rights or property of others; or (d) enforce our Terms of Use Agreement."

Their data security policy says:

"We take measures, including data encryption, to protect the transmission of all sensitive user information. We make every reasonable effort to help ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, and use commercially reasonable safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of your Personal Information. Nevertheless, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-parties from illegally “hacking” into our computers and obtaining this information. You assume the risk of such breaches to the extent that they occur despite our reasonable security measures."

They don't say anything about deletions.

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Leolist

[email protected]

Leolist's Privacy Policy says they will sell your personal information to advertisers.

"We may use your Data to show you LeoList adverts and other content on other websites. If you do not want us to use your Data to show you LeoList adverts and other content on other websites, please turn off the relevant cookies (please refer to the section headed “Cookies” below). (...) any of our group companies or affiliates - for the purpose of marketing where relevant;"

They say they will hand our data to:

" relevant authorities, such as law enforcement - to facilitate the detection, prevention, or investigation of a crime or offence, or in connection with other lawful requests for your Data;"

They do not say what they consider to constitute a lawful request.

They won't fully delete personal details on request.

"we will only hold your Data on our systems for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this privacy policy or until you request that the Data be deleted. 19. Even if we delete your Data, it may persist on backup or archival media for legal, tax or regulatory purposes."

No mention of encryption or any other steps taken for data security.

---

Terb

Doesn't have a contact email on their site. I filled out the contact form but they haven't replied.

Privacy Policy is very brief and basic.

It does say they'll honour deletion requests. (you) "have the right to request the erasure of your personal data. Please contact us if you would like us to remove your personal data."

Re data security "We are committed to ensuring that any information you provide to us is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable measures and procedures to safeguard and secure the information that we collect."

That doesn't really tell us anything about their data security.

Doesn't say anything about not selling info to spammers or giving identities to authorities.

---

Adultwork

[email protected]

Does require identity documents and does not accept anything partially redacted.

They also have quite invasive and weirdly old fashioned verification requirements eg making sex workers get their picture taken next to a phonebox while holding up a copy of that days newspaper.

Their Privacy Policy says they will sell your identity to advertisers "To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you".

Regarding data security they say "We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal Data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your Personal Data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business 'need to know'. They will only process your Personal Data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Personal Data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so."

They do say you have the "Right to Erasure. Every individual has the right to be forgotten upon request. The Data Controller must remove your Personal Data from its systems and request the same of any third-party systems of that controller." under GDPR.

But "In the event of a law enforcement request involving your account or the data we hold about you on file. We are obliged by law to comply with the request and retain the data until the case has been closed by Law enforcement. Data may be held beyond the deletion request for the basis of complying with law enforcement."

I've heard from multiple UK based sex workers that they are entirely face in and have only ever shown their face in one place = Adultwork verification selfies and identity documents sent to AW, and yet they have been denied entry to USA due to facial recognition detecting a connection to sex work. ie Adultwork has given at least some, possibly all, of the selfies and ID they hold to USA border control.

---

Vivastreet

I sent them a message on twitter where I've spoken to Viva before. They read the message. It's marked as "seen". They haven't replied.

Does require "ID Verification for the purpose of registering as a Registered Escort on the Site".

No mention of partially redacted ID.

Vivastreet's Privacy Policy says they will hand over our identities "Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation. Where we consider it to be in the interests of our Users (Registered Escorts or otherwise) or in the public interest, we may provide Personal Data to law enforcement to assist them with an investigation. If we believe that you are a victim, we may provide your Personal Data without obtaining your prior consent for your protection."

They say "To undertake an Identity Verification Check, you will be asked to upload a ‘selfie’ photograph of yourself and a supporting identity document. These will then be verified by third-party technology"

Doesn't say who the third party is, which country they're in or which data protection laws they are subject to.

"We may also disclose your Personal and Biometric Data if required to do so by law, or if we believe that disclosure is necessary to comply with any applicable law, or to defend our own rights or property, or to safeguard you or others. This may involve discussing the information we hold with law enforcement agencies if we believe or suspect that you are using the Site to engage in criminal and/or illegal activity. Law Enforcement may also choose to disclose this information further to other security services to comply with any applicable law or if they believe doing so will safeguard others."

The "defend our own rights" line could mean they'll give our identities to anyone who asks if they think it is good leverage to protect themselves from prosecution.

Doesn't mention encryption.

You can request data erasure but they might not honour that request.

"Request erasure of your Personal Data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove Personal Data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your Personal Data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request. "

They will sell your identity to advertisers, possibly even if you specifically ask them not to.

"You also have the right to object where we are processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms."

---

Eurogirlsescort

[email protected]

Eurogirlescort's Privacy Policy says verification using ID and selfies is optional.

"We as the administrator do verify profiles. These profiles have VERIFIED status (in blue). Each girl who advertise on our site has "verification" option in the account. We require verification pictures or face + ID picture as proof that profile is real. If the girl sends required verification pictures we give "verified" status."

Unless you look underage.

"Our company will manually review each post and pictures before it goes LIVE online. If we determine that age of the model/escort is in question, we may ask for ID and age verification and we reserve the right to refuse to post"

This is good to see "We do not collect personal information to trade, sell or give away in any way. (...) Any and all the information collected on this website will be kept strictly confidential and will not be sold, reused, rented, disclosed, or loaned! We respect the right of users to remain anonymous and will endeavour not to knowingly disclose user identities unless directed by a court of law."

Also good = " several layers of encryption and several layers of security to prevent unauthorised access protect all of the sensitive customer data we collect."

No mention of deletion requests.

---

Scarletblue

[email protected]

Scarletblue's Privacy Policy

says they do collect "results of any identity checks or verifications".

Nothing about partially redacted ID or selfies.

"We do not ask for or collect your identity documents, such as your drivers licence, passport, or any other identity documents, or verify your identity. A third-party service provider may complete identity checks on our behalf from time to time when you provide your identity documents to the service provider through their function on our website. This function is not linked with us, and we do not have access to any information that is entered into the function. The third-party service provider will handle your personal information in accordance with its privacy policy."

Doesn't say who the third party is, where, or what legal requirements they are subject to. When this policy was announced, the announcement went over like a lead balloon on sex work twitter and reddit.

They sell our personal information to advertisers and will give our identities to authorities.

"We may disclose your personal information to the following third parties: (a) our business or commercial partners; (b) our professional advisers, dealers and agents; (c) third parties and contractors who provide services to us, including customer enquiries and support services, IT service providers, data storage, webhosting and server providers, marketing and advertising organisations, payment processing service providers; (d) payment system operators and debt-recovery functions; (e) third parties to collect and process data, such as Google Analytics, Google Display Network, DoubleClick, Yahoo, Adobe, Campaign Manager, and Microsoft; and (f) any third parties authorised by you to receive information held by us. If you are a contractor, we may disclose your information to payment system operators and debt-recovery functions. We may also disclose your personal information if we are required, authorised or permitted by law. We may send information to third parties that are located outside of Australia for the purposes of providing our services. These third parties are located in Cyprus, although this list may change from time to time. Disclosure is made to the extent that it is necessary to perform our functions or activities."

Again with the unnamed third parties =

"We take all reasonable steps to protect personal information under our control from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We hold your personal information electronically in secure databases operated by our third-party service providers. We protect the personal information we hold through using secure ‘bcrypt’ hashing when storing user passwords, not storing any credit card information in the Scarlet Blue databases, using secure hosting providers, storing data in secured internal databases, firewalls and login password protocols and secure and access-controlled premises."

No mention of right to erasure.

---

Ivysociete

[email protected]

Ivysociete's Privacy Policy

Ivysociete posted on reddit asking for feedback about their site. Here is our conversation =

IS>

Thank you for your feedback. Please note that all advertisers on ivysociete.com are required to submit a verification image to ensure the legitimacy of profiles. However, advertisers have the option to blur their face in the image. The only requirements for this verification are to wear the same outfit, take a full-body photo, hold a sign, and raise three fingers on the other hand. As a "face-in" escort myself, who prefers not to show my face in photos, I completely understand the importance of maintaining privacy.

Regarding ID verification, it's optional for clients and not mandatory. It's simply another way to verify themselves if they feel more comfortable with it.

As for the terms and conditions, we don't share private images with a third party. Including a clause about sharing information with third parties is a common practice in terms and conditions.

IS didn't reply. I tried messaging them as a reply to their tweet about the redesign but they deleted my tweet reply.

---

Escortsandbabes

[email protected]

Escortsandbabes's Privacy Policy doesn't say whether they require identity documents or selfies or if so, how these are handled.

"Unless you object, your personal information may be used to: (...) assist us with our marketing"

Sounds like they do sell personal info to advertisers.

"we may disclose personal information in special situations where we have reason to believe that doing so is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against anyone damaging, injuring or interfering (intentionally or unintentionally) with our rights or property, users or anyone else who could be harmed by such activities."

and they'll disclose to authorities. No mention of requiring a subpoena.

No mention of encryption.

Doesn't say they honour deletion requests.

---

Massagerepublic

[email protected]

Massagerepublic's Privacy Policy

GDPR Compliance Policy

"Advertiser registration form – the object and the basis of the data processing Your personal data provided through this form are processed in order to register your account on our server. Providing us with your personal information is necessary, and abstaining results in our inability to register your account."

So they do require identity documents. Doesn't say about selfies.

"your personal data might be disclosed to third parties, including (...) the marketing agencies, the e-commerce agencies"

Translates as they do sell your personal information to advertisers.

No mention of encryption.

Their GDPR page mentions "the right to delete personal data (the right to be forgotten)" but doesn't say how this happens or how long it takes.

---

Rentmen

[email protected]

Privacy Policy

I got a reply from Rentmen responding to my questions as follows:

Do you require personally identifying information from sex workers for verification?

We require personal identifying information from all of our advertisers, aiming to confirm the users’ identity and age.

Identity documents?

The users are requested to present a state-issued document, confirming their date of birth. Any document with a photo of the user and date of birth is sufficient.

Selfies?

In some cases, when the administration needs more information to confirm the user, the so-called photo verification is required. The user needs to take a selfie holding a sign with the website name and the date the selfie is taken.

Can these be partially obscured or redacted?

Yes, the user can partially cover the ID - compulsory information that must
be visible is:

• Face - we need to be sure the person from the ID is the same as the
  person in the profile gallery.
• Data of birth - to confirm the user is over 18.
• Expiration date - we need to be sure the document is valid, not expired.
• Name - KYC (Know Your Customer) requirements by the card operators.

Do you sell our identities and/or personal details to third-party advertisers?

We do not sell or share personal data of our users to third-party advertisers under any circumstances. We believe that apart from the moral and ethical norms that the company follows in this direction, any proposals would be rejected due to the fact that we believe that such an act would have an extremely negative impact on the image of the company and the products that we manage.

Do you take any steps to secure our identities from hackers or in case your servers were seized?

Yes, as I mentioned, we follow the rules and regulations of the GDPR and the highest standards for storing the personal data of our users. We have implemented state-of-the-art security measures to prevent any data breaches. Furthermore, your data is encrypted, meaning that in case of a data breach, it will not be readable for the hackers.

Are our identity documents and selfies deleted after verification?

In order to comply with our legal obligations, photo and ID verifications are stored and are needed regarding ongoing monitoring of profile accuracy. For example, if a user changes entirely the photos of their profile gallery and replaces them with others, we need to be sure the newly uploaded photos match the users' photo verification previously provided.

Stored offline?

For security reasons, such information cannot be provided.

Encrypted?

As I previously mentioned, the personal data of our users is protected and encrypted and only limited and licensed staff members have access.

If you were told you could protect yourself from prosecution by freely handing over the identities of sex workers to authorities, would you do so?

We would share data with authorities only if the request is legally valid and in compliance with GDPR and other applicable privacy regulations.

Or would you put up a fight and demand that they get a subpoena?

As I have already specified, we follow the principles of the GDPR, where the reasons and methods for requesting personal data of a user are regulated. Here I should specify that mass provision of personal data to users is absolutely prohibited and would not be respected for any reason. A request for the provision of personal data may be made to investigative authorities in connection with an active criminal investigation. In such a situation, the investigating authority should identify itself by providing documents containing the reason for the request for personal data, as well as what specific personal data are needed for the relevant investigation. For example, if an investigative body were to contact us and request all available data of our user, their request would be considered unlawful and would not be honored.

Do you honour deletion requests?

Yes, of course. Again, following the GDPR, we accept requests for deletion of personal data. Also, any user can request from us what personal data we collect about them.

In entirety?

In some specific cases, we may retain personal information for a longer period. For example, accounting information such as invoices contain personal information. Under the law, we must retain this information for 10 years.

How long does this take?

The period for consideration of requests for the provision of personal data is processed for a period not longer than 7 days.

---

Hunqz

Hunqz's Privacy Policy

Hunqz replied to my email and responded to each of my questions:

Do you require personally identifying information from sex workers for verification?

No

Identity documents?

No

Selfies?

Only needed if profile gets reported multiple times for being fake

Can these be partially obscured or redacted?

Not, if we need to check a user's identity

Do you sell our identities and/or personal details to third-party advertisers?

Of course not

Do you take any steps to secure our identities from hackers or in case your servers were seized?

Of course

Are our identity documents and selfies deleted after verification?

Users upload their verification picture if needed to a private folder for us to review the user's identity. Afterwards the user can delete the picture.

Stored offline?

N.A

Encrypted?

N.A

If you were told you could protect yourself from prosecution by freely handing over the identities of sex workers to authorities, would you do so?

Or would you put up a fight and demand that they get a subpoena?

It wouldn't be legal in the Netherlands to hand over our user's identities to authorities.

Do you honour deletion requests?

Of course. This is also covered under the GDPR

In entirety?

Yes, see our privacy statement for more information (https://www.romeo.com/en/privacy/)

How long does this take?

These requests are normally processed within one working day.

I replied with a few additional questions, querying the term "legitimate interest" and "if the police demand this" and they kindly replied again:

"By legal terms (GDPR) it wouldn't be a legitimate interest to share user data with advertisers.

In our privacy statement (https://www.romeo.com/en/privacy/) we also list what kind of third party we are sharing data with. In this particular case we share some data with an external Fraud Prevention System to keep "the bad guys" (e.g. commercial profiles created through bots) from our platform. This for instance is a legitimate interest, because Fraud harms both our platform and also potentially our users.

If any local police contacts us, they are sent the following text which clearly defines what's needed to receive any data:

Dear Sir or Madam,

There are two ways in which information can be sought from the Netherlands, either using IP (Interpol/Europol or Liaisons) channels for police to police non evidential requests

• or –

if requiring information evidentially then you will need to engage your prosecutor office for them to send an International Letter of Request to the Netherlands to ask for the information on a formal basis.

It is a requirement in the Netherlands for information that is sought as evidence from a foreign jurisdiction to be requested via an European Investigation Order (EIO), which then provides the Netherlands a legal basis to gather the evidence from the business, institution etc. on your behalf. Your prosecutor will be in a position to provide the necessary EIO and sent by post to the Dutch authorities. (...)

This means that we also never hand out any data directly to local police offices but always go through our contacts at the Dutch police."

---

Sleepyboy

Sleepyboy's Privacy Policy says "Sleepypro SL may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a legal obligation, to protect and defend the rights or property of Sleepypro SL, to prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service, to protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public, and to protect against legal liability."

So they can identify you to law enforcement and here's no mention of requiring a subpoena.

"Advertising Cookies. Advertising Cookies are used to serve you with advertisements that may be relevant to you and your interests."

"To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information"

So they do sell our personal data to advertisers.

No mention of encryption. Only the disclaimer "The security of your data is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security."

They recognise right to deletion "Sleepypro SL aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data." but it doesn't say whether this will be entirety or commit to a timeframe.

This is a work in progress based on the How-to Get Started as a Sexworker FAQ I wrote for the /r/sexworkers subreddit. I'll continue to add more subheadings here and hopefully build this into a useful resource.

Agencies

When someone contacts you saying they represent an agency, assume that they are lying. Don't proceed until you've verified that they do in fact represent that agency. eg Ask for the website and then contact the agency on the number listed on the site and ask them to confirm that the person who contacted you is genuine. If they make some excuse why they don't have a website, it's a scam.

If you find an agency and you're thinking of applying, search for the name of the agency on reddit. Failing that, contact an established independent sexworker from that location. Eg someone who has their own website and social media with a lot of followers who's been around for many years. Ask them if they have heard of the agency and would they recommend it.

A legit agency makes their money from commissions. Usually 30% of the fee. So they would arrange the date, you meet the client, the client pays you cash. Then you pay the agency their commission afterwards.

If they try to get you to agree to anything that doesn't resemble the above. Eg they expect you to pay them their commission before the date occurs. Or they tell you the client pays the agency and then the agency pays you after the session, it's a scam.

The lower the average rates on an agency site compared to the average rate for that location for an independent the more likely it is that some kind of coercion or exploitation is involved if not outright trafficking.

If they want you to pay any registration fee or a monthly fee or any kind of payment at all, including payment for their photographer, it's a scam.

They might want you to use a photo set on your listing that you don't use elsewhere. But there should be the option to choose your own photographer.

In the UK, and as far as I know everywhere else, agencies wanting you to be exclusive to them would be the exception. Most agencies are happy for you to also advertise independently and with other agencies but will obviously not want you to give your direct number to clients they send you.

If they want to interview you, meet them somewhere public like a bar or café. Don't go anywhere in private. A legit agency won't ask you to get naked or do any kind of "audition" before they'll list you.

Camming and Selling Content

Thanks to /u/HereFortheFood954 for the following =

check out r/sellercirclestage, r/onlyfansadvice, and r/camgirlproblems. They are more specialized in their respective areas of sex work and offer "how to get started" guides which are linked below:

Getting started selling content on Reddit guide:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SellerCircleStage/comments/g9nc8x/feeling_overwhelmed_and_looking_for_help_read_here/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Getting started camming guide:

https://www.reddit.com/r/CamGirlProblems/comments/f8ai7l/a_beginners_guide_to_camming/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Getting started selling on Onlyfans guide - here are a few guides specifically for Onlyfans as that area of sex work seems to be one of the most popular asked about on this sub:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/ikboug/i_wrote_a_how_to_guide_for_onlyfans_and_online/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

https://www.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/gxao1k/found_this_very_detailed_onlyfans_guide_for_those/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

https://www.reddit.com/r/SexWorkers/comments/keghnl/i_made_a_new_little_guide_for_current_and/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

A master list of all the NSFW subreddits: https://reddit.com/r/ListOfSubreddits/w/nsfw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app

For those wanting more information on stripping, check out r/stripper. Again, please read their sub rules before interacting, you must be a current dancer to post but you can read through the feed.

Last, for those that don't know what to charge for an online service, check out r/sexsells to see what the average price is for what you want to offer. No one can tell you what to charge for your services, that's up to you and the market.

Thanks also to /u/MissFaithRae for sharing her Wiki.

My understanding of the most popular content selling site, Onlyfans, is that they do nothing to promote sellers so if you don't already have a large social media following of people who might want to pay for your content, then it's going to be very difficult to make any money on onlyfans. Also if they find out you are an escort, they'll ban you and steal any credits they owe you. I will never register there for this reason. If a company that profits from sexwork is openly and hypocritically anti sexwork, they're not getting a share of my income.

Cash Up Front

Always get cash up front.

Never provide services first and ask for cash later.

You can make a note of this requirement on your website or ad.

In USA it's common to require that clients put the cash in an envelope and have the envelope somewhere pre-arranged or placed in plain sight rather than handing over the cash.

Some providers count the cash in front of the client. Others send their client to the bathroom or excuse themselves to the bathroom and count the cash out of sight.

After you've confirmed the amount and checked for fake bills, put the money away out of the way. Preferably don't let the client see where you put it.

If you leave cash out, there's the risk they could take it back when they leave.

Watch out for the possibility of a client switching the envelope. ie Paying with an envelope of genuine cash and then later swapping the envelope for another full of cash sized paper.

Contact Details 

It's up to you which contact methods you prefer.

Some providers are happy to communicate via phonecall, txt/sms message, social media messages, whatsapp, telegram, signal, email and contact forms.

Other providers feel that one or more of these contact methods attracts too many timewasters and choose to limit their contact options.

The more contact options you offer, the more potential clients can reach you.

Fewer options, means fewer clients.

So if you are already reaching your financial targets, maybe remove a few of your least favourite contact methods.

Otherwise, I suggest, list them all. Then if someone contacts you and doesn't immediately get to the point about where and when they want to meet, send them a copy and paste message you have saved in your autoreplies or in your notes app telling them to go look at your website and come back when they're ready to book an appointment. Use the copy and paste to tell them exactly what info they need to send to book an appointment. How to screen. How to pay a deposit. And/or give them the option to pay you for a chat session and give them options how to pay you for chat.

eg. this is my copy and paste message =

"Hi,

Thanks for your message.

Please read my about page, rates etc and see my gallery on XXXX.XXX (my website).

When you're ready to book an appointment, please let me know which day and what time suits you and whether you would like an incall or outcall.

Then I'll ask you to send a £50 deposit.

Via UK bank transfer to my business account.

Sort code: XXXXXX Account number: XXXXXXX

Or, If you just want to chat, please send me £50 by bank transfer or cashapp or email me a £50 gift voucher for Selfridges or John Lewis and I'll chat to you for 20 minutes."

If you list a contact number, remember to include the country code. eg +1 for USA or +44 for UK. Not everyone who contacts you will be using a phone with the same country code as you.

If you only accept calls and sms and have no other contact options, you're losing a lot of business. Whatsapp is especially popular. Depending on which country you're in the majority of clients will want to use it and will not call or txt if you don't have it. Message apps like whatsapp do attract a lot of time wasters. I recommend using them but be quick to send a copy and paste, as I mentioned earlier.

The internal messaging forms on directories are often broken and if contact details are hidden behind buttons that need a captcha, sometimes these are either broken or require more effort than some clients can be bothered expending to reach you. I highly recommend not relying solely on these. If the directory lets you list your contact details in plain text, do it.

If you have a contact form on your website, make sure it works. And be aware that if that is the only contact option you offer, the majority of clients who click through to your contact page and see the contact form will immediately close the page and go look for someone else who is easier to get in contact with. A contact form is the best form of contact for deterring timewasters but it will also deter a lot of genuine clients.

Counterfeit Money

Watch out for fake bills. Especially if you're in  country that uses paper money.

Here's a guide to detecting fake money in USA.

Here's the Bank of England guide to detecting fake notes in the UK.

Deposits

Some do, some don't. A deposit could be anything up to about 50% of your rate. The advantage of asking for a deposit is that guys who have paid a deposit are much more likely to actually show up to their appointment. If they've paid a deposit and don't show up, at least you have some compensation for time you wasted getting ready and for holding that timeslot which another genuine client might have wanted. The disadvantage is that you might be perceived as a scammer. Especially if you've just started out and have only one or a few directory ads and no personal website or history of social media posts and reviews. Then it might look like you're catfishing using a fake ad just to pocket the deposits. An alternative to a deposit for an outcall is to make the client book and pay for a taxi to pick you up from your address and take you to theirs. And for incalls if they've booked a day or more in advance, if you message them on the morning of the day they're due to see you and ask "are you definitely coming to see me today?" the timewasters usually won't reply.

Directories

Which directories to use depends on your location. Searching the web for the words "escort directory" plus the name of your location will return a list of hundreds of directories but the top results are not necessarily the ones that will get you clients. Just because a directory appears to have a lot of escorts listed for your location, doesn't mean it's any good. It is common for new directories to scrape other directories and harvest pictures and bios of escorts to list on their directory long before any real escorts or clients start using their site.

I recommend you search the web for "independent escort" plus the name of your location and scroll down past all the directories until you find an independent escort who has their own website. Chances are, if that escort has managed to get their own site that high up in search results, they are well established and successful and have ads on the best directories for your location. Go to their site and copy and paste their mobile number into a new search. The directories that appear in that search are more likely to be the ones where you want to advertise. Especially if that escort has a paid ad on there. Copy and paste the names of those directories into a search of this subreddit and check what other sexworkers have said about it. If the directory seems to be well regarded, then post an ad there.

Face in, or face out

Some percentage of clients will only see escorts who show their faces in ads so blurring or cropping or altering your pics in some way to conceal your face will mean that you don't get those clients but it is absolutely possible to make a lot of money as an escort without showing your face in your ads. Whether you do or don't is your decision to make. Argument for = you'll get more clients. Argument against = once your face pics are on the internet, they could stay there forever and prove impossible to remove. Facial recognition and reverse image search technology is already highly advanced and in future who knows what this technology will be like.

Filming Without Consent/ Hidden Cameras

Watch out for devices pointing toward the bed. It could be a phone propped up and recording or it could be something less obvious like a clock radio, key fob or phone charger with a camera lens built in.

If it's designed to work in low light, the camera will emit infra red which you can usually detect easily in a dimly lit room just be switching on your phone camera and scanning around the room. You can test this yourself on your TV remote. You probably won't be able to see the IR from your remote by eye but you'll be able to see it with your phone camera. See this article for details.

If you do find a camera pointing at you, I recommend you pick up your phone and talk to your security buddy. Or pretend to if you don't have one. Say "this guy is filming me without consent, you know where I am and you know what to do." Then get dressed, take the camera and leave. If the client attempts to stop you, say "my security will be here in a minute. If you try to stop me leaving, this is going to go badly for you."

Kissing

If kissing or any other service makes you uncomfortable, you'll be better off in the long term not offering it. Forcing yourself to do something you hate isn't sustainable.

Male escorts

There is a market for male escorts, if you're ok with male clients. If you're straight and not ok with male clients, then no. Women clients do exist but they'll tend to choose the most professional looking male escort they can find. Someone with his own website, paid ads on plenty of reputable directories, frequently updated social media with a lot of followers, professionally taken and retouched pics, a long history of good reviews and a friends page with duo partners who also list him on their friends pages. If you don't see male clients, you'll never fit the description above so it's unlikely you'll ever get a woman client. Even after you've been seeing male clients for years and you establish a web presence like the one I described above, you'll still only see a few women clients per year. Nowhere near enough to earn a living. There just aren't that many women clients out there. Anywhere you can make an escort ad cheap or for free, you'll find thousands of "straight male escort" ads with a mirror selfie and/or a close-up shot of their cock, and a few lines of crude often misspelled and grammatically incorrect Borat style lines of text where that one ad is that guys entire web presence. I'd estimate that approximately none of those guys ever get one single paying client. But if you are gay, or bi or gay for pay and willing to work very hard all day every day on promoting yourself, then it's entirely possible to be successful as a male escort.

You don't need to be gay. Many male escorts consider themselves gay for pay rather than bi in that they're happy to have sex with men for money but wouldn't do so for free. Whether that's something you want to do or not is up to you.

In order to top you'll need to be able to get hard, stay hard and ideally cum when a client wants you to cum. I find a quarter, or even one eighth of a viagra an hour or half an hour before a job makes all of the above happen easily. The more pressure you're under, the less likely you are to be able to stay hard. So if you are not in a desperate situation financially, you have no addictions, debts, needy relatives etc and so you can either accept any given job, or not, then you'll probably find you can top. If you're addicted to drugs and desperate for the money, you probably won't be able to top.

Bottoming isn't for everyone but if you are going to bottom, I highly recommend douching before. Let me know if you'd like a guide to anal douching, I can send details but basically just water in via an anal douche or shower hose and push the water out into the toilet or down the shower drain, rinse and repeat as necessary until the water comes out clean. Water will open you up enough and you'll be more relaxed knowing you're not going to shit all over your client. Just use plenty of lube and start slow.

If you advertise as a male escort you're going to get a lot of requests for bareback. Always use condoms. Never bareback. Even if you're on PREP and/or the client says they're on PREP, there are plenty of STIs other than HIV that you don't want. Even if they offer a copy of a clear STI test. These infections all have window periods. Please don't take my word for this. I'm not a medical professional. Research via a reliable online source (eg in UK I use NHS website) talk to your GP or visit a sexual health clinic.

More info for getting started as a male escort = https://ozinlondon.co.uk/how-to-get-started-as-a-male-sexworker/

Money up front

Always get cash up front. You might also want to ask for a deposit prior to meeting.

Payments other than cash

I'm no expert on the ones USA sexworkers use but from other people's recommendations it looks like cashapp is popular. Also venmo. Some say PayPal but only if its sent as a gift with nothing sex work related in the comment and clients will see your real name. Beware of the possibility that clients could dispute a paypal payment and get their payment reversed. In UK I get regulars to pay me by bank transfer for fly me to you deposits. I take payments for video chat on WhatsApp and for custom made videos via Fortnum and Mason or John Lewis vouchers. I used to accept Amazon UK vouchers but they're not ideal as there's usually a delay of up to one day before I receive them and if its for an amazon voucher worth more than £50 their bank often blocks the transaction. Bitcoin or other crypto currency would seem like an ideal way to accept payments but in my experience, clients perceive this as too complicated. I'm in the process of figuring out how to set up woocommerce on my site so I can accept payments directly and a digitalocean space CDN to store my media and amazon cloud front for delivery.

Photoshoots

There's a huge price range of professional photoshoots out there. You can get quite a cheap shoot eg from one of the coupon sites or apps and get them retouched via a crowdsourcing site like fiverr. Or pay thousands for a top photographer and rent a 5 star hotel suite for the shoot location. And everything in between.

Ring lights are also popular and not expensive. It's a tripod with a clip that will hold any phone and comes with a ring shaped light that can cast an adjustable light on you and they usually come with a Bluetooth remote that you can pair with your phone so you can take multiple pics in different poses without running backwards and forwards to press the camera button on a timer. If you look at other people's pics for ideas for poses and get some good poses and angles with good lighting and the camera held steady on the tripod you can get some decent pics that way especially with the top of the range new phones.

There are a lot of "photographers" who will contact you offering cheap, or free, photoshoots. Especially if they can see that you're new. I don't know anyone who's accepted one of these offers but I'm guessing if you did accept a free shoot from some guy with a camera calling himself a photographer, you'd most likely get a few poor shots taken from someone who has no idea what they're doing and something other than photography on their mind.

Rates

Nobody can tell you how much you should charge. You might want to charge ten times higher than the average rate for your area and only see one client per month. Or you might want to charge one tenth of the average rate and see a dozen guys per day. But step one is to at least figure out what the average rate for your area is. I recommend you start by finding popular directories as per the first faq above, then try to refine a search of that directory so you see results matching other escorts who appear similar to how you plan to promote yourself. Look at as many ads as possible, from a number of different directories, that are as similar as possible to your own intended escort persona, and figure out what the average rate is from there. One thing I would recommend is that you decide on rates you are happy with, list those rates on your ad and don't allow anyone to haggle. There is an alternate approach which is to not list rates and then negotiate with each guy who contacts you to try and set an appointment at a rate they are willing to pay. Even if this does generate more business, I think this is a good way to quickly burn out. Having people haggle with you is very unpleasant and the kind of guys who want to haggle are likely to be disrespectful in other ways. I would never operate my business this way and highly recommend listing your rates and sticking to them.

Regulars

Ask them during a session if it's ok to contact them sometimes. If they say yes, save something in their contact name to remind you eg "Dave incall tie and tease ok to contact".

If they haven't agreed to receive messages from you, I recommend you don't message them. It's not discreet. Their wife or child or their boss could be looking over their shoulder.

** What Can I do to Keep My Regulars Coming Back More Often**

Save every client you meet as a contact on your phone. Install whatsapp, telegram and signal. Post a whatsapp status every day that a client would enjoy seeing. If they're a saved contact and they've saved you as a contact they can see your whatsapp statuses. This keeps regulars coming back more often.

If you think it's a worthwhile use of your time and they've agreed to receive messages from you, message them sometimes with something you saw or heard or did that reminds you of something they said or a pic or a link or a joke or whatever that you think they'd like. When they respond, steer the conversation toward getting them to set a day and time to see you again.

Screening

/u/PhoenixxVIP kindly agreed to have the r/heauxs Safety and Screening wiki posts linked here. If you'd like to know more about blacklists and databases, please message a moderator or someone with an escort flair and ask them via private message. If we can see from your post history that you are a sexworker most of us will happily share details of these screening resources. Otherwise we might ask you for some proof that you're a sexworker eg an email sent from your work mail so we can search to see if your ads come up. What we want to avoid is publicly sharing resources that could be used by those seeking to circumvent our security.

Securing your identity

My number one recommendation here is don't use the same device for work and personal. Buy a second mobile phone as a work phone and never use your work phone for anything personal / never use your personal phone for anything work related. If you add your clients to a contact list on your personal phone where you also have your friends and family listed as contacts then use that phone to register for work related site like directories, make work related social media accounts etc and then use that same phone to log in to personal sites and apps eg your personal facebook, it's just a matter of time before you get outed as an escort to your personal contacts. Social media apps like facebook especially like to access your contacts list and spy on what you're doing in other apps and on other sites. If you mix work and personal on one device, facebook, twitter, instagram etc will happily recommend your escort page as a friend for your family members.

Make a work email. I recommend protonmail. Never use your personal number or personal email to register for anything work related. You probably don't want your clients to be able to search the web for your number and find your real name, personal social media etc. You probably also don't want your friends and family to search the web for your number and find all your escort ads. If you use the same laptop for work and personal, at least use two browsers. I use chrome incognito plus ublock origin, privacy badger, decentraleyes and https everywhere plugins for work with proton vpn. And I use vivaldi for personal.

Beware of exif data and geotagging of photos. You should be able to switch off geotagging in your phone settings to avoid accidentally sharing the gps coordinates of your exact location and there are plenty of online, desktop and app tools for removing exif data from pics.

Consider using a VPN. I use proton VPN. Especially when using public unsecured WiFi eg in hotels. Also handy when on tour in places that block access to websites you need for work eg UAE and China.

Shadowbans on Social Media

It's best not to put a direct link to your website in your twitter or instagram bio or you're likely to get banned or shadowbanned. Safer to set up a link aggregator like linktree, put your website link and other links there and then add that link to your bios. Also best not to put any links in the text of tweets or instagram posts. As per https://twitter.com/sexworkceo/status/1644054625337724929 twitter treats all links it doesn't recognise as reputable news sources as spam and suppresses those tweets. I've been adding text overlay to my images using the image editor built into the gallery app on my phone to display links instead of sharing actual links in tweets. I'm still shadowbanned on twitter and instagram anyway.

Technical and Cyber Security resources for Sex Workers

This list https://heystacks.com/doc/718/technical-resources-for-sex-workers has some excellent resources. Do your own research before adopting any of the recommendations as some may be out of date eg they still have switter on there which unfortunately doesn't exist any more.

Timewasters

A timewaster is someone who contacts escorts pretending they're interested in booking an appointment who in fact has no intention of ever showing up to said appointment. They want you to entertain them for free on the phone or by exchanging messages or pictures. If someone contacts you and they get straight to the point about where and when they want to meet and they don't try to chat or ask for pictures, they're more likely to be genuine. If they don't mention a day, time or location and seem reluctant to discuss these details but excited about asking you for explicit details about yourself or your services, they're probably just wanking. In which case I recommend offering the option to pay for a chat session. eg "which day and what time would you like to see me? Do you want an incall or an outcall?" "or if you just want to chat please send $x and I'll chat to you for x minutes."

Virginity

Sites claiming to facilitate sales of virginity are all scams as far as I know. Search the sexworkers subreddit for the word "virginity" to see other threads on the subject. If you mention any kind of youth or inexperience in an escort ad, especially virginity, you'll attract a variety of scumbags who do not have your best interests at heart. All manner of timewasters, hagglers, boundary pushers and much worse will see you as a vulnerable target.

Website

Having your own personal website is the best way to promote yourself. It shows you're established, genuine and professional. It's cheap and easy to buy a domain name and hosting and build a site on a site builder eg wordpress. If you need help, there are plenty of skilled professionals you can pay to help you. I recommend you pay directly for your own domain name and hosting. Don't let a webmaster register your domain and hosting in their own name. Your website is going to be very precious to you and you'll want to own it and have freedom to edit it yourself, move the hosting, and do whatever you like without a webmaster holding your site to ransom. If you pay someone to help with your site and they prove to be unreliable or incompetent, you'll want to be able to discontinue paying them and find someone else to do the work instead. Much easier to do this if you own your domain and hosting. The best SEO to get your site to rise up in the search results is to post unique, quality content that people enjoy reading regularly on a blog page on your site using the kinds of keywords in the posts that people will search for when they want an escort like you.

Buy a domain name and hosting, install WordPress on your hosting and DIY Web design from templates or get help from web designers if necessary.

Your landing page needs to be appealing enough to capture the attention of a client instantly or the majority will bounce within a few seconds. Big sexy picture background and enticing tag line that makes it clear where you're located and how to contact you.

Your contact details need to be top and centre on your website where anyone can find them within one second of opening your page. Less contact details means less clients. eg if you only have a contact form and no number or email, that means fewer clients.

Call your rates page "rates", your contact page "contact", gallery, blog, reviews etc. If you call your rates "consideration" or some other code word, some percentage of clients will think hmm I'd like to meet her but I can't find her rates, and they'll bounce. Don't underestimate how short their attention span is or how obvious everything needs to be for them to find it.

Add a blog page to your site and post on it at least once a week writing unique content that your target audience will enjoy reading using keywords they'll use to find your site. Your location is your most important keyword. Use it in your site title, tag line, meta description, on every page of your site and in every blog post. And the word escort. Not courtesan or provider or muse or geisha or anything like that. Escort. That's what clients will search for in a search engine. Other key words will relate to whatever services you specialise in, anything defining about your look or style or personality that can be described in one word that a client might key into a search engine.

/u/madametoska has built a free website template on WordPress that’s prebuilt, as well as an SEO guide. https://ruby-moss-d82.notion.site/The-SWer-digital-kit-f8e9e29cf6dd49a0aefca106ee7d49ec