Why do so many people continue to insist that not telling your partner you once did sex work before you even met them is tantamount to some massive betrayal?
“But funereal-disease,” they keep saying, “what if I didn’t want to date a sex worker? I have a right to make an informed decision about staying in a relationship.” Indeed you do, but where do you draw that line? How many personal sexual details must someone divulge before their partner’s consent is sufficiently informed? Is it a betrayal if you’ve had an STI in the past? If you’ve attended an orgy? If you’ve experimented with people outside your orientation? If you’ve engaged in a kink that you know your partner finds repulsive? Once you’ve coupled up, are you no longer allowed private memories?
Apparently not when it comes to sex, because sex work, according to the brain trust at reddit dot com slash relationships, isn’t just another part of one’s sexual history. It’s something inherently and irreversibly tainting. It’s something so all-consuming that not disclosing it means you’ve “tricked someone” into marriage. It’s a bait and switch, clearly: you expected a normal woman, but instead you got one of those icky sluts. Because if she’s capable of doing the unspeakable, of ~selling her body~, then she’s obviously got nothing in common with the woman you thought you loved. Sex workers are never clever or funny or worth marrying on personal merits. Either she’s a worthwhile person or she’s a whore.
I’m sure this is a part of it, but I’d also be kinda pissed if I was married to someone for 5 years and I found out through someone else that they were a geophysicist for 3 years and had somehow avoided the topic of the entire time we were together. How you sell your labour is a weirdly significant part of your identity, and it would definitely feel like a significant omission: what else is she hiding? Infidelity? Drug Trafficking? A pivotal role in the end of the Weimar Republic?
It’s less the fact that she didn’t tell him and more the fact that it seems that it probably took intentional effort on her part to hide it from him.
Which is not even to mention that if it’s something you could easily be blackmailed for (as it sounds like she might be being threatened here based on the comments) that’s definitely something that should come up before the “joint tax returns” part of the relationship.
Sex work is orders of magnitude more stigmatized than geophysics, though. I don’t think hiding something you’re likely to be marginalized for and likely to be suffering internalized shame about is indicative of an inherently deceitful personality. If my partner, after almost four years, came out to me as bi, I wouldn’t wonder what else he was hiding, because being closeted out of shame and/or necessity isn’t the same as enjoying deceiving others.
it seems to me that even without the stigma of sex work, the original problem of how much you must divulge to one’s partner before sex is a problem of guessing the relevance of one’s personal information to a partner. is my lack of sexual history relevant? is my disability? my job history? ideally, if someone’s consent is contingent on information, they should seek it out before engaging in the activity, right? granted, i don’t know how practical that is.
ideally, if someone’s consent is contingent on information, they should seek it out before engaging in the activity, right?
THIS. If having particular information is very important to you, ask!
I still feel like there’s a lack of easy ways to enumerate every possible thing I want to know about a partner.
When was the last time you were tested?
Have you ever killed anyone?
Are you a werewolf?
Etc etc.
I’m all for changing the expected set of questions based on broader social trends (like the more recent move towards assuming by default that a person shouldn’t be expected to disclose being trans unless it’s explicitly mentioned as a deal breaker and they can do so safely) but it seems that there does need to be a list, even if it’s fuzzy and unspoken.
Wouldn’t just asking if someone did sex work before be considered an insult by many people? Along with asking them if they’re trans?
