Because I started sex work early in adulthood, I’m not sure if the lessons I attribute to the job are in fact lessons gained in the usual course of growing up. But judging from the public’s reaction when men who are married to great beauties cheat on their wives with less impressive-looking women, a lot of adults remain invested in the notion that a woman’s beauty should be protection against suffering and betrayal, and it’s not. Nothing is.

Attraction is dependent on so much more than looks alone, though hotness is treated like the determining factor because it’s the easiest to package and sell. I’m rarely the best-looking woman in a room, but thanks to sex work, I trust my capacity to charm and seduce, to convince many of those in the room that I am. I know now that when people look at you, they don’t see what you look like as much as they see their idea of what you look like, and that idea can be negotiated, improved, revised. Every dimension of a moment—power differentials, circumstance, timing—influences desire, which is capacious but can also be capricious, hyper-specific, and evanescent. Its mutability is a comfort and a curse.