A webcam girl has warned of the dangers of working as a sex worker – after fleeing a punter who recognised her in a Poundland store and offered her cash for sex.
Katy worked as a high class escort in Birmingham, West Midlands before she was attacked by a punter.
She has also been targeted by a gang and narrowly escaped before she could fall victim.
She now performs sex acts on camera for an online audience, which she claims is much safer than working as an escort.
But she says there is always a risk of ever-present danger to women no matter how careful the girls can be.
The 26-year-old, whose name has been changed for her safety, said: “I was recognised by someone I had never spoken to on the site.
“It was in Poundland of all places.
“He stopped me and offered me money for sex.
“All I could think was ‘If this guy offers me a pound, I’m going to die.
“Unfortunately, it was really close to my house and that really panicked me.
“I pretty much ran out of that shop. I was terrified. I thought ‘I need to get out of here’.”
Katy added that sex workers are far from being high class hookers and — you might unknowingly meet them on the school run.
In October last year, Katy’s laptop broke and she was unable to do her regular webcam work for several months.
In some debt, she decided to try her hand at escorting because she needed cash quickly.
Most escorts can expect to get paid around £150 an hour, but can charge more for overnight stays or special requests.
“I had debts and I kind of panicked,” she explains. “I made a snap decision that I would try escorting. It was a survival tool for me at that time.
“Parts of it were really good, like being taken out for nice dinners, staying in nice hotels but even on the more glamorous side of escorting, it is still very high risk.
“It’s a lot easier when you have some regular clients established, those who you trust, and you stick with them. You can screen yourself and use measures to protect yourself, but there is always a risk that it could turn nasty.”
The client will pay for the escort’s time, and if something happens between them sexually then it is between two consenting adults.
There is no obligation to have sex. Clients often indicate what services they want beforehand via message.
“On my first overnight I fell asleep, which is so dangerous,” remembers Katy.
“You can get robbed or worse. Luckily, he was a nice guy.”
But on one evening Katy was assaulted by a punter.
“Even though I’d researched him, seen reviews from other girls, and got my friend to call me at a certain time during our meeting, it still happened,” she says.
On another occasion, a gang member posed as a client. He intended to rob her while she worked in a flat in Digbeth.
Luckily, she was able to escape before she fell victim – she saw the gang loitering outside, waiting to gain access to the building.
Due to funding cuts to sex worker support services, people often don’t have anywhere to turn to support them through the trauma, Katy warns.
The support services she uses have been cut from 14 members of staff to just three.
“This is terrifying for me,” says Katy.
“After the attack, I decided I was just going to go back to webcam.
“There were times when it felt like I was playing Russian Roulette with my safety, but I didn’t think I had any other options.
“In the end, I decided that it was just too dangerous for me.”
The webcam girl believes the way forward is to decriminalise sex work, and allow women to work in safe environments.
“One of the biggest hurdles is getting people to accept that sex work is not in the underworld, but part of our society, whether we like it or not,” explains Katy.
“Recently someone told me ‘Oh, I know about Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ – and that’s where they’re getting their information from.
“We are ordinary women trying to make ends meet. We could be your neighbour, next to you in the supermarket, or on the same school run.
“It’s incredibly hard to talk about without ‘outing’ yourself, and the stigma is huge. I don’t feel like I should be ashamed, but there are risks in ‘outing’ myself.
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