I’m almost 50 — as a sex worker, this is how I treat the 18-year-olds who book me

When I started this job nearly 30 years ago, my clients were almost all older men. Married men, mostly. They wanted something specific, discreet and familiar: a release from the life they’d already built.

These days I still see those men. But alongside them, with increasing regularity, are much younger ones.

Over a year ago, I appeared on Joe Marler’s Things People Do podcast to talk about my life and my work, and in doing so reached a whole new audience of twenty-something rugby lovers, all suddenly emboldened to message and tell me their wildest desires.

It’s sweet. I don’t mind a bit. The men, mainly in their late teens and early twenties, often with little or no sexual experience at all, arrive nervous, eager, over-prepared in some ways and utterly unprepared in others.

It’s a noticeable shift in my client base. One I’ve had to think about more carefully than I expected.

I haven’t always seen people of all ages. The change has been gradual, and it mirrors wider shifts in how young people approach sex and intimacy.

Dating apps promise infinite choice but deliver constant rejection. Porn offers instruction without context. And for some young men, the idea of approaching a real woman — risking embarrassment, confusion, or being laughed at — feels overwhelming.

Coming to someone like me is, paradoxically, simpler. The rules are clear: the boundaries are stated. Nobody’s pretending.

Younger clients are different from older ones. Older men tend to arrive knowing exactly what they want. They’ve rehearsed it internally for years. Younger men often don’t. They’re tentative, apologetic, sometimes strangely formal.

They ask more questions and worry about getting things ‘wrong’. There’s a sense that they’re trying not to disappoint me, which is both touching and faintly absurd.

Occasionally, I’m their first sexual experience of any kind. That’s a strange thing to be, for someone you’ll never see again. I don’t take it lightly. It makes me think back to my own early sexual fumblings — the nerves, the misconceptions, the sheer intensity of it all: a time when everything feels monumental, every interaction charged with meaning.

I’m very aware that, for them, this might be something they remember forever. For me, it’s Tuesday afternoon.

That imbalance creates a responsibility. I’m not there to educate in any formal sense, but I do feel a duty of care. With younger or inexperienced clients, I slow things down. I explain more. I check in more often. I’m clearer about what will and won’t happen. I’m firmer about boundaries.

The goal is not to overwhelm or perform, but to make the experience feel safe, contained, and, above all, human.

This isn’t about being maternal, exactly, but it does involve a kind of watchfulness. Older clients are usually happy to be left to their fantasies; younger ones often need reassurance that they’re not failing some invisible test. I try to strip away the idea that sex is a performance to be graded, because that anxiety is often what brought them to me in the first place.

People sometimes ask why young men with no sexual experience would seek out a sex worker at all. The assumption is that it’s about desperation, or entitlement, or some kind of shortcut. In my experience, it’s more nuanced than that.

Many of them are lonely, yes; but they’re also curious. They want to understand what intimacy feels like without the chaos of modern dating. They want an experience where rejection isn’t lurking at every turn.

There’s also a level of honesty in paying for something upfront rather than navigating a maze of mixed signals. Not pretending this is something it isn’t. No guessing games. In a world where so much interaction is mediated through screens, the clarity can be a relief.

The way younger men relate to me is noticeably different from older clients, too. Older men tend to see me as a service provider first and a person second: polite, often kind, but detached.

Younger men are more prone to idealisation. They can be overly earnest, overly grateful, sometimes convinced I’ve changed their life when all I’ve really done is show up on time and treat them decently. I’m careful to gently deflate that where necessary.

One thing I’m absolutely clear on is age verification. Every new client must provide government-issued photo ID before an appointment is confirmed. If someone is underage, they don’t get through the door.

There are no exceptions, no grey areas, and no humour about it. This is non-negotiable, and it’s something I take seriously for obvious reasons.

I don’t think I’m shaping these young men, or setting them on any particular path. I’m simply meeting them at a specific moment in their lives — one shaped by cultural confusion, sexual noise, and a surprising amount of isolation.

If I can offer an experience that’s respectful, bounded, and free of humiliation, then I’m comfortable with that.

The work hasn’t become easier as my clients have become younger. If anything, it requires more thought. But it has made me more aware of how strange and difficult sex has become for a generation that’s supposedly saturated in it.

And if nothing else, it’s reminded me that kindness, clarity, and a bit of patience go a very long way, whether you’re nineteen or sixty-nine.

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