Yes, I've had survival sex. I had a pool of "regulars" and I would show up at their house and have sex with them in trade for a place to sleep. It was that or sleep in my car. They usually (but not always) bought me dinner and it was either them buy me food or I didn't eat. I was told "It's ok for you to sleep here. I pay rent whether you are here or not."
You aren't in that position.
In my well-informed opinion, if you are going into it thinking of it as "survival sex" you don't want to do after a history of sexual abuse... it's going to go badly. If, like
@FridayJones you thought of it as sex work and it could be fun... it would be a different story.
When I was 19 I seriously considered going into sex work for a variety of reasons. I was very lucky to be friends with Mistress Matisse. (Google her name if you have never heard of her.) She's a pretty well known sex worker. She's been in the industry for almost 30 years.
She told me, "Sex work is work. It is not better or worse than other kinds of work. But you should only do sex work if you start out psychologically healthy, if you have a good support network, and you have a really strong ability to laugh at life. Otherwise it is going to f*ck you up and you will want to kill yourself."
I am very grateful for those words, these many years later. I'm a big supporter of sex work being work. I am politically active in support of decriminalization of all sex work. It's always been part of society and it always will be.
But... that doesn't make it a good job for everyone. Just like I would not make a good veterinarian! (I had to look up how to spell that word because I am so not suited to the job.)
Bankruptcy sucks. It is true. But haven't you already been through enough bad stuff? Bankruptcy will at least be bad in a boring sort of way instead of in a sudden-new-trauma way.
If you were on the streets and sleeping with people so you didn't have to sleep on the streets... I wouldn't judge. In your position... I'd find a different path. In the pros and cons weighing... probably too much con.
I'm a big fan of Harm Reduction. It's a specific therapeutic approach. You don't have to make Perfect Choices. You just have to be reducing the harm you do to yourself over time. It's really hard to think, "Which choice will cause me the least harm" when you know you only have bad choices. I really struggle with this. When I feel like I don't have a "good" choice I want to say f*ck it and make the most bad choice I can. Because usually I can claim there is some vague possible phantom upside.
Yeah, how often does that work out?
Well... I'm causing less harm to myself these days... I suppose that is a start. We are worried about you because stories like yours don't go well when they involve someone deciding to do something they feel degraded by. If you thought sex work was fun that would be different. You are saying prostitution and survival sex. That will make you feel bad.
