- A LinkedIn user got a big reaction after listing “sex work” under professional experience.
- Ariel Egozi said sex work has a place on LinkedIn like any other job.
- For Egozi, sex work gave them financial freedom and basic professional skills.
Arielle Egozi, who went viral last month for listing “sex work” as one of her career experiences on LinkedIn, believes the sex industry is just as worthy of being on the site as any other career.
“Sex work has allowed me to understand that there are other ways to do things,” Egozi, who identifies as a queerfam and uses her/their pronouns, told Insider. , taught me that there are countless other ways to sell souls and more.”
The 31-year-old first made waves on July 13 after she updated her LinkedIn page to add sex work and shared a post explaining her decision to her followers. In her message, Egozi wrote that sex work gave them financial freedom by allowing them to “charge exorbitant amounts” and taught them countless professional skills.
“I quit an in-house job with fancy benefits two weeks ago and the reason I was able to do it was sex work,” Egozi shared on LinkedIn. Selling and engaging saved me enough that I could ask myself if I was happy, and I wasn’t.”
Egozi told Insider that after leaving the company that branded their position, they “felt powerless and objectified” and that their “creative energy was taken for granted”. He said he was inspired to make a change.
“The higher I climbed in my career, the more I felt like I had to repress different parts of my identity,” said Egozi.
“ugly underbelly”
Egozi probably expected a small number of responses, but emphasized that he never intended to be the “face” of the issue and that his experience may not be representative of others in the industry. did.
“I have great privileges,” they said. “I have an agency where this is not my primary way to make money. Hmm.”
Nevertheless, the post quickly garnered thousands of responses and hundreds of comments from all sides on LinkedIn. , Some criticized the post. Egozi said some even tried to hack his social media and bank accounts.
“It really taught us the ugliness of our view of the American work ethic,” Egozi said. “There were a lot of people posting hateful things. There are people on LinkedIn with their full names and employers attached. I think they can say these things without consequences.” So how can someone like me feel safe in that environment?”
Egoji, meanwhile, said he received dozens of messages from people with white-collar jobs in similar situations.
“Everyone knows sex workers,” they said. “People feel that we are so stigmatized and unsafe in society that they cannot safely come out.”
Egozi first entered the industry in 2020 after the creative agency lost several clients due to the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic. Egozi has worked in the sex tech world and worked with sex workers in the past, so they’ve never strayed far from sex work.
“Part of it was about cash, but I also felt it was a place where I could confront a lot of my own personal fears and traumas,” Egoji said. It allowed me to own my own career,” they added.
‘There’s very little actual sex’
Ultimately, Egoji said sex work gave them many professional skills.
“People forget that the word ‘work’ is tied to sex work, the work that builds brands and companies. Very little is actual sex,” they said.
“I know how to engage my audience and elicit emotion from them. I also know how to generate sales, build my brand and community and promote it. I know how to filter them too, and if you’re making adult content, you have to be creative with all of it,” Egozi added.
Egozi has received multiple job offers since first posting on LinkedIn about the issue and continues to work as an advisor and consultant in the tech world. Egoiz said he has no intention of leaving the industry, but the popularity of his LinkedIn posts has made his job more dangerous and he has already started making plans to address safety concerns.
“I’m not going to let go of my agency and I haven’t yet seen a company that I can trust,” they said. ”
Do you have a similar story? Please contact the reporter from your non-work email. gkay@insider.com
