From the Huffington Post:
Dear God, I Need a Job: The Struggle to Find Employment After Sex Work By Eric Barry, Comedian, writer and creator of the 'Full Disclosure' sex podcast and blog.
Right now I'm scared. I'm terrified. I have not had steady employment in over three years. I've burnt through my entire 401(k). I'm on food stamps. I've paid my last two months' rent on a credit card, and have no means to pay this month's.
For the life of me I can't seem to get a job. On average, I apply to about 10 a day. From copywriting gigs to my local grocery store, most inquiries go unanswered. For those jobs which I seem an impeccable match for, even garnering a form rejection letter feels like a win.
It hasn't always been like this. I used to work for Google. I used to work for Goodby, the most acclaimed ad agency in the world. I graduated from UC Berkeley in two and a half years.
At 23 years old, I was making $74,000 a year -- considerably more than my peers. But it never felt right. I wanted to think that my years of hard work and scholastic aptitude had led me to a place of both personal and monetary satisfaction, but the truth of the matter is that nearly every morning when my alarm went off, the first words out of my mouth were "fuck me."
[…]
You see, I was a sex worker when I was in college. I had sex with men for money. If I held back on my podcast -- if I was unwilling to express my own vulnerabilities, if I was scared or ashamed to reveal who I was -- what did it say about those who I was asking to do the same? Nearly every person I've interviewed who's been a sex worker is exceptionally intelligent, well-rounded, and ambitious. But they've all used fake names because they're terrified of what may happen should their personal identity ever be revealed. They're worried they may never find work if they leave the sex industry.
I wanted to change that. I decided to lose the pseudonym and come out publicly about being a straight male who was a gay escort. I wanted to show the world that sex workers can be educated, intelligent, well-adjusted people. People who went to Berkeley. People who worked at Google.
And now that information was out there, at one with the foreverness of the internet. And it was googleable. And that's why I think I was fired.
Go read the rest here.