My boyfriend and I have recently been talking about the possibility of opening up our relationship. Around the same time, I ended up having sex with someone else and I was paid for it.

I’m feeling conflicted about what this means for me and our relationship. Does the fact that I was paid make it “cheating” in a different way? Does it make me an actual whore? I don’t have anything against sex work — and honestly, I enjoyed the experience and the money.

Now I’m wondering if I might even want to explore sex work as a side hustle.

How should I think about this emotionally and ethically — both for my relationship and for myself? 
 
Dear I got paid and I liked it,  
 
First things first, we need to untangle a few things because you’re asking a few different questions at the same time, and they all deserve honest feedback.  

You used the word “whore” so let’s address it head on: sex work is work. Period. Being paid for sex doesn’t make the experience shameful or make you a bad person. You enjoyed it, you earned some coin, and you’re being thoughtful enough to reflect on the experience. That feels like emotional maturity, not a moral failure. So let’s put the shame piece aside.  
 
But I have to dig in and be direct with you because caring about someone also means telling them the truth. The ethical issue here isn’t sex work, it’s secrecy.  

You said you and your boyfriend were talking about opening up your relationship, but that tells me that it wasn’t a concluded conversation, and it seems like you have made a unilateral decision for both of you. But your decision affects you both, and that matters – not because sex work is wrong, but because your partner is operating under assumptions that aren’t true, and that’s on you. This isn’t a gray area. You got the cart ahead of the horse, and you’re going to have to reconcile those consequences sooner rather than later.  

Have you considered that entering into a sexual situation outside of your relationship, especially one involving an unknown partner, carries very real health implications for you and your partner? Are you on PreP? Have you looked into doxy-PreP? These aren’t judgment questions; they’re practical ones. You have an obligation to your partner to allow them to make informed decisions about their own health. Right now, your partner can’t because they don’t know the full picture, and that’s not fair. From his perspective, opening your relationship is still an ongoing conversation that hasn’t reached a consensus.  

Before you explore whether sex work could be a side hustle, before you process the emotions wrapped up in this decision, before you dig into any of the self-discovery questions you’re sitting with, you have to have an honest conversation with your partner. A real one. Not a version of events that serves your perspective that softens or reframes the very real unilateral decision you made for both of you. You ended the conversation, but never told him.  

Hon, you can’t negotiate a peace treaty when one side doesn’t even know there’s a war. Get it all on the table, every last bit, spread it out like the last supper so your partner can look at the full spread and decide if they’re still hungry. Because until you do that, everything else is just seasoning on a dish he doesn’t even know is on the menu. Once that’s done, the real reckoning is going to be with the face in your mirror, not the one across the table.  

Because this is what I keep coming back to: you and your boyfriend were already having conversations about opening up your relationship. You were taking the ingredients out and putting them on the counter so you could see what you wanted to make, and then out of nowhere, you ordered take out. So what happened between the talking about it and the doing it part and then taking a big leap all the way to a paid encounter? That’s no small leap.  

Did you take the leap or was it offered to you? Were you testing your own desires, his reaction, your freedom? Sometimes we create a situation to force a conversation that isn’t moving as quickly as we would like. Self-sabotaging to create a confrontation we’re afraid to have in peaceful negotiation. That doesn’t make you a bad person, but it’s worth sitting with. Reckless decisions aren’t random. They don’t come out of nowhere. Typically, they’re from an uncomfortable place that we haven’t been willing to look at within ourselves. They sit deep in us, bubbling until you can’t hold them in any more.  

Now don’t think for a second that we’re going to tiptoe past the sex work piece of this like it’s your aunt snoring in a recliner after Christmas dinner – we are absolutely going there. Half the world is curious about sex work, whether they’d ever say it out loud or not. Lots of people talk about it, fantasize about it, watch documentaries, but you actually did it. In the middle of a relationship that’s already standing at a fork in the road, in a moment that clearly meant something, and then you liked it. We call that a signpost, babe. Not a speed bump. There is something in you that is asking a much bigger question about desire, agency, power – maybe even about who you are when nobody’s watching, or if you didn’t have to worry about the judgment of others. I think you owe it to yourself to hear yourself out. You’ve come all this way, you might as well figure out what your spirit is really trying to tell you.  

Sex work can be a legitimate, safe, and fulfilling occupation or side hustle, or even a hobby. People build whole careers and rich lives around it. The people who thrive seem to go in with intention, not as a side effect of a relationship in flux and a decision made in the heat of a moment. If this is genuinely something you want to explore, that conversation is worth having with yourself and with the support of a therapist or counselor who can help you sort through what’s driving it.  
 
You deserve to move forward with clarity, and so does your partner. But clarity requires honesty – with him, yes, but first with yourself.

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John Porter is a founding partner at Oasis Asset Management, contributing writer at OutSFL, and an aspiring novelist. He has worked as a community organizer, political strategist, campaign director, and has volunteered and held leadership positions for a variety of community non-profits. His work approaches serious subjects with curiosity, irreverence, and a sense of humor. Join him daily on Threads @johnporter13

The advice offered in this column is intended for informational purposes only. Use of this column is not intended to replace or substitute any financial, medical, legal, or other professional advice.