Three aubergine emojis, a question mark. That's what a booking request looks like in 2026. I go do my anal douche - and get ghosted. Sometimes it works out too.
Hi, I'm Darius. Non-binary, transmasculine, Dominus* - and a sex worker* for over ten years. I started out alone: no network, no role models, no one I could have asked how you set boundaries, how you talk about this work - or whether you talk about it at all. So I stayed silent. Until I met someone for the first time who did the same work. And suddenly what I was living had a name.
This text is for you: whether you just want to know more about trans* sex work, or you're weighing whether to send me the three aubergines. Read to the end first. It's worth it for both of us.
Sex Work Is More Than You Think
When I say "sex work," most people picture exactly one image. The reality is an entire profession: webcam shows, worn underwear, porn, selling nudes, escorting, companionship, massage studios, BDSM. Online and offline, visible and discreet, with physical contact and without.
BDSM is where I'm most at home. In sessions I work as a Dominus* - there I'm Sir Darius Rex. Cane, humiliation, sometimes two fists in the literal sense. In between: answering inquiries, maintaining profiles, marketing, coordinating appointments, booking rooms. Sex work is, in large part, the stuff nobody finds sexy - admin.
The beauty of BDSM: gender recedes into the background. Dominance, leadership, care, skill - that's what's up front. I'm Sir Darius Rex because I carry the role and fill it. That freedom I'm not handing back.
The Binary Is Old Hat
The public image of sex work knows exactly two roles: woman sells, man buys. This model was never neutral - it's colonial legacy, and it only ever fit some people. The reality: trans* people work, non-binary people work, men work, queer people work. And not just since yesterday.
For me, as a non-binary trans* man, that means, concretely: I'm invisible in this picture. Not manly enough for some, not a woman for the others. On BDSM platforms there's no category for me. On escort platforms everyone hears "trans" and thinks exclusively of the transfeminine spectrum - as a transmasculine, hairy bear I stick out there like a tofu sausage at a barbecue. On platforms for gay men comes the fetishization, usually bundled right away with a request for dick pics. I send them. After that they never write again.
Invisibility isn't an oversight, it has structure. It means: more marketing, more effort, less income. And when money gets tight, you end up in dangerous situations. The condom goes when the rent has to be paid. That's not a personal weakness - that's structure. The system produces it. And looks away.
That's why I work at BDSM Studio LUX, where condoms are mandatory. No negotiating, no surcharge, no exception when the account is empty. Safer sex there isn't a question of bargaining power, it's house rule. That's exactly what should be standard, not privilege.
Don't Believe Me - Believe the Studies
In case you think I'm exaggerating: Deutsche Aidshilfe, in a qualitative, participatory study, actually asked sex workers themselves what they need. Revolutionary concept, I know. About trans* women working the street, it says:
"The trans* women who work on the street report that they are socially excluded, receive no help in emergencies, face discrimination on the housing market, and regularly become victims of serious acts of violence."
Regularly. Victims. Of serious violence. At their workplace: two small, unlockable toilets with no running water. That's the infrastructure Germany provides for legal work.
And at the same time - this matters - sex work also means, for many of us: fun, sexual pleasure, professional self-understanding, community, independence. The study says that just as clearly. Both are true. Holding that simultaneity is apparently the hardest exercise for everyone who talks about us: I'm precarious and political at once, exhausted and turned on by the work at the same time. That fits neither the rescue industry's narrative nor the perfect empowerment fairy tale. Both annoy me equally, by the way.
The Law With the Pretty Name
Sex work is legal in Germany, but heavily regulated. The Prostitute Protection Act of 2017 requires: registering in person with the authorities, mandatory counseling, regular documented health counseling. After that you get the so-called whore's pass - with a photo. Even before it took effect, Deutsche Aidshilfe, bufaS, and Amnesty International warned against it. They were ignored. Now the official evaluation of the law is in, and what does it say? Exactly what we've been saying since 2017: the registration process is too high a barrier for many. The mandatory counseling is often experienced as stigmatizing. Many sex workers avoid the services out of concern for their anonymity. A protection law the people it's meant to protect have to hide from. Chapeau. It hits colleagues without secure residency status especially hard: fear of checks, arrest, deportation - with self-isolation and no health insurance as the result. And some organizations that supposedly want to "rescue" us exploit exactly this situation to push deportations along. So much for rescuing. What actually protects is also in the evaluation: voluntary, low-barrier services, careful handling of data protection, counseling on equal footing. Or, as the slide in my anti-bias training puts it:
Rights, not obligations - participation, not exclusion!
As Jamie Transboy_Dom, a colleague at LUX, has already argued it: We don't need rescuing. We need rights. Health insurance, pension provision, access to the healthcare system, destigmatization in public offices and clinics. And money for community structures - not as a handout, but as recognition that these structures do the work where the state fails.
To You, Dear (Future) Client
Yes, you. You've already got the three aubergines in your drafts folder. Wonderful. So this goes well for both of us, here's the house rules - they're based on the five ground rules from my anti-bias training, and they apply not just to counseling centers but to you too:
How you address me is not up for debate. In the session it's Sir. Sir Darius Rex, if you can manage full sentences. Not "uh," not the name you piece together from my profile. You use my pronouns and terms the way I set them out - uncertainty is no excuse, it's a reason to listen better. Ask, and you'll be punished. Ask correctly, and maybe also. The difference? You'll learn.
Don't ask about body details. Questions about surgeries, genitals, or medical procedures are out of place - unless they're actually relevant to our session and you raise them sensitively. What you need to know, you'll find out. The rest is none of your business. And by the way: I don't have a cock in the binary-biological sense - I have a selection that beats any size wish going. Holes have no gender. That's not a limitation. That's an expansion.
I'm not a sex-ed course. Sure, I answer questions - education matters. But whoever reduces me to my trans*ness gets it back. A client once asked how I deal with being reduced. My answer: I reduce you too, to your hairy, big … body. He found it less funny than I did.
Boundaries aren't a bargaining chip. What we agree on holds. Before, during, after. Whoever "tests" the agreements is out. The unspoken assumption that trans* people have no right to protection - leave it at the coat check.
Pay. On time. In full. Sexting and photo swaps "to get to know each other" without payment isn't getting to know each other, it's timewasting - the job description without the job title. Sex work is work, not a hobby. Whoever gets that gets professionalism, presence, and a session from me he won't forget.
Prices are non-negotiable. Sex work is my profession. And if a question about my trans*ness does slip past your lips: put another 100 euros on top. Then I'll answer it. Maybe.
And if you're nervous now: the clients who can handle all of this are usually exactly the right ones. Being trans* is an excellent filter. The prejudice works for me - unpaid, but reliably.
What You Can Do (Even Without Aubergines)
You don't have to book to be an ally. But you do have to listen - not talk about us, not decide for us. Concretely:
Pass it on: sex work is work. At the kitchen table, in the office, the next time someone lumps sex work in with human trafficking.
Demand policy. The evaluation is on the table. Now action has to follow: abolish the registration requirement and the whore's pass, replace mandatory counseling with voluntary services, health insurance access for everyone.
Fund the structures. Community is currently filling in for what the system refuses - spaces, knowledge, backup. That costs money, not warm words.
Inform yourself: Deutsche Aidshilfe, Hydra e. V., SMART Berlin, Schwulenberatung Berlin.
And don't forget what's missing from almost every debate about sex work: joy. This work can be pleasurable, satisfying, and self-determined. We're experts in bodies, consent, boundaries, intimacy, and power - knowledge this society could badly use, if it stopped framing us as a problem.
I'll be on my way, then. The next session's waiting. And the three aubergines have been sitting in my inbox for an hour.
This time, hopefully, no ghosting.
--
Darius Rex is non-binary, transmasculine, a Dominus, sex worker*, and community organizer — including with BDSM Beyond Binary at Studio LUX Berlin. Instagram: @your_pleasure_matters. Quotes are drawn from the anti-bias training "Trans* Sex Work", the study "Was brauchen Sexarbeiter*innen für ihre Gesundheit?" (Deutsche Aidshilfe, 2024), and the evaluation of the Prostitute Protection Act (BMFSFJ).*
