Sex Work Isn’t the Only Way We Sell Our Bodies

Why choosing to be a tradwife is just a variation of sex work with better PR

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It seems like the perfect answer when you’re struggling financially — or just starting out in life like the tradwives I’ve seen online — As if it’s some sort of new idea instead of one as old as time. I know! I’ll marry a man who will take care of me!

Ladies: a man is not a financial plan.

At this point, marrying a man for his financial support is selling your body. Hard stop. There may have been a time when it was necessary for survival, but that is no longer the case. And just as sex workers eventually discover, there is an expiration date on that arrangement. Unfortunately, aged out tradwives also eventually find out the true cost of trying to shortcut life.

Their stories are everywhere.

I was a tradwife for 12 years. Before that marriage, I was gainfully employed by the IRS, owned my own townhome, and was, in general, killing it (at least on paper) especially for a 20 year old single mom of two.

I only decided to sell my body when my second daughter was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when I was 22. Trying to work full time while managing her care was destroying me. So I reached out to a man who had always carried a torch for me. He also happened to be the father of my first daughter.

He was more than willing to let me trade my body for his financial support. I understood the arrangement — or at least I thought I did. I was tying myself to him financially, and assumed I’d be required to give him sex. I had no idea the kind of slave I’d become.

We had two more children, further tying me to him. When I asked him to get a vasectomy since I was 24 and had four children, he said, “But what if I want more?”

The lyrics to Labour by Paris Paloma come to mind.

So I got my tubes tied instead. When I grew tired of his abuse (mostly directed at our children lest you think he was just angry and abusive towards me for “using him”) I left and found myself with nothing — except four hungry mouths to feed. No education, no earning potential, no assets in my name, no ability to get assets in my name. When I wanted to keep the house so my kids could have some semblance of stability, I discovered there was no way for this to happen. I started completely over at 34 years old. And my story is not unique.

After all that, you’d think I would have learned my lesson. I went to college, became financially independent. But when things got tight, my first impulse was to, once again, sell my body.

Starting over (again)

I fell in love for the first time when I was 35. I got married for the “right” reasons, yet it still ended up being a toxic relationship which I eventually left. And once again I was left starting over.

Around that time, each of my four (now adult) children came to me telling me they were drowning in the current economy.

We decided as a family that I would buy a home big enough for all seven of us (me, my four adult children, and my two grandchildren), which I did in October 2022.

By 2024, though, I was drowning. Even though my kids were paying rent, the house payment felt suffocating. A house big enough for seven is obviously not cheap. And it was all starting to feel like way too much.

Then one particularly bad day the clouds opened up and I realized that help was just one phone call away. It shames me to admit it now. I want to say that my love for him drove me to reach out and ask if he was willing to give it another go. But in hindsight — if I’m being completely honest — had the finances never felt overwhelming, I would not have made the call.

Unfortunately, he agreed. And we tried again. Four days before he was to pack up his things and come to my house to begin our life again, I realized what I was doing and put an end to it. Thank God. Nothing had changed about our relationship. He was still isolating. He was still controlling. And my only real motivation was feeling financially secure.

Today, things have changed dramatically

Those first few years paying a mortgage are rough. I knew that going in. It wasn’t my first rodeo. But the benefit to buying a home and having a mortgage is that the payment stays the same (aside from taxes and insurance of course). So over the past nearly four years, I’ve gotten raises and bonuses at work, I’ve raised my kids’ rent and handed over basically all of their living expenses to them, and I have earned some secondary income from my writing.

I can breathe again.

And suddenly I don’t miss him. Judge me if you will, but men have always provided women a cure for financial instability. We can sell our bodies — whether that takes the form of being a sex worker, or whether it takes the form of being the wife to someone we would rather not — it all yields the same result. Providing access to our body for financial benefit.

The tradwife movement is sex work with better PR

The tradwife movement is nothing more than sex work with better PR. She provides access to her body so that he will provide financial stability. Most of us would never admit it out loud, but we are trying to shortcut life. We are opting out of self reliance. And she has no idea of the ultimate cost she’ll pay. But I do. And so do too many other women just like me.

It’s alluring in its simplicity. But as the saying goes, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. You will pay for it in one way or another.

My advice? Make sure you are financially independent. Then if you choose to be in a relationship, you’ll both know it is actually for love. Selling your body for financial security never ends well. Please take my word for it.

I’ve always had a passion for writing, so a warm thank you for reading to the end. Comments, shares, saves, and tips appreciated.

I have turned my rough beginnings as a teenaged welfare mom into motivation to get educated (B.S., M.S.) and into a successful career. Now the mother of four adults, and grandmother of two littles, I work in Corporate America but write blog style articles on the many things I’ve learned about Relationships, Sex, Money, and Life in general mostly for my own healing.

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