I am fascinated by the lives of sex workers because I often wonder how they navigate a hypocritical and judgmental country like Nigeria. Over the weekend, I spoke with a few sex workers I personally knew and asked them if their partners would be willing to speak to me for a story on what it is like dating a sex worker. Some weren’t willing to, others were.

Here are some of the most insightful and interesting replies I got:

Mark, 24.

My partner makes gay porn videos for Twitter and his porn page. When I met him, he had done a few videos here and there but it wasn’t a thing he did full-time. After the pandemic affected his regular income, he started doing more videos as a way to make money. It’s not ideal, it’s not what I imagined my relationship would be like and I fought it for a while but I have since learnt that this is just a job. He does what he needs to do and comes back home to me. He is very safe, he uses a condom and when he doesn’t, he makes sure him and whoever he is filming with go get tested before they shoot any scene together. 

Leo, 27.

My partner and I have an open relationship. We’re both very sexual people who enjoy having sex but at the same time, we don’t think sex is that deep. I use the ‘openness’ of our relationship to experiment with as many people as I safely can but my girlfriend has a few sugar daddies. She’s a very beautiful girl and even before and after we started dating, she gets petitioned by men almost every other week. It doesn’t bother me because she has sex with them but she’s in love with me and I’m in love with her. I think it’s weird how people obsess over these things. You don’t need to be someone’s exclusive penis for you both to love each other through and through.

Adam, 32.

When I met my girlfriend, she had an OnlyFans and she made it clear that she had no desire to stop. Hers is particularly funny because she doesn’t need the money. She just seems to enjoy doing it. It took me a while because that was a whole new territory but I think when you meet someone that you click with, you don’t want to throw it all out because of a little detail like them enjoying masturbating in front of a camera. I made my peace with it, after ensuring it was harmless and she wouldn’t do more than that.

Gerald, 27.

My boyfriend had a porn Twitter account when we met. He didn’t tell me at first, I found out by accident and we fought for a bit. I wasn’t mad that he had it, I was mad he didn’t tell me. He explained that it wasn’t intentional but that he was scared. I forgave him and we moved on. We even shot a porn video for his page recently. Being with someone that does porn is stressful because they have access to all these hot people and sleeping them so you worry about their safety, you worry about them running off with someone etc. It’s a lot. But I’m shedding those things and focusing on the love we have for each other.

Edwin, 25.

My partner and I have been together for almost two years. I think the main reason we have lasted so long is that we have a level of respect and trust in each other. He does a few porn videos and it bothered me at the beginning of our relationship. I have respect for him because even when people want to move mad and step outside the boundaries of ‘sex-in-front-of-the-camera’ he is quick to caution them. It’s an open relationship but I personally don’t particularly care about sleeping with other people but him. 

  • Names have been changed for the sake of privacy.
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