I’ve been a sex worker for 30 years — one trend is disturbing, even for me

The first time it was done to me, I was fully clothed.

A client created an AI video of me, using a picture he’d found on Instagram, in blouse, skirt and heels, sitting in my study, suddenly looking appalled to find a cascade of green gunge landing on my face and lap. 

In this case, he asked my permission first. When I agreed and later shared the video, he was delighted. He just really wanted to see a fully-dressed me covered in goo.

But even with consent, seeing my face animated into a scenario I hadn’t physically taken part in made me pause. I wasn’t offended – I’ve been a sex worker for thirty years: honestly it’s quicker to find pictures of me naked online than to invent some.

Yet, people still use AI tools to ‘undress’ me instead. It feels less like desire and more like novelty: the thrill of making something yourself. And this new footage highlighted how easily my likeness can now be lifted, altered and reused.

The key word here, as ever, is consent. But some AI platforms have already been criticised for generating inappropriate images of real people without their permission. In many cases, the people depicted have no idea their face is being used at all.

There’s also a huge difference between choosing to sell something and having it endlessly replicated without your involvement. Consent shouldn’t disappear just because technology makes things convenient.

Since that first video, I’ve had about four clients a month ask if I’d allow my face to be used in AI-generated scenarios. These requests are usually framed casually, as if they’re no different from commissioning custom content. No filming, no physical interaction. Just tech.

To my knowledge no one has done it without my consent, yet, but friends and colleagues have discovered AI-generated images of themselves circulating on forums they’ve never visited.

Others have been alerted by followers their face has been used in explicit content they didn’t create. Even when the images aren’t particularly convincing, the lack of consent — and the lack of control — is unsettling.

This AI craze is already losing me money. For example, one client with a very specific fetish for large watches recently stopped sending physical gifts and money altogether.

Instead of buying and posting a watch to me, he used recently used AI to alter my existing photos to make it look like I was wearing a huge watch. From his point of view, it solved the problem instantly. From mine, it quietly removed a few hundred pounds of income, and replaced it with something I had no control over.

It’s a minor example, but when AI can simulate the result, the labour and the payment can disappear. The value of what we do risks being slowly eroded. Not overnight, but through lots of small decisions made for convenience.

Some people argue AI-generated porn could reduce exploitation by removing human performers from the process altogether. But that argument falls apart when the AI is used on real people who never agreed to be part of it.

I’m not being exploited, and nor are any of my pals. We’re having a perfectly lovely time being creative, making a tidy living, and had rather hoped to continue.

Surely, though, the domination part of my career is safe? The wagging finger, scolding, slapping, draping men over my stockinged knee, scraping fingernails over newly welted buttocks? I’m not so sure.

There’s an app now, Corner Time, which makes you stand in the corner, films you on your webcam and shouts at you if you move. You can programme it with words it should shout if you transgress, and you can choose the type of voice, too.

Now, I don’t do a lot of popping punters in corners, but plenty of them like it, and tell me they are making do just fine without me: this app makes for an effective, free, substitute. 

Another website, Write For Me, forces punters to write lines (a common fetish for those who like to pretend they’re a naughty school boy).

They type in a sentence (“I will not touch myself without Ms. Todd’s explicit permission”) then decide how many times they want to repeat it – five hundred. Five thousand.

They can also set penalties; the programme can add one or two extra lines for every mistake, plus twenty more for taking breaks from typing which lasted more than twenty seconds.

In short, they can dominate, bore and punish themselves with thankless, pointless tasks, without making use of me.

There are spanking machines, too. Currently they don’t replicate my efforts very efficiently: they tend to hit the same spot, at the same rhythm, most unlike a human hand; but once they manage to bring some randomness to the mix, I might well be out of a job altogether.

The adult industry has always adapted quickly to new technology. What feels different this time is how easily performers’ faces can be separated from their involvement.

I was fine with that first AI video, because I was asked. But now? I’m worried.

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