“I was like: ‘I’m just going to throw this out there for anyone who wants to listen’, and then it just blew up,” she told The Feed.

While she says she has lost some clients recently due to her social media fame and the way she shares stories online, there is still a notable degree of separation between her online audience and her in-person clients.

“So a lot of the time I’ll still get messages from guys and they’ll just know me through like either porn sites or things like that, like OnlyFans stuff — but then they would just have no idea that I’m on this TikTok.”

Sex workers on social media

Kayla Jade is among a community of sex workers who have become famous on social media platforms. Source: SBS

Kayla Jade isn’t the only sex worker who has become famous on social media in recent years.

While TikTok prohibits any nudity, pornography, sexually explicit content or any content related to sexual activity or services, these creators commonly use slang terms and self-censorship to avoid being banned on the platform.

“I’m glad that I’m sort of breaking down those walls a little bit — very slowly but surely.”

Mish Pony, the chief executive officer of Scarlet Alliance, the peak national body for Australian sex workers, told The Feed that stigma around sex work means some workers are denied housing, employment and adequate healthcare.

Pony also notes that social media can provide a unique space for sex workers to create private communities to support one another.

The realities of sex work

“I was worried that, say, a young person would see those videos and be like: ‘Oh my God, she makes so much money doing sex work’. But they don’t really fully understand what I had to do to get that money,” she says.

Kayla Jade says some social media users have been cruel to her and crossed her personal boundaries. Source: SBS

Research shows sex workers in Australia are exposed to a range of challenges, including risk of health issues and exposure to trauma and violence, with street-based sex workers more likely to have experienced work-based violence compared to other sex workers.

Pony says content like Kayla’s can fail to capture the mundanity of a lot of sex work as well.

“Sex workers should be able to choose how and where we work, whether that be independently as part of a small collective, as part of a large brothel. [Sex workers] have our own preferences and should be able to choose whatever venue or option we think is best or right for us,” they say.

The pressure of being social media famous

She says she had intended to keep her family life private for their safety and privacy, and has since only revealed brief details about her children.

“Never judge a book by its cover.”