My name is Emmi Tarkiainen and I’m a sexologist specialised in the sexual and mental support of sex work professionals. I work at my own support practice, ‘Talk with Emmi’. Over time, I’ve noticed how reviews keep repeatedly appearing in sessions with my sex worker-clients in different ways and contexts. In this article, I wish to share some professional experience, interview sourced knowledge, as well as some of my personal viewpoints on this topic.
It is understandable to need a space and time to speak about how it feels to be evaluated on your body, personality, or sexual performance. Quite often in my sessions, sex workers would address this just as a nasty part of the job that cannot be helped. All jobs have those, right?
On closer inspection, if the concept of being reviewed on aspects as close to your person as for those in sex work was practised in other professional contexts, wouldn’t it be deemed too intimate or personal, or even damaging? Somehow the lack of safety and distance between a professional and their professional feedback has been normalised when sex workers receive reviews on their work.
Reviews come up in smaller and larger aspects of their work that sex workers share in their sessions. Descriptions of clients attempting to influence boundaries through the possibility of a negative review. Financial anxiety and the fear of losing business because of public criticism or sabotage. The emotional weight of clients using reviews as a public display of connection, writing repeatedly or intimately, in an attempt to publicly form an attachment.
In the broader culture, reviews are often quoted as neutral systems of feedback. When it comes to reviewing sex work, I would pair it more closely with the concept of reputational economy. A reputational economy is a term that refers to an economic system where trust, credibility, and community-reviewed standing act as tangible capital, replacing or outperforming traditional résumés or other metrics used to display and recognise professional success. It is often discussed in relation to freelance and client-facing professions.
There is also an important power dynamic involved. If certain services, behaviours, or emotional performances are consistently rewarded in reviews, some may feel pressure to comply with those expectations. This does not mean sex workers are passive victims without agency, but it does highlight how economic pressure and public evaluation can sometimes blur the line between authentic choice and performative compliance.
Taking all of this information in, we can agree that in many parts of the sex industry, receiving reviews carry emotional, psychological, financial, and even physical health effects that could be discussed or understood far more than we currently collectively do. Although the experiences vary, I have broadly divided them in my work into two overlapping categories: the direct effect on emotional and psychological well-being, and the effect on livelihood, reputation, and financial safety.
Of course, sex work is not the only profession affected by reviewing. For example, tattoo artists, therapists, massage practitioners, and many other small businesses where the worker and client share more closeness can share the complexity of public reviews. Negative feedback can be distressing, especially when work is personal or emotionally invested. However, in my opinion, regarding to sex work, the boundaries and context of what is considered acceptable public commentary are indeed much looser and approached noticeably differently than in other sectors and professions. This can easily create a complicated relationship with something that should be a basic aspect of one’s work.
When preparing this article, I chose to interview owners and moderators from different platforms that either facilitate advertisement or reviews of sex workers, alongside sex workers and their clients, in order to gain a broader understanding. I found large differences in how platforms approached reviews and moderation. Some websites had removed review functions entirely because of concerns around safety and mental health impacts. Others keep reviews but apply different levels of moderation, including investigations into individual cases or stricter rules around language, or how purposeful a review is. And some operate completely unsupervised, or moderated by a small group of clients of sex workers. One thing I found particularly important to mention is that platforms involving sex workers directly in moderation or development have much stronger guidelines around reviews or have chosen to remove the function altogether.
A woman in sex work I interviewed for this article described the emotional impact of trying to recover from a negative review, and a dropped general rating on an advert site, by saying:
“And all the time, till I arrived back to having 5 stars again, I felt very very bad, like that I’m not good enough. So it’s having a very bad effect on sex workers’ mental health.”
When directly asking sex workers what changes they would most like to see, many mentioned wanting more control over reviews written about them. Some wished for the ability to moderate reviews themselves, while others wanted stricter rules around language, body commentary, or intimate details. One of the most common wishes was the removal of numerical and star-rating systems entirely. Many described not feeling okay with being publicly measured or ranked against others in this way.
At the same time, removing review systems entirely would not automatically solve these issues. Many workers rely on reviews as one of the few accessible ways to build credibility independently, especially in criminalized or stigmatized environments where traditional advertising and labour protections are limited. Reviews can also provide reassurance for clients and create forms of community accountability when moderation is handled responsibly.
One platform representative I interviewed, who has worked in the industry as a sex worker, developer, moderator, and platform owner, suggested that the future conversation around reviews may not only lie in improving review systems themselves, but in reducing the amount of power they currently hold. Rather than relying so heavily on public reviews as the primary source of trust, they reflected on whether platforms could create other ways for workers and clients to build credibility, transparency, and mutual understanding. Better information, clearer communication, and stronger relationships between platforms, workers, and clients may reduce the pressure currently placed on reviews as the main measure of trust.
They also reflected that many of these challenges exist within the broader reality of criminalisation and stigma. In a future where sex work is decriminalised and workers have greater access to labour protections, safer advertising, and clearer professional standards, reviews may no longer need to carry the same weight they do today. Rather than asking only how review systems should be moderated, it may also be worth asking how much responsibility they should carry in the first place.
As I’ve covered in this article, reviews in sex work are a complex topic. My biggest suggestion and takeaway is that we should approach it as a work and health concern rather than through moral panic or via simplistic conclusions. I believe it is more useful to ask how these systems and the surrounding social standards could evolve to better support safety, fairness and understanding, so that reviews could become a safer part of sex workers’ working lives.
Tools & Support
If you’re reading this and are a sex worker, know one, or work in support of sex workers, I wish to share a few different ways that could make a positive difference.
I recommend avoiding reading reviews immediately after appointments or during emotionally vulnerable moments. I also recommend asking a trusted person to screen reviews before reading them or to be present whilst reading them. Receiving support outside of work where you’re not being evaluated through a professional lens can feel safe and give an alternate perspective.
I strongly recommend embodiment practices. Different forms of movement, yoga, mindfulness, meditation, or grounding exercises may also help reconnect to the body outside the framework of performance and public appearance. Maintaining hobbies, friendships, creative projects, and communities unrelated to work can strengthen a sense of self that exists beyond reviews and client perception.
Clear professional boundaries can also reduce emotional strain. It could be useful to clearly define which services, behaviours, language, or expectations you are comfortable with and communicate those boundaries openly in their advertising or other processes. One can also directly discuss review etiquette with clients and explain what kinds of details feel respectful or safe to share publicly.
Community support matters deeply. Conversations between sex workers about boundaries, difficult experiences, moderation, or anything connected to reviewing can be a relationally therapeutic experience and create shared knowledge of ways of navigating this part of the work.
Advocacy and support from platforms can also make a positive energy shift. Sex workers should be included in discussions about moderation policies, acceptable language, privacy protections, and review system design.
Thank you for reading until the end! Your support means the world.
