Former Stripper Describes How Sex Work Was "Deeply Impactful" On Her "Brain Chemistry" And Caused Lifelong Problems For Her

More and more young women are choosing to participate in porn or start an OnlyFans account. After all, we're taught that as long as you consent to it, it's perfectly fine to expose your naked body online to strangers who pay for it or even have sex on camera. TikToker @ritalinprc, who has 965,000 followers, shared an honest account of what sex work has done to her brain. She wants to warn other women that while stripping or creating an OnlyFans account may seem like easy work that doesn't affect you in the long run, it can actually ruin your brain chemistry and your entire life.

Former Stripper Describes How Sex Work Was "Deeply Impactful" on Her "Brain Chemistry" and Caused Lifelong Problems for Her

This TikToker started off by saying that she wishes more young women knew how stripping really affects women. She was just a teenager when she started engaging in this kind of sex work, and she says it had an awful effect on her brain. "I wish more people spoke about this," she said, wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She says doing porn, stripping for strangers, and even having an OnlyFans account is "so deeply impactful on your brain chemistry."

When she was a sex worker, she said she "lost all bodily autonomy" and "lost all sense of self." It got to the point where she couldn't even look at herself anymore, not because she was insecure but because she was looking at a tool for her income, a "compartment of bits and pieces" that she needed to survive. She says it's an "insane amount of pressure to put on someone," especially when you're young and traditionally beautiful. "If I'm not those things, I can't survive," she used to think to herself.

Stripping is almost glamorized in today's culture, not only with the rise of OnlyFans but with movies like Hustlers. But @ritalinprc says it's actually a degrading practice where your naked body is exchanged for cash and people just grab at you and talk about you like you are nothing more than a product. As much as women think they can just compartmentalize these things and detach themselves from it, she says it's not so easy. It really affects you in the long run.

"It did things to my brain that I can't even explain," she continued. "This caused things like eating disorders, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, sexual dysfunction, intimacy problems, problems in my relationships... It completely altered the course of my life."

There's another component that people never talk about: "the emotional labor of a job like this." She says it's about so much more than just getting naked and selling photos. You have to essentially become a therapist to strangers, whether you're stripping for them in person or chatting with them on OnlyFans. She would hear the "most gruesome, deeply troubling things" from complete strangers. She recalls people crying their eyes out and telling her that they've killed someone. This is "insanely hard to deal with as a 19-year-old," especially when you're not trained as a therapist. She said she was terrified that she would say the wrong thing and send that person over the edge, because she wasn't prepared or qualified to deal with these kinds of confessions.

The "lack of bodily autonomy" put her in very scary situations that changed her entire life forever. She wants this to be a warning to all women out there who are either considering sex work or are currently engaging in it. It might seem like easy work, especially the way our culture promotes it, but it can be one of the most harmful activities to engage in.