It was kind of like, you have to build your clientele. And so I needed money and I began doing sex work.

My name is Tomik Dash. I am from Brooklyn, New York.

Nine years ago, I was living in London, England. I went there on the plan to be there for two weeks. All these things started happening that made it feel like I was supposed to stay. I found an apartment. I found a job in a salon and I ended up staying for six months.

The salon I was working in, it wasn’t like a salon where you walk in and you’re just busy right off the jump. It was kind of like, you have to build your clientele. And so I needed money and I began doing sex work.

At the time in the salon, right from when I started working there, I met this beautiful boy and we started dating really quickly and we fell in love really quickly and this was the first relationship that I was in, where I was doing sex work at the time and I was really kind of self-conscious about disclosing that to him, so I didn’t.

As time went on, he found out. And the way he found out was because he went through my phone. And I just basically told him everything. I told him the reason that I was doing it. I told him how much I was enjoying the benefits I was reaping from it, so much to the extent that I actually wanted to quit the salon.

He was just very self-conscious about me quitting the salon because he lived with his family and he’s like, “Well, what will they think if you’re here and you’re not working? Like how are you making money? What am I going to tell them? I can’t tell them that.” So I really stayed at the salon for him.

Being in London made me realize, I think I want to move to New York. We had discussed it and decided to move to New York together. I kind of went there first and kind of found the apartment and got everything set up. The room was $1,800 and a three bedroom apartment. We were meant to be splitting it and he wasn’t really making enough money to split it. Found a job at a salon. That still wasn’t enough to cover $1,800 on my own, so I was supplementing it with sex work again.

That relationship ended up dissolving, not because of that, but there was a lot of lessons learned from that, for sure.

After that breakup, I ended up meeting another guy and we started dating and I also did not disclose to him what I was doing. We were together for almost a year and… similar situation, I was asleep and a notification popped up on my phone and he read it and he never said anything about it. Towards the end of our relationship, we were having… our thing was issues with communication. As that came to a head, he brought up that he knew what I was doing and just asked me. He was like, “Well, why didn’t you tell me?” But that point, the relationship was ending and we broke up and I got into therapy.

One of the things that I really wanted to focus on was my shame around what I was doing. My therapist was like, “Why do you feel that way?” They’re like, “You live in New York City, which is a very hard city for people to live in. Everybody doesn’t make it. You pay all of your own bills. You keep a roof over your head. You are taking care of yourself. What is there to be ashamed of?” And kind of like focusing on that and really thinking about how they were right. Therapy was very helpful because once I got into the next relationship, I had a lot more confidence.

I met this guy who I was catching feelings for and I remember, probably a weekend, like just in text messages, I was just like, “Hey, I want to tell you something. I escort.” And he sent me a message back and he was just like, “Wow. Thank you for telling me. That’s not a big deal to me. And also by the way, I am HIV positive.” So it was kind of like a way for him to disclose something as well and it’s kind of like… I was like, okay, now we both have our cards on the table and it feels really good kind of going into something with open communication and honesty.

That relationship lasted for about two years. So halfway through that relationship, while I was still in therapy, I decided that I wanted to start a podcast and I wanted the podcast to be about sex work. It’s actually called “Sex Werrrk!” The podcast premise was basically me providing an opportunity for people who don’t have any kind of experience or interaction with sex workers, to get a glimpse of who we are, what we do, and it was also an opportunity for other sex workers to listen and be able to feel like you have peers.

I remember after I released the very first episode, I get a phone call from my mom and she’s like, “Hey babe. I’m in the car with your godfather and we just listened to your first episode of the podcast. I’m really proud of you.” She was like, “I didn’t know what to expect, but it was really educational and it was really enlightening. I’m glad that you feel strong enough to kind of stand in your power and do that.” I remember feeling if she doesn’t care, I really don’t give a fuck what anybody else thinks.

So today I am the president of a nonprofit organization out of Fire Island that advocates for racial and transgender equity in Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. It’s called BaBEC, which is the Black and Brown Equity Coalition. Also, I am the publisher of a regional LGBTQ Fine Art Magazine that goes out in Fire Island and in Provincetown in the summertime. They are called Fag Rag Fire Island and Fag Rag Provincetown. I still do sex work to support that.

Just looking back from where I started with kind of being very ashamed and being like doing this whole thing, like clandestinely and in the shadows almost, and not having anyone to talk to about it, to being completely open about it and proud about it, is just a nice kind of arc.