Table 5. Member checking—Women in Relationships.

Samantha	Charlotte
Samantha began sex work due to financial difficulties following the breakdown of her marriage, at which time she had mental health issues at the time and an unsupportive partner. At the time she was unemployed, homeless, did not have custody of her two children and needed money quickly to get back on her feet financially. She reported previously having a nine month relationship with a partner who wanted her to stop sex work and said he would support her financially. She stopped sex work but the relationship broke down and she re-started sex work to support herself. She did not want to remain in the sex industry but needed the money. The man she was currently dating was more supportive of her work in the sex industry.	Charlotte and her partner have an open relationship and began sex work after they began getting paid to attend ‘swingers’ parties every few months that they had already been attending as a couple. Following this Charlotte was asked to do threesomes which she enjoyed however she did not want this as her only job and so she started working privately as an escort. She reported she had been reluctant to do escort work very often though due to safety concerns and ended up working in a parlour instead. She felt that sex work had some important positive impacts on her life.
…he believes he doesn’t have a right to tell me not to do it or that he doesn’t like me doing it. He doesn’t believe he has the right to say that.	I was always very self-critical. And it wasn’t until I started swinging that I realised actually people do find me desirable and I guess that’s what pushed me into sex work. I do totally agree though that I feel empowered, like I hold the cards.
She also reported that stigma surrounding the sex industry was a huge problem.	Charlotte has kept her work secret from others mainly because she wants to protect her young children from bullying and the stigma associated with sex work. Charlotte kept some sex acts separate from work and home.
…and you know it’s a stigma, similar stigma with mental health and the issues that people face with having a mental illness in society. It’s not accepted.	Like I just keep between me and him. Like if I do it all the time at work it’s no longer special… I promise him I won’t do it to anyone else.
Samantha felt that she had a separate persona she put on at work to separate it from her personal life.
I can be professional and I can be somebody else and you know walking into an acting job and playing that role and at the end of the day I take off the clothes and the make-up and I put on, you know, and I’m just me then.
Lauren	Anna
Lauren had worked as a receptionist in a brothel for years before deciding to try sex work for a few months to gain an insight into the experiences of sex workers, ‘on the other side of the desk’. She continued to do sex work to supplement her income after losing her reception job, in conjunction with a further desk job. She met her partner through sex work but as the relationship became more serious he was not comfortable with her working. At the same time she also became pregnant to a client. She quit sex work but then lost her desk job and had to go back to sex work again but did not tell her partner.	Anna began sex work as she had been sleeping with a number of partners but found this ‘disappointing’ and ‘unfulfilling’ and wanted to have more sexually adventurous experiences. She felt sex was something she was very good at and would like to try it in a safe and controlled environment, like a brothel. Her partner was living interstate and she had not told him about her work as she anticipated that he would think it was ‘wrong’. She felt that she may also not be comfortable if he was doing sex work and therefore he would not be with her doing it.
…and he would drop me off sometimes and I would literally walk through the door, go down to the underground carpark, sit in the underground carpark for 10 minutes knowing that the car, he’d be gone by then, and then get out of there and go [to work].	I just think ultimately we just have different values. I don’t know if I would be okay with it if he was having sex with people for money, but just because I am so sure in how I feel about my work, and how it’s work, I feel really confident in knowing that, like they’re separate but like he would never understand that.
She found it very difficult to keep lying to her partner.	She did not understand the stigma associated with sex work in the wider community.
She separated her work and home life by developing a different persona with a different name.	…she [author of ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl] says this thing about how society is ok about like a man and a woman meeting each other in a bar and going home to have sex and how it’s totally not ok if an agency has arranged that and checked that the guy is like ok and money changes hands and I really feel like it is, it’s just sex.
…I used to come into work and think ‘Oh great! I’m *Sally* and *Sally* doesn’t have to think about how she had a fight with her sister or uni’s [sic] hard or there’s a mountain of bills at home and her Mum is stressing. She can be happy and fine.	Anna kept things separate by creating boundaries around the location of her work and personal lives.
	…work happens at work and I leave and just go home and eat a salad, it’s not, there’s no, yeah I feel really separate.