Kink as healing professional

ABSTRACT Too often, the power dynamics between a service provider and a client can contribute to a foundation that is difficult to overcome. For sex workers, seeking social services can be a fraught experience tinged in judgment, assumptions, and negative perceptions, even for the best-intentioned practitioner. This article asks the reader to re-consider a person trading sex not simply as a client seeking support, but as a peer - another healing professional with a skill set and unique offering that can mirror some of the best aspects of social work. Reframing professional, sexualized kink as a synecdoche of the broader industry, we can explore how sex workers offer a valuable and important space to clients, reform healing through somatic engagement, and possess a powerful skillset of nonjudgment and creativity that should be honored as a valuable strength. By re-shaping how we think about people who trade sex as peers engaged in healing work, service providers can begin to invert the power dynamics of service provision and find new avenues of seeing strengths, instead of stigmas, for sex workers.