My Response to Radio-Canada's Enquete : Dans l'ombre des agences d'escortes
In the wake of Radio-Canada's Enquête investigation into Montréal escort agencies, i think it’s time to have more open conversations about sex work, consent, and what actually makes workers safer.
The latest Enquête investigation into escort agencies has brought stories of mistreatment, exploitation, and abuse into the public conversation. These are serious issues. They deserve to be investigated, and the people responsible for harming sex workers should be held accountable.
But there is a problem with the way these stories are often presented. In the pursuit of a compelling investigation, complex experiences become simplified, shocking sexual acts become shorthand for abuse, and agencies (as a whole) become the villains in a story that involves far more people and systems than that. As someone who has worked in escort agencies for over 6 years of my sex work experience, I have experienced abuse while doing so, but i also genuinely loved working in that environment for a time. I find this framing frustrating. Not because I believe every agency is good. I don’t want to minimize what other women have experienced and i believe every single of these experiences to be true. Watching the video for the 3rd time, i believe we are doing sex workers a disservice when we fail to distinguish between sex work and exploitation, between kink and abuse, and between the place where violence occurs and the person responsible for committing it. If we genuinely want to make sex work safer, we need to be willing to have a more complicated conversations and actually change the way things have been operating.
I want to make it clear, before we continue, that i stand with the victims. I believe abuse should be investigated and that perpetrators be held accountable. My current critique is about the conclusions drawn from the reporting, not the legitimacy of the women’s experiences.
I have been abused while working in agencies. I also loved working in them.
Let's start with my own experience.
I have experienced abuse in different agencies throughout my career. I’ve been repeatedly touched by clients after telling them no, i knew for a fact that if i would mention i dont do xyz to a specific type of client that they would immediately try to do it. i’ve almost been kidnapped, i’ve been held captive. Let’s just say that i’ve been through a lot. And i’m not saying that these aren’t traumatic, cause they were. But the abuse I experienced came from clients that gave themselves the liberties to disrespect me, not from the agencies themselves. That distinction matters to me. I would never tell another sex worker that her experience of exploitation by an agency owner or manager wasn't real. Some/many agencies are exploitative. Some treat workers terribly. Some prioritize profit over safety, and those that engage in abuse should be exposed and held accountable.
For many sex workers, agencies provide services that make the work more manageable. They handle advertising, inquiries, scheduling, and administrative logistics. They help connect workers with clients without requiring each worker to operate an entire business independently. They maintain the incalls, the essentials, do the laundry and do all the errands. You can show up, do your work, and go home without spending half a day answering messages, managing bookings, maintaining a website, marketing yourself online and handling every other administrative task that comes with working independently. For someone who enjoys the work but doesn't necessarily want to be an entrepreneur, that arrangement can be genuinely valuable, and i found, for myself, well worth the 80$/h fee at the time. Just maintaining an incall and having an assistant as an independent represented around 3k a month of investments(that’s 37h of bookings fees). And that’s without all the other fees involved.
There is nothing inherently exploitative about an agency charging a fee for legitimate services, provided the arrangement is fair, transparent, and safe. The problem is not that agencies exist. The problem is when an agency exploits the people who work through it, fails to take their safety seriously, or allows dangerous behaviour to continue without appropriate consequences. Those are specific problems that require specific solutions. Treating all agency work as inherently abusive doesn't help. Acknowledging that agency work can be valuable doesn't excuse exploitation. Exploitation comes from the power dynamic the owners can abuse of, the fear of refusing clients, unfair conditions, coercion, etc.
I would love to see an ethical agency or agency style collective, where there is service for a fee, with transparent terms, meaningful choices, worker safety and autonomy.
Kink and Consent
One aspect of the recent reporting that particularly concerns me is the way certain sexual acts are presented as inherently humiliating or abusive.
Ejaculating on someone's face, urinating on someone, vampire roleplays or choking kinks. Acts that many people might find degrading, uncomfortable, or even repulsive. Let's be clear: these acts can absolutely be part of an abusive encounter. If someone imposes them on a sex worker without consent, ignores a refusal, or pressures a worker into accepting something they do not want, that is a serious violation.
But the act itself does not tell us whether abuse occurred. Some people actively enjoy these practices. Some specifically request them. Some find pleasure, excitement, intimacy, or empowerment in experiences that another person might find deeply unpleasant. For one person, being urinated on is an absolute boundary, for another, it is a desired fetish. Neither person is wrong for feeling the way they do about their own sexuality. The same principle applies to consensual humiliation, BDSM, degradation, restraint, and countless other sexual practices that exist outside conventional expectations.
There is a difference between humiliating someone against their will and engaging in consensual humiliation. That difference is consent.
When we portray a particular sexual act as inherently abusive, we risk stigmatizing people whose consensual sexual practices are already subject to judgment and misunderstanding. We bring back social pressure and shame onto people who share these tastes in full enthusiastic consent. This is especially troubling when the discussion concerns sex workers, whose sexuality is so often treated by society as something that other people are entitled to interpret, judge, or define for them. A sex worker can enthusiastically agree to an act, enjoy it, and choose to offer it as part of her work. Another worker can refuse that exact same act, and her refusal must be respected just as equally.
No worker owes a client access to their body in ways they do not want. Neither should have their experience defined for them by an outside observer who assumes that a particular act must be humiliating simply because it looks that way or that they wouldn’t like it themselves.
Could the sex workers refuse or stop without being threatened, coerced, or punished? Did the clients honour the agreement? We must also recognize that consent can be compromised by coercion, threats, deception, and circumstances that make refusal unsafe. Simply obtaining a yes is not enough if someone has been manipulated into giving it or cannot safely withdraw it. Introducing an unnegotiated act can create pressure, and attempting it without consent or refusing to accept a no is a violation. The fact that a worker may feel pressured to accommodate a request is a serious concern. We should be teaching people to recognize the absence of consent, not teaching them which sexual acts they should find offensive. We can condemn coercion without condemning kink. We can recognize sexual violence without portraying particular sexual practices as inherently violent. And we can take abused sex workers seriously without suggesting that everyone who engages in those practices is participating in abuse.
The existence of consensual versions of a practice doesn't diminish the experience of someone who was violated. It means we should identify the violation accurately: the absence of consent, coercion, or disregard for boundaries.
The Clients
Another part of this conversation is the lack of responsibility we assign to clients. When a client ignores a refusal, violates an agreement, uses coercion, or behaves violently, that client should be responsible for their actions.
An agency may also bear responsibility if it fails to protect workers, dismisses complaints, or knowingly continues accepting bookings from someone who has demonstrated dangerous behaviour. Those failures matter, and agencies should be held accountable for them. It seems we fail to look directly at the people who commit the abuse, which is most often the clients. This reportage thing put a spotlight on the agencies but the actions described by most of the sex workers were actions clients did to them. Why are they invisible ? Why are the people doing the harm not also showcased in this. In my experience, one of the major problems in agency work is the anonymity and lack of meaningful consequences for the dangerous clients. And that’s where dangerous clients go, to places they can be anonymous and cause harm without consequences.
Depending on the agency's practices, a client may be able to book an appointment, arrive, leave, and move on to another agency with little accountability for how they behaved. They often don’t event need to provide a real name, or a real phone number. Some clients appear to interpret that anonymity as permission as there is no direct consequences to them if they misbehave. They assume that because they are paying, they can push boundaries, try to get more bang for their buck. And clients are also taught that some providers offer “extras” so it’s a habit for them to enter with the idea of negotiating with money in hand. They assume a worker will tolerate something she has already refused, often by attempting to bribe. When nothing happens afterwards or they got what they wanted, those behaviours can be reinforced for them. A paid encounter is still an encounter between human beings. The worker remains entitled to refuse an act, change her mind, and expect the agreed-upon terms to be respected but there’s not enough space given in the room for that to happen. And if a client violates those boundaries, the response should not simply be to accept the next booking and hope the next worker has a better experience.
I don’t find it fair that clients fearing consequences is seen greater than sex workers opening a door to a Russian roulette potentially dangerous client. Why does all the risk have to fall on the sex workers.
What would actually make agency work safer?
If we want to improve safety, we need to move beyond asking whether agencies are good or bad and start asking what responsible agencies actually do/ should do.
Agencies advertise management, scheduling, working space and safety for their workers. I remember being hammered by agencies about how they are keeping us safe. But never once has anyone showed up in the room to protect me, i would have over and over clients i had banned, I would hear horror stories from other workers of clients i told the agency they should ban. If safety is the core of what is being hammered, then they should practice what they preach.
Agencies should have clear safety procedures, appropriate client verification, reliable ways for workers to report concerning behaviour, and policies that prioritize worker safety. But How? Here are my ideas.
1. All incalls should have, to the minimum, multiple safety buttons. There should be a way for providers to reach easily in different rooms, a button that would call the agency and have someone show up and remove the client, NO QUESTIONS ASKED. It should be a norm. I can’t believe in this day and age, sex workers are left alone in a room with a stranger with no resources to “escape” in the event something goes wrong.
2. I believe all clients should be screened with the same rigour that independents do. Pieces of ID, real phone numbers, references that are verified, etc. I believe that instauring measures where clients aren’t anonymous anymore already cultivates a respect and a fear of consequences. It gives workers a better chance of identifying a client and reporting an offence when they choose to do so. Privacy matters yes, and these are matters of private time.
3. I believe there should be better intermediates between authorities and the sex worker industry to report dangerous clients and abusive behaviours. A bit like the one they instaured in Calgary called the Bad Date Reporting system. I can’t believe we don’t have solutions of the type yet. Sex workers are often the first victims of violent men, especially if they feel anonymous and without consequences, why can’t we flag potentially dangerous men. Harsh but real example, i’ve had clients talk to me about fantasies of raping their young cousin… Where do i go to report that? There is potential for this cousin to be in actual danger. I didn’t even have the real name of the client to denonciate that information.
I also believe agencies should have a real incident report documentation that is done immediately, with systems in place to support the worker and the trauma they just faced.
4. I think agencies should have an internal system, with your schedule and planned bookings that give the name of the clients and their booking requests, if any ( extras), so the sex worker can plan accordingly but also can decline easily and without consequences. This system would have an internal documentation of the client and reviews from the other sex workers of the agency about this client. All providers anonymously review the client after the session to say if he was agreeable or if he did things untowards. That way the providers can also check this persons history and decide before meeting if this is the type of client she would like to see. It could be a simple : Client profile / Identity verified, Booking history, previous worker safety notes, and accept or decline booking. And the reviews should be prioritized around safety : Respected of boundaries, was respectful, etc. And there should be room to report unwanted touch, coercion, boundary pushing, etc. Which the agency deals with seriously or are reported with the point 3 solution.
There should also be a place to refuse to see a client just because "you don’t vibe" without it necessarily meaning that it’s because he is dangerous. Agencies could even add to that an administrative aspect for appointment and cancellation histories, and even to contact clients and providers in the event of an STI transmission.
I also think that this system should have a distinctive sex worker and admin facing side to not expose all of a clients personnel data.
This is probably too good to be true, and a programming nightmare. But i think there would be potential for something of the sort existing and helping actually make the sex workers safe. I think giving the power to the sex worker to have the full information upfront and the full decision to see a client or not would make such a huge difference. As an independent worker, i truly find that having all the information upfront is what makes me feel the most safe in my work.
When a client has assaulted someone, threatened a worker, ignored serious boundaries, or repeatedly engaged in abusive behaviour, there should be meaningful protective consequences. Depending on the circumstances, that should mean refusing future bookings, documenting incidents appropriately, sharing safety information through responsible channels, or supporting a worker who wants to report a crime.
There is also a wider industry problem. A client refused by one agency may simply approach another. If various agencies have no appropriate way to communicate safety concerns, the same person may continue putting others at risk. That is why we need to discuss not only agencies and policies but also the broader conditions that make it difficult to hold abusive clients accountable.
The responsibility cannot rest entirely on individual workers, who are often expected to identify dangerous behaviour, protect themselves in the moment, document what happened, and somehow prevent the same thing from happening to someone else. We should be building systems that make abusive behaviour harder to repeat, not simply asking workers to become better at surviving it.
We cannot talk about exploitation without talking about the conditions surrounding sex work.
The legal and social environment matters, too. In Canada, the criminal-law framework surrounding the purchase of sexual services creates particular challenges for the industry. Stigma and fear of judgment can also make it harder for workers to report abuse, access support, or seek help without worrying about how their occupation will affect their lives.
When someone fears being shamed, dismissed, or discriminated against because of their work, silence can become a survival strategy. That silence can benefit abusive clients and exploitative operators alike. We should be asking whether existing systems actually help workers protect themselves, report violence, and access meaningful support, or whether they create additional obstacles. We also need to stop treating the existence of risk as proof that every person involved in sex work is helpless or incapable of making informed decisions. People enter this industry for different reasons. They have different circumstances, preferences, boundaries, and ideas about what makes a working arrangement acceptable.
Recognizing someone's agency does not mean denying their vulnerability. A person can make informed decisions about their work and still experience exploitation. A person can enjoy their work and also deserve protection. A person can freely choose an unconventional sexual practice and still have the right to stop at any time. We cannot simply assume that the sex work itself explains or is the reason of every harm.
Investigative journalism should expose abuse without reducing an entire industry to it.
Investigative journalism has an important role to play in exposing wrongdoing. The women who came forward to share painful experiences deserve to be heard. Allegations of abuse should be investigated seriously, and the people responsible should be held accountable.
My criticism is not that these stories shouldn’t have been told. It is that we need to be careful about the conclusions we draw from them.
A report can expose genuine wrongdoing while leaving the public with an incomplete understanding of the industry. When the most shocking examples dominate the narrative, viewers can come away believing that exploitation is the only possible experience of sex work, that particular fetishes are inherently abusive, or that every agency is fundamentally dangerous. We should be asking sex workers what makes their work safer, what practices allow them to thrive, what support they need, and what failures leave them exposed to harm. We should be listening to the full range of their experiences. And we should be able to criticize exploitation without treating consensual sexuality as something that needs to be explained, justified, or defended to an audience that may not understand it.
Above all, we need to stop treating sex workers as a single, interchangeable group whose experiences can be summed up by the most shocking story available. We can have shockingly positive life changing stories as well.
We need to stop confusing sex work with exploitation, kink with abuse, and the location where violence occurs with the person responsible for committing it.
If the goal is to protect sex workers, then the conversation must be about more than exposing the darkest corners of the industry. It must be about understanding the conditions that allow abuse to happen, the people who commit it, and the concrete changes that would make it harder for them to get away with it. There’s always room for safety in sex work to evolve. Sex workers deserve more than to be the subjects of sensational stories.
Thanks for reading
April Killian
Various Sources and additional pertinent reads
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7762889/
https://aprilkillian.com/blogs/news/intention-vs-arousal-a-sex-workers-observation
https://aprilkillian.com/blogs/news/my-thoughts-on-sex-worker-rights-decrim-or-not-to-decrim
https://aprilkillian.com/blogs/news/what-consent-really-means
https://www.lapresse.ca/arts/chroniques/2026-10-08/enquete/medecin-specialiste-de-jour-recruteur-de-prostituees-la-nuit.php
Video Source : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/tele/enquete/site/episodes/1279294/agences-escortes-prostitution
