From financial freedom and social media fame to the hidden dangers and lasting consequences, Lillith Lodge reveals the realities of life as a high-profile escort in Australia
Lillith Lodge started working as an escort three and a half years ago, or as she calls it “as a full service worker”. She has since grown an impressive social media presence, with over 43,000 followers on Instagram and 112,000 on TikTok.
While she described her career as a “wild ride so far” that has led her to financial freedom, Lillith has also experienced the darker side of the industry.
The 29-year-old from Brisbane, Australia, exclusively told the Daily Star: “At this point now, I might have an incident once or twice a year when I’m genuinely unsafe and something really bad happens.
“But when I was new, that was way more frequent, particularly when I worked in establishments, brothels, whatever you want to call them.” In the UK, brothels are illegal. While the act of exchanging sexual services for money between consenting adults is legal, a number of related activities are criminal offences under the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and other legislation.
Meanwhile, prostitution is not illegal in all of Australia, but its legal status and regulation vary significantly by state and territory. Some jurisdictions, like Victoria and New South Wales, have decriminalised sex work, making it legal and removing most criminal penalties.
“Here in Queensland, Australia, we have full decriminalisation, which is like the best of the best for us,” Lillith explained. “It means that I’ve got two home loans under my income as an escort.
“There are still a lot of issues with the police and the way that they treat us”
“They can’t discriminate against me. I can go to the police and say this client assaulted me or whatever the case is.”
While the legality of her work should provide more safety, the law often fails sex workers. Lillith shared: [The police] don’t really care all of the time to be honest [if I complain about a client].
“There are still a lot of issues with the police and the way that they treat us, but we have a lot more rights than most other countries and places at the moment. We just have to hope that it keeps shifting in that direction because we’re people, we pay our taxes, we deserve to be treated the same as everybody else.”
When Lillith worked in brothels, dangerous situations would occur “every other week”, she said. “ It was crazy.”
She further revealed: “I feel like when you put up those private ads and you’re brand new, anyone who wants to take advantage of or hurt you, they target those ads because they’re advertised on the platforms as new.
“… And so all those guys, of course, go to those ads being like, ‘Well, she’s going to be a pushover, right? Cuz she’s new’.
“Drunk men is a red flag”
“So you get the worst of the worst when you start out. And you really have to learn the red flags and how they speak to you on the phone and how that translates to a booking because there’s a lot of things you can pick up on before you even have them in the room to be able to tell if they’re going to be difficult or not.”
Amongst the red flags, Lillith highlighted: “When [the clients] first inquire and they send massive oversharing messages, you know, it’ll be like, ‘My name is so and so, and I just got divorced and this and that and I’m struggling with insecurities’, and this big scrolling message as a first thing.
“Always have had issues with these guys every single time. They just don’t understand the worker-client relationship and the boundaries there.
“And you can tell that by the spelling of everything in the very first message. The disrespect for the time as well because it takes forever to read through that thing and get back to them when it says on the ad how they’re meant to contact.”
She continued: “Another one for me is the sentences not making sense. Even if it looks really mild and it’s just one letter that they haven’t corrected, a lot of the time I’ll be like, ‘Have you been drinking?’
“Because if they’ve been drinking or they’re on substances, they are a lot more likely to be super super rough in the room. We have no idea how many drinks they’ve had before they get to us, right?
“Married men tend to be more polite clients”
“It’s a bit different if they come here with a bottle of wine and we open the bottle of wine together and we have two or three drinks while they’re here, but I don’t know if they’ve had 10 before they arrive, right? And that’s just a recipe for disaster if they’re super drunk or on cocaine or anything like that.”
A final red flag: “I’d say just being really rude and entitled. So like, ‘Are you available? I can be there in 10 minutes’.
“You never want to see those kinds of guys because they have no respect for you as a human being.” Married men, who make up for about half of Lillith’s clients, tend to be more polite and cautious during their encounters, she said.
“[It’s] mostly because they are scared that if they piss us off we would go and tell the wife,” she admitted. “I think they really do walk on eggshells in a way and they shouldn’t have to, but it is quite nice when they’re being that polite and that respectful and they’re always the ones that’ll be like, ‘Is this okay?’ before they do something because I think they’re so terrified that we’re going to be able to find their name and their wife and tell her because that does happen unfortunately.”
With the rise of sex workers gaining popularity on social media platforms like TikTok, where their content is easily accessible to younger audiences, a common misconception has emerged that sex work is a quick and easy route to wealth. However, as Lillith clarified, the reality is far more challenging.
Lillith said: “We might talk about how much we made in a week or do a money count and things like that. And of course, people see that and they think, ‘Wow, she made $14,000 this week, I can go and put up an ad and I’ll make $14,000, too’.
“Influencers get more money”
“But I try to explain to them that it’s really not that simple. I wish it was.
“I wish it was a matter of you just sticking up an ad, you make 14 grand, you make what I make kind of thing. But it’s just that’s just not the case.
“It is so competitive in the space now. And all of the girls talk about it.
“It’s become like this need to be an influencer in order to make a lot of money as a sex worker. And the reason why I make that [or other influencers] is because they have this massive following.
“And a lot of our bookings are coming from our social media and from the men seeing us, watching us, deciding they feel comfortable to come and see us. When I started, I was making about $3 to $4,000 a week, which is still good money here in Australia.
“Don’t get me wrong, it was still good money, but it wasn’t this ridiculous like $15,000 for a booking kind of thing that you see shown on social media. It’s taken a long time to get to the point that I’m at now where that money is flowing in.”
“Some of the most unusual kinks I’ve had would be like getting farted on”
According to Lillith, every escort has personal boundaries regarding what they will and won’t do. As someone who is financially secure, Lillith is able to decline any requests she’s uncomfortable with and only accept work that suits her preferences.
“I do enjoy some of the kink requests,” she confessed. “It’s quite exciting to get to do something unusual.
“I’d say some of the most unusual ones I’ve had would be like getting farted on. There’s this big thing for these men who want to be dominated and have this woman just fart in their face and tell them off.”
Reflecting on her career, Lillith acknowledges that while her financial success and ability to choose clients offer her a degree of safety and autonomy, sex work can carry lasting personal and professional consequences. “I’m at a point now where I imagine if I’m to go back to a job I was doing before and I have to be back in a male-dominated workplace and more than likely one of them’s going to know who I am or what I was doing before,” she admitted.
She added: “It really closes a lot of doors for us…It’s a really dangerous job.
“I don’t care what the other girls want to say. They like to push this rhetoric that it’s a safe job and it’s not any different from cleaning homes. It is. It is. Unfortunately, it is.”
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