The Problem with Protonmail: A Sex Work Scandal

Sex work and Proton Mail go together like a submissive and his teeny tiny chastity cage. (Locktober is finally here!) I wanted to look professional so I also joined the "Let's sign up for Proton Mail!" trend that occurred around 2016 when Proton became open to the public. That's right, I didn't know what end-to-end encryption was (and I still don't really know nor am I interested in knowing but I kinda sorta get the non-technical gist) but I do know one thing: Marketing and storytelling.

That's why I put the words "problem" and "scandal" in the title of this blog. Humans have a negativity bias and our ears perk up when we sense negativity/danger/a problem. So no, there's no Proton Mail "scandal" per se but there is a real problem with this email service. Although many tweets have been posted about this issue, I don't think most workers and clients are aware of the drawbacks of using this service.

Problems with Proton

I knew that other SWers were using the service and I wanted to fit in and look like I knew what I was doing. More encryption is always a good thing, right? SW clients are so ridiculously paranoid about booking SWers that some refuse to even send me a gift card deposit (bought with cash) because CVS will scan their ID! The terror!

I lost two potential clients who refuse to, no joke, buy a gift card with cash (and take a photo of the claim code so I can redeem it) because they assume that somehow that gift card could be associated with me, a SW, and magically the entire world would know that they see SWers. The clerk at CVS has to scan the ID of anyone buying a gift card over $100 and no, they're not saving the ID and somehow attempting to prove that the gift card a client bought was used to pay a SWer's deposit. When I redeem an Ubereats gift card to my account using my civ identity, it doesn't somehow out my client as my client because the CVS cashier scanned his ID when he bought the card but that doesn't matter. Logic doesn't factor into the equation with certain folks.

It is logical, however, to use a more private email service to communicate with workers. Anything with the word "encryption" in it is going to be popular with sex workers and our clients.

I started having issues with my beloved Proton Mail email address after a few months. Clients have informed me that they emailed me but I didn't receive the message and vice versa. Disintegrated, evaporated into the deep dark cyber void like my soul before I found the God/dess. My emails end up in spam folders all the time, especially with AOL addresses. This issue has been discussed my many SWers on Twitter/X for years. Many workers have transitioned back to Gmail, Yahoo and the other encrypted service, Tuta mail.

Why are Major Email Services Blocking Proton Mail?

Greed. Capitalism. Profit motive. If I ran AOL or Gmail, I'd probably block the occasional Proton Mail email from coming through because it would increase shareholder value. SWers get frustrated when their Proton emails are sent to spam and go back to totally-not-private Gmail because the point is to successfully communicate. They think, if Big Brother reads and analyzes my emails, oh well. Major email providers are incentivized to discourage folks from using more secure email services and it makes sense that they would make it difficult to be a Proton Mail user.

As a huge fan/believer of conspiracy theories (Courtney killed Kurt, Lyme Disease was created by the government during the Cold War as a Biological Weapon (read the books and look at the evidence before you discredit knowledge), etc.), I find it very interesting that Proton Mail's PayPal account was frozen when the company withdrew $275,000 in donations while building their company. The Daily Dot reports, "Most incredible of all, the PayPal representative was unsure if Proton Mail has the necessary government approval to encrypt emails, as though anyone who encrypts needs a license to do so."

The government has been cockblocking Proton Mail from day 1. To think that Google, Microsoft and our government aren't cozy BFF bedfellows is naive and the anti-privacy bent, love of surveillance/control displayed by our government/Google/the global elites is obvious. Both the government and Google have a vested interest in surveilling citizens and dissuading folks from using encrypted services.

It's not outside of the realm of possibility that the US government nudged PayPal to freeze Proton's funds. Or maybe PayPal genuinely isn't a fan of privacy. That's an issues a real, connected journo would have to investigate.

Of course, I'm merely speculating. It may be a total an utter fluke that the email service SWers use is shitty and causes us to lose clients. There may be some deep technical explanation for this dropping of emails that I'm unaware of.

Still, Proton Mail is the email service of choice for SWers and our clients. Most people aren't even aware that a few of their Proton messages weren't delivered to went to spam. Most SWers haven't been in the biz for as long as I have and aren't aware of this issue. Clients are generally using their Proton addresses to email providers who are also using Proton addresses and Proton-to-Proton emails aren't dropped or sent to spam.

The Solution: BS 'em and Finesse 'em

The solution is, as always, messaging. Storytelling, Marketing. Total and utter BS. The human brain really is quite easy to manipulate. We see someone email us from "hotbitch@hotbitch.com" and subconsciously think, dang, they have their own website and email address! I now automatically trust this person and the message they're sending me. One must be "serious" about one's business if one has a website with a personalized email address!

It's pretty cheap-ish to buy a domain name, pay for a premium website subscription with Squarespace or Wix, and pay for a domain email address so I have little to no trust in a business simply because they have a website with a domain email address.

Either SWers go back to Gmail et al., which appears unprofessional because it's not encrypted (although most clients don't actually care), or risk losing clients with a Proton Mail address that sends our emails to spam. Either way, we may lose clients.

I have recently paid for and set a domain name email address that isn't anymore secure than a Gmail address. It's not end-t0-end encrypted but that doesn't matter. It looks professional and credible even though it isn't. It takes some time for the domain name email to fully function but I'll be updating my email address soon while also continuing to use Proton Mail. If you're one of the very rare clients who genuinely freaks out about using non-end-to-end-encrypted email, you can still contact me at my Proton Mail address.

Update: My domain name email address isn't working yet. I probably did something wrong when setting up the DNS registration so we'll see what happens. I don't want to scare potential clients by not using Proton but only half of my clients use Proton. I get emails all the time from guys who are "concerned about privacy" contacting me from a Gmail or Apple email address. Most people are truly illiterate when it comes to online privacy and aren't afraid of Google reading their emails; They're afraid of sex workers.

(Shoutout to the SW who stated this so eloquently: Most clients don't care about privacy despite their attempts to claim that they do. They care about remaining anonymous with sex workers because they don't see us as real business people and don't trust us.)

If I get one more text message like this at 2AM, I'll be the next great, awesome and legendary female serial killer.

Texting and Privacy for SWers

Privacy advocates also love Signal, as do I.

I hate to admit that I'm a tech doomsayer pessimist. I'm going to sound utterly deranged here but... I believe that it doesn't matter whether my communication modes are encrypted or non-encrypted: Big Brother knows all. Our phones are secretly scanning every little thing on our phone screens and unless we have one of those totally rad ghost phones, we're being surveilled in some way. I'm not ever going to attempt to be a politician or run a Fortune 500 company so I don't care if Big Brother knows I do SW. However, I do want to protect myself and my clients while still making money and not risking more emails going poof into the void so I also chat with clients on Signal.

Someone who's more educated on tech can explain how awesome Signal is in great detail so I'll leave it at this: It's encrypted. You can set chats to disappear after 1 hour, 1 day, etc. Every SW to SW conversation I have occurs on Signal yet I've only been able to convince a few clients to download it.

Text apps DO NOT WORK.

Allow me to repeat this for the baby SWers in the back: TEXT APPS DON'T WORK. Even the paid ones. I have paid for tons of texting apps and, like Proton, inevitably lose clients.

I had an especially neurotic client (a doctor, of course) who had showed up at my incall but I wasn't receiving his texts so he emailed me in a frantic freakout.

"I'm here! Why aren't you answering your phone?"

My paid text app hadn't sent me his texts. I had to uninstall and reinstall the app in order to get it to work again and if you talk to enough providers who've been doing this for years, they'll tell you the same thing.

Please don't forget to like, comment and repost my Bluesky post promoting this blog if you found it even mildly entertaining because social media engagement helps clients find me!

Did you read this blog? Thank you! I love knowing that all my experience as a SW hasn't been in vain and that I can make meaning by attempting to help others, even if it's simply with a bit of entertainment.