Prioritizing Health and Safety in the Adult Industry
The adult industry is often viewed as full of confusion but recently there has been a huge shift in what is considered to be an appropriate standard of care in the adult industry. When working within this industry, safety is not just a requirement, but a key aspect for creating a long-term, professional career!
The upcoming World Day for Safety and Health at Work is a reminder that everyone who works should have the right to work in an environment that promotes health and safety, no matter what profession they choose. The Oklute blog strongly believes that the adult industry should be required to follow the same standards for Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) as all other industries!
Recognizing Sex Work as Work
One of the most important steps to enhancing safety standards in the sex industry is the reorientation of sex work toward “work” through social/cultural and legal recognition as a “professional occupation.” By treating these services as a professional service, we remove the stigma that typically prevents those who use these services from disclosing unsafe conditions, and seeking assistance.
Normalizing the profession opens the door to ensure accountability for safe working environments. Establishing professional standards for sex workers will provide opportunities to establish standardized safety procedures, legal protections and access to resources that can assist in protecting the health, safety and well-being of the work force. By establishing an understanding of sex work as a professional industry, we provide workers with the ability to advocate for improved working conditions, equitable treatment of employees, and most importantly, the right to work without fear of violence or exploitation.
The Pillars of Personal Safety and Risk Management
Personal safety and risk management are extremely important for independent professionals and individuals working in agencies, creating a solid foundation for a long-lasting career. The nature of the work requires significant levels of direct interaction with other individuals (clients) as well as often requiring independent travel or having solo meetings with clients.
Managing risk is about being proactively prepared rather than being afraid. To be prepared involves the following elements:
Vetting Protocols: Establishing strong processes for identifying & verifying & validating identities / credentials of prospective clients before you meet with them.
Communication Chains: Creating a process whereby you check into someone you trust (i.e., family/friend, trusted co-worker) so that they are aware of your location and expected return time.
Physical Environment: Making investments in secure facilities (physical security), high security locks, and covert intrusion alarms, etc.
Mental Health Boundaries: Understanding that safety also applies to mental well-being. Creating clear boundaries and knowing when to remove yourself from an extremely stressful situation is an essential part of creating a safe work environment.
By treating these elements as standards which professionals in a workplace must adhere to, employees regain control over their work surroundings.
How Oklute Can Improve Safety in Your Work
Recognizing that many workers are feeling more alone than ever when working in the adult industry, we’ve created an opportunity to influence and shape the future of the adult industry through collaborative models of social interaction and digital verification. The Oklute app was designed as a solution to bring together two major elements of security – digital interaction and physical security – into one centralized platform, which enables us to better protect users at every stage of their path and interaction with us.
The goal of Oklute is to provide a safer working environment for adult industry workers by combining technology with a community-based approach to verified safety. Oklute will do this by offering the following benefits to the adult industry worker:
1. Verify Trustworthiness of Your Connection with Someone
Oklute minimizes the chance of the person you’re interacting with being a potentially harmful or malicious individual through the implementation of verification steps to further minimize risk and allow users to check to see if the individual they are working with has an established reputation in the community.
2. Create Safer Connections with Other Professionals
The introduction of a high level of standards for safety when connecting client’s to workers through an established protocol (Oklute) between client and worker will help increase the safety of workers through the creation of safer communication channels for clients and workers and minimize the risk of clients that don’t have acceptable intentions communicating with workers.
3. Create a Safer Community for Workers
Oklute is providing a mechanism to establish a community of workers that are held to a higher standard of conduct in terms of their work, having a mutual interest in each other’s well-being, and expanding their abilities to interact with one another to improve the overall safety of the entire adult industry.
4. Educational Resources to Improve Safety for Workers
We continually seek out and provide resources that help educate workers on ways to improve their job or business performance, the safest way to conduct their daily business, and how to grow in a way that provides for their long-term success both professionally and personally.
Moving Toward a Safer Future
The journey toward a safe adult industry is ongoing, and as we mark the World Day for Safety and Health at Work, now is a good time to reflect on how far we’ve come — and how far we still have to go.
Safety does not happen by accident; it is the product of purpose, planning and cooperation. By following the principles of recognized labor and using the tools provided by the Oklute platform, which values people, we can create a professional, safe and empowering industry.
At Oklute, we will always be your support on this journey. We encourage you to use our tools, be part of the conversation and demand the safety standards you deserve. Because when you feel safe in work, you are able to perform at your best according to your own terms.
Your safety is our top priority. Together with Oklute, we can create a safer and more professional adult working future. Explore more conversations and follow us on X for updates.
