Throwaway because I'm drawing on firsthand experience from illegal activity. I think it's important to highlight the diversity of sex work. Seeking Arrangement also had the lowest correlation with arrests, Nearly all of my experience with sex work as a client is off Seeking Arrangment.
For those unfamiliar it's a site for people to engage in "sugar dating", where a "sugar daddy" compensates a "sugar baby" to spend time with him, ostensibly unconnected to any expectations of sex. I find these terms cringeworthy, I'll call it compensated dating. In practice there's almost always expectations of sex. There's definitely a sizeable overlap between SA and traditional escorting sites, browse both and you'll come across the same profiles with moderate frequency.
But in general, "sugar dating" involves a sizeable chunk of activities beyond having sex. It's expected to take dates out to dinner, movies, and other activities one would normally do on dates.
I think Aella is being a bit snide when she calls this "the veneer of not being a real sex worker". Almost all of the people I met considered it sex work and weren't under any illusion about the fact that money was changing hands in exchange for sex.
It's not uncommon for people to meet in person once or twice before agreeing to meet for sex. These initial meetings are almost always in public or semi-public places restaurants, bars, parks, malls. Most people give each other real names after meeting in person. I suppose this could also reduce safety, but there's a M. Many of the women on SA that I met spoke negatively of instances where men only saw them for an hour to have sex and didn't want to spend time together outside of the bedroom.
