I Went From Liberal Lesbian And Sex Worker To Catholic Conservative Mom—Here’s My Story

It started in the South. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood with a secret: my family was not like the others. A child of divorce, I was shipped between houses that were filled with tension, instability, and abuse of almost all flavors. After high school, I went to a local college where I wasted a year’s tuition on partying. Armed with a new tolerance for drugs and alcohol, I dropped out after my freshman year and made my way to San Francisco, where I entered a program entitled “UnCollege,” a startup aimed at “self-directed learning.”

After a year of UnCollege, I started working in the food industry scooping ice cream and waiting tables. I quickly learned that I was objectively attractive, and this afforded me certain advantages. This realization, paired with the desperation of escaping my hometown, led me to my first taste of exploiting myself: I became a Hooters Girl. I wore the neon orange shorts after my time on the West Coast as I figured out my next step. As someone who loved to write and opine, I took an opportunity to start a blog where I spoke about the “feminism” of working at a place like Hooters. I was even quoted for an article where I claimed that working at Hooters was actually a sort of “power move,” as I was “taking control” of the exploitation of men. This was the first of many lies I whispered to myself in order to validate my poor choices. Like many lost twenty-something-year-olds, I eventually found my way to New York City.

I barreled through my twenties in New York City with the ferocity of a woman who needed to find meaning. With me came a baggage full of childhood trauma and a desperation for escapism. I was quickly welcomed into the arms of a city that not only accepted my bad habits but armed me with new ones. My taste for alcohol and drugs grew year after year, and my sexual habits reflected the disregard I held for my body, myself, and my safety. My social bubble was filled with liberals who echoed my opinions about feminism and taught me new ideas about sexuality, “sex work,” and every other social issue. I found purpose in certain jobs, dabbling in startups, restaurant management, rock climbing gyms, coffee shops, and boutique grocery stores. I worked at a comedy club and rubbed elbows with big names that included me in their after-parties. I nannied for families in Manhattan whose wealth surmounted anything I had ever seen. I modeled for hair salons and a high-end drug store, all the while living in a perpetual state of either hungover or under the influence.

I treated myself with the same respect I had for any God at the time; as an atheist who hadn’t bothered to consider religion as something worth my attention. I was never exposed to religion as a child in any meaningful way, and I was convinced that I was smarter than anyone who dared believe in a God. My religion was materialism, booze, and myself. I threw myself toward men and eventually women—an inevitable step as a Brooklyn-dwelling liberal. I grasped onto a lesbian identity, certain that being gay was the answer to my deeper longings for some sort of meaning, some sort of answer.

My religion was materialism, booze, and myself.

In my time as a lesbian, one thing shifted in my political identity: I was exposed to TERFs, or “trans-excluding radical feminists.” I quickly found the marriage between the trans movement and the gay identity incompatible. I wrote a few pieces for a right-wing publication and gained some traction on X as “the loud lesbian,” gaining a semi-large following as I unapologetically spoke about the hypocrisy of the trans movement. It wasn’t long until cancel culture scared me into silence; I eventually deleted all my social accounts and begged for my articles to be erased from the internet as I feared never being able to hold a job. This was 2017, a time when being transphobic was the worst thing you could be in the eyes of liberals—a group I was still aligned with, minus this one issue.

Eventually, my “lesbianism” phased out of my life, and I moved on with my search for whatever it was I was looking for. I went through relationship after relationship, most of which I ruined with my substance abuse. Each chapter was as unfulfilling as the next. I held on tight to the basic beliefs that my peers held: my body, my choice; religion is oppressive; sex work is real work; and values ultimately boil down to what is “best” for each person. It was a lazy, unexamined life. Meanwhile, I continued to drown myself in substances, often waking up in cabs, slumped over on a barstool, or in a stranger’s bed. It was a slow suicide. I littered myself in tattoos that I made up meanings for because my body was simply a commodity. And at a certain point, it was for sale.

I entered into “sex work” the same way I entered into Hooters: by validation from feminist rhetoric. I made a profile one day during a particularly tough financial period on a website for “sugar babies”—women seeking older, wealthy men to “spoil” them. Naively, I imagined that sex wouldn’t be involved, that I could just be a pretty accessory on a dinner date. I quickly learned that in order to expect money from these men, I would have to give them what they were expecting. I was already hooking up with men from Tinder—usually the first night I met them and usually not sober—so what did it matter if money was involved? This was the inevitable end to the hookup culture I was so deeply entrenched in. My time as a sugar baby was short-lived, though immensely degrading and humiliating.

I entered into “sex work” the same way I entered into Hooters: by validation from feminist rhetoric.

The values I embodied stemmed from the idea that there was no such thing as inherent human dignity. I spoke about abortion as the norm and espoused the theory that sex work is just like any work since there is no sacredness to sex. I didn’t care to think about my opinions or my choices because, at the time, they were serving my selfish wants. The truth? I was taking the easy way out. That is, until I found God.

God saved me in His own time with the patience and grace of a father, all the while I ran from Him like a petulant child. I look back at some of my darkest days, and from the vantage point I have now, I can see His protection and guidance. I was accepted into Columbia University in 2019, by His grace, though I wouldn’t have given Him credit then. I decided to try for a degree after another lull in my work; I was sick of the restaurant and nanny industry and wanted some sort of long-term plan. After a well-written essay and charming interview, Columbia let me inside its ivy-covered walls. A new identity was born: student, while another remained—alcoholic.

I entered into an AA Zoom meeting one October day in 2020. That morning, I had woken up in my apartment with a text from the man I met on Tinder telling me that he left mid-hookup because I kept “passing out.” This was not an abnormal occurrence. Though, for some reason on that morning, the thought of getting sober seemed to materialize into my consciousness. So that’s what I did. I went through AA over the next year, completing all the steps and creating a version of God that, at the time, I called “spirituality,” which was basically my way of yet again excusing myself from seeking any sort of truth outside of my own. Sober from drugs and alcohol, the root of my problem still remained. I was sober, but I still suffered from a deep spiritual sickness. The promiscuity remained, and eventually, I succumbed to the appeal of OnlyFans.

OnlyFans was all the rage in 2022. I knew that starting an OF would bring in “easy” money, so yet again, I allowed myself to worship my materialism. The money came in strong for a while, but I again found myself in a position in which I was degraded and beaten down by the perversion of it all. No matter how much I tried to convince myself I was in control, I was always at the mercy of my customers and their requests. My body was once again for sale. The true healing began once my body was used for its true purpose.

I had been sober for almost three years when I got pregnant unexpectedly by a man I had only been dating for a few months. Thank God I held the belief at the time that abortion wasn’t “for me,” but it was okay for anyone else. My liberal friends reminded me of my right to choose when I told them the news. I walked the stage at my Columbia graduation six months pregnant. She was born two summers ago and is the greatest thing I will ever have. I love being her mother more than I’ve loved anything in this life. My daughter was a gift from God, and she ultimately led me to God.

For the first time, I faced and truly sat with my mistakes, and then I gave them to God.

After I experienced motherhood and the miracle of life, I started to do something I had never done: I looked for the truth. Not the truth that suited me and my self-serving agenda, but the real, objective truth. I drowned myself in books, podcasts, and debates on abortion, on religion, on anything I could find. For the first time, I felt truly confident in my views and values. I found truth in Christianity through the books of C.S. Lewis. I read the Bible for the first time in my life. I went to church. I eventually found my way to Catholicism through even more debates and reading. I baptized my daughter and was confirmed into the Church this past summer. I repented in the confessional. And for the first time, I faced and truly sat with my mistakes, and then I gave them to God. And He forgave me.

The purpose I so deeply wanted was ultimately found in both motherhood and finding closeness with God. I have lived many lives and can say with certainty that there is no greater joy than motherhood, despite what entertainment media tells us. My advice for women: do not walk into the warm glow of hedonistic materialism. It is a false light that is temporary and weak. The “easy” money is never truly easy. Have children. Find God.

I have and will continue to make mistakes. I have regrets that I live with every day and consequences from my past decisions that I will live with forever. I don’t deserve His grace, but I receive it every day, and now I have the privilege of using my story to help others—to lead them to a life of fulfillment, and to hopefully let my story ultimately be one of hope.