I've been a sugar baby for 7 years, but my life is not what people assume. Here's why I want to share the truth online.

• Palmar Kelly, 27, works as a sugar baby and posts content about her experience on TikTok.
• She said being a sugar baby can be fun, but there are lots of misconceptions she wants to dispel.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Palmar Kelly, 27, a TikTok creator who posts content about working as a sugar baby. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I moved from Florida to New York City to be an actor in 2015 when I was 19. I knew the move made sense to build my career, but I was struggling to make ends meet.

I tried working conventional jobs, but they took up all of my time and I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life waking up and doing the same thing every day, so my friends and I decided to become sugar babies.

In 2016, I signed up for a website and started talking to sugar daddies. One of the sugar daddies I met took me and some of his other sugar babies on a trip. We all got along really well and decided to start posting about our lives online.

I now live in Los Angeles, and I've been writing a TV show about being a sugar baby. I am hoping that posting TikTok videos will help me to sell it, and address society's misconceptions about my lifestyle.

People often have negative perceptions about sugar babies, but it gives me financial freedom and social connections

Initially, I just wanted to find a guy to take care of me. But I realized I didn't want to worry they'd stop paying my rent or that I wouldn't have any money if I did something wrong.

I wanted to be able to say "no" to people if I didn't want to do something, so I decided I'd rather not commit to just one person.

People often look down on being a sugar baby. I feel like they see it as dark and pathetic, like it's the lowest of the low. Sometimes other people's perceptions of the job made me think that I should feel bad about it, and that maybe there was something wrong with me or I should be doing something else.

If I told most people that I'd gone on a trip to a sex castle with my sugar daddy, they'd probably be like, "Oh my God, ew, so disgusting. They're probably hating their life. They're probably forced to be there."

But that was the most fun trip of my whole life. The girls that I met made me realize how fun life could be. We decided we wanted to make it our mission to make sure other people didn't feel bad about themselves for doing this job.

I started posting videos on TikTok to destigmatize sex work and address misconceptions

In 2021, I moved to Los Angeles and started posting sugar baby content on TikTok.

I hoped posting content online would help me break into TV. There is a lot of misinformation in the media about what it means to be a sex worker, and I want to prove it wrong, but it hasn't been easy.

I had 157,000 followers and over 2.5 million likes on my last TikTok account, @palmarkelly, but in September I got locked out of my account and haven't been able to re-access it. Now I'm uploading to my backup account, but it often gets banned as TikTok perceives some of my content as violating its guidelines, which don't allow users to promote sexual activities.

It feels frustrating that I have to start again. As a sex worker, I feel like it's already very difficult to have a voice in the world, and I tried hard to be the voice of reason for a lot of sex workers on the platform and dispel misconceptions about my work, such as the outlandish amounts of money we're sometimes reported to make.

Despite the setbacks, a lot of people have found my account again and sent me supportive messages, which has felt reassuring.

The guys I date know that I'm on social media, and I always ask if I can film my dates with them. A lot of men that reach out to me like that I'm online and that I'm sharing the experience. They think it's a fun thing and they want to be part of it.

I think it's easy to glorify and glamorize being a sugar baby, but I try to show all sides of the job in my videos. Often I'm filming us doing really fun things, but then in my voiceover I'll share how I was actually feeling, which isn't always great. I don't want people to get the wrong impression that I'm having so much fun all the time.

The hardest part of the job is dealing with the comments from people online

The least glamorous part of it is the shame that other people make you feel. That's the only thing that gets to me right now. Nobody in my personal life has ever shamed me for my job, but the online comments get into my head.

But posting about this online is the only thing that's brought me anywhere closer to my career and my dreams.

Having friends in the industry is so important, and I hope to build that community more thanks to my videos.

The only thing that scares me is that other people see it as something bad. I'm proud of my work, and a big part of the reason I talk about it so much online is because I never want anyone to feel ashamed.