# Persona-mediated dissociation: a new framework for understanding the work/self-split in sex workers

## TL;DR

The paper introduces a new framework to understand how sex workers use work personas to manage emotional and physical demands of their job.

## Contribution

It proposes 'persona-mediated dissociation' as a novel theoretical model for occupational psychological regulation in sex work.

## Key findings

- The framework highlights voluntary and reversible psychological distancing through work personas.
- It distinguishes occupational regulation from clinical dissociation and predicts how persona use affects functioning.
- The model suggests distress arises from prolonged persona use or lack of decompression.

## Abstract

Research on dissociation in sex workers is sparse, dated, and frequently framed through trauma-exclusive or symptom-focused models, leaving the occupational functions of dissociative processes underexamined. In contrast, qualitative and ethnographic scholarship consistently describes intentional work persona construction as routine in sex work and often articulated in dissociative-like terms. This Hypothesis and Theory article proposes persona-mediated dissociation, a framework describing context-specific, identity-mediated psychological distancing in which a deliberately constructed work persona mediates between the private self and the interpersonal, emotional, and embodied demands of sexual labor. The model specifies voluntariness, contextual specificity, reversibility, and preserved executive functioning as core dimensions and predicts that persona activation will co-vary with state dissociative phenomenology and maintained functioning. Distress is expected primarily when persona use is prolonged, role exit is impaired, or structural constraints limit decompression and support. This framework clarifies distinctions between occupational regulation and clinically significant dissociation and generates testable predictions for future research.