article: A Canadian prostitute says that she wishes  other people wouldn't make her feel so ashamed of working in the sex industry - because she actually really enjoys her job. Celine Bisette, who uses this pseudonym whenever she is discussing her career, insists she is neither 'damaged' nor 'deranged' - that, in fact, she rather enjoys being a prostitute, and it's only the social stigma surrounding her career choice that leaves her feeling unhappy. 'I am embarrassed to be a sex worker, even though I like my job, I’m good at it, and I’ve made exceptional progress in my career over the past few years,' she wrote in a recent essay for xoJane. This pro has pride: Canadian prostitute Celine Bisette, pictured here, wishes other people wouldn't make her feel embarrassed about her job . First, Celine would like everyone to abandon whatever assumptions they've made about prostitutes. She claims that she didn't have an abusive childhood, she's not a 'hyper-sexual nympho', and she isn't uneducated. She had 'an incredibly fortunate upbringing', she said, adding that she got along well with her parents and older sister: '[It was] just about the best any child could possibly hope for.' Then, as a 19-year-old college sophomore, she found herself in need of a way to pay for school. A minimum-wage job wouldn't earn her enough money, and she didn't want to take out student loans. Her best option, she said, was the sex industry. 'I couldn’t bring myself to do porn, and I knew wasn’t talented enough to be a stripper,' she explained. Working as an escort seemed like a natural choice for Celine, as it was easy and it paid well - seeing just one or two clients a week covered her bills. It just didn't occur to her that others might not be so at ease with her decision. In the beginning, she'd readily tell people at parties what she did for part-time work. She was still out-going then, she said, and never felt self-conscious. But peoples' reactions quickly changed the way she approached conversations about her job. They would lecture her, insult her, and accuse her of being a 'traitor to feminism'. One friend told everyone in their social circle that Celine must be mentally unstable to have chosen such a career, and might have even been molested as a child. The rumor took off, and Celine lost a lot of friends in the process. Now, after about a decade in the industry, she is much more reticent about revealing what she does, for fear of eliciting those same negative reactions. But while she has a 'mainstream' part-time job that she uses as a 'cover', she finds it frustrating that she can't be more open. 'I wish I could feel proud of who I am and what I do,' she said. 'I’m tired of feeling embarrassed and ashamed.' Sexy and smart: Celine, who wants to keep her real identity a secret, says she's more than just an escort - she also has her master's degree in sociology . Even when she does tell people about her work as an escort, Celine makes a point to emphasize that she also has a master’s degree in sociology: 'I hype it up and draw attention to it, as if to say, “Yes, I’m a [prostitute], but I’m also smart and normal, really, I promise!”' Because of the social stigma, she sometimes thinks about quitting altogether - but she hesitates because the work is easy, her schedule is flexible, and she makes twice as much as she would doing a job in her field of study. Plus, she explained, she can't erase her history in the sex industry. 'I will always be seen as damaged goods, whether I am a current sex worker or a former one. So I might as well just keep going, right?' In fact, despite liking her job, it's not Canada's ambiguous laws on prostitution that give Celine pause - being paid for sex is legal, but living off that payment of it is not. Rather, it's the negative reactions to her job that make her regret ever taking up sex work at all. 'I wish I’d known what I was getting myself into before I jumped into this line of work,' she said. 'But most of all, I wish I’d never become a prostitute in the first place.'
highlights: Celine Bisette, from Canada, became an escort when she was in college .
  She wants to feel proud of her job, but complains that she is constantly battling the negative opinions of others .
  The writer, who uses a pseudonym, has her master's degree but explains that sex work pays more than jobs in her field of study .
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