# @thecut on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DdxD538AbRP
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70878912-thecut-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/620ded5772.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-26T22:02:02.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** The Cut (@thecut) — https://gondola.cc/thecut

## Caption

Thea Rose, 33, is the founder of Testie, a start-up that helps people access private, walk-in STI testing nationwide. But to fund the company, she spent two and a half years working as “Sophie,” a high-end escort. Initially, she figured she’d only do this work for a year. “But it wasn’t quite the get-rich-quick scheme that I thought it would be,” she says. “I underestimated how much time it would take me to establish myself.”

Ultimately, it did pay off — at her peak, she was making $25,000 a month for just a few hours of work per week. “To me, doing sex work felt much less humiliating than working three full-time jobs just to afford rent,” she says, “which I know a lot of people have to do.” (And, as she adds, “Doing sex work to survive is very different from the kind of high-end escorting that I did.”)

In the latest edition of #MyTwoCents, Rose speaks to personal finance columnist Charlotte Cowles about her experience working on her start-up by day and building a business as an escort by night. Read on at the link in bio.

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## Tags

mytwocents

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