As you probably know, I grew up in an isolated, homeschooled environment. I’d moved up to northern Idaho in an attempt to go to college, but my parents were very “use your bootstraps” people and wouldn’t help me financially or cosign on any loans. They also made too much money for me to qualify for financial aid, so I was screwed; a few months into college I got an ominous letter and had to drop out shortly afterwards.
I’d been brought up with the expectation of being a submissive housewife – but here I was, 19 years old, no support system, education, or future, and with an unsettling cultural disconnect from everyone around me. Everyone used words I didn’t know, references to movies I hadn’t seen, attitudes drawn from music I hadn’t heard.
So I worked whatever I could. I occasionally went hungry, unable to afford food. I slept on a mattress on the floor in a large group house. I ended up working very long hours at a factory with no windows where I wore a uniform and stood on my feet all day and saw the sun only on weekends.
So when someone told me about this thing called camming, that I could be a camgirl and maybe make money, I of course tried it.
I started camming when I was 20, and I did well. I was really really weird, produced out of some bizarre cultural dark alleyway and yet walking around in a lithe young body. I worked very hard and made a lot of money, eventually averaging $200/hr.
I did this for five years. Of course I would do this! I had no other real path in life. My adult identity grew around this. Internet sex work was my freedom. I learned performance, I learned how to flirt and be sexy – a huge task, given my previous isolation from any celebrations of harlotry. I made some of my deepest, longest lasting friendships with other camgirls; I used the funds from camming to travel the world. I cammed from Cape Town over an ocean view, from Australia, from Istanbul behind carefully drawn curtains.
I didn’t feel ashamed at all. Why would I feel ashamed of something that gave me so much freedom, that let me be something more than a housewife or a factory worker?
I’d been using my large horny following to gather data from, and over the years clumsily taught myself statistics as I tried to figure out how to analyze the data. A friend helped tutor me. So when a crypto ico told me they’d hire me as a data analyst if I quit camming…. I agreed.
The way people treated me online, changed. Normal, upstanding people started following me on twitter. Respectable authors would meet me for coffee and let me publicly share photos of us together. People invited me on podcasts. Eventually the majority of my internet following were people who didn’t know I’d ever done porn.
This went on for about three years. It was great.
And, as you know, I got back into porn. The allure of Onlyfans drew me in, as it has most women with two working breasts. I’d quit the crypto company to cofound Askhole years ago, but Askhole wasn’t exactly going to give me a retirement fund.
So, over the past twoish months (or since April 2020, if you’re in the future), I’ve been pornographic online again. This time is different – I’ve had a few years of SFW as a proper, established adult – something that doesn’t really have a parallel when I was 18 and confused. So here’s some weird mental things I’ve noticed.
I feel gendered. It’s increased since starting up Onlyfans recently, and I also noticed it decrease sharply after I quit camming years ago. The ‘gender’ sensation feels like it’s located in my lower pelvis and vagina, and it feels attached to me. I don’t typically have any internal sense of ‘woman,’ but I have a distinct sense of ‘womanness’ being lodged inside me.
I feel a disconnect with my identity. Over the past few years, “Aella” – which was originally my porn name – became something very close to me. I’ve written on this blog about deeply personal things, like my childhood abuse. I did a documentary where I tripped acid live on camera, where I sobbed freely. I enjoy a deep vulnerability here – and suddenly introducing sex work back into this is bizarre.
Because with sex work, I can’t be totally honest. I can’t even talk about this too much at a meta level for fear of losing income.
And so for the first time in a long time, I feel this ‘body suit’ sensation slipping over me. My body and my character feels like clothing, something heavy and thick that I’m wrapped in. I have the sensation of suddenly thousands upon thousands of eyes looking at me – I’m posting heavily on reddit so this is literally true – and them seeing my body suit laying like meat on top of me.
It doesn’t feel… bad, really? It feels a little surreal. My body meat feels like a tool I’m precisely wielding. It doesn’t feel like mine though, not really. The naked, bouncing photos of me on screen feel like an avatar I’m presenting in my stead.
I’ve got my twitter and my blog as nonsexual, as me. It’s bizarre that my name here shares the name under which I fuck myself on screen.
I’m noticing an irrational hatred at men (mostly the ones that comment on my posts outside of Onlyfans). I’m thinking loud, dramatic thoughts that are completely unfair, because I’m simultaneously making lots of money. There’s something about this exchange that makes me feel really sad. I feel sad for the men, compulsed to give me money. I feel sad for me, because I hate all men right now. It’s really hard for me to connect with the compassion I usually feel for the male sex. Maybe it’s because I feel like they’re not really looking at me? Evolution is so cruel.
I also notice some confused semi-shame at my return to porn. I didn’t feel this the first time – I entered camming so early, and it was so liberating for me, that I was simply thrilled. Now I have a reputation, or something. Now fancy people who have opinions that matter, have opinions that matter about me. I feel a little like I’m letting everyone down. I feel afraid that people will pull away from me. These fears feel fuzzy and unclear. The threat is unknown. I think I’m confused at how to handle my dual identity now. Do they think both Aellas are one and the same? Do they know that my porn Aella is simply a heavy floating suit of meat clothes?
The income from this is worth it. I have no education or serious job history or even mental discipline to work a normal 9-5 job. I know if I want to retire, standard career paths aren’t an option for me. Onlyfans income right now is giving me a serious shot at early retirement, and the freedom from that is so valuable. When I remember this, everything else becomes easier. My meat suit becomes a little lighter, and the confusion around reputation is a little less scary.
“So shun me,” I think. “At least I will have financial security. At least I’m not a stay-at-home housewife or working at a factory where don’t see the sun.”
You have a bold mind and a gift for writing that makes the reader feel like they’re sitting across the table from you, like having coffee with an old friend. Have you ever considered writing screenplays or novels? Just a matter of choosing the story, creating the characters, and breathing life into them on various levels while you tell the story. There are no writers in Hollywood these days, not even half-assed ones. I think that’s the career you haven’t found yet….
You know, I have a love/hate relationship with people too, especially with women, but for reasons that are both similar and different enough to be interesting (at least to myself!). My grandmother died when I was a brand new teenager, and to cope I gained a lot of weight. Through high school and college I had the feeling that I was missing out on the typical teenage experience. Though I can look back on it now and see how my perception wasn’t exactly the reality, I felt my weight disqualified me from mattering. When I was twenty-one I had an experience that unlocked the reservoir of grief I’d been carrying around since my grandmother died. After that things were different. I lost the weight. It took six months. Immediately I noticed a huge difference in how people treated me. Suddenly women looked at me and their eyes didn’t slide away. Men started to listen to me—imagine that. I received a lot of interest and people seems to want me around. They wanted me to like them, where before my opinion hadn’t mattered. A friend of mine told me once that when you are in a disrespected minority, the most common experience of prejudice is not overt disrespect but rather the feeling you are utterly invisible. I could understand that; in the days after I lost the weight, it was like a curtain had been lifted and I was finally *in* the world. And even though it was what I’d always wanted, I felt myself battling rage. My worthiness was tied to my body. Women wanted to date me, but I didn’t trust them. In my relationships I couldn’t ignore the feeling that I was only matching up favorably to their checklist. The relationship was a diorama and I was an accessory. The giveaway there is that after the initial burst of questions, you stop being a subject to engage with. Men and women do this to each other—the objectification is real—we stop being curious because the other has settled into routinely filling the need. I respect your witnessing of that dynamic in the (even more transitory) world of OnlyFans and wrestling with it with some dispassion, and putting that out there… obviously your reflections are like velcro for my own particular associations and in many ways I can’t say that I’ve had anything close to a similar experience, but at least when it comes to objectification and gender and all that it’s interesting to compare notes.
Porn is the McDonalds of erotic excitation. You don’t have to be the McDonalds, although that’s what most people crave (because they don’t have the time or setting to enjoy better) — you can, and you should, be a good meal had over a Sunday afternoon had with birds chirping — where you notice that just a sudden taste to everything and the smells and flavours confuse themselves with your environment, and you’re reminded of past and future lives thrilling in the intimacy of that moment and everyone that has tastebuds and imagination. You can be the pollution or the renewal.
Depth or shallow waters.
See you in the ocean
This is very relatable. We all drive a car but we are not that car. We aren’t our bodies or even our minds. We are something more ethereal than either of those. I think most people just don’t consciously tap into it. They way you feel is normal. Growing up fundamentalist catholic I was taught that I should follow and praise god for giving me life, giving me this body, but if you take my body away then I become god.
I’ve heard contempt for men is normal for sex workers.
Based on what I’ve heard about your income, you could retire right now if you wanted. I don’t think you will retire. I predict you will engage in increasingly self-destructive behavior that will ultimately result in your early death, or if you’re lucky, hitting rock bottom.
Why did you quit your normal job to return to porn? Why do you need so much money? For drugs? What’s wrong with being a housewife? Just because your parents were abusive does not mean you have to be.
I am fascinated by you, but I’m not completely sure why. Your intelligence and beauty certainly play a factor. I might have a crush on you.
I tell myself that you’re going down the wrong path because it’s a path that I personally rejected. I could’ve become a decently earning prostitute, but didn’t because I wasn’t desperate enough. You were more desperate than me at the time, so I don’t blame you for going into porn. Also, camming is a lot safer than prostitution, so it was a high IQ move. However, you almost got raped/murdered in Turkey so I don’t think you can say you were being very safe.
When I look at your life, I get a weird, strong FOMO feeling. The way I see it, there are 4 possible ways for me to get rid of this feeling:
1. You self-destruct/hit rock bottom- drug overdose, suicide, beaten up, raped. Something like that.
2. I adopt your lifestyle- I’ve always wanted to try LSD. Maybe your way is the path to happiness for me too.
3. We have sex (not gonna happen)- I don’t think I can be envious of a girl after I’ve had sex with her.
4. You go back to honest work/become a housewife- This is what I believe to be the healthy path for a woman, and the fact that you appear to be getting away with avoiding it is aggravating to me I think.
Well that was an interesting reply…
“attitudes drawn from music I hadn’t heard.” Wow.
I have to ask, since you were home-schooled in Idaho: were you mormon? Did you go to and drop it of BYU-I?
I went there, and feel like I have this really weird mental relationship with my own sexuality that I can’t quite describe to others.
I guess you’ve described it as a separate person, or a suit. I totally get it. You separate the sexuality because it feels wholly unreligious and unlovable by God. Like you can let the beast out, do these ‘bad’ things, then go to church, whatever, and still be loved by those around you.
I was never able to convince myself someone could love both sides of me inside the church. I’ve since left and don’t feel religious at all. But those two people inside are still separated. I want them to be one. Everyone else only has one. But it doesn’t seem to work like that.
Sounds like you’ve had it a lot rougher, and are trying to find a place for your halves to live comfortably. I’d love an update about this if you ever feel like it
So, I created this account just to comment on this thread. I hear your ambivalence, and I wanted to encourage you to do that which brings you joy. We are all a neurotic grouping of thoughts driving a meat robot. Your thoughts are inspiring, entertaining, and creative. Your meat robot is exquisitely designed. It is further accentuated by the effort you put into caring for it. I appreciate you sharing both with us. It is a rare and unlauded skill to make someone laugh, ge them horny, and then make them laugh again. Whatever you decide to do with your meat robot tool, I hope you continue to share your thoughts with the world.
I wouldn’t worry about damaging your income stream by being yourself. You are breathtakingly beautiful; people would pay to watch you fart in a bathtub. Let your uniqueness shine and fuck the haters.
Folks will hate you just as equally for having a tool “worth” wielding. I tried to find my place in sex work and basically was told I was too fat. I’ve tried numerous times to lose weight, using drugs, surgery, starvation. Nothing lasts, and I know that my meat has no value.
The most real in the world to me right now seems to be that everyone hates everyone else because we are all living inside this shared perceptual reality that everything must be reduced to a value equation, and the biggest number wins. Quite literally, because if you don’t have big numbers you may die early, or live your days in grinding poverty.
The stories that rationalism and capitalism tells us about reality seem to further increase that sense of disconnection. Maybe they’re right and we’re all just sentient machines and nothing matters but your value to other sentience. Maybe there is nothing beyond the veil and psychadelic feelings of wholeness are an illusion. If that is the case the story I tell myself that life may not be worth living, especially if you are “worthless” as I am.
My guess is that you will reach early retirement and stop feeling the way you do because your brain can focus on the immediate pleasures of being well-off, attractive, and not having to work very much. Other people will see you and hate you for those things, because you are just an avatar of a hellish reality. Hell, I hate you at times. I’ve imagined how pleasing it would be for your meat suit to be disfigured such that you can experience what I have had to experience.
But that’s the weird flip of it. We’re all searching for a feeling of wholeness, connection. Ego-death is often experienced as a feeling of oneness with the universe. And in a sense I *hate* you because of that disconnection. You do not experience my pain, I do not experience your pleasure. It is the disconnect that I hate, really.
i’m too tired to have the focus to properly respond to this comment but i wanted to say i enjoyed how honest you felt in this
The fact that I’ve reached in a point where I’m so aware of my own worthlessness that I do not care what happens to me is, I feel, my one strength (a paradox). I speak honestly because I’m no longer afraid of loss.
I’ve noticed you’re not too tired to be making lots of money but you are too tired to confront this reality. That only continues my feeling that no one really escapes even with heavy usage. We all fall back to our worst impulses which are accelerated by US society with rewards the worst impulses.
But as a worthless person this is a meaningless thing to say
You can make big money, but you can also make smart money. You don’t have to be the top creator; you can be niche and go all out meta, lose some money, and be happier with your job. You work for yourself, and you can determine how you do your business. And in the end, you might make more money, because if you’d have otherwise quit, you come out way ahead.
I found your blog from one of your pics on reddit. I look forward to reading more posts from you. I’ve already read the enlightenment post and liked it as well. Have a good day!
Meat suits, we all wear them. We are not our clothes. I feel most woman from my solar plexus to my imagined vagina!? Men are led by their penis’s. Men like meat suits. What a curse mens sex drive is.
I think the stereotype is that men are led around by their penises, but as a male I can’t agree with that. I think most people, females and males, are more sexual than they let on, but are also equally capable of abstaining or initiating or receiving sexual activity.
Noticing that when introspecting I observe myself to have very unstereotypical qualities for a male, I cannot help but wonder that this must be the case for other persons too: that (social) survival strategies, equally inborn/learned in both sexes and shaped by their effectiveness in a long line of humanity’s cultures over the years, have led female humans to usually behave one way and male humans another (depending upon the cultures in question), which I simply did not adopt due to reasons of socialization or lack thereof. This makes intuitive sense to me: nature favors simplicity and flexibility. A brain that may flexibly adopt some behaviors usually when it finds itself in a female body and other behaviors usually when it finds itself in a male body, with all these behaviors being learned and tailored according to the kind of society the brain finds itself in and the inherent talents (and more generalized genetics) of the specific individual it belongs to, may be perhaps more preferable to nature than distinct, default minds for females and males, which by being biologically hard-wired are less adaptable to the plethora of different social, cultural, and environmental circumstances humans find themselves in. But who’s to say how this really all works?
Also, there is apparently a manga called ‘Teisou Gyakuten Sekai’ that explores the concept of a world in which women and men have reverse gender roles, which I have not yet read but which sounds amazing! *_* Here’s a video that gives a summary of the manga and its premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSwOUZFDuRU
Just want to give you a really big hug and I hope you can find a solution that suits you. For me, sex work is not for a lifetime. Maybe others workes disagree with me but It seems that you had enough of this. Hate is never a good feelin to carry darling. Love yourself and every tiny piece of your mind and body. Pherhaps if you pic a remote work with data… I don’t know just trying to help. I know Im not the best writing in english but I do it for you. To comunicate… we are in the same boat. Big hug !!
Write me when you want.
Please bare with me as I’m not trying to be/sound ignorant, rather I’m a High functioning Autistic and I’m trying to better understand this more clearly. After reading this it has caused me to question myself in a deeper manner.
I came across AellaGirl on reddit. So from the get go I found her aesthetically appealing and that drew me in. However out of a bit more curiosity I checked out her Twitter and this site here. I read this article. This added more insight to the personality of the woman. While the rundown over some of her history was interesting, the part I am probably not understanding is the following section:
“I’m noticing an irrational hatred at men …. ……. …… Maybe it’s because I feel like they’re not really looking at me? Evolution is so cruel.”
Now if I see a post of hers come through the feed I feel conflicted.
I want to see what it she is sharing due in part to finding her “suit of meat clothes” appealing.
On the other hand after reading this, I am unsure of whether I should be finding her content appealing despite the fact I would otherwise.
More often than not the curiosity wins and I still go on to view her post. However, I’m of the mindset where I don’t want to be part of the problem i.e. adding to her “irrational hatred at men”
I only comment on rare occasions and never in a crude manner. I don’t belong to her ‘Onlyfans’ and I don’t feel compulsed to give her my money.
However, there is still this part of me that is unsure about how I should feel/think after this read and how or if it applies to my appreciation and admiration of the female form, in this case AellaGirl.
Or maybe I am over thinking this (like I do about almost everything) and reading it as if it pertains to me or other viewers of her content.
Maybe the goal was to give the reader more insight about the struggle she has with her persona vs her personality by putting out there the struggles she is dealing with in the duality she’s created.
Either way, ever since I’ve read this it really has me pondering, whether it applies to me as a viewer or bringing to light what she’s struggling with in her position.
Any insight offered regarding this would be appreciated, thanks.
I wouldn’t view this as ‘about you’; this is my own reaction and I own it. I don’t actually, deep down, hate men; I’m mostly describing an interesting reaction I notice myself having.
It sounds like you are at least from the surface suffering burnout. The social isolation due to Covid may also be contributing the symptoms.
I refer you the Mayo Clinic website to review the constellation of signs and symptoms of burnout.
Many a health care worker has been experiencing it. I also suffered and had to stop working. I stopped too late and have become estranged from loved ones.
You are repetitiously offering yourself to the web, and it possibly offers no meaning to you anymore. Previously you were able to break free from poverty. What does your work mean to you now?
My therapist shared a math equation with me once;
suffering = (pain x resistance) / meaning
Sometimes when we can find the meaning in the activity, suffering diminishes.
I hope that you find meaning in your vocational endeavors. Luckily you have been blessed with intelligence, communication skills, and insight in data analysis which would translate well into many other work you choose.
Or I could be wrong.
I
Your reaction to men is not unique. I think there’s a certain degree of “hating men” that stems from mans incessant desire to have and to fuck women – to treat them as objects of desire or a tool to be used to gratify penis. Even we men hate it at times. There have been many occasions in my life that I wished I could turn off this need – or more accurately this pathetic desire – for vagina! But eon’s of evolution have sewn it inextricably into the fabric of our DNA. It’s not that we don’t see the beauty of women, or their immensely huge value (to mankind) outside of the bedroom, it’s just that we are so overwhelmed with neural impulses to procreate and spread our seed that the lens through which we see and appreciate females is clouded! Honestly, it amazes me that we can see past your meat-suit at all. Also, given your line of work and your conscious decision to capitalize on your external goods, simply serves to elevate and even distort its importance in YOUR life. I, like many of the men that view your body, are married. Should we feel shameful that we see and want your body solely for nefarious sexual purposes – particularly when you stand to gain from it – and we are programmed to respond to it? I love my wife dearly, and I’ve come to lean on her for much more than just sex. Some man, or woman, will eventually come to lean on you in that way too. When that happens your meat-suit will dissolve into the ether and you’ll feel a sense of freedom that you’ve never felt before. I decided to stop beating myself up years ago about my desire for wet pussy. It’s just something I have to learn to live with and accept as part of my biology. Fortunately, there are only 3.5 billion vagina’s on the planet and the one that I love is keeping them all at bay!
Sexual reproduction is an escalating power game. An evolutionary arms race. In humans, women invest so much more energy in reproduction and therefore work on strategies to get a higher male investment. One of the ways females do this is to hide estrus and ovulation. In Baboons, for example, their swelling on the rump shows clearly its time to get it on. Therefore a male’s arousal is “caused” by her external signs (likely smells as well). In humans, we hide these to induce men who might not be the father to care for the young (yes I am over simplifying for brevity here), but as a result men need to be “constantly ready for sex”. The the arms race in humans induces men to be continually aroused. There are more interesting details about our sexuality, such as full breasts when not pregnant… I encourage all to study our sexuality and how it is similar and differs from our animal cousins. It will open your eyes to the reasons behind feeling like a “meat suit”.
I must say thank you for taking the time to read my novel above. I appreciate the reply and clarification. Looking forward to seeing/hearing you on Twitch
It’s ok that you hate men. Do you think the men jerking off to you like you?
Well it looks like you have created quite an empire for your self based on this blog, for someone with no post secondary education, well done. What are you going to do with your self, once you have the money such that doing any more porn is wasting your time?
This reminds me a lot of Lindsay Ellis’s video “YouTube: Manufacturing Authenticity (For Fun and Profit!)”:
I hear and empathize with you.
Do what you want to do, and what makes you happy.
However, I will say you write well. You also can write about a rare “niche”. It might be worthwhile taking Into account a risk/benefit analysis of porn work vs other work into the future. If you build a small “empire” of sorts you can put it toward something else and continue writing about this, and perhaps spin either a new, or a supplemental career out of it.
I’d say you need to pick a model to follow. Business and otherwise. I’d say look at someone like Dita von Teese. She branched her burlesque career off into several streams of revenue. Sex sells. Sure. Smart sex that knows its value sells better.
Nice piece. Very insightful and balanced. Mark above said to do what makes you happy… judging from your writing here, I wouldn’t say you are happy. I don’t have an answer. Sounds*a little* like another version of the factory work your did. It pays the rent+++ but it seems it should be more than that. You get glimmers, but aren’t there yet.
Well, I met you on Reddit and ended up here, reading one of the most fulfilling words I’ve read in a while. The person you are HERE is the one we’ll keep in our hearts. Keep shining, however you choose to do It.
What is it that you are wanting?
And why do you want it? Is it possible to find the liberation again?
Perhaps it could be somewhere else, somewhere you have not thought to look?
If you found it again, what would it feel like?
Is a belief just a thought that you keep thinking?
If one is struggling, how can they get out of it if the knowing they are struggling keeps them struggling?
I only read you for the articles.
You and me, both!
I read you for the articles.
It’s always amazing learning about people’s stories. I thinks it’s interesting that working in the adult entertainment industry is part of your identity, and growing up where I did I know enough that’s not all there is. I suppose that’s a problem with how people self actualize and how we perceive ourselves. Anyways, at first I thought you were just sexy and funny but you’re pretty interesting.
>I’m noticing an irrational hatred at men (mostly the ones that comment on my posts outside of Onlyfans). I’m thinking loud, dramatic thoughts that are completely unfair, because I’m simultaneously making lots of money. There’s something about this exchange that makes me feel really sad. I feel sad for the men, compulsed to give me money. I feel sad for me, because I hate all men right now. It’s really hard for me to connect with the compassion I usually feel for the male sex. Maybe it’s because I feel like they’re not really looking at me? Evolution is so cruel.
Can you expand on this?
i see you as someone who’s in your power and i love supporting that, especially as you share so much of yourself and your thoughts with nuance and vulnerability. This is so much if what the world needs! in doing that i feel engaged politically in creating the world I’d like my kids to enjoy, especially my daughter. it’s not just sensual. thank you for all you do! i hope you can feel unaccountably and undividedly yourself as much as possible because you’re doing a great thing!
much appreciation!
Joseph in San Jose
This echoes the lament of a lot of strippers I’ve known. But you have the advantage that you are a celebrity rationalist and could easily get a 9-5 job that you would deeply enjoy. The financial security of sex work is a curse in your case, I hope you break free.
Regarding the part about hating all men for comments they made outside of Onlyfans, just want to anecdotally add that personally, I don’t really care about or even look at your porn related things. I follow your posts randomly here and there because I like how thoughtful you are – which I find to be rare – and for being a good writer.
> Do they think both Aellas are one and the same? Do they know that my porn Aella is simply a heavy floating suit of meat clothes?
Yes.
***
I knew your Gnomes and some other stuff from Reddit. Not a dedicated fan but I liked it. The sexy part looked simply as the presentation flavor of something weird, and maybe personal.
Later I read [some of] your LSD posts. These connected with my own experiences of LSD overdosing, at about the same age. I thought it was surprisingly well-written too, for a topic essentially impossible to put to words. Looked back at some of the pics and really loved them in that light.
Then I sort of forgot about Aella until your face scrolled on some or other subreddit the other day. I somehow remembered who that face was, and fished out some of your new stuff.
To me, it’s screaming the quote above. It is visible in your face. You are literally dancing the “floating suit of meat clothes.” It is so clear that I’m yet again staring at it mesmerized, slightly embarrassed to point my eyeballs at the wrong bits, because this is not it.
I don’t have anything clever to offer here but I’ll give you this: I’ve understood you as a performance artist that happens to be camming even back then, and even more now. However you deal with this phase, I am certain that you will find other channels of expressing that weirdness for worse, or worse. It’s fucking great.
I know you’re not soliciting advice here, but I’m wondering if I can help you broaden your perspective a bit. Feel free to ignore if this is a miss.
You’ve moved beyond the initially liberating sensation of transgressing your own boundaries, the creative side of performance is becoming hard work, and you are put off somewhat by the transactional aspect of the work. Outside of the sex work specifics, this is the lament of the performing artist, is it not? You might talk to some artists who do different styles of work, or read their writing, to learn how they approach the problem.
Based on my own experience, I’d also caution you about one thing. Working too hard for money is corrupting to the psyche. You internalize the stress, sure, but worse, you absorb the persona that you must create in order to survive the ordeal. It becomes a part of you and it changes you. For me, this means that I don’t enjoy things as freely anymore, even years after semi-retirement. This is just one person’s anecdote, of course. But you may still be able to retire early without completely exhausting yourself. (The FIRE community is a great resource for this. The Early Retirement Extreme blog is a fantastic gateway, and there are plenty of others as well.)
Whatever path you choose, you’ll be OK. Thanks for sharing your thoughts here.
I have a similar constrictive performative being-watched feeling when I imagine doing something professional with my online identity, or doing anything high-profile enough (either online or IRL) that someone might try to doxx/investigate me.
I started following you somewhere around the tail end of your porn career, so for me, you’ve always been “that cool blogger who also did porn”. But I can’t pretend you’re not 100% right that some people will judge you for it. I wish I could. Of course, anyone who feels that way who wasn’t already judging as hard as they can probably didn’t know you did porn to begin with, suggesting they surely weren’t all that closely aquainted with the stuff you’ve written, so maybe not as big a loss as you’d think?
I don’t know enough about the camming industry to guage how big of a financial risk being very honest/open online about what’s an act and what’s real is. My instinct is to say that it’s better to own “I tell it like it is, this is what’s happening behind the scenes” and incorporate that into your brand than to make yourself feel slimy and fake, perhaps even protecting your brand from the risk of backlash if/when the “mask slips”, but I’m sure from the inside you have a better view of the tradeoffs than I do. (Is that even a risk in camming, the way it is in some other entertainment industries?)
Ugh. It’s a sucky situation.
I massively identified with your description of disaffectation qua ennui/weltschmerz/some better continental term that I don’t know. I had the same experience during my time as a musician, where my persona as a performer felt increasingly distant from the real me, and I couldn’t help the sense of disdain for much of my audience (I wouldn’t say I ever hated them, but I don’t know if that’s a difference between us, our fields of performance, or the fact that I actually saw and sometimes met my audience). But it does leave me wondering why we have this feeling of disaffection and alienation where some people thrive emotionally on their performances and love their fans.
I can think of a few possibilities, so forgive the mess, everyone, as I try to organize my thoughts and list the potential causes. So the first thought is it might come down to personality. I’m an INTJ (you in the back with the wisecrack about MBTI, sit down. We’ve heard it), and I know Scott has said that a significant majority of his readership identifies as INTx. I don’t actually know whether you’d identify as an SSC reader, but I know you were on The Motte’s podcast and you were kind enough to show up and provide info in that thread where I was asking questions about findomme financials. I’d say it’s a slam dunk, except ‘reads The Motte -> SSC Reader -> INTx’ is too many inferences to just safely assume, even though each individual one is reasonable.
Alternatively, I’ve got a fairly similar upbringing to yours: home schooled Christian (not Calvinist, fortunately) who had to drop out of college, found non-traditional career paths, and now would struggle to get on a traditional career path. I don’t know about you, but sometimes (only sometimes) I feel bitterness at how others can take the path of least resistance and settle down for a fairly easy life without ever really having to grind anything out or engage in any sort of self-starting, go get ’em attitude. Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly upsides to the life I’ve lived, but even when things are going well, there’s still a sense of latent alienation with the mainstream culture.
Just a few thoughts from someone who started following you from your AMA years ago and generally being fascinated with your twitter polls. I don’t expect any answers, so please don’t feel obligated to respond – I’m just thinking out loud.
>The allure of Onlyfans drew me in, as it has most women with two working breasts.
I think you’re vastly overestimating the allure of onlyfans, and that its only alluring for a very minuscule minority of women (granted that minority is still multiple times the number of women drawn to more ‘traditional’ sex work).
>The ‘gender’ sensation feels like it’s located in my lower pelvis and vagina, and it feels attached to me.
I wonder if that’s due to the type of gendered work you do. I know I feel more “male” when arguing or advocating for my clients in court confrontations, and that’s not really physically located anywhere. I also feel more male when fucking, and that’s pretty much located where you’d think it would be. #genderroles
> I can’t even talk about this too much at a meta level for fear of losing income.
What changed now compared to before? Was it that you were totally honest when you first started but have since found out that you could earn more by not being totally honest?
> And so for the first time in a long time, I feel this ‘body suit’ sensation slipping over me. My body and my name feels like clothing, something heavy and thick that I’m wrapped in.
Funny – I thought this feeling was normal and that everyone is supposed to have a bodysuit they only change out of with close friends/family.
> I’m noticing an irrational hatred at men … I feel sad for me, because I hate all men right now.
I got lost a bit here – hate why? Or do you mean only the subset of men who are your onlyfans? I have to imagine there are men among the “fancy people who have opinions that matter”, so it seems weird to hate an entire sex with the reasons somewhat unexplained.
> At least I’m not a stay-at-home housewife
I think you’re underrating how happy a lot of housewives are, its just a value difference where they prioritize and like different kinds of work and are willing to exchange a career path for it. I’d almost draw an analogy to early retirement – housewives are basically retired and doing what they want, just ‘what they want’ is doing home-stuff and family-stuff. This obviously doesn’t include the many women forced into being a housewife out of cultural expectations, financial realities etc.
“`I think you’re vastly overestimating the allure of onlyfans, and that its only alluring for a very minuscule minority of women (granted that minority is still multiple times the number of women drawn to more ‘traditional’ sex work).“`
Thank god the person who is known for one of the most comprehensive write ups on monetizing online sex work has you to let her know that she misunderstands the industry.
“`I got lost a bit here – hate why? Or do you mean only the subset of men who are your onlyfans? I have to imagine there are men among the “fancy people who have opinions that matter”, so it seems weird to hate an entire sex with the reasons somewhat unexplained.“`
…Responds to someone explicitly stating that they have an irrational hatred by asking them for a rational reason. Come on man.
“`I think you’re underrating how happy a lot of housewives are, its just a value difference where they prioritize and like different kinds of work and are willing to exchange a career path for it. I’d almost draw an analogy to early retirement – housewives are basically retired and doing what they want, just ‘what they want’ is doing home-stuff and family-stuff. This obviously doesn’t include the many women forced into being a housewife out of cultural expectations, financial realities etc.“`
Or she’s saying, like is directly implied in the phrasing of “At least I’m not a stay-at-home housewife” that she really doesn’t want to be a housewife and she’s grateful that she has other options?
Jesus Christ dude.