Aella is one of OnlyFans' most successful creators. Aella was homeschooled in a fundamentalist Christian household. After leaving home and finding herself unable to afford college, she found herself in a series of demoralizing jobs, the worst of which included working in a windowless factory and being exposed to sunlight for only two days every week. She escaped that awful life through camgirling and escorting. She briefly worked in the "safe for work" sector before returning to porn and becoming the owner of one of the most lucrative accounts on OnlyFans. In this episode, Aella and I discuss the varying definitions of degrading work, the value of monogamous vs. polyamorous relationships, and how she unwittingly humanized sex workers through her social media presence.
When the pandemic hit the US, Aella was escorting and decided she needed to find a different way of doing her work. In her journey to becoming an OnlyFans creator, she felt anxiety about marketing her pornographic content openly.
In her "safe for work" roles, Aella had created a network of influential peers who were unaware of her experience doing sex work. There was a tenable discomfort around introducing her content to those peers, and she feared that people would no longer want to be publicly associated with her. She entertained the nagging feeling that her reputation would shift from an intellectual to just a "titty girl." Reentering sex work had become daunting in a way that it hadn't been when she first entered the industry years before. This time, she felt she had something to lose.
The public's perception of sex workers tends to be very one-dimensional and born from a lack of information. A lot of the resistance to sex work and sex workers results from not knowing any sex workers who are comfortable with themselves and the profession. Men and women in the industry internalize the shame projected onto them by the public and keep their work private to protect themselves. Feeling comfortable and secure about sex work goes a long way in driving an honest conversation about it and humanizing sex workers by releasing them from the shadows.
Links and Resources
Support the podcast https://www.chattingwithcandice.com
Aella’s Twitter
Aella’s Instagram
Aella’s Blog
Support the Show.
#118 Michael Malice - What is Anarchy? Sex Robots, Artificial Wombs, and Man or Bear?
#117 The Religion Business Part 2
#116 The Religion Business - Exposing Mega Churches with Nathan Apffel and Chris Ayoub
#115 Logical Fallacies and Life Update
#114 Kelsi Sheren - Canada's MAID (Medical Assistance in Death), Men's Mental Health, Psychedelics, and Transformation
#113 Will Reusch - The Dark Side of Education
#112 Candice Horbacz - Shining through the Shadows ; Reflections on Identity, Motherhood, and Acceptance
#111 Nancy Mellow - Animal Communicator ; Chatting with Snakes and Spiders
#110 Alex DatePsych - Marriage, Divorce, and Body Count
#109 Reed Davis - Stop Drugging your Boys
#108 Abi Fernandini - Motherhood, Why your Panties Matter, to Circumcise or Not?
#107 Melanie Notkin - Professional Aunt No Kids, Debunking the Childless Woman Archetype, Israel and the current antisemitism on college campuses
#106 Solo Cast- My Issue with the Spiritual Community
#105 Kute Blackson - What if by Surrendering you could have it all?
#104 Adam Lane Smith - Is your attachment style ruining your relationships?
#103 Ana Lorena Fabrega - The Learning Game, Give your kids the education they deserve, How does Elon Musk's Program Synthesis work?
#102 Stephen Shaw - Birth Gap with How unplanned childlessness could lead to the crumbling of civilization and our infrastructure, why are there so many childless women?
#101 Matt Bateman - Montessori, Broken Education, Screen Time, Empowering Children
#100 Nick Dimondi - Prepared not Paranoid
#99 Alison Armstrong - The Queen's Code - Stop Emasculating Men
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
We Can Do Hard Things
Let’s Be Honest with Kristin Cavallari
Unlocking Us with Brené Brown
Raising Heights with Zach & Tori
Brooke and Connor Make A Podcast