You ok down there?: Watching myself consider online sex work as I struggle for a living wage

FEATURE | MAHIMAHI / SEX

Written by Gina Silvestra (she/her) | Contributing Writer

It goes without saying that it’s tough as shit to work for an enormous and wealthy institution that insists they care about your hauora, your mana, and how it impacts their international clients, yet refuse to give you a living wage even after 50 “negotiation meetings” with your union. The same old higher-ups enjoy healthy pay raises and bonuses every year, while we fight for a mere 1-2k raise that doesn’t account for the hardship caused by inflation.

To look at yourself from above, watching you try to convince yourself that you should commodify what you find the most rich pleasure in just to ease the financial stress a little is dehumanising. There is depression in trying to convince yourself that you should continue to work in your ‘free time’, just so you can attempt earning the living wage each week: this wage being an amount that is calculated to be enough to allow people human dignity. All you want is a single, decently paying job and to spend the rest of your life living, because who knows how much time you have left when fascism is on the rise in America, Zionism continues to threaten the sovereignty and lives of Palestinians, and climate change begins to latch on while you continue to drive your petrol car since you can’t afford electric ones.

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I am utterly privileged, as a cis Pakeha woman who grew up middle class, and never truly knew the stress of Money till she was a year-and-a-half out of home (now). Whose parents still pay for her car registration and services, phone bills and health insurance, no less. Despite all of these facts, I believe it is important that we all take part in discussions of how the “cost of living” and the capitalist world-system affect how we are all able to survive and live, at a given moment in time.

Having said that, here’s a bit of my current experience.

It’s important you know that I’m a burlesque performer. I absolutely love everything burlesque has to offer (bar the near-impossibility of being environmentally conscious, and how expensive it all is). I love the holistic quality of the artform: part performance art, part costume/prop craft, part movement-craft, part sexual expression, part titillation, part satire, part subversion: all tease and all rebellion, in whatever sub-genre it appears. The artform, at its core, allows me to harmoniously bring together my deep true love for dance and the sex positivity I have held since adolescence.

Naturally, considering how I could provide myself with cash in the back pocket led to the idea of combining an artform that I love with the stress and uncertainty placed upon me by being someone paid below the living wage, during a “cost of living” crisis. Here emerges the idea to commodify the love I have for everything sexual expression into the sex work of the post-COVID internet age: OnlyFans.

“Why not?” I thought. After all, I produce OnlyFans-style-adjacent content for myself and my personal Inst*gr*m account all the time, for fun!!! It has the potential for big moolah, if only I could lock into the grindset I’ve heard is essential for self-employment in the realm of selling sexuality online. I did my research, filling out a few pages of a notebook with advice from Reddit and ChatGPT (not proud but it’s true), and discussing options with my supportive partner. It seemed within reach, and, on the outside looking in, I felt both comfortable with and excited by the idea of providing these services. I felt that I would be safe from the risks I perceived would come with in-person sex work, like exploitation by pimps or bosses, a physical crossing of boundaries by clients, or feeling pressured to leave your comfort zone for money, though boundaries may have been discussed prior. These risks seemed less daunting than possible parasocial boundaries or platform instability associated with online sex work. I loved the idea of earning some extra dosh from something I’ve been doing for myself anyway (taking smokin' hot pics), alongside more financial stability and freedom in the process. I felt empowered by the potential in a side-hustle fuelled by a desire for sexual expression, given power by the existence of erotic capital.

Erotic capital is an often overlooked aspect of living in society which is discussed by Catherine Hakim (2010) as a “fourth personal asset” (p. 499), alongside economic, social and cultural capital. Without having to think too hard about it, many of us can understand how this is a form of capital within much easier reach for women, generally. I think this may be part of the empowerment I feel in the idea of pursuing sex work: the potential for a sense of control and autonomy in a money-making exploit, despite the fact that it would create more work outside of my 9-to-5. However, this sense of autonomy started to feel limited, the more I thought about how it would affect me.

Within the last few days, I have realised that I have been trying to convince myself to be okay with this idea when I am truly not 100% comfortable with actually realising this venture. I want to keep control of how my sexuality is expressed to people on the internet and to strangers, and I feel as though I wouldn’t have complete ownership over an explicit expression of my sexuality if I were to put it on the internet, where it is immortal. I’ve also realised that I feel a sense of discomfort when attaching money to my own sexuality so directly (everyone else can totally do their thing). A large part of my decision is that I don’t want to feel like an expression of my sexuality is a grind (and not the good kind). Even though it would be disconnected from my real-life sexuality, I feel as though such a direct form of commodification would lead to me feeling jaded about my own sexuality and sexual expression. This is the last thing I want, especially when it then ends up in someone else's hands. Speaking of someone else’s hands, whoever I would sell sexual content to in this context would (as I understand) be able to access my sexuality whenever they want. I’m not 100% comfortable with that, or that it would honour my sexual autonomy. Honesty with yourself is a difficult process..

Over the past 6 months or so, I have been trying my best to go about anything sex- or sexuality-related by listening to my body. This means only allowing myself to take part in a sexual activity if I feel a 100%-Yes reaction in my body and brain. I am not perfect - it is a journey in something that I am learning how to do over many sexual interactions, yet it is an exercise in honouring and fully respecting my body, my sexuality and my Self. So far, it has truly only made the sexual or intimate interactions that I do have all the more rich and exciting. But why did it take me so long to listen to the lack of 100%-Yes my body and mind felt towards doing online sex work?

I think I know. And I think you, the reader, will know already too.

The fact that I am desperate to make more money, ASAP.

Making below the living wage when you are providing for yourself in this current moment of neoliberal capitalism (taking note of the aspects of living that my parents still allow me to access), is fucking difficult.

Yet I’m actually quite happy with the amount of responsibility that I hold and the challenges that I experience in my day job. I have no desire to kiss the arse of the institution that doesn’t even want to provide me with the dignity of a living wage in a “cost of living” crisis. I have little-to-no motivation to strive for “upward” mobility, or to “climb the corporate ladder”. Fuck climbing. I want to experience life. I want to float.

Nevertheless, I might have to start pretending I care very soon, if I want to stop being so upset about how little financial security I have.

What I do care about is my coworkers, and the people that I support in my role. The positive impact that I continue to have on these people’s lives.

What I do care about is my burlesque - and art as a whole - because expression, connection, and creation are exactly what makes us human.

So, I’ll continue on this journey of trying to negotiate (though I am very stubborn to do so) how I’ll make enough money to gain the freedom I desire in an expensive artform; to travel and find home in places around the world; and to afford groceries without having to borrow money from my partner. I’ll continue on this journey of trying to negotiate how I’ll gain the freedom to not be tied to money, and the false promises of the freedom possible through it that destroy us.

But life moves in pits and valleys; curves and sharp corners. Shit changes.

Who knows: maybe I’ll reconsider online sex work in the future.