What I've Learned from Selling Nudes

I know that just from the title I am probably going to receive a lot of judgment from sharing this with people. However, I am not ashamed nor will anyone make me feel as though I should be. I feel like sharing my story could open a lot of eyes and provide some insight to a whole other world that has been stigmatized in our society.

Let’s start with how I got the idea. A couple of months ago, I was struggling with money. Things were not that bad; I’ve been worse off. But I wasn’t getting anywhere yet with finding a job, and I wanted to help lift some financial burdens off my partner. I remember seeing a YouTuber I follow advertising her “premium Snapchat,” which is something that up until that point I had not heard of. A premium Snapchat can mean a lot of different things, depending on the person who sets one up. The type of premium Snapchat I am talking about is one where people pay for a “subscription” that involves access to nudes and videos. So I did some research and decided I wanted to see how this could go. I wasn’t expecting to make much. I was just hoping to have some fun with it.

Before I got started, I discussed this with my partner, just to make sure they were comfortable with it. I am lucky to be with someone who fully supports me and was totally cool with the idea. They understand that it’s my body and at the end of the day I get to decide what I am going to do with it. Plus, they were excited to see what kind of content I came up with!

So I created a Snapchat and got started on creating ads on different social media platforms to draw people in. It was slow getting started, but as I kept up with it I started to get more and more subscribers; I was making pretty decent money! Sometimes I would make more than two hundred dollars just in the span of two days. I was able to help pay some of our bills thanks to this new little hustle, and that felt really good!

Now I’ve been doing this for a few months, and I’ve already learned a lot. I would like to share some of those things for anyone who is maybe considering doing this too, or for those who are just curious.

You will find a whole new sense of confidence.

Before I started selling nudes, I was nervous about showing so much of my body to strangers. There were many things I felt a little embarrassed about (like the cellulite on my thighs or that one boob was a bit smaller than the other), and I felt like other people would see those imperfections and make harsh comments. But I have yet to receive any critiques on my body in the slightest! My subscribers love my body, even the parts I hadn’t yet learned to love on my own. Sometimes that reassurance from other people can make you appreciate parts of yourself you never thought you would. I didn’t just feel sexy, I started to see how beautiful my imperfections were. And, as I started to come across more people who were doing this, I realized they weren’t all super fit models, they were everyday people. And they were all beautiful in my eyes! It was exciting to see all the diversity that imperfections create. I wanted everyone to feel the way I was starting to because everyone should!

People will give you crap.

When putting yourself online for the world to see, it’s expected that you are going to come across some really rude and entitled people. And even though none of the hate was in the form of body shaming, it was still frustrating to deal with. For people who didn’t want to pay for nudes, I would often get comments like, “Get a real job,” and, “Why would I pay for something I could get for free somewhere else?” I didn’t waste time trying to explain that I was trying to get another job or that this was more personal than just Googling porn because people like that aren’t trying to have a conversation; they’re just lashing out because they’re entitled and think that shaming me will help get them free nudes.

People you know will find out.

Oh yeah, something I hadn’t really considered before I got into this was that people I know might be looking for nudes. And, during their searches, they might stumble across one of my ads—oops. But, after a tiny flutter of panic, I realized there was no reason to feel embarrassed. So what if they knew? I wasn’t going to let the opinion of anyone else make feel ashamed of my body or that I was utilizing my sexuality to make some extra cash. I think it’s sad that our society has made something that is so natural out to be shameful. And realizing that it doesn’t have to be that way gave me the reassurance to be OK with people finding out. Even my parents found out, thanks to one of their friends sharing some pics they found of me in an effort to shame me via my parents’ disapproval, as if I am a child acting out. And that was by no means an easy conversation to have, but it was OK in the end. You have to form your own opinions about life and live your own truth. If it feels right to you, it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

You will learn a lot about people… and their fetishes.

This has been the most interesting part so far for me. I knew of all the fetishes I have had to come across during this, but I wasn’t aware of how popular some of them were, the biggest one being feet! I had people willing to pay decent money for me to send them pictures of my feet, and it wasn’t as weird as I was expecting it to be. I would paint my toenails and make a few quick bucks, and they were always super sweet about it. No one ever said anything that made me uncomfortable, and, even though I’m not into feet, I had no problem providing them with that service. That wasn’t the weirdest fetish I came across by a long shot. A few other things I was faced with were people who liked being insulted, people who just wanted me to watch them, people who wanted to buy panties (which can be super profitable on its own, I came to find out), and a shocking amount of people who wanted to watch me pee. Now, I didn’t feel comfortable catering to everyone’s fetish, but I learned a lot anyway.

It’s not always “easy money.”

I am not trying to say that this is a super hard way to earn some extra cash, but a lot of people think it’s much easier than it actually is. It takes a lot of effort, like constantly advertising to get a steady supply of subscribers coming, not to mention creating fresh content for your regulars. I found that some days I just didn’t have the energy to get in front of the camera, because it takes effort to take good nudes and videos. And then I would edit my videos, cutting out the awkward in-between moments and cutting them to short enough bursts so Snapchat would let me upload them; and uploading would take forever when it was a chunk of videos at once. I realized that creating quality content would often take several hours out of each day. And there are only so many ways to take nudes and videos before you have to start utilizing your creativity. Another thing I think people don’t realize is that you do not feel sexy every day, and on those days it’s a bit harder to be satisfied with what you’re putting out there. Some days I would go through the effort of making an entire video, just to realize I didn’t want to post any of it. And, of course, there’s the dreaded period, which really limits what kind of stuff you can create. It’s also the type of thing where you are working with people who are demanding your time, which can be emotionally draining. I came to realize that sometimes I needed a break, and my subscribers were understanding of that. It’s one of those things where you have to be careful not to spread yourself too thin trying to keep everyone happy. If you’re not enjoying it, it’s going to be visible in your content anyway, and quality should always come over quantity.

So those are a few things I have learned so far. I hope that spreading awareness of what this type of work is really like will open some minds and one day remove the idea that we should be ashamed of our bodies or sexuality. And I plan on writing a lot more on the subject of different areas of sex work soon. It’s been really interesting and overall totally worth it for me. Maybe someone who reads this will decide it could be for them too!