Aella on Sex Work Economics.

• Author: Wolfe, Liz

AN OUTSPOKEN DEFENDER of sex worker rights, Aella is a former factory worker who never graduated college. At one point, she was one of the most successful and best-known creators on the adult subscription site OnlyFans, earning more than $100,000 per month. She has now pivoted to doing data science research full time, with an emphasis on sexual fetishes. In March, she spoke with Reason's Liz Wolfe about her work as an escort and a cam girl, the class distinctions in different types of sex work, and why the most successful sex workers are selling much more than sex.

Q: What was camming like when you first got started?

A: Really scary, because I had come from an extremely conservative culture. We were Calvinists. My dad is a professional evangelical debater. So, when I started camming, I made $60 the first night, and I was like, "This is more money for four hours of work than I've seen in my lifetime." I was extremely excited, and it was something where I could actually see results from working really hard, and that was the first time I'd been put into a system where I could work really hard and have concrete results from it.

Q: What did your business model look like for escorting and camming?

A: With camming, most of the income comes from a small percentage of men, because the men are visible to each other. There's much higher competition. As a guy, if you're tipping the girl or giving her money, it's in front of other men. It's very competition-oriented, so you end up with a system where 80 percent of your money comes from two guys. This leads to a lot of vulnerability for emotional abuse too. If all of your money is coming from just a handful of guys, then they can make a lot of demands of you. Whereas with escorting, that's not the case at all, because the guys are not visible to each other. They're not competing against each other in any way. Your income is much more distributed across men.

Q: Have you learned what your clients respond well to?

A: Men want personality. They really...