Welcome to my fourth weekly newsletter, the first I’m sending out to over 50 subscribers! There are now 52… 53(!) of you to be exact. Exciting! This is also my first non-Sunday send, due to “unforeseen circumstances” (I didn’t manage my time well this week). But it’s a 3-day weekend for many of you in the states, so let’s say I planned it this way all along. I did warn you that my timing on this might be a little irregular… once a week is a lovely and consistent goal but my whims must be accounted for! As must my pains, unfortunately.

Last weekend was a real outlier of social adventures for me, which was great but also had me taking a rest day on Monday to recover some spoons, and later I lost a day to my neck doing a thing. Didn’t feel very kinky to me tbh; I did not provide enthusiastic consent. I’m forever in negotiations with my musculoskeletal system and I’m afraid we align (pun intended) differently on some matters. So some weeks are slow weeks or pained weeks, and some weeks are so-productive-is-this-what-it’s-like-for-normal-people weeks… always a blessing but those weeks (or weekends…) come with an underlying fear of crashing out after that big push.

ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, it was really an abysmal week for news about sex work, both in the States and abroad! (More on that below…) And oh gosh, it’s real hard to keep my head in the game sometimes when all the news about my career/industry is BAD. I’m glad I keep a bullet journal because otherwise I’d have zero clue what I did this week beyond feel bad about things (this is also why I take a lot of pictures). Life really be like that sometimes.

☑️ Did - a lot of low key photo editing as a way to remain productive with minimal physical/mental output, hit my breaking point and did some cleaning/organization work I’ve been putting off for far too long, went on a big walk with Irma, attended a stellar presentation for freelancers on how to price service offerings, enjoyed a coffee outside with a friend while we pondered adult businesses, climbed a ladder for home reasons but also took “pictures” on the ladder for work reasons, and got a hefty start on the salon-style gallery wall by my desk!

❌ Didn’t - Working on Hustle to Hire continues to elude me… but also I really didn’t feel great this week.

📋 Will(?) - Today I’m taking a friend to the local Japanese garden for her (and my new camera’s… 👀) first visit, my apartment building is doing sprinkler inspections on Tuesday and I’m hoping it won’t interrupt a coworking session that same day, and fingers crossed I’ll actually get some H2H work done this week… 🤞

I am trying so actively to get rid of my imposter syndrome. It’s a difficult, sticky beast. It’s a real trip to be able to recognize that one is good at many things, or uniquely qualified to do a specific thing, and to still feel such a burden to do that thing “correctly.” Correctly according to whom, exactly? Literally no one has ever done this before, I’m making it up as I go… what is there to get wrong? My mantra has become: “Iterate, don’t perfect.”

This week I realized that my confidence took a hit a couple years ago based on a interaction with someone whose professional approval I thought I needed. I had felt judged and demeaned by that person. Fast forward and I learned that the business she was involved in at the time (and was basing her statements on) has since gone bankrupt! Which sucks obvs but like… schadenfreude you know?. Why am I still sweating over the opinion of a person whose rise-and-grind toxic girlboss mindset contributed to a whole scaled-with-employees business completely collapsing?? Yikes! Glad I figured that one out!! You do you, Imma do me, at my own pace.

No but FR this week I am feeling SPICY about the spicy work. Spicy and also so exhausted. Sometimes the headline after headline after speculative headline is just too much; what’s a girl to do beyond bury her head in her hands with a cry of anguish and mope for a day before sucking it up and getting back to it because a cry of anguish probably won’t pay the bills? (Unless you’re into that…?)

In a nutshell. Sweden has now banned buying (custom) sexual content online from sites like OnlyFans, Snapchat, et cetera. It’s the digital version of the Nordic Model, which criminalizes solicitation of sexual goods and services (claiming it is a form of trafficking/assault), but doesn’t criminalize the creation/offer of said products or services. Uhhhh whut?? Yeah it’s pretty dumb, it definitely doesn’t work to reduce trafficking, and only serves to push marginalized people further away from safer work spaces and resources. We think of Sweden as a cool and hip and happy place but if Sweden can do it… it feels even more ominous for/in the current American political climate. Further reading—and a great read at that: Sex workers are punished when Gunnar Strömmer bands OnlyFans (link is to an English translation of the article).

Also this past week, it was announced that OnlyFans is under negotiation to sell to a private equity firm. You know that foreboding sense of “uh oh” you get when your company is acquired, and you start looking around wondering just how much of the staff will get laid off in the process?? Yeah, same thing really. Because as we know OnlyFans already tried to ban porn from its platform, and that obviously went very very poorly.

The thing a lot of folks don’t quite understand about news weeks like this is that it’s not only demoralizing for creators like myself, but it also plants seeds of avoidance in the casual buyer/subscriber. Subscribing to a site like Fansly or OnlyFans, or buying content on Clips4Sale or ManyVids, is already lower priority in most people’s monthly budgets than their Netflix subscription (and I get it, there’s so much free porn on the Internet! “Free.” 😒). So you start throwing even potential criminalization on top of that—and this includes all the states deploying oppressive user age verification laws—and that casual customer starts looking the other way. It’s not worth the risk. It may be subconscious but it happens and it is happening and I hate it! It makes me mad and sad and scared!! Because it never stops at sex work/ers, especially in the cole mine of America. And because this is literally my entire income; time to diversify even more, which sucks because I’m already spread thin.

I can tell you firsthand that yes, even though OnlyFans backtracked on their intention to remove porn from their platform, what didn’t backtrack is the amount of subscribers I and others had before the announcement, people who deleted their accounts in “a show of solidarity with sex workers”. Uhhhhh hate to break it to you mate but unsubbing from one site without resubbing elsewhere is performative allyship, and your “statement” actually hurt the people you were supposedly supporting by reducing our income and thusly by negatively impacting our mental health UGH. (IIRC I lost about ¼ of my monthly OF profits when they pulled that stunt.)

So even if executive orders get cancelled, laws get repealed, private companies change their minds… all these things still damage social opinions on sex work in any and every format. What can you do? What can anyone do?? Personally I’m a big fan of just tipping sex workers… ain’t no laws against giving a person money without soliciting any goods or services! Yet! Also, per the ushe, harass your local and state politicians. Shut it down if you hear someone voicing anti-sex work sentiments or making a bad joke. Follow different types of sex workers who speak to the experience of sex work as much as show they tiddies, and take the time to educate yourself.

A lot a lot of this ties into my work for Hustle to Hire, but I feel like that’s a rant for another day (and a different newsletter… haha oops). 🧡

🎥 Movie - I set into watching Spree (2020) with an incredibly misguided interpretation of the premise, which is essentially that the protagonist (Joe Keery aka Steve from Stranger Things) is a social-media obsessed nobody who sets out to go viral while driving for a rideshare app. The first half of this movie is so cringe you really do pity him (that’s the point), the second half is such a scathing indictment of social media that you too will consider crushing your phone out of desperation to escape it. Double feature: this would pair well with CAM (2018), in which a young camgirl is so desperate to climb the leaderboard that she engages in increasingly risky stunt performances, only to be faced with an opponent she’s not sure she can outrank: herself. Both of these movies will leave you uncomfortable, but it’s worth it for the introspection.

💄 Makeup - I learned during my trip to Ulta last week that the extremely sus Kat Von D had apparently sold her namesake beauty line to its holdings company in early 2020 (can’t believe I missed that news! /sarcasm), which has rebranded to simply KVD Beauty while keeping the product line and core mission the same. This was great news to me because they make my favourite eyeliner, the Tattoo Liquid Waterproof Eyeliner, which I had first received in a subscription makeup box and loooved despite the brand. It’s my fave because it features a precision brush tip instead of a felt tip (yes, like markers vs watercolor pens, so the liner’s bristles don’t “collect” other products as you apply it) and the eyeliner itself is a stellar, true-black non-fading formula. Best liquid liner this goth girl has ever used. Ever.

🍌 Food (Drink?) - For years I heard talk of the magic of a frozen banana in smoothies. But I, an impetuous smoothie chef at best, had never had the foresight to freeze a banana now for a smoothie later. That all changed this—well, technically two weeks ago, but it truly is such a game changer that I have started to plan my smoothies ahead. Behold: 1 frozen banana, half a cup of (non-dairy) yogurt, half a cup of (non-dairy) milk, ¾ cup frozen dragonfruit cubes, half an avocado, a scoop of vanilla protein powder, and just a touch of honey. Indulgently delicious.

📺 Television - I tried out a couple recent episodes of Um, Actually on DropoutTV and I have to say… it’s not for me. Fun in concept and I do get the appeal, but I also get mildly triggered by all the times I’ve been in nerd spaces and have been lambasted with expectations to perform Sheldon-tier pedantic nerdery, only to be met with “What?! I can’t believe you’ve never read/watched/played this thing that I have made my whole personality.” Riiight… um, anyway.

I can already tell that the week ahead is going to be a better one for me, personally. I’m manifesting it!! How are you? Did you make any soup recently? How are your projects going? It’s almost the end of the month, do you need an accountability buddy to check in or help you finish a couple goals?

I always enjoy hearing what people are working on and I already owe a couple of you replies this week, so if you haven’t yet, shoot me an email and let’s catch up. Oh and, make sure to include yourself in the list of things you need to take care of this week. 💜