Inside the Digital Boudoir
Inside the Digital Boudoir
With online platforms opening up the world of sex work, young women are turning to new sources of income to make ends meet.
By: Tatyana Masters
*All names have been changed to protect anonymity.
When Alyssa wakes up, she rolls over, opens Twitter, and chooses a 26-year-old client’s clothes for him. She looks through each option and insults the pairings, using harsher language at the client’s request. Next, she messages with another man in his 40s and sends pictures of her feet. Then, she plans a dinner date with another man she eats with every two weeks. All to the symphony of constant notifications lighting up her screen as money hits her bank account.
For centuries, sex has sold. From the brothels in Pompeii advertised with phallic symbols throughout the ancient stone walls, to strip clubs dotted along side streets, and women standing on street corners as their own personal billboards, the industry is constantly changing. Today, women like Alyssa profit off of sex work through online sources.
Alyssa found herself, as most people in their 20s do, needing some cash. While putting herself through beauty school, she started thinking increasingly about the opportunities sex work could provide. She was introduced to FeetFinder, a foot fetish website with over 1 million monthly active users for buying and selling feet pictures. After being told by boys in high school that she had nice feet, an idea started to form, and she began selling pictures to strangers online.
“I’ve always liked the idea of being so pretty you don’t have to work,” she said.
She began fielding messages from men across the country who would pay hundreds of dollars to get her feet pictures, let alone meet her in person. This solidified her involvement in financial domination, a fetish where a submissive gives money and gifts to their dominant partner. Soon, these online relationships developed into real life ones as she pursued “cash meets,” where men would pay her to meet in person and engage in their specific fetish.
She began fielding messages from men across the country who would pay hundreds of dollars to get her feet pictures, let alone meet her in person. This solidified her involvement in financial domination, a fetish where a submissive gives money and gifts to their dominant partner. Soon, these online relationships developed into real life ones as she pursued “cash meets,” where men would pay her to meet in person and engage in their specific fetish.
Pictured: Alyssa’s shoes that were licked clean. Notice the right shoe is cleaner than the left.
She spent a total of 45 minutes with him and was paid in cash for her time. She met another client at a “really gross” motel where she used him as a human foot stool, having him get on all fours while she rested her feet along his spine. While she ate, she propped her feet up and with any movement he made, would insult, or degrade him. If he spoke, he’d be kicked. For her time,she was given $200.
“I like myself more because of it. I feel more confident. I feel like I can stand up for myself. It’s really helped me grow emotionally and mentally, because I have the power,” she said.
While Alyssa fears that someone from her real life will find her page, out of embarrassment more than anything else, she thinks the risk is worth it.
“I like the genuine connections I make. It’s not just sex work, you get to talk to someone every day and you get to know them. They become kind of like a friend. That is something I never expected.”
While women like Alyssa enjoy what they do, others turn to it out of necessity. Sophia, a playboy bunny, began selling pictures online after Playboy messaged her on Instagram to join their network.
Sophia does non-nude photos on her subscription-based profile through the Playboy network. Playboy launched this platform in early 2023 as a competitor to the popular OnlyFans websitewhich boasts over 420 million active users, that allows creators to post behind the scenes and explicit content behind a paywall of which OnlyFans takes 20%. Clients can request custom photos or videos for a higher price tag in addition to their subscriptions to individual creators. Playboy offers a level of exclusivity, as each “bunny” on their site must be invited through social platforms, then go through an application process where their pages are scrutinized before they are approved to create their channel. Sophia was accepted and began curating content for her page. Then as any good businesswoman does, she posted to her Instagram story advertising her new venture, only after blocking her parents from seeing the post.
Sophia guessed she’d make maybe $50 over the first few weeks. She made $1000 in the first five days.
“I was sitting there just watching the numbers go up on my screen in complete shock,” she said.“I’ve been sexualized my entire life, and I was finally making bank from that.”
All of the money she made went to her rent and the rest into an emergency savings account in a separate bank than she normally uses. In total, she’s made upwards of $5000, but recently has slowed down.
“I just hate it. I did it out of desperation to begin with and I felt like this would make me some money I could tuck away. I’m not going to lie, this platform, doing this, has made me respect men so much less,” she said.
She finds it “weird” to validate the way men objectify her body by encouraging their comments for money. But some of her regulars she finds are just looking for a connection. They ask about her day, how her classes are going, and talk to her as if they are in a relationship as opposed to someone they are paying. Parasocial relationships are not abnormal in this industry. For Britt, that almost became life threatening.
Britt, an explicit OnlyFans model with over 400 subscribers paying $10 per month, dealt with an obsessive client who messaged her constantly.
“I started this as a way to reclaim my sexuality and take back that part of my life that had been stolen from me when I was raped as a young girl. It worked, it really did for a while, but as men tend to do, they ruined everything.”
Britt began her OnlyFans account after struggling to make rent. As a tattoo apprentice, she wasn’t making much money and was putting in long hours. She saw influencers all over her feed advertising their content and figured she could do the same. After a few months of producing content, she noticed a client who signed up early into her sex work career, had been sending increasingly worrying messages.
“He was threatening to kill himself if I didn’t meet up with him. His messages just got more and more deranged. I reported him to OnlyFans and his account got blocked, but then he created a new account. Then another and another and another and I just couldn’t keep up,” she said.
Eventually, she tried to make a police report as he was able to find out her address, where she worked, and personal family details he tracked down online. He began sending threatening messages to her and her family. The police told her they couldn’t do anything until she could prove all those accounts were the same person, and even then, he hadn’t made physical advances yet. OnlyFans offers little protection for creators outside of blocking accounts.
Eventually, he did make physical contact which she declined to comment on, but a restraining order is currently being processed.
“While my situation is bad, I don’t want people to think all sex work is like that. I did love it at the beginning. I make a lot of money from it; I just got a bad apple.”
Alyssa, Sophia, and Britt are just three women in a massive world of sex work who face these concerns. For Britt, even when her safety was threatened, she found meaning in this industry shrouded in prejudice and misconception.
“It can be so liberating for those of us who have had the joys of sex taken from them. When I was assaulted, I didn’t have control. With this I do. It’s in that control that I found freedom.”