PORTLAND, OREGON 1997

Without reporting Ron’s crime, I sheltered myself from my family’s accusations of culpability.

Doug lifted his palm. “I understand.”

“If I could prove that I didn’t want it, I would, but I can’t.” The bruise forming on my thigh could have easily come from the stage or the pole like the bruises around it.

“Did you tell your managers?” Moochy, at twenty-two, sat next to me on the bed and rubbed my back, and I didn’t want him there.

“If I tell them, it’ll get around, and then...it’s...like...real.”

Through the fog and back, I’d had a dream to feature dance on a national level and had faith in an industry that presented me with options.

Adam, holding a screwdriver, entered my bedroom.

“You should call Todd and have him come over here.” Doug took the screwdriver from Adam. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take this.”

Manager Todd lived on our street, around the corner, and Doug was right. Moochy stretched the phone from the desk to my bed and dialed.

“Hey.”

“Can you come over?”

“Why? What’s up?”

“Ron Jeremy raped me.”

“Sh-shit. Yeah, okay. I’ll be right over.”

Todd coming to my house felt weird since we weren’t friends outside the club. But he ran our world at Stars Cabaret with common sense. Logic. Sound advice to drop into my lap.

Moochy went downstairs to play video games.

“You need to call the cops and file a police report.” Todd walked into my bedroom. “You have DNA on your clothes.”

“I can prove he fucked me, but I can’t prove it was rape. I stayed at his apartment; I took nude photos with him. I froze, so he didn’t beat me up or anything.” I threw my palms up. “And you know my reputation. I’m a skank.”

He half-smiled and nodded.

“He’s a celebrity. And I’m a slut. Men love him, and women hate me. And Fox News…” I’d tired of listing my infinite reasons why filing a police report against Ron Jeremy for a sex crime would hurt more than help.

“How was the trip otherwise? Not to— “

“—It was awesome. The Hustler shoot was cool, and I did a hardcore girl-girl scene for a director named Jim Powers. Here.” I showed Todd the polaroid picture from the Hustler shoot. “I’d have a great memory if it weren’t for the bullshit. I just...it never happened.”

“Take a few days off. Did you make anything while you were there?”

“Not really. I’ll come back to Stars on Wednesday if that’s okay.”

Kevin toddled in, and Todd left. Doug went downstairs with all my clothes, shut the door behind him. Kevin and I napped together.

The next day, after Moochy left for work, Bunny visited. Bunny had boobs big enough to be a big-boob feature dancer, platinum hair like mine, and a rockin’ body. Her face was punk-rock, like Courtney Love’s or Nancy Spungen’s, but in a Barbie Doll package. Pegged as dumb and awkward, she drew in cash, using her bimbo-ness to her advantage. That day, Bunny showed me who she was underneath the fake tan and silicone.

Bunny walked into my room and set a vase of flowers onto my table, a cheery arrangement. She set up strings of pink lights around the mirror on my makeup table.

In a haze, I sat in my bed, nursed my bong, and watched, trying to smoke away the weekend.

Bunny carried a conversation for both of us. “Pink anything makes me happy.”

She tossed a saran-wrapped plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies onto my bed and set a liter of milk next to me. Finally, she wrapped me in a pink feather boa, set a tiara on my head and a card into my lap.

I sat paralyzed, afraid to lose myself by speaking.

Bunny and I weren’t even tight. But I realized she’d survived something, too. I wanted to hug her back when she wrapped her arms around me but managed my hands on her shoulders and a whisper, “thank you,” before breathing turned to crying again.

Bunny left.

Doug brought the boys over, and they marveled at the new lights in my room. Adam walked around the room, touching the lights and the flowers. I put the tiara on his head. Adam smiled in the mirror while I wrapped the pink boa around Kevin. Time moved too fast toward needing to dance at Stars Cabaret. Trauma didn’t prevent my bills from coming in, and I strove to stay strong and serve my purpose as the family breadwinner. I had pink lights, and I was fine.

My first night back at Stars Cabaret, three days post-Ron, my exposed skin on stage contracted at the slightest breeze or change in temperature from a door opening or my parts moving through the air. Where I’d once felt powerful moving and celebrating my body while surrounded by brass, mirrors, and twinkling lights, I felt dirty and as if everyone who looked at me, customers and dancers, saw trash on stage.

Dirty and void. And sad. Like every dollar was pity money.

Word had already circled the club, and the dancers closest to me hugged me at random times through the night without speaking of it. Too many avoided me, and I blew it off as their lack of knowing what to say. Finding my groove, I did some table dances between my stage sets, but each moment of each interaction was strained. I wondered if customers had heard anything from the dancers.

A feature dancer with a blonde pageboy cut, August 1991 Penthouse Pet, Bobbie Brown (not to be confused with Warrant’s “Cherry Pie” video star), had been house dancing at Stars Cabaret for weeks.

I strolled by her sitting with a customer. “I just got back from Los Angeles. Did you ever shoot for Hustler?”

“No. But I heard you fucked Ron Jeremy.” The way she scrunched her face and laughed confused me as to whether someone told her this or if she was crushing my spirit for fun.

“No. I didn’t fuck Ron Jeremy.” My stomach churned, and my throat squeezed. To avoid a scene in the dressing room, I ran to the empty restaurant area, feeling I had no safe place.

Todd followed me. “Don’t listen to her. She’s just pissed because her Penthouse spread is over five years old, and nobody cares.”

“Can I go home?”

“What are you even doing here?” He sneered; his abrasive tone sans coddling helped me leave with self-respect. Because he was Todd being Todd.

Snow on the ground and misty clouds reflected sunlight and failure.

At home, sitting on my bedroom floor with my pink lights reflecting from my vanity, I smoked a nugget of weed Blair had given me as she cursed Ron Jeremy. My dragon pipe turned colors as it resinated; I lost myself in its reflections before bed.

Rich worked at Stars when I returned two nights later. He shook his shame back and forth as I approached him. “I swear I didn’t — “

“—I know. In no way do I think you tried to set me up.”

Rich had convinced me Ron was a safe person. “Sorry doesn’t come close to saying how I feel right now.”

It occurred to me that Rich might have received an ass-chewing from the other managers. “Don’t put this on yourself. You tried to help me.”

I went through the motions and made my money on stage, but my sexy was gone. I held my mouth wide, exposed my teeth, and blurred out faces as I crawled toward the edge of the stage. Spreading my legs, I exposed regions that seemed unattached—dead parts held together by skin. Instead of wet and horny over my own sexual expression, the turn inward left me cold and dry. I spent most of my stage time with my ass to the audience. Like a cardboard cutout, my stage sets lacked substance—they lacked me. My limbs moved without me. My table dance count decreased without the drive to hustle and connect.

To Prince’s “Pussy Control,” I spun around the pole and into the splits, clenching my cheeks. Bobby Law stood by the men’s room and signaled that he’d take me home—a subtle cock of his head toward the door. And a shiny grin at the blonde bartender he’d sworn wasn’t serious. Tingling for something naughty to bang me out of my funk, I yearned for systemic hypocrisy in the form of cop sex after a stripping shift. Even without physical satisfaction from my end, our clandestine romps had scratched a lusty itch.

Dirty.

Secret.

The sheriff’s car and uniform sweetened the deal. I followed him in my ’89 Nissan to a tree-shaded area. Too cold to bend over his hood in the snow, I crawled into his car.

Keeping a door open, we stumbled into the back seat of the sheriff’s mobile.

Shirts open.

Boots and pants off one leg.

But I was already dirtier than he could make me. My vibrance erased, I’d left myself. Gone. With nothing more to be ruined, he softened soon after entering me. Bobby Law couldn’t fuck a girl who wasn’t there, and I respected that. Why hadn’t Ron found it a problem?

I couldn’t let anyone take that part from me. That part that knew when to wink and arch my back. That part that knew how to make men believe that the cove between my legs shone for them while I focused on my curves in the mirror. Would I get my sexuality back?

Christmas Eve wasn’t the same with just Moochy. Adam and Kevin were at Doug’s house, each opening their one Christmas Eve gift before bed, I imagined. I looked across my snow-covered yard to Doug’s sliding glass door.

Moochy passed me the glass bong, loaded and lit, and I took a hit of sweet Oregon kind bud that left me apathetic to the extra food.

The kitchen phone rang.

Doug. “The boys and I want to bring your Christmas present over now. Then you can come back in the morning and watch them open their stuff. Is that okay?”

“Sure.”

I put anything having to do with marijuana into my bedroom closet upstairs. I changed into a pair of holiday sweatpants and a white tank top, dreading Moochy’s fit of jealousy over my sons’ father.

The bell rang. I ran downstairs and opened the door, excited to see the kids and Doug—excited to feel Christmas. I opened the door, expecting an uptick in spirit. Lights twinkled in my peripheral.

“Merry Christmas!” My family sang in unison behind a vision of pure love and security.

Dude.

Squinting his eyes into a smile, trilby hat in hand, silver hair combed over the top of his head, my dad, dubbed “Dude” by the family over the years, resembled Sean Connery with the mustache but without the beard.

I hugged him around his blue windbreaker for the first time in over a year. His scent through his Givenchy cologne brought me to base. Home. My kids and Dude were my home. In the presence of Dude, I trusted the world. Over my father’s shoulder, I thanked Doug.

“You’re welcome. Merry Christmas, Jenny.”

Doug and the kids hugged me as they walked into the house.

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m gonna go to my parents’ house down the road.” Moochy stood from a rent-to-own couch, shook Dude’s hand, and introduced himself. He glared at me on his way toward the door and mouthed the words: “Nice. Merry Christmas, Jenny.”

Doug had out-gifted Moochy with what I needed the most—family connection. Flying Dude from Monterey to Portland magnified Doug’s knowledge of my heart Moochy hadn’t begun to explore.

The front door slammed.

I cared not.

Dude removed his windbreaker, revealing his trademark blue sweatshirt. The exact brand and color that hung to my ankles when I’d spent the night at his house on weekends. Warmer than my cotton nightgowns, his sweatshirts had been stacked in the second drawer up from the bottom of his dresser since I could remember.

I hoped to God Doug hadn’t told him about the Ron thing. “I have plenty of food left over. You guys hungry?”

“Me.” Adam made vroom sounds while driving a toy car around the coffee table. He sang his list of things to do. “Sleep. Then stockings. Then breakfast. Then presents.”

“Then, football.” Dude touched Adam’s nose and made a clicking sound with his tongue.

“Football.” Adam mimicked dude.

I placed Kevin into a walker and set a bead maze onto his tray.

Adam led Dude into the kitchen by his hand.

Leaning into Doug, I whispered. “Please tell me you didn’t say—”

“—He has no idea.”

Dude had loved me without condition since he adopted me as a newborn. His history as a Great Depression orphan-turned-adoptee, made him even more my dad; the connection of disconnection. Unashamed around him, I withheld disappointments to prevent his feelings of helplessness. If he couldn’t help, why tell him? If causing pain was the only possible result, it was best to withhold Ron’s crime.

For years, I’d kept immutable information from Dude: my stepfather’s destruction of my boundaries throughout my teenage years; my trusted middle-aged boss forcing his goo down my throat as a sendoff to college; and, nine years later, Ron Jeremy changing my rebuilt world from vibrant and hopeful to gray and perilous.

I told myself that time would heal my wounds. If I hid an incident in a forgotten box, I hid it from Dude, too.

That Christmas Eve night, on stage at Stars Cabaret, my spine curled on the cool laminate, my legs unfolding into a stretch that resulted in a man setting money onto the ledge between us.

My white, lace-up boots clapped against the stage and reached together. Muscles in my thighs tightened into ridges built through eight years of dancing on six-inch heels.

The air was seasoned with hints of smoke and hard alcohol, what kind I didn’t know since I didn’t drink. The power of the flirt with boundaries regulated by security ensured a tease went no further than innuendo and visual stimulation.

Past the pole and across the stage, I crawled to a man, blurred out his face and focused on a ten-dollar bill in my peripheral vision. I pressed my breasts together, squinted my charcoal-lined eyes and widened my smile to show my teeth.

“Lemme see that cute ass of yours.”

I rolled onto my hands, spread my knees, and leaned my weight forward into an arch that exposed two orifices, one above the other.

The song Mother projected anger release through Danzig’s voice-over loudspeakers. I hadn’t spoken to the adoptive one in years. I looked in the mirror and wondered which parts looked like my biological mother. The one who bore me at sixteen. The one I never met.

“Can you keep them in the dark for life—Can you hide them from the waiting world—Mothe-e-r-r-r.”

Mother. A concept I’d received in parts. A teenager who gave me life. A woman who’d adopted me brought me into her home and approached parenting by using Stu and me as social accouterments for holiday country club photos and summers at Santa Monica Beach where we ran free in a Pacific paradise. But Groomer’d created such chaos, I was without a mother again.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

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Next chapter: Chapter 16

Next week: My brother’s cheeseburger was treasured. Mine was called garbage.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

We moved into a house off Bundy Drive in Brentwood, and my brother was home from military school. I caught both Groomer and my brother eyeballing my neighbor, Trisha. Trisha was fifteen and poised to become a model. Her younger sister, Katrina, was my age.

Two months after we moved in, Trisha was visibly shaken when I visited. At fifteen, Stu and his friend dressed like ninjas, in black clothes and face paint, and ran around the neighborhood. They ended up five feet away and gazing through Trisha’s bedroom window, a stunt he’d taken straight from the movie Porky’s.

I was beyond embarrassed, and her mom, Patsy, sat me on the couch and spoke with me.

“I’m worried about you. As a female.”

“Why?” Maybe she was worried about my living with a perverted brother. “Stu doesn’t act inappropriately with me.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about. He’s being fifteen. It’s how your mom and stepfather reacted.”

“Yeah. Stu doesn’t get punished for anything, really.”

“They blamed Trisha. For changing in her own room.”

“That’s wrong. I don’t know why they’d−“

“−I’m worried about you.” Patsy’s distress sounded genuine. “What if something ever happened to you? They would blame you. And you living in that environment scares me. For you.”

“I’m really sorry about my brother.”

“They didn’t even make him apologize. They said Trisha should have curtains. In the sixteen years I have lived here, we’ve never needed curtains.”

“Well, Stu’s going to military school next week, so he won’t even be around except for holidays.” I held a familiar blue box in my hands. Trivial Pursuit. “Can I still play here with Katrina?”

“I thought about telling you not to come over anymore. But this isn’t your fault. You shouldn’t suffer for their behavior.” Patsy seemed spent by all the trouble, and Trisha was embarrassed and traumatized. “Your mother especially should know better.”

Adult Agency: A Memoir

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Next chapter: Chapter 15

Next week: I had pink lights, and I was fine.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

PORTLAND, OREGON 1997

Doug’s gray Dodge pickup pulling up to the Portland airport released me from dismay and carried me into shock. Through the window, I focused on Adam and Kevin sitting in their car seats. I tossed my duffel bag into the truck bed and sat in the passenger side. Red holiday ribbons and white string lights lined the baggage area. Doug, his shaggy hair flung behind his earlobes, turned Eric Clapton down to soft and drove out of the airport and into the Oregon snow. Leaning on the center console, I rested my head on the pile of baby blankets that covered the boys.

Adam and Kevin both pet my face, and I cried. Not an uncontrollable weeping, but a free flow of wet through my eyes and nose while temporary atrophy deadened my emotions.

Old enough to put words together at three, Adam voiced his concern. “Daddy. Daddy. Mommy c-wry-ing. Mommy c-wry-ing.”

“That’s right. Mommy’s crying.”

Kevin made a crying face, but he drank from his sippy cup instead when he saw Adam’s grounded state. I rested my palm on his cheek, and he placed his hand over it.

“You’re okay, Mommy.” Adam patted my face, and I laughed at how not-soothing it was.

With my head between them and facing the truck’s ceiling, I smiled, gazed into their eyes, and we all pet each other. “I love you guys.”

Sitting up in my seat, I threw Doug a stiff expression of disbelief and shook my head. Other than the lack of income and the ugly drunk thing, Doug glued our broken family, and I came home in pieces.

Doug spared me from detailing the assault. Telling him Ron had raped me was enough. In the years he’d known me, rape was not a word I’d used.

I watched the raindrops vibrate on the passenger window as we drove into our neighborhood.

“Do you want to come to my house until Moochy gets home? You can sleep in my bed.”

“Yeah.”

The boys followed me and napped with me on Doug’s bed, all three of us like a litter of puppies; I awakened with the boys gone and Doug standing over me with a loaded bubbler and a lighter.

“I got this from your place. I figured it might help.”

“Yes. Please.” It didn’t take much to get me too stoned to cry. I fell asleep in Doug’s animal print sheets without much life force.

“Jenny?” Doug woke me. “Moochy’s home. I went ahead and told him what happened so you wouldn’t have to.”

Avoiding the conversation with Moochy relieved me. I didn’t owe the bedwarmer anything, not even loyalty, and at that moment, I wished him gone. I hadn’t the energy to worry about anyone’s emotions but my own.

“Want us all to go to your place?”

“Yes. I’ll throw out Moochy when I have the strength.”

We walked through Doug’s backyard to get to my house. When I saw Moochy come down the stairs, I fell to my knees crying, mostly because I didn’t want him there, but also to ward off any talk that blamed me for what happened in Los Angeles. I wanted to be in my room with Doug and the kids there.

“So, are you gonna file a police report?” Moochy asked me as he and Doug got me into bed.

“I can’t prove it.”

“Do you have clothes with his DNA?” Doug pointed to my duffel bag.

“I do, but I’d have to prove I didn’t want it. I was staying at his place. People saw us together. I’m in a picture with him coming out in Hustler Magazine. And I am far from a solid victim. I’m not going through this. I’ll get over the shock, and then it never happened.”

Doug went through my clothes, picking out everything I wore through the weekend. “Maybe at least fill out a police report— “

“—I’ve thought through everything. I cannot end up on Fox News for accusing Ron Jeremy of raping me. I’ll be a joke everywhere after that.” I pictured a split television screen with an image of Ron smiling in a tuxedo on the left and my platinum hair and fake boobs from a Stars Cabaret ad on the right.

Dude’s heart would have broken.

Stu would have been embarrassed.

Mom and Groomer would have blamed me; they’d always blamed the female.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 12

Next chapter: Chapter 14

Next week: They said she should’ve had curtains.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

BRENTWOOD, CALIFORNIA 1985

I was twelve the first time a boy kissed me. Groomer called a meeting with me, my grandmother, and my mom. My matriarchs watched as Groomer instructed me to end my relationship with my brother’s seventeen-year-old executive officer. No more letters, no more visits, no more “I love yous.”

I kept to myself that I’d kissed a half-dozen boys and girls in truth-or-dare games at the beach club and at mitzvahs since I was six or seven, but this had been my first kiss alone with someone who rolled his tongue around my mouth.

Groomer told me the act was “inappropriate and you’ve lost respect from your entire family.”

“What does that have to do with respect?” Even at twelve, I saw Groomer overemphasizing the levity of the situation.

The next night that Derek called, I broke up with him.

Stu called home upset because Derek mistreated him, using his officer status to make life harder on him at school. Stu stopped speaking to me on the phone.

“See the trouble your behavior caused your brother?”

“But you told me to break up with him.”

“You shouldn’t have been with a seventeen-year-old in the first place.”

“Mom and Mimi encouraged it. And so did Stu.”

“Well, your mother isn’t the best judge of these things. That’s why I had to take over.”

Mom at her makeup station didn’t respond − just met my eyes for a flash, then looked down at her cosmetics.

The next day after school, Groomer brought me downstairs and repeated the same conversation, only alone. With only him and me in the house. He went through the same points about his losing respect for me, making things harder on my brother, and added a topic no man or woman had suggested before. “I could take you to a doctor today to see if things went farther than you’re telling us.”

“A doctor?”

Groomer nodded his head, raising his eyebrows. His glasses hung low on his nose.

Something had gone over my head. I stared into space and tensed the muscles between my eyebrows. What did the doctor have to do with me and Derek?

“To see if you’ve allowed yourself to be defiled.”

“Defiled?”

“A doctor can check to see if your private parts are still intact.”

I froze, uncomfortable that any man was having that conversation with me, especially without anyone else in the house. I wasn’t allowed to get up and leave or change the subject. In my mind’s eye, my presence diffused into its panic room from where I could watch Groomer talk to me and nod my head, aware enough to pick out his last phrase and repeat it had he asked me to do so.

At separate times, I told Mom and Mimi, “He said he might have my virginity checked.” Physical sensations seeped through my body and squeezed around my lungs. The needly sensation one feels when extremities fall asleep, tingled around me as I repeated Groomer’s suggestion.

“Oh, honey that’s just the time.”

What time? And how did that time corollate with a man in his forties talking to me about my hymen? Trained not to use the questions what or huh, I asked, “Pardon?”

“The time Groomer came from. In Louisville. It’s conservative, and that’s just how he talks.”

I knew at twelve that a grown man having such a conversation with a girl my age wasn’t normal. Why would he want to? And why didn’t my mom take my discomfort more seriously?

“Maybe you shouldn’t be so easy with a boy who wants to kiss you,” came from the same grandmother who’d encouraged my love letters and dreams for the future with my brother’s executive officer.

Signal changes by my matriarchs weakened my trust in their integrity, which suddenly leaned towards Groomer’s values.

Mimi spoke in a terse tone. “When I paid for your brother to go to military school, I agreed with your mother not to interfere with how Groomer raises you.”

Any agreement came up because Groomer thought of it. Why? Why was his control over me so important to him?

My dad, who’d made sure I knew all the states and capitals off the top of my head, who’d practiced hitting tennis balls with me before tournaments, and who’d showed up at all my sporting events and school pageants, hadn’t expressed the type of authoritarian control that Groomer sought over me. At twelve.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 11

Next chapter: Chapter 13

Next week: Coming home in pieces

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BUY ME A COFFEE

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 1997

In a closet on a Jim Powers set, Producer Jeff Covard touched my nipple and my labia over my panties, activating my already hypersensitive nerves. “You like that, little girl?”

Little girl pulled me out of shock. Creepy fucker. What was up with older men and tiny rooms? And little girls? With Jeff Covard’s hand off my wrist, I backed away through the door, left the closet, glided downstairs, and into the kitchen.

Bright lights.

People talking.

Public.

Safety.

Was I supposed to tell Jim that someone groped me without my consent, or were porn sets hunting grounds disguised as workplaces? I’d sunk too much trust in the adult entertainment industry by assuming that talent performed safely and without concern for sexual harassment.

I found Jim and Johnny. Jim filmed Johnny fucking starlet Cassidy in a hot tub decorated with jungle fauna and flora. The sexiest thing I’d seen since I came to Los Angeles. Two wet bodies, hers tan and toned and his pasty and skinny, went at it hard enough for them to gasp for breath.

Cassidy’s right foot rested on the tile wall, and Johnny’s on the side of the tub. Though not positioned for satisfaction, the sex appeared pleasurable to both. Humor and fun surrounded the room, how a porn set should feel, and I felt safe in the presence of others. Watching the scene turned me on enough to do scenes with guys when I felt comfortable enough.

I met women on the set. As she packed to leave, Cassidy wrote down her number for the next time I came to town.

“Ron Jeremy’s here.” A female voice said it like a warning.

My throat clenched.

My stomach wretched.

Just get through this. Then bag, airport, and home. Oregon.

My back turned, I heard his voice behind me, louder as he got closer.

“Hello, ladies.”

I turned around and waved.

“Did you do your scene?” His friendly tone felt predatory.

“I just got out of hair and makeup. We film upstairs now.”

Jim directed from a camera on a tripod; someone else used a second camera for closeups. Like Johnny had assured, Jim guided me through my first scene. Feeding us lines as he came up with a story kept me laughing.

“We can’t.” I babied my voice as I’d seen in movies. “You’re practically my sister.”

Heaven Leigh, a twenties’ redhead with milky skin, played my stepsister. Family fantasy. Like The Lynn Sisters. Or the Taboo series. I realized if videos concocted familial ties, then magazines probably did, too, and that The Lynn Sisters probably weren’t even sisters.

The glistening folds of Heaven Leigh’s vagina mesmerized me as she leaned over me on all fours. She tasted like river water seasoned with vinaigrette. We used toys on each other in a sixty-nine position—not to make each other cum, but to look sexy for the camera.

Ron walked in and sat in a corner seat. “She can do anal.”

“I’m not paying her to do anal, Ron.” Jim spoke as if practiced.

At will, my mind dissolved into the room, separated from my body. After two positions, we faked our orgasms for the cameras.

I dressed and collected my check. I collected phone numbers from Johnny and some of the female talent.

The digital clock on the kitchen stove read 7:15 on our way out. We had to hurry. The sky dimmed, and I needed to head to the airport. Home seemed like a dream.

Adam.

Kevin.

Sleep with both my eyes closed.

I settled into the passenger side in Ron’s car and put on my seatbelt. “Bag, airport, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“You missed the last flight. I have to take you in the morning.”

Anger and fear overtook any semblance of agreeability he’d abused since my arrival. “You told me there was a later flight at nine and to leave my bag at your place because we’d have time.”

“Well, it’s at eight, and the plane is boarding right now.” Ron drove toward the freeway. “You said you wanted to do this scene, and even if we didn’t have to go back and get your bag— “

“—I have to go home tonight. If the last flight left at eight, why would you tell me nine?” I felt kidnapped. Why would he deliberately keep me there for another night if he wasn’t going to violate me again? My voice raised. “Stop fucking with me. You planned this. That’s why you made me leave my bag. I fucking knew it.”

“What—do you think I need to fuck you? Look at everything I did for you, and you don’t even appreciate it.” He raised his voice to match mine. “I took you to places and introduced you to people, and you walked around the studio with an attitude. What’s wrong with you?”

“Let’s get my stuff and take me to the airport.” To explain to a man who raped me that he raped me had no chance of a positive outcome. Any possible teaching moment had exhausted itself. “Please. I’ll spend the night there.”

“You can’t spend the night at the airport. They won’t let you.”

“I’m not doing this again.” My suppressed anger expressed itself through a shaky voice. “You knew I didn’t want to have sex with you or any guy, and since I got here, you’ve steered me around to where the word no doesn’t mean shit. I’m not even complaining about the fact that I would have made more money dancing this weekend. I need the credits, but you’re not putting me through what you did last night. I’m fucking done.”

“Putting you through...you make it sound like I raped you.”

Was he trying to kid himself or me? Self-preservation? Ego? Denial? He wasn’t stupid, maybe one of the most intelligent people I’d come across. My intuition told me he planned this, but what’s intuition without choices? From the passenger side, I found myself taller and leaning over him.

I smiled in disbelief. Trying to keep a balance between not getting raped again and not getting thrown out into the middle of Los Angeles without money, a payphone, or a way home to Oregon entailed making myself clear without pissing this guy off.

“I get it. You don’t want to fuck me. But no more planes are flying out. Your bag’s back at my place, and we need to go back there anyway. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” With my fucking clothes on. Had any one company paid me in cash that weekend, I could’ve gotten a cab and a motel room right then. All the banks were closed. Asking Doug to send money would call for attention and a ride to Western Union that wasn’t open until morning anyway.

I called Doug from Ron’s. “I missed the last flight. I’ll be home in the morning.”

“You sure you’re okay, hon?”

“Yeah. I’m tired. A lot of running around.” I meant runaround but didn’t want to worry him. Back in Oregon, I’d get back to my old self, and, other than my magazine and movie credits, Ron Jeremy never happened.

With my socks and shoes and clothes on, I hugged my knees on a cleared spot on the media-crowded couch, curled up, and fell asleep.

“Hey.”

Is he kidding?

“Sleep in my bed. I’ll sleep out here.”

Exasperated by whatever trickery he might concoct, I fought, at that point, to get home.

“I told you I get it. You don’t want to have sex with me. But I like to watch TV and fall asleep. Use my bed. I want the couch anyway. I won’t bother you. You couldn’t pay me to fuck you now, anyway.”

I half-expected him to bother me, but he didn’t. Crashing fast in a one-piece bathing suit, blue jeans, a tank top, my dirt-ridden Stars Cabaret sweatshirt, socks, and ankle boots, I slept like a rock on his bed, relieved in the morning that I’d be home that day. Back to my regular life. Oregon. Adam and Kevin.

Skipping my morning shower kept me dressed. I called Doug one more time so Ron could hear me. “Ron’s driving me to the Burbank airport now. We’re leaving from his apartment.”

My family knew Ron was the last person I was with before heading to the airport, and Ron knowing this eased some fear.

I looked at the duffel bag in the middle of the floor. I’d used no clothing from it other than two changes of tank tops and pants. I carried my bag for the first time since I’d arrived in Los Angeles, no longer earning the gentleman in Ron, I presumed; he’d finished using it as an instrument of control, so it no longer interested him.

I kept the conversation light on the way to the airport, grateful to avoid getting dumped off next to a highway. Aware of signs and directions in case he veered from our path, I did not know that area of Los Angeles. The first freeway sign for the airport sated me, and fear turned to relief. “I really appreciate this weekend. I’ll feel better next time, and I won’t dance the night before.”

He remained friendly. “Now, when you get interviewed— “

“—I’ll say you eat the best pussy ever. Even better than a lesbian.”

He puckered his lips at the airport curbside, and I pecked him on the mouth. Gross. People recognized him, smiled, and pointed when he got out of his car and opened the trunk. I pulled out my duffel bag.

We hugged.

He drove off.

I walked along the concrete sidewalk toward the airport with airplanes taking off overhead. Free.

I decided that my slate would be wiped clean once I walked into the building and that the rape had never happened. Everything went fine. I’d done a photoshoot for Hustler and a video shoot for Jim and made some contacts for later.

A payphone beckoned me upon entering the airport. I used the change at the bottom of my purse to call Doug. One dollar for five minutes anywhere in the U.S. The phone didn’t ring before he picked it up.

“Hello?”

“He raped me.” Without restraint, the words forced themselves out, and I wished I could take them back before he heard them. Fast tears wet my face, my hands, and the phone. No ugly face or sounds, but bits of broken human turned to fluid.

“He raped you?” Doug inhaled and exhaled with a shake and spoke with a tone that said he’d help me get through this. “I’m so sorry, hon. Come home and we’ll figure out what to do. Just get here. Are you at the airport now?”

“Yeah. I board in about thirty minutes. I don’t want to call the police, and I don’t want to tell anyone.” I just wanted it to have never happened. Be strong. Get over it. Move past it. “I don’t want to tell Moochy. I just want to figure out how to get rid of him. He sucks anyway.”

“Whatever you need. Just come home.”

I checked my duffel bag, wishing I hadn’t brought it in the first place; its only purpose was to help Ron add manipulation and confusion to the situation.

Up the escalator and at my gate, my hyperawareness quelled. Though I’d slept all night, I hadn’t noticed the tension built up from running a dick gauntlet while blindfolded for two days until I escaped danger.

My body relaxed at the gate, but my mind went through a safety check. My plane was ready to board. I was going home to the boys. Nobody knew about this but Doug. I was safe from men tricking me into sex. No boogeymen approached from the direction of the escalator.

I didn’t know who I was. Fragmented, where would I find sensual strength to dance when I got home? This would give me the exact opposite image of a confident, sensual woman that my job required.

I sure as hell wouldn’t go back to work as a victim—because it never happened.

Using my Stars Cabaret sweatshirt as a pillow and grateful to have a row to myself, I cried myself to sleep in my window seat, dreaming that once I landed, my life would be exactly like it was when I left Oregon.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 10

Next chapter: Chapter 12

Next week: He threatened to have my virginity checked at twelve.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

BEVERLY HILLS, CA 1984

On Halloween of my Freshman year in high school, Dude picked me up late because he couldn’t find my friend’s house. My new friend from Catholic school, Jamie, stood politely while he berated her in front of her Beverly Hills home for giving bad directions.

I wanted to put on my seat belt when he started driving but preferred to avoid the argument it might have caused. In his blue Plymouth, Dude went on for a bit longer about his delay caused by my friend’s bad directions. By twelve, I’d experienced enough of my parents’ slurred words, medicinal smells, and wobbly stances to identify and ignore the effects of alcohol. I tolerated Dude’s angry moments by reminding myself he hooked me up with five-star gifts each holiday, let me eat sweets I couldn’t have at Mom’s house, took me on the best weekend excursions, and he was a sure thing for a study helper anytime he found out about a test.

At his Brentwood apartment, I showered, went to my room, and slept. When I awakened at around two, Dude wasn’t in his room or the living room. His Halloween hat covered in pins laid on his bed, two sets of eyes still blinking faintly. I went back to bed.

Outside was sunny when I awakened, but Dude still wasn’t home. His hat was in the same spot, and his bed was still made, so I doubted he was on a store run. In the kitchen, a box of Fruit Loops awaited on the counter behind a bowl and a spoon. I turned on Popeye cartoons and finished breakfast, wondering where Dude was. Next to my brother’s twin bed that he hadn’t slept in for a year, a drawer contained VHS tapes of kid videos Dude had bought us through the years.

Most of the way through The Apple Dumpling Gang, Dude called.

“Where are you?”

Dude sounded irritated. “I got stuck downtown. I’ll explain it when I get home. Are you OK? Everything OK?”

“Yeah. I had cereal, and I’m watching The Apple Dumpling Gang.” I clarified my movie choice, so he didn’t think I was watching porn. “When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know. I’m stuck without my wallet. I have a messenger coming within the hour. Would you give it to him?”

“Sure.”

“And when you get hungry, take as much change as you need from the milk jug in my closet.”

We’d won that milk jug together by guessing the number of jellybeans. Our guess, seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy-four, was only three over the actual number of jellybeans. The prize was the milk jug full of jellybeans that Mom made me sack up and give away for Halloween.

I gave Dude’s wallet to the guy who came to the door.

At the bottom of Dude’s closet, the milk jug full of change screamed, “Video games!”

My two back pockets bulged with quarters when I walked across Wilshire Blvd. and into McDonald’s for my favorite meal in the world, a McDLT Value Pack. I ate my meal at the golden arches, then climbed upstairs for Galaga, Ms. Pacman, Centipede, and their newest game, Dig Dug.

When my back pockets were empty, I returned them to Dude’s apartment and locked the door behind me. The clock on the stove read 2:21 PM.

The phone in Dude’s room rang. It was Mom.

“Just checking in. How was your Halloween?”

“Good.”

“Your dad picked you up on time?”

“Yup.”

“Your dad didn’t take you anywhere today? Is he hungover?”

“He says he’s stuck downtown, but he’ll be home later. I just gave his wallet to a messenger so he could get gas to come home. I have everything I need. Money, food, and movies.”

“What?” She exhaled into the phone. “He was arrested.”

“No. He called. He just needs his wallet.”

Groomer’s voice mumbled in the background, and Mom returned to our conversation. “Get your stuff packed up, and we should be there by 5:30 to get you and bring you back here.”

I hung up and stared at the milk jug at the bottom of Dude’s closet.

From the back seat of the car that he bought right after marrying Mom, Groomer explained why Dude was unfit to be a parent and that he’d talked to the family attorney about having Dude’s parental rights taken away.

“I’m seeing my dad on the weekends.”

For survival’s sake, I had stayed more agreeable than my brother with Groomer but had they tried to keep me from seeing Dude, I would have gone to other family members or run away if I had to.

“You’re going to do whatever we tell you are going to do, and that’s that. Your dad’s apartment isn’t a proper environment.”

Why was Groomer in charge of conversations meant for Mom?

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 9

Next chapter: Chapter 11

Next week: How Ron Jeremy Used a Missed Flight to Keep Me Trapped After I Said No

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This is where I work with people who want more than what platforms offer.

CONTINUE PRIVATELY

Keep the writing going.

BUY ME A COFFEE

How I Built My Own Private Cam Booking Funnel

Most cam platforms handle everything in one place. They help clients find creators, process payments, and host the video call.

I wanted more control than that.

So I built a simple booking funnel for private video sessions. It isn’t fancy, and it doesn’t require special software. It just moves someone from finding me to booking a paid appointment.

Keep the offer simple

I started with one service: scheduled one-on-one video sessions.

Instead of offering a long menu, I list exactly what I offer and what it costs. Clients know the price before they contact me, which saves time for both of us.

Give people one place to start

My website explains what I offer, who can book, and how the booking process works.

It doesn’t need to do everything a cam platform does. It only needs to answer enough questions for someone to decide whether they’d like to book.

Book by message

I use a separate work phone, and don’t answer random video calls.

Clients send me a message with the session they want and a few times they’re available. Once we agree on a time, I send payment instructions.

The appointment isn’t reserved until payment is received.

Screen first

Every new client is screened.

I’m looking for people who follow directions, respect boundaries, and communicate clearly. If someone makes the process difficult before we’ve even met, I don’t book them.

Send the meeting link

Once everything is confirmed, I send a private video link.

The video app is just for the call. It doesn’t control my prices, payments, or client relationships.

Stick to the schedule

Sessions start on time and end on time.

If someone wants more time, they can book more time if I’m available. Having clear boundaries keeps the process fair for everyone.

Make repeat bookings easy

Returning clients already know how everything works.

They don’t have to search for me on a platform again or hope an algorithm shows them my profile. They simply contact me directly and schedule another appointment.

Keep good records

After every session, I record who booked, when they booked, how they paid, and any notes I’ll want next time.

That helps me identify repeat clients and understand which services people actually use.

The whole system

My funnel only needs five things:

• A simple website

• A contact method

• A scheduling process

• A payment method

• A private video app

That’s it.

Building this didn’t replace platforms overnight, but after three months, I'm making more than when I used them while, more importantly, leveraging more free time. I control my prices, my schedule, my communication, and who I choose to work with.

Sometimes the simplest systems are the ones that last.

Subscribe now

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This is where I work with people who want more than what platforms offer.

CONTINUE PRIVATELY

Keep the writing going.

BUY ME A COFFEE

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 1997

Ron pulled onto a freeway, and I pulled out the Polaroid picture that displayed three bare-breasted goddesses behind a laughing Ron holding his dick with one hand and a chicken leg with the other. Bent over him, I smiled with bright red lips, my platinum hair reaching to the bottom of my toga.

I snorted when I laughed at it, thrilled to be part of this work of art.

“When does the magazine come out?”

“February or March. Anything you shoot usually takes two to three months. Even movies.”

The sun’s lean toward the Pacific signaled late afternoon. “Where to now?”

“I’m doing a quick scene with Jacklyn Lick.”

I perked up at the name. “I know her. I mean, I don’t know her, but my friend Blair at Stars told me to say hello if I ran into her. It’s just a crazy coincidence.”

Between the road and me, Ron’s eyes moved, and his smile lightened the moment.

The sky’s colors dimmed as we walked to the condo where Jacklyn Lick and Ron were due to shoot a scene. A more straightforward setup than in the Hustler Studios, a compact office hung off the side of the kitchenette, where a man in his thirties worked on a shoot schedule. I sat on the leather couch in the living room. A bookshelf holding titles about the porn industry caught my attention.

From the bathroom, Jacklyn Lick entered wearing a towel. Her freshly blown-out auburn hair hung shiny down the length of her back. The most natural woman I’d met since I arrived in Los Angeles. Extroverted. Warm.

I stood. “My friend Blair from Oregon wanted me to tell you hello if I saw you. Something about butt plugs and bachelor parties. I’m Jenny.”

“Blair. She’s so funny.” She inhaled with a close-mouthed smile. Her aquiline nose reminded me of Raquel Welch, and her pointed chin with long hair emitted a bad girl resting vibe. Her starlight shone when she smiled, revealing warmth. Her upper lids lined with black wings oozed sensuality. “She calls me an ass hooker.”

“She’s my weed buddy at Stars.”

“Oh, you work at Stars Cabaret? I auditioned there, and Todd wouldn’t hire me because of my tattoo. When they found out who I was, Jeff called to get me to work there, but I said fuck that place. I do better at parties anyway.” Hearing someone in Los Angeles mention the names of managers in Oregon comforted me, and I missed home.

Asking to use the phone to call Doug and the kids again didn’t seem appropriate.

I couldn’t watch her scene with Ron, but I heard moans through the wall. On the leather couch, I read through a porn almanac that listed a comprehensive history of porn movies and talent, their years active, and something about them. I went through all the feature porn girls who came through Stars Cabaret. Jill Kelly. Nikki Tyler. Chasey Lain. Marilyn Star. Mark Davis. Kobe Tai. I looked up Ron Jeremy. All the porn stars I watched in college. Tom Byron. Nina Hartley. Amber Lynn. Ginger Lynn. Peter North. And Barbara Dare, my favorite for whatever reason—her hair, makeup, heart tattoo, tan lines—I loved all of her and looked her up. Each performer’s section listed a few sentences about their appearance and how they performed, and the reference seemed a valuable tool for fans and casting directors.

The scene took an hour to shoot, though I could have poured over that book for a day. Ron dressed, Jacklyn got into a shower, and Ron and I returned to his car.

“Back to West Hollywood. That’s where I live. It’s not far.”

In the passenger seat, I nodded off a few times and awoke when my head fell, the freeway lights crawling in formation like illuminated ant colonies.

“We’re gonna stop by the Rainbow Bar & Grill first. Just for a few minutes. It’s right down the road from my house. Are you gonna make it?”

What did this man expect from me after being awake for thirty-six hours? I’d given Doug most of my cash so he could Christmas shop for Adam and Kevin, and I wished I hadn’t worked my Thursday night shift. “I’ll be there in body but not in spirit.”

The Rainbow Bar & Grill’s thin crowd didn’t meet Ron’s hope, but I preferred freedom to move over gobs of onlookers anyway. “Hey, Ron” came from all directions, and he waved to people, glowing and smiling. His eyes sparkled, as they did when he got around groups. I sensed why the public loved him—he was a regular guy. A regular guy and a star.

Proud and embarrassed to be with him, I took his lead and slow-danced with him to a rock song. As the mid-twenties “thing” he’d taken around town that day, I smiled at Ron and returned a peck on the lips to make him look good to those around him. If his helping me find a path to my dream job as a feature was reimbursed by making other people think I was his date, then I was eager to do so.

“You want something to drink?”

“I’ll take a coke.” My stomach in knots, I wondered if I was coming down with something. There was something about the situation I didn’t trust. The Hustler Studios bathroom came to mind, but I’d chosen to move past it and not let it ruin things. Others’ endorsements, as he’d taken me through his day-in-the-life, reminded me that a public figure wouldn’t want the press of putting a young woman in any danger.

“You don’t want any alcohol?”

“I don’t drink. I only smoke weed. Weed would be awesome, but I know it’s not your thing.” I wondered if my lack of weed made my stomach clench. Without it, my mind spun to alert.

“I’ll have a drink with you if you have one. It might help you sleep.”

Ron was pushy. A good salesman but not persuasive enough for me to drink alcohol.

I could feel my contact lenses when I blinked. Had I set my head on that table, I would have fallen out despite the music and people’s sounds. “Sleep won’t be a problem tonight. I just need to crash, and I promise I’ll be more fun to be around in the morning.”

After four sips of my coke and a few people greeting us at our booth, Ron took enough pity upon my state of exhaustion for us to leave.

Ron took me to an apartment building in the hills of West Hollywood. He hadn’t said anything to make me think he lived in a house. I’d just assumed.

Clutter overtook his smaller-than-I’d-expected apartment—kitchen on the left and a couch straight ahead and to the right. Boxes of magazines and movies covered the entire couch, and Ron set my duffel bag in front of it.

“Where’s my room? I’m crashing.”

“Well, I can move all this stuff off the couch, which should take about twenty minutes, or I can give you my room.” He nodded toward the bedroom, its open door to the right of the television.

The bedded mattress on the floor looked as inviting as anything I needed, which was sleep.

“I’m not throwing you out of your bed. I don’t care if you crash next to me. But I can’t stay awake for twenty minutes.” Two steps into his room, I fell onto his mattress covered in a blue bottom sheet, then rolled to the side and huddled up to the wall.

I removed my Stars Cabaret sweatshirt and my shoes and socks with my eyes closed, still wearing my jeans and tank top. I balled up my sweatshirt and used it as a pillow to not take his only one. I curled myself compact enough to leave most of the space for him.

Sleep.

Sleep.

Please.

“Do you want to take a shower?”

Morning, I thought. But I feigned sleep. I felt safest wearing my clothes, using the wall as a body pillow. I imagined Ron trying something while I showered and dismissed it as dramatic thinking.

He turned on the bedroom light.

Practicing sleep-like rhythmic breaths, I huddled up more tightly to my sweatshirt and the wall.

He tapped my shoulder, then grabbed it to pull me away from the wall.

Was he this dense? I pretended to awaken, hoping he had enough humanity to leave me alone. My duffel bag sat in front of the couch, and my purse was below the bed atop my shoes and socks.

I wouldn’t have been able to run with my bag, but if turning him down for sex meant not having a place to sleep, I could have drug it down the road in hopes that a stranger might have had enough heart to take me to the airport for thirty dollars.

I could have slept on the sidewalk at that point.

I tried to appear confused to avoid elevating the tension through my annoyance. I was confused. After multiple discussions, exhaustion, and turning down work to avoid dick, my fully dressed state gave no indication that I wanted anything other than sleep.

“Do I need to go sleep in the street?”

“No. But, just listen—”

“—I can’t fuck you, Ron. I told you like a million times that I have a boyfriend, and now you’re pressuring me.” I didn’t even care about my loser boyfriend. I just wanted this guy off me and to go home. He needed the shower.

“I’m not trying to fuck you, and I’m offended that you even said that. You think I need to fuck you? Come on.”

After everyone I’d met and seen since that morning and the decades’ worth of pornography that littered his couch, he didn’t need to bring a random down from Oregon to screw her against her will.

“You’re gonna start featuring soon, and people are going to interview you. Whenever people ask, all the stars say I eat the best pussy in the business.”

“I promise I’ll say you killed it.”

He leaned over me. “I want it to be real. And then I promise to let you sleep and leave you alone.”

“Like your promise earlier?”

“No.” He shook his head and exhaled. “I’m sorry that happened, but are you gonna hold that against me forever? I promise. And I want to prove to you that I’m a man of my word, so maybe someday when you do work with men, you’ll do a scene with me.”

“Right. But if you get me off, then you’re gonna throw it back at me like I owe you something.” His positioning released the smell of his balls, like meat rotten enough to feed maggots. The moment reminded me of high school and making back seat compromises without going all the way to experiment with what felt best while still holding back on the big event.

“I promise. Let me do this one thing, and you can go to sleep, and I’ll watch TV for a while on the couch. I’ll leave my clothes on.”

“You’ll let me sleep as soon as I get off?” I’d fake it fast. “Nothing in return?”

“Yes. But you can’t fake it, or I’ll know.”

Don’t let ‘em get you out of your pants—I pushed aside my grandmother’s suddenly relevant nagging about rape. My two choices were to continue arguing and pissing him off into a who-knows-what reaction, or take off my pants, fill his ego, and sleep. “Okay. So, you get me off, and I go to sleep.”

“Yes.”

“No further expectations, no— “

“I promise, I will get you off, and I will leave you alone. Look. My clothes are on. But you have to promise to say I’m the best if you think I’m the best.”

I took off my jeans and allowed his face between my legs. Until that moment in my life, no one had eaten my pussy better than Ron Jeremy. The pressure. The motion. The consistency. With no instruction to give him, I ignored the smell of him, arched my back, and put my sweatshirt over my eyes to imagine he was someone sexy. I came fast, in less than a minute. Ron was a pro, and I squeezed out what he needed to satisfy his ego.

Ready.

Set.

Sleep.

Having earned my sleeping space with future oral endorsements, I pulled my sweatshirt off my face to find Ron naked from the waist down.

Suspecting he’d done this before, and after his Hustler Studios bathroom compliance test still fresh in my mind, I reassessed my autonomous adventure as his master plan to screw me.

Why? Rich from Stars Cabaret had told me he’d been with more women than God. Everywhere we went, people acted lucky to know him. Maybe because he was having problems with his dick?

Ron thwarted my attempt to close my legs by his leaning on my lower body and holding them down.

“Come on, Ron. This shit isn’t funny.” Fuck. “I said NO, and the only reason I let you—”

“—so, you’re gonna get yours and just leave me hanging?”

I tried to pull away from him, sped my words, whined, and raised my voice. “We made a deal, and you said if I let you do this, you wouldn’t— “

“—What’s wrong with me? You don’t appreciate everything I’m doing for you here?” He scoffed, agitated. A different person altogether.

“I do appreciate everything, but I made myself clear before I came down here, and I wouldn’t have come if I had to fuck guys. I called you beforehand and told you. What do I need to do to not have sex with you and go to sleep? Shit, now I’m scared to go to sleep. “

He held my legs open as I tried to close them and scoot up. Separated from Ron’s chest by my forearms, pressing him toward the ceiling caused him to tighten his left arm around my torso.

What was I thinking taking my pants off? Seeing no choices that didn’t involve an escalation of danger saddened me. The areas around his eyes darkened, informing me that things had moved from coercive to forceful. His right thumb leaned harder into my left thigh, and the black around his eyes spread out into the room—into the world, where my options were gone.

No longer in character, Ron was raping me for real.

He banged his flaccid meat against my thigh with his right hand and held my leg down with his knee. I tried to squeeze myself out, which tightened his grip. He was done playing games, his patience exhausted. He raised his dark gaze at me and said something I didn’t make out through my fear. The drooling Devil stared me down; my soul spread out like a snack.

Fight or Flight?

Too afraid to fight, I flew. So far away, I couldn’t move. To a different space. I knew things were happening, so I stayed away while the putrid demon did his deed.

Stay alive.

The smell and taste of a dead animal intruded my mouth as he leaned over me, hitting the back of my throat, gagging me. I realized Ron hadn’t taken a shower since he’d picked me up that morning, even after doing a scene in between, so Jacklyn Lick’s hours’ old cooze festered within his folds—among whomever else’s funk he’d fucked or raped since his last shower.

Stuffed into a land of questions, I surrounded myself with numbness, so I couldn’t smell him, taste him, feel him. If a famous person with social status would be willing to rape someone, why wouldn’t he be willing to kill her to cover it up? And how many minions would be willing to bury a body for this guy? Ron was a practiced, calculating rapist. How did he get away with it if bodies weren’t buried somewhere?

I’d been so transparent with him. Why can’t I move?

I reached into the moment. The putrid smell of him gagged me. Behind his busied face, he seemed to go through a checklist, flipping me around in different positions.

Don’t struggle, I told myself, though I couldn’t move anyway. If you hit him or hurt him, you could end up dead. If he puts any serious marks on you, you could end up dead. Just survive. Like a possum. Get home to the boys. Adam and Kevin. They couldn’t grow up wondering what happened to their mother while I lay buried somewhere. Windmills came to mind. The ones between Los Angeles and Palm Springs, and how easy it would be to dispose of a body out there with no trace.

Purple. Meaty. Gross. So much skin and smell, his putting himself between my legs and inside, the violation more painful than the penetration. I turned my head from one side to the other. I looked at a wall. A pile of clothes. A blue sheet. If I looked up, I saw blurred dark curly hair from a man who wasn’t finished yet.

Ron put me in three positions, but time ran out of order, escaping me.

I escaped me. Ron pumped on my abandoned physical self.

Why me?

I had just collected my last paycheck in the Summer of 1989, seventeen, and was off to college. In a locked office, my manager, Augustine, grabbed my right bicep with one hand and unzipped his khaki pants with the other. He forced me into a squat, grabbed my head, pushed himself into my throat until bleachy paste slid down in spasms. I stood frozen, my trust in my intuition destroyed. “If you tell anyone, they won’t believe you. Good luck.”

He’d known I was taking psych meds. He’d known I had a reputation for being a wild girl.

It never happened, I’d told myself.

Groomer would have used it as ammunition to keep me home from college. A spit into a cup would have proven nothing but an act that had already established my infamy around West Los Angeles high schools. I was a slut; that’s why those things had happened.

And I would have rather been a slut than a victim.

No amount of DNA evidence would have proven I didn’t ask for it.

My restaurant supervisor from my teenage years was of the same generation and build as Ron. Mustache and all. Trust and all. Ignored and forgotten, until now.

Had Ron not been a celebrity, escaping and pressing charges might have been an option. But due to his notoriety and how much the public demonizes the adult industry, I would have ended up on Fox News. Men around America would have hated me even more than they hated Lorena Bobbitt. The Rainbow Bar & Grill had seen Ron and me dancing together, and Hustler Magazine had a picture of me with my hand on the base of his dick. And how would I explain my reasons for not calling the police when he entered me at the studio?

Porn’s choice of a rapist as a representative broke my heart.

From above the bedroom doorway, I watched him rape me like a dog on his bed, the first time I noticed the hair on his back. The blank stare on my face looked like that of bio-matter, a dead girl emptied of the soul that floated above. Ron was killing the person I’d struggled to become since Augustine. Sex work freed me from this kind of predator—how could porn keep a rapist around? Did Nina Hartley know this shit happened behind the scenes when she wrote about sex work as an autonomous expression of feminist equality?

I returned to my body when I felt his dick pressing into my ass. Tears rolled and wet his bed as I stung and feared struggling might make it worse.

“See, you can do anal. I’m halfway in.”

I’m not in my body. I’m in Hawaii. Nine years old. With my dad and my brother. Waves. I hear waves. Make it back home to Adam and Kevin, and we’ll all go to Hawaii.

I sobbed and relaxed instead of tensing, hoping laxity would help me through the invasion; and considering he could have split me in half, he took care not to, so I felt confident I would get out of this alive if I rolled with it. Raped, but alive.

“You’re bleeding.” He pulled out.

I sat on my knees and clenched.

“Awe, honey, I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Drawing tears and blood satisfied his ego enough to stop, and a rapist no longer showed in his face. Ron’s quickness in tonal change startled me into remembering he was an actor.

My face was soaked, and a section of the sheet held a wet imprint of my profile. I hated him. Silent hate. He stole the part of me that had the agency to choose and set boundaries with people. The part of me that could recognize danger and trust my instincts—gone. Yet, Ron acted caring. As if he hadn’t raped me at all.

“Can I take a shower?” The shower no longer scared me. Nothing scared me. I didn’t exist.

Ron’s snore woke me as the sun rose. I changed my clothes in his living room, disconnected from the world. Numb. With action as the enemy to thought, I needed to do something.

Ron’s kitchen told a misogynist joke that started with rape and ended in my doing dishes for the guy who raped me. Cleaning with hot, soapy water grounded me—the most normal thing I’d done since I left home. Dishes felt better than filing a police report and ending up on Fox News for my family to see. I didn’t want anyone to know about this, not even me. I’d do it like I did the thing from high school. Blur. What thing? It never fucking happened. This cannot have happened.

My butthole throbbed.

I’d do whatever scene I found that day and fly back home. I wouldn’t even tell Doug, and I needed to get rid of Moochy anyway. I came, I did my shoot, and hopefully a girl-girl scene, and I’d fly home and call the Jim South guy. I wouldn’t let this discourage me from feature dancing.

Dressed in jeans, ankle boots, and a one-piece swimsuit underneath my shirt, I used Ron’s phone to call Doug. Adam answered the phone with his familiar hello, and we went through a few animal noises before Doug took the phone.

“Hey. You doin’ okay? What time am I coming to get you?”

“I don’t know. Ron said there are two flights, and he’s not sure which until we find out about work today. But I’ll call from a payphone when I get to the airport.”

“Okay, great. You doing okay, hon?”

Detachment from reality for self-preservation; my new normal. “Yup.”

“Good.”

“Okay. Love you. Love the kids.”

“You sure you’re okay, hon? You’re not as talkative as yesterday.” Doug knew me better than anyone.

“I’m just tired.”

Ron took the first shower I’d seen him take since I arrived in Los Angeles, and while he dried and dressed, he took a call from a radio show and spent about twenty minutes talking.

I picked up my duffel bag to follow him out of the apartment.

“What are you doing?”

“My flight out is tonight, and we have to go shoot. I need to bring it, so we don’t have to come back here.”

“Leave it here. We’ll get it on the way back. We’ll have time.”

But, why? “You sure? I don’t want to miss my plane?”

“Trust me. You will make your flight, and if not, there’s another one at nine.”

He didn’t make sense, and I didn’t trust him, but the haze clouding my consciousness left no solid perspective. I set my duffel bag down and left the apartment with him and my purse. I had no fight in me.

I would’ve had him drop me off at the airport at that point, but he had a job to studio shoot for “Pussyman” David Christopher. In a wrestling scene with several women orgy-ing in the ring, Ron would narrate the scene over a microphone. Nude World Order would include some of the top female names in the business.

“You’ll meet Gene Ross, too.” Ron acted as if nothing life-altering had happened the night before.

The most important person in the room, according to Ron, was Gene Ross. As the editor of AVN, the trade magazine for the porn industry, he calmed my concern with a warm handshake when Ron introduced me as his girlfriend.

“I’m just joking around when I say that. There’re some big names here. That’s Asia Carrera over there. Caressa Savage. That’s David Christopher over there. He’s the director. That’s Mike Albo in the cowboy hat.”

Ron’s warm smile intrigued me. He sat at a table in front of a microphone and faced the wrestling ring while the stars did their makeup. I strolled around collecting phone numbers and cards. David couldn’t fit me into that scene, but he handed me his card for my next visit to Los Angeles. Nothing seemed real, and time escaped me as I watched the first scene. Five beautiful women writhed around in a wrestling ring, acting as if they loved being banged by aggressive fingers and toys the size of tiny fists. Sounds of passion for the camera sealed them as actresses until the end of the scene.

Unaccustomed to voyeuring on a porn set, I clapped, and others joined in. The performers deserved it. Hard physical work with the bright lights after each had done their own professional-looking makeup. And it looked fun.

A director on another set needed a female for a lesbian scene across town, and Ron suggested me.

Director Jim Powers arrived with his assistant, Johnny Thrust, twenty minutes later. As they talked amongst themselves, I relished in my first moments away from Ron since he’d raped me. I cried silent tears in the back seat and removed my sweatshirt to wipe my face.

“That is a very manipulative man.” My words were a test to see if anyone cared enough to pry.

From the front, Johnny spoke. “He’s a powerful man in this industry.”

And that was that.

They didn’t want it.

Shit, neither did I. “So, what’s the scene I’m doing?”

“We’re going to have you do a couple of things. One is a solo thing for a white panty co-ed thing we’re doing, and the other one is with Heaven Leigh. She knows what she’s doing. This is your first scene?” Jim looked back at me.

“Yeah.”

“I’m easy to shoot for.” Jim seemed more focused on shooting than on social aspects.

Johnny turned around to face me. “His sets are all smooth. Jim’s shot a lot of first scenes.”

“My nipples have fresh scars.” I pulled down the top of my tank.

“Just wear your bra during the scene.” Jim had an answer for every concern and turned what I thought were mountains into molehills. He erased my immediate anxiety by focusing on my positives. “It’s a college thing anyway, so we don’t want to show you have implants.”

In the passenger side, Johnny held a clipboard. “How’s your butt? Any cellulite?”

“The Hustler photographer said it was perfect yesterday.”

“Are you shaved?”

“Yup.”

“Damn. I could have shot you for a hairy pussy solo thing first.” Open to suggestion, Jim came across as a something for everybody director that Ron had mentioned.

Away from Ron, while still feeling separate from my body, my anxiety decreased. The energy around Jim and Johnny set a mood I’d hoped for from porn people. Erotic artists surrounding themselves with sex.

Around the house that served as a five-bedroom studio, Jim ran around with a camera and a tripod, shooting several scenes over hours. Fascinated to watch him work, I sat in the shadows while now and then Johnny picked up a camera and filmed from a different angle or interviewed someone for behind-the-scenes footage.

I earned a side check for a hundred and fifty dollars doing a solo dance while wearing white panties for Jeff Covard, a mustached producer obsessed with barely-of-age models. At twenty-five, with implants, scars, and stretch marks, I hadn’t thought of myself as young, co-ed material. When done filming, Jeff Covard gripped my wrist and pulled me into a walk-in closet, isolated from the rest of the set.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

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BUY ME A COFFEE

BRENTWOOD, CALIFORNIA 1984

My grandmother, Mimi, held all family reunions on holidays at her house. On the Fourth of July 1984, aunts, uncles, and cousins roamed around the antique cluttered Brentwood ranch house, ate Chex mix, and drank cocktails, spreading life through the home since Grandpa George died on my twelfth birthday.

Skylights in high ceilings in the garden room illuminated the area where Mimi kept her desk. Women naturally congregated near the center plot of palms, sunflowers, and birds of paradise. That Fourth of July, the discussion was about Groomer quitting his insurance job upon marrying Mom.

“Does he touch you like that at home?”

“Beverly.” Mimi went sister-deep when she called her by her proper name.

“Does who touch me like what?”

Auntie Bev smelled like Shalimar and wore bright red lipstick on a mouth half droopy from palsy. “Groomer. Does he touch you in the behind like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like he did in the kitchen.”

The insinuation embarrassed me. Groomer’s touching me seemed so parental to me; I hadn’t thought of it as inappropriate. “He didn’t mean it like that. He touched the sides of my hips.”

Aunt Nancy, Mom’s sister, soothed me when she spoke. “Honey, it was also what he said to you.”

“Everything you put into your mouth goes straight to your ass?” Convinced the aunts were making too much of things, I said, “Mom and Groomer both say that to me at home all the time because I’m putting on weight.”

Both aunts erupted in unison. “Where?!”

Auntie Bev’s tone was instructional. “He shouldn’t make comments about your body like that.”

With my home life as my only reference, I had trusted Groomer’s interactions with me were normal. Yet, my dad never patted me on the hips like that. Mom didn’t either, though she didn’t protest when Groomer did it to me.

Aunt Nancy turned to Mimi. “Momma.”

Sitting at her desk, my grandmother raised a hand. “I’ll talk to Linda.”

I didn’t even have boobs yet, so I felt the aunts were stretching things concerning Groomer’s intentions. My cousins, Lauren and Adrian, played a card game called War, and I wanted to learn how to play. “Can I go play?”

Auntie Bev was firm. “If he ever touches you, you tell your Mimi, okay?”

“Okay.”

I played War with my two extended cousins − three girls clad in red, white and blue dresses kneeling in a circle for two hours on the garden room floor while the rest of the eighteen adults and teenagers socialized around the rest of the house.

My Aunt Nancy entered the garden room. “Lauren, honey? Would you and Adrian help your mom set the table? We’re getting ready to eat soon.”

The girls left, and Auntie Bev entered, shutting the door behind Mimi, who protested.

“I don’t have time for this right now. I have to serve dinner.”

Aunt Nancy confronted Mimi. “This is bullshit.”

The first I’d realized the garden room had a sliding glass door, I knew these two women were on a mission to convince Mimi of something. I wondered why I was there. Both my aunts yelled over each other to my grandmother. I picked out that Groomer followed me around for hours and spent more time staring at me than Mom, who was wandering around the house belligerent. They mentioned the name Lolita, and I wondered who she was.

“You need to open your eyes, Jodi.” Only Auntie Bev called Mimi by that name.

“Momma, this is wrong.” Aunt Nancy’s face was passion red.

Mimi’s pained expression ended with a snap. “Okay. I’ll talk to Linda, but this isn’t the time.”

Mimi and Bev left the room.

“Who’s Lolita?”

“Oh, honey.” Aunt Nancy stroked my bangs out of my face, the bangs she cut once a month at the Beverly Hills Salon. “It’s a book about a stepfather and a girl about your age. Bev pointed out that your situation appears similar.”

Groomer drove us home while Mom slurred in the passenger seat. I lay in the back with my seat belt loose around my waist.

“I’m curious.” Groomer scratched his balding head. “What were your grandmother and your aunts talking about that they needed to shut the glass door?”

“They asked if you ever touched me−like in a bad way. I told them you don’t look at me like that.” Groomer was far from romantic with me. Pride or shame were the primary emotions I felt around Groomer. And fear. Fear he would force a lecture upon me, one that would instill more shame.

“We’re gonna be spending less time with those members of the family. Bev and Nancy are constantly manipulating things, and they are a detriment to our family unit.”

But Bev and Nancy were part of the family unit he came into. We hadn’t any problems until Mom married Groomer.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 7

Next chapter: Chapter 9

Next week: How adult platforms turn identity into searchable labor

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BUY ME A COFFEE

I built Adult Platform Audit so models can compare adult platforms before building their business around one.

Most platform advice is too vague. A site can have traffic and still keep control over the parts of the business that matter.

The lookup tool shows how different platforms handle things like client access, payments, pricing, communication, visibility, rules, account risk, and brand portability.

It is not a list of approved sites.

It is not a safety rating.

It is a way to see what kind of control a platform keeps.

Before using a platform heavily, models can ask:

Can I keep contact with my clients?

Can I set my own rates?

Can I send traffic to my own site?

Can I use my own name and brand?

Can I leave without losing my audience?

Can the platform limit my visibility or remove my account?

Platforms can be useful for traffic, payments, and discovery. The problem starts when a model depends on one system for everything.

Use the lookup tool before putting too much of your business in one place.

Adult Platform Audit Platform Lookup: https://adultplatformaudit.com/platform-lookup.php

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BUY ME A COFFEE

Lena learned the rule by watching faces.

She was nineteen and three shifts into a hostess job at a restaurant with white tablecloths, low lighting, and managers who spoke to customers like they were handling glass. The owner came in after lunch wearing a navy sport coat and no tie. Everyone changed around him. Servers straightened. The bartender wiped down a clean counter. The floor manager lowered her voice.

Lena stood at the host stand, alphabetizing reservation cards because she did not yet know what to do with her hands.

The owner leaned beside her and looked over the book.

“You’re new.”

“Yes.”

He smiled without looking at her face. “Pretty girls do well up here.”

The floor manager heard him. So did the bartender. Nobody reacted.

Lena smiled because the room had already told her the comment was ordinary.

A few minutes later, he stepped behind her to reach for a menu and placed both hands on her waist, not long enough to make a scene, but long enough for her body to register the heat of his palms through her blouse. He moved her slightly to the side, like furniture that needed adjusting.

“Excuse me, sweetheart.”

The bartender kept cutting limes. The floor manager kept checking the seating chart. A waiter walked past carrying polished forks wrapped in a napkin.

Lena waited for someone else’s face to tell her what had happened.

No one gave it to her.

So she made the smallest decision available. She decided not to be difficult. She decided that maybe this was how restaurant owners talked. Maybe this was what older men did. Maybe the waist was not the same as the ass. Maybe the room would have changed if something wrong had happened.

By the end of the shift, she had not forgotten his hands. She had only filed them under things nobody else seemed worried about.

That is borrowed judgment. It does not remove alarm. It places the alarm inside a room where everyone else appears certain.

The Silence That Teaches

People learn workplaces by studying the people already inside them.

Nobody has to explain every rule. New workers watch who gets interrupted, who gets protected, who can joke, who has to laugh, who receives patience, who gets corrected, and whose discomfort is treated as inconvenient. A workplace teaches through repetition before it ever teaches through policy.

Silence is part of that instruction.

A manager who looks away teaches something. A coworker who keeps working teaches something. A room that continues as if nothing happened tells the newest person how the room expects her to behave.

Organizational researchers Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison and Frances J. Milliken described “organizational silence” as a collective pattern where employees withhold concerns about workplace problems. Their work focuses on organizations broadly, not adult work specifically, but the pattern is useful here: silence can become part of the culture, especially when people believe speaking up is risky or pointless.[1]

That kind of silence does not always look hostile. It may look professional. It may look calm. It may look like everyone is busy.

The person on the receiving end has to decide whether the silence means nothing happened or whether everyone else has learned to survive by not reacting.

Credibility Before Speech

The first person to name a problem often becomes part of the problem the room wants to manage.

Before anything is said, everyone keeps their place. The powerful person remains charming. The manager remains neutral. The coworker remains uninvolved. The new worker remains agreeable. The day continues.

Once someone says, “That was not okay,” the room has to rearrange itself around the claim.

That rearrangement has a cost. People may question her tone, timing, memory, motive, or experience. They may recast the behavior as harmless, normal, accidental, or misunderstood. They may decide the person who spoke created the discomfort instead of the person who crossed the line.

Philosopher Miranda Fricker calls one version of this “testimonial injustice,” when a speaker receives less credibility because of prejudice attached to her identity or social position.[2] The concept matters because harm does not become public at the moment it happens. It becomes public when someone is believed enough for the harm to count.

A person may know exactly what happened and still understand that knowing is not the same as being believed.

That gap shapes behavior. It can make a person wait for someone else to react first. It can make her soften what she says. It can make her turn a clear violation into a question. It can make her leave quietly and never explain why.

Silence can look like consent from the outside while feeling like calculation from the inside.

The Reputation Shield

Reputation often fills the space where accountability should be.

People say he is harmless. People say he is generous. People say he has helped a lot of women. People say he is awkward but sweet. People say he is important, connected, funny, brilliant, damaged, misunderstood, old-school, affectionate, or from another era.

Each description can soften the next person’s alarm.

A good reputation does not only protect someone from suspicion. It can turn suspicion back onto the person feeling it. If everyone likes him, if everyone owes him, if everyone laughs at his stories, if everyone treats his behavior as part of the atmosphere, the newcomer has to decide whether to trust herself against the room.

That is hard when the room contains her paycheck, references, future bookings, social standing, housing, or chance to keep working.

Jennifer Freyd’s work on institutional betrayal is useful here. Freyd and Carly Smith describe institutional betrayal as harm made worse when an institution a person depends on fails to prevent, acknowledge, or respond appropriately to mistreatment.[3] The idea applies beyond formal institutions. Any setting that asks people to trust its norms, leaders, or insiders can deepen harm when it protects the system instead of the person harmed.

Reputation is not accountability. Reputation asks the newcomer to rely on what the room says about someone. Accountability tells her what will happen if the room is wrong.

When Alarm Has Been Trained Out

“Trust your gut” is thin advice for people trained to distrust it.

Some people grow up in homes where boundary confusion is ordinary. Adults comment on bodies, touch without asking, turn discomfort into disrespect, and treat outside concern as interference. The child learns that her reaction is less important than the adult’s explanation. She learns that peace depends on translating discomfort into something acceptable.

He is joking.

She means well.

That is how families talk.

Do not embarrass anyone.

Do not make this into something.

Over time, the body may still send signals, but the person learns to argue with them. Alarm arrives, and shame arrives right behind it. Fear arrives, and politeness covers it. Anger arrives, and the person searches for a more reasonable word.

This does not make her passive. It makes her practiced.

People trained around blurred boundaries often become skilled readers of rooms. They notice tone, posture, mood, hierarchy, and danger quickly. They may also overrule themselves quickly because they learned that naming danger can create more danger.

The adult who appears calm may be doing a great deal of work.

She may be tracking exits, money, transportation, who has power, who seems loyal to whom, and whether anyone else has noticed. She may be deciding how to get through the moment without making the room turn on her. She may be smiling because smiling is the least costly way to buy time.

That kind of self-management is often mistaken for consent, comfort, or confusion.

It is often none of those things.

Stigma Changes the Room

Adult work intensifies borrowed judgment because the usual public assumptions are already tilted against the worker.

When a job involves nudity, flirtation, intimacy, or explicit performance, some people treat boundaries as less real. Exposure can be mistaken for permission. A stage persona can be mistaken for private availability. A worker’s ability to smile through a show, scene, or customer exchange can be treated as proof that very little should surprise her.

That assumption follows the worker into every room.

Sociologist Erving Goffman described stigma as a social process that marks a person as discredited or discreditable.[4] Sex work stigma does that in a specific way. It can make the worker seem less credible, less harmed, less entitled to ordinary boundaries, or more responsible for other people’s behavior.

Cecilia Benoit and her coauthors have written about how prostitution stigma affects sex workers’ working conditions, personal lives, and health. Their research is not a claim that all sex workers experience the same conditions. It does support the broader point that stigma is not only an attitude. It can change how people are treated by clients, institutions, services, and the public.[5]

That matters because a stigmatized worker often has to explain more before she is believed.

A worker in a nonsexual job may not face the same immediate presumption that the work itself included permission. A stripper, cam model, escort, porn performer, or sensual-service worker may have to explain why sexual labor did not grant sexual access in that moment, to that person, under those conditions.

The extra explanation is part of the burden.

In any industry, newcomers borrow judgment because they do not yet know the room. In adult industries, the stakes are higher because the worker’s credibility is already compromised in the public imagination. If she objects too soon, she may be called difficult. If she waits, she may be asked why she did not object sooner. If she stays calm, the calm can be used against her. If she reacts strongly, the reaction can be used against her.

The trap is not only in the act itself. It is in the interpretation afterward.

The Room Can Be Wrong

A calm room is not proof of a safe room.

A room may stay calm because people are afraid. It may stay calm because everyone is used to the behavior. It may stay calm because the person crossing the line has status. It may stay calm because nobody wants to be first. It may stay calm because the target is new and the room has already decided whose comfort counts.

This is why safety cannot depend on everyone else’s expression.

Other people’s calm may reflect loyalty, fear, fatigue, habit, self-protection, financial dependence, or a long history of seeing the same behavior go nowhere. The room can look certain without being honest.

People want danger to announce itself. They want the face of the room to change. They want someone to intervene, gasp, object, or pull the new person aside. Sometimes that happens. Often it does not.

The absence of rescue becomes part of the confusion.

Nobody stopped it, looked shocked, warned me, or said his name in a different tone. Those facts can start to feel like evidence that nothing happened. They may only be evidence that the room had already adapted.

A Better Signal

Better safety does not ask the newest or least powerful person to interpret everything alone.

It creates conditions that do not require borrowed judgment.

Clear reporting paths. Real consequences for retaliation. Payment that does not depend on tolerating boundary tests. Supervisors who intervene without waiting for the target to carry the whole complaint. Coworkers who name small violations before they become private confusion. Industry norms that treat refusal as ordinary rather than insulting. Rooms where the person with the least status does not have to decide whether everyone else’s silence means permission.

A safer room gives people more than language. It gives them backup.

The point is not to tell people to ignore social information. Humans read each other for a reason. The point is to understand that a group’s calm can be shaped by power. When the person crossing the line has status, money, charm, or control over future opportunity, the room may protect itself before it protects the newcomer.

That is when a person needs something stronger than the room’s mood.

She needs an exit that does not punish her, a witness who is not waiting for permission, a standard that does not change based on who crossed the line, and to know that her alarm does not have to win a popularity contest before it counts.

The first harm is the boundary violation. The second harm is the room that teaches her to doubt it.

Lena did not forget the owner’s hands. She remembered the touch, the comment, the silence, the bartender cutting limes, the floor manager staring at the seating chart. She remembered the lesson the room gave her before anyone gave her a handbook.

Notes

[1] Elizabeth Wolfe Morrison and Frances J. Milliken, “Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World,” Academy of Management Review 25, no. 4, 2000.

[2] Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford University Press, 2007.

[3] Carly P. Smith and Jennifer J. Freyd, “Institutional Betrayal,” American Psychologist 69, no. 6, 2014.

[4] Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Prentice-Hall, 1963.

[5] Cecilia Benoit, Bill McCarthy, and Mikael Jansson, “Prostitution Stigma and Its Effect on the Working Conditions, Personal Lives, and Health of Sex Workers,” The Journal of Sex Research 55, nos. 4–5, 2018.

Next Week: Chapter 08 - Adult Agency: A Memoir - When I was left to play beside the things adults were afraid to name

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BUY ME A COFFEE

Adult creators are often told that the newest form of management is different from the old one.

The label changes: manager, agent, producer, studio, content house, platform consultant, page operator, growth team. The promise changes too: more bookings, better promotion, higher earnings, professional support, protection from burnout.

The underlying risk is familiar. A third party offers access, then gains control over the worker’s money, name, housing, bookings, communication, content, records, reputation, or ability to leave.

That pattern did not begin with OnlyFans. Creator platforms gave it new tools, but the structure can be traced across the adult industry for half-a-century. It has moved from model houses to porn agencies, from casting operations to content houses, and from phone bookings to platform dashboards.

By “model-house trafficking,” I mean systems where housing, work access, sexual labor, income, branding, transportation, communication, account access, or mobility are tied to a third party’s control.

A worker can appear independent from the outside while being practically dependent on someone else for the room, the phone, the calls, the clients, the ads, the account, the passwords, the records, or the money.

In the late 1990s, my first manager, Charlie Frey, stole my money and withdrew plans to market me as a feature dancer and adult film actress after I did not follow through with sexual services he had arranged for me in another country. He had access to club bookings and industry media in a way I did not. When I left his model house in Cutler Ridge, Florida where his up-and-coming starlets stayed, I had to start over.

For a creator or performer, a stage name is not just a name. It is a business asset. A box cover is not just packaging. It is proof of labor, visibility, credit, and career history.

When someone else controls those things, they can punish a worker without physically restraining them. They can make the creator harder to find, harder to credit, harder to pay, and easier to erase.

That older model-house structure existed before creator dashboards and password access. Control could run through a phone number, an apartment, a newspaper ad, a photographer, a driver, an introduction, a booking person, or the person collecting the money.

Today, the same structure can exist behind the appearance of independence. A creator may seem to be running their own business while still depending on someone else for the room, the calls, the clients, the ads, the account, the content schedule, the devices, and the income.

The early 2000s gave this structure more professional language.

Derek Hay, founder of LA Direct Models, operated inside the adult talent-agency system. LA Direct was a known agency in the porn industry, which makes his case useful for creators studying how formal representation can become a gatekeeping system.

When an agent controls access to producers, bookings, contracts, reputation, and future work, representation can become leverage.

California prosecutors charged Hay and others in connection with an alleged prostitution operation involving The Luxury Companion and women connected to LA Direct Models. Hay later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit pandering by procuring and perjury.

His case does not prove that every agent is abusive. It shows the danger created when one person controls too many of a performer’s options.

GirlsDoPorn shows another version of the same pipeline: fake modeling or casting opportunities used to move women into adult videos through deception, pressure, and loss of control.

Women were recruited with misleading promises about anonymity, distribution, and the nature of the work. Federal prosecutors described a scheme that used false assurances, including claims that videos would not be posted online or released in the United States. The content was published anyway, promoted through major porn sites, and used to generate millions of dollars.

The later restitution order in the GirlsDoPorn case is especially relevant to creators because it addressed rights, likeness, releases, and ownership. A federal court ordered that victims receive rights to videos and images produced in the case and stated that purported model releases giving the company rights to exploit those images and videos were void and unenforceable.

Adult work can be chosen. It can also be forced, manipulated, or extracted through lies, debt, isolation, exposure, threats, and economic pressure.

A camera does not prove consent. A contract does not tell the whole story. A release form or payment cannot erase coercion when the conditions around the work were controlled by someone else.

The platform era has not eliminated those risks. It has digitized them.

The Bellevue “OnlyFans house” case shows the newer version of the model-house structure as alleged by investigators and prosecutors. Public reporting based on court documents describes allegations involving recruited women, housing, account access, platform income, devices, financial records, earnings ledgers, content-planning materials, and adult-content platforms including OnlyFans and Chaturbate.

Nikita Tyukalo has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending. The allegations are still useful for creators because they show how the old model-house structure can reappear through modern tools.

In the older model-house economy, a third party could control the phone, the room, the ad, and the booking. In the platform version, control can move through logins, two-factor authentication, banking access, chat labor, content calendars, phones, laptops, cloud storage, and earnings dashboards.

A creator account is not fully independent when someone else controls the email, password, payment account, messages, content files, records, or fan communication.

A high-earning page can still be structurally dependent if the creator cannot review the books, access the money, change the password, control the communication, preserve the content, or leave without punishment.

Help is not the problem. Many creators need assistants, editors, accountants, agents, publicists, drivers, security, booking support, platform support, or production help.

The question is whether that help protects the creator’s independence or replaces one gatekeeper with another.

A real service provider can be paid, audited, replaced, and fired. A controlling manager becomes difficult to remove because they hold essential parts of the business. They may receive the money first, speak to fans under the creator’s name, decide the posting schedule, hold the records, control the account, tie work to housing, or make the creator dependent on them for access to income.

A safer creator business keeps the core assets in the creator’s own hands: account access, payment access, tax records, contracts, content files, stage name, brand identity, credit, communication channels where legally and safely possible, and an exit plan that does not require a manager’s permission.

Independence does not require doing everything alone. It requires keeping ownership of the pieces that make leaving possible.

Charlie Frey, Derek Hay, GirlsDoPorn, and Nikita Tyukalo are different examples from different eras. They involve different facts, different legal records, and different outcomes. They should not be treated as identical cases. But, together, they show a long-running adult-industry pattern: third-party control over models, performers, creators, work access, money, housing, reputation, credit, content, records, and exits.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 1997

Ron Jeremy set a casual tone when he pulled up in an unremarkable sedan outside the Burbank Airport. We hugged and pecked, and he helped me lift my duffel bag into the trunk. The smell of his cologne mixed with his body odor shook the hairs in my nose. A bottle marked Old Navy sat in the center console. I’d half-expected him to wear a red pageboy hat à la Mario Brothers, but he wore a black Sublime t-shirt over black pants. From the driver’s seat, he beamed, his personality brighter than his clothes.

A messy, regular guy, he smiled with his eyes that sparkled a bright blue. “I’m ready for a great weekend. We’re gonna be friends, and you’ll go home with some credits and some money in your pocket.”

Ron puckered his lips hard and tight, and I pecked him on the mouth again. Like I would my dad or an uncle.

“I told my managers I’d represent the club while I’m here, so I wore this.” I pulled my Stars Cabaret sweatshirt over my head and set it into my lap. December weather in Los Angeles kept me comfortable in my jeans and tank top. “Thank you so much for doing this for me.”

“Like I said, it helps me to bring in new talent. I have to pick up my test first for a scene I’m doing later today. Did you bring one-twenty for yours? You won’t need a test for the Hustler shoot today since there’s no contact, but you will for any scenes you do in the next three months.”

“Yup. I have it right here.”

I felt at ease with Ron and translated his eccentricity for honesty. His wiry hair curled to his shoulders, and his jowls hung in a way that reminded me of Droopy Dog. His kind eyes struck me each time I looked at him, so that’s where I focused when we spoke.

We parked at a brick building and greeted people he knew. A performer-turned-phlebotomist took my blood. I’d hoped to stop at Ron’s house before going to Hustler Studios so that I could call Doug and maybe take a shower before the shoot, but Ron was in charge.

While in Los Angeles, Ron was my person.

My safety zone.

Base.

In the car, Ron showed me his test results. “See? You take this paper to every shoot, and the director copies it. Then you and whatever talent you work with look at each other’s tests, and everybody’s safe.”

Gonorrhea—Chlamydia—HIV.

Negative—Negative—Negative.

“Dancers at my club told me porn people test for safety, but I figure scenes with myself and other women carry less risk than boy-girl scenes.”

“You’re into women?”

“I’ve never been with a woman, but I’d rather start movies that way.” The realities of my mouth on another woman’s vagina hadn’t surfaced, though my curiosity overshadowed my trepidation over sex with someone of my gender.

“G-for-P. We call that gay for pay.” So smooth the way he said it, I thought Ron might break into song. “Anal’s a big thing now. Do you do anal?”

Was he kidding? “I’m not even doing guys. How would I do anal?”

“I mean like with a toy. Do you do it at home?”

“Nope. And in my Women’s History class, I read an essay by Nina Hartley that said a sex worker shouldn’t do anything at work that she wouldn’t enjoy at home. Have you ever met Nina Hartley?”

“I know Nina. We’ve been friends for years. Maybe you’ll meet her this weekend.”

“Could I do a movie with her? I heard we get to choose who we work with.”

“To a point. It’s a business, so a lot depends on who’s working for which companies and what work is available. Will you hand me the Thomas Guide from under your seat? I’ve been to the studio a million times, but I have to get on a different highway from here.”

I pulled out the map book from under the passenger seat and brandished my expertise at finding the grid on the page he needed. “Do you think I’d be able to call home just to let my family know I’m okay?”

“They have a phone at the studio. They have everything there that you need.”

A chain-link fence surrounded the lot behind the building. Ron parked.

“Can you open the trunk?”

“Just bring your purse with your IDs. They have costumes and a makeup artist.”

“Oh, nice.” I wished I’d put some on before meeting the photographer. We walked into the studio under the high, white ceilings. A couch sat in the middle of the room that made the ceilings appear even higher than they’d appeared from the outside.

The photographer had a European accent and greeted Ron with familiarity and respect that put me at ease. He examined my chest, which was still healing from surgery. “Let me see the back.”

I turned around, pulled down my jeans, lifted the back of my shirt, stuck out my butt, and wiggled it.

“Perfect. We’ll shoot your face and backside.”

Ron took me into the makeup area, where a woman with messy hair read a Glamour Magazine. “You ready, Ron? Lemme get you first.”

I changed into a robe and piled my clothes by the door.

With spray and a little foundation and powder, the makeup artist fixed and shined Ron’s hair and covered some dark spots on his face while he sang a song to her that I didn’t recognize.

The artist sat me down and worked on my face with high-end brushes and creams. She used the same routine as the makeup artist at Stars Cabaret but with a creamier, thicker foundation. Contour, shadow, and lashes sexed up my face.

As she did my hair, a model with an acne-covered face walked in behind another model with her face already made up. Ron returned when the artist finished my hair. I offered AcneGirl my seat.

“Grab your purse. Bring it in here.” Ron picked my clothes off the floor, and I followed him into the main studio area and a small side bathroom void of anything but a toilet, a sink, and a paper towel holder. “This’ll be our spot away from the others.”

He turned to walk out.

“Hey, Ron?”

He turned back around.

“Thank you for all of this.” I hugged him around his robe, not caring that he stunk of Old Navy cologne, onions, and cheese. He pecked me on the lips and sang a tune as he walked into the studio area. “Wait. Do I have time to make a phone call?”

The photographer pointed to a phone sitting on a chair in the corner of the studio area.

I called Doug.

“Thank you for calling. I was starting to worry.”

“Kids are good?”

“They’re good. I took Talking Barney from your house to keep Kevin happy. I’m glad you’re okay. Have fun, hon. You work hard, and you deserve this.”

The photographer handed me a piece of fabric. “Put this on.”

I dropped my robe to nakedness, pulled the ecru garment over my head and down, and cinched the waist with a gold sash. It was so short that my vag mound peeked out the front when I leaned back. I looked at the photographer and smiled.

“Perfect. We’ll shoot that next time.”

The other two models and I gathered around the couch. Unrecognizable from when she’d first walked in, AcneGirl, with makeup, looked the prettiest of the three of us. The photographer set her at the end of the couch. The other model stood between us while I stood on the end, prepared to stick my butt out.

Holy shit, I’m gonna be in Hustler.

My dad reads Hustler, I thought. Having digested my stripping to put myself through college, he’d get over this, too.

Each model had one or two breasts hanging out of her top.

“Beautiful.” The photographer looked through the lens of a camera held by a tripod while he held out his hand and pressed something with his thumb. Ploof. Flashes made a sound and brightened white hexagon reflectors. Ploof. “Can I get the bucket of chicken in here? And the french fries? And Ron?”

Costumed as a Roman Emperor, Ron entered the studio from the makeup room. His wang swayed below his too-short toga.

The photographer arched back and wore an endearing expression. “Don’t worry, Ron. We’ll have you hanging out anyway.”

Ron lay across the couch, and the photographer took test shots for lighting. Ploof. Ron reached up and squeezed AcneGirl’s breast with his left hand and shook his flaccid meat with his right. The model stared off into space as he did so.

Ron struggled with his dick. He leaned onto his side. I stood behind him; the sounds of his slapping phallus against his leg, stomach, hand, couch, chicken—whatever he could beat it against—echoed around the studio.

“Hang on. I’ll be right back.” Ron stood and took me by the hand. “Come back here with me for a second. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

I didn’t know what he wanted from me, but I sure felt important for him to stop a photoshoot for whatever it was. He took me to the small bathroom, where my purse and clothes were piled on the floor, and shut the door behind him.

“What’s up?”

“I need your help.” As he spoke, he waved his meat around, banging it against his stomach and thighs. “I’m getting a little older, and sometimes it takes me a little while— “

“—Ron, I can’t. “

“I know.” His calm demeanor infected me with trust. “I just want you to bend over so I can look at your ass. A visual fluff. I don’t want them to see I’m having problems out there.”

A secret.

“Oh, shit. I can do that.” As I did for my work at Stars Cabaret, I turned around and stuck out my butt.

Slapping sounds came from behind. I felt his thumb spread my left ass cheek to the side.

“What are you doing?” I clenched my butt and swiped his hand away.

“I’m not doing anything. I just need to see your pussy from underneath. I just need to get hard. Please? I just want to look.”

I felt terrible for him. An aging porn star having a tough time getting it up must have been cause for alarm, but his income and his social life didn’t rest on his virility. He was already Ron Jeremy, and he spread joy wherever he went. He sang weird little songs. He toured as an emcee and a comedian. By December of 1997, Ron Jeremy’s dick had already accomplished everything it needed to for him to remain a star forever.

“Then let me do it, so you aren’t touching me.” Motivated by good sport, I put my right foot onto the sink and arched my back to give him a quality visual of pure pink, my main stage muffin making herself known.

“That’s perfect.” More slapping ensued, and his forearm leaned onto my back. The left side of my jaw smashed into the paper towel holder. As I tensed to push him back, he grabbed my waist and entered me. Slipped it into the target that I’d spread wide for him as I stumbled to move in any direction but his dick.

“Stop.” In seconds, I twisted my ankle to disengage.

“Your so wet. Look at that.” He stroked my juices down to the base of him and backed up, now hard.

My face flushed, betrayal oozing from my throat to my gut.

With Ron following, I pushed myself out of the bathroom, stood in my assigned spot, and smiled for the photographer. As the photos were snapped, the times that I’d told Ron that I wanted female-only contact replayed through my head. I’d thought the porn industry valued consent. Wasn’t Ron a representative of the porn industry? Had I known I’d be stuck with someone who didn’t respect boundaries, I’d have called that Jim South guy.

I was supposed to stay at Ron’s house later, and I didn’t even know what street I was on. I could have told someone, but my doubts in the photographer’s confidence in a new girl’s claim kept me quiet. How would I explain assault without a scream and then a smile for a camera? Using a phone and calling a cab would have created a scene, and I only had thirty bucks in my purse. Would that cover a taxi to the Burbank airport? Could I spend the night there? Was I overreacting? Maybe the same rules of consent didn’t apply in porn that applied in strip clubs, where my job of exposing my cookie in various ways resulted in cash and restraint.

What happened in the bathroom? By legal definition, penetration without consent meant rape. By commonsensical logic, I stuck my pussy out in front of a naked porn star, and what did I expect?

Ploof. I smiled as the photographer kept shooting. I kept my mind fuzzy and separate from what my face and body did.

Was I supposed to say something? And, to whom? This photographer who’s known him for years, who, along with two other models, had watched me follow Ron into the can?

I didn’t sense physical danger at that moment. I smiled through the shoot, arching my back to stick my butt out as curvy as possible. Did the people around me know Ron did this kind of thing?

The glamour turned gray.

I didn’t know who I could trust around me. Running into the streets screaming “rape” didn’t seem appropriate. Calling cops to Hustler Studios would have ended in a he-said/she-said, Ron signing autographs and a laugh at my expense. And I would have been stuck somewhere alone in the Greater Los Angeles area with no way to the airport and back to Oregon.

Ron shook his dick around and held it at the base to keep it hard. The models looked impatient as the photographer stood back from the camera.

AcneGirl looked at me and squinted. “Suck it.”

You suck it came to mind, but I sneered at her instead.

“You’re with him, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, but not like that.”

Ron looked up at me. I impulsively grabbed his dick, spit on it, stroked it twice, and held it strong at the base while the photographer took a few shots. To hurry things along, I smiled and stuck my ass out, numb and rolling with the moment in front of the camera, a moment that belonged to everyone in the room. I arched and twisted. Cherry lipstick next to white teeth and the base of Ron’s dick in my hand. Ploof.

“Beautiful! Look at the dick! Look at the dick!”

It didn’t happen. Ploof.

I’d be a good sport and move past it. Ploof.

I’d move on and never work with him again. Ploof.

But where would I go after this shoot? My bag full of everything was in his trunk; I could have snuck away with just my purse, but to where? Was there a lock on my bedroom door at his place? Who could I call? I hadn’t contacted my old friends in Brentwood since we dispersed to different universities.

“I think I’ve got everything I need. The chicken is yours, Ron.”

Ron had already eaten a breast and a leg while shooting. Grease reflected light from his hair-lined belly, accentuating his distended navel resembling that of a pregnant woman’s.

I went to the bathroom and grabbed my clothes, and dressed in the middle of the studio while people walked around me.

Ron approached me with two Polaroids. “Pick one. You can put it in your photo album from your first shoot and look back on it when you get famous.”

I picked the test shot I thought made me look best and put it in my purse, too numb to appreciate it. Was the photo a keepsake or evidence? Is this what the rest of the porn industry is like? Consent is just an arbitrary thing that only counts in front of the camera?

I’d talk to him. If everyone else walking around the studio, people who’d known him for years, felt safe with him, then this must have been some sort of a fluke.

Ron sang to people in his street clothes as the models left the studio until he, the photographer, and I were the only people left. The photographer opened the front door for us, and I followed Ron out to the lot where his sedan sat alone.

I stopped at the car. “We need to talk before we go anywhere.”

“I know what you want to talk about.” He looked over the hood of his car. “And you’re right. I’m sorry. Get in the car, and we’ll talk.”

His acknowledgment eased me into the passenger seat when he unlocked my door, though I kept one foot on the concrete. With my knee, I propped open the door. “I can’t do anything sexual with you or any other guy. I have a boyfriend. I’m here to do just enough to get some feature credits, and— “

“—I know.”

“If I’m expected to do anything physical with you, then please take me back to the airport. Or take me to where I’m only thirty dollars away from the airport because that’s all I have on me. You told me no contact before I flew down here, and now your dick was in my hand and in me, and I don’t trust staying at your place. Everyone around you acts like you’re okay. I don’t know if I should feel safe, or —”

“—You are safe with me.” He closed his eyes and nodded for emphasis. “I just needed your help, and it just looked so good, I got carried away. That’s no excuse, and it won’t happen again. I’m sorry.”

He puckered his lips, and I pecked him, annoyed but feeling I’d made myself crystal clear. My receptors were on high alert driving through the opening in the chain-link fence and out of the lot. Would he have stayed a celebrity for this long within an industry that touted consent if he went around raping people? Wouldn’t he have been an embarrassment to porn?

“Did you see the makeup transformation on that girl’s face?”

“I know, right? That makeup lady is an artist.” I pulled down the passenger mirror, pleased at how I’d look for the rest of the day.

Polite, I felt on edge because Ron wasn’t the first older man in my life to act ambiguous.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 6

Next chapter: Chapter 8

Next week: A calm room is not proof of a safe room.

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This is where I work with people who want more than what platforms offer.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

Adult platforms sometimes present important contract updates through pop-ups instead of a traditional agreement.

Those pop-ups may require creators to click Accept to keep using the platform, turning a major business decision into a routine login step.

This guide is educational information, not legal advice.

The pop-up is not just a pop-up

A pop-up can still be part of a contract.

If it says things like:

“By continuing, you agree to the updated terms.”

“Please accept to continue using the platform.”

“Your continued use means you agree.”

the platform may treat your click as agreement to rules covering money, content, AI, account access, and legal claims.

Why pop-up contracts confuse creators

Creators often see these screens while trying to work, not while reviewing contracts.

Because access to the account may depend on clicking Accept, the design itself can create pressure to agree first and read later.

The real rules may be scattered

A single pop-up may link to multiple documents, including:

• Terms of Service

• Creator Agreement

• Payment Terms

• Content Rules

• Privacy Policy

• AI Terms

• Arbitration Clauses

The pop-up may simply say “Terms updated,” while the actual changes are spread across several pages.

Key terms to review

Before clicking, search for:

Money

chargebacks, refunds, reserves, fees, payouts, payment delay, negative balance

These terms explain when money can be withheld, reversed, or deducted.

Content rights

license, sublicense, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, derivative works

Check how broadly the platform can use your content and whether those rights continue after you leave.

Likeness and AI

likeness, voice, persona, AI, clone, digital twin, training data

Understand whether the platform can use your identity or content to build AI tools or digital versions of you.

Customer access

fans, subscribers, contacts, messages, export, off-platform communication

These terms affect whether you can take your audience and data with you.

Account control

suspend, terminate, restrict, demonetize, withhold, sole discretion

Review how much control the platform has over your account and earnings.

Legal claims

arbitration, class action waiver, jurisdiction, governing law

These provisions can limit how disputes are handled.

What to do before clicking

• Screenshot the pop-up if possible.

• Save the terms page and URL.

• Record the date and time.

• Save emails or notices about the update.

• Review the linked terms before accepting.

Quick checklist

Before clicking Accept, ask:

• Can the platform hold or deduct my money?

• Can it keep using my content after I leave?

• Can it use my likeness or content for AI?

• Can I export my audience or customer data?

• Can it suspend my account without notice?

• Does it require arbitration or limit legal claims?

• Do I have a copy of what I accepted?

The main point

A pop-up can contain major contract changes. Before clicking Accept, take a moment to review the terms, save a copy, and understand what rights you may be giving up.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

The sentence sounded harmless because an adult said it.

Go with him. He’ll take care of you.

It could happen in a kitchen, a hallway, a driveway, or the front seat of a car. Someone had plans. Someone else had offered to help. A man had been accepted by the adults around him, so the child was expected to accept him too.

At that age, I read the room before I read the person.

If my mother seemed calm, I was supposed to relax. If my grandmother trusted him, I was supposed to follow. If nobody acted worried, my discomfort became private. I might not have had language for the feeling yet, but my body noticed things the adults had decided to ignore.

Girls are rarely handed to danger with a warning attached. They are handed to boyfriends, relatives, family friends, neighbors, coaches, teachers, pastors, managers, photographers, rides, rooms, favors, and introductions.

A title explains why someone is there.

It does not make him safe.

That distinction gets lost when adults treat access as proof of character. A man is trusted because he has already been trusted. He is allowed close because no one objected last time. His presence becomes normal, and normal begins to look like safety.

For the child, the terms are usually set before she enters the situation. Other people have accepted him. They have given him a place. They have decided what his role means. If she resists, she is no longer only reacting to him. She is challenging the adults who approved him.

So she learns to override herself.

She learns that politeness can matter more than instinct. She learns that making someone uncomfortable may bring faster consequences than whatever made her uneasy first. She learns that a man’s reputation can speak louder than her body.

That lesson follows women into work.

In the adult industry, the setting changes, but the structure can feel familiar. A woman may be grown, experienced, and making her own decisions. That matters. Childhood abuse and adult labor are not the same thing. Consent matters. Age matters. Money matters. The ability to leave matters.

Still, access to the work often runs through other people.

Someone knows the club owner. Someone knows the photographer. Someone can introduce her to a producer. Someone has a place where she can stay. Someone says a certain man is harmless, professional, generous, or connected. Someone tells her not to worry because everyone knows him.

A new worker may not yet know the difference between opportunity and safety. She knows she needs money, credits, customers, visibility, transportation, or a better option than the one she has. The person offering help may hold several of those things at once.

That kind of help is never neutral.

A connected person can be useful without being safe. A familiar person can be tolerated without being accountable. A man with status can use the protection that status gives him.

Adult work often runs through informal routes because formal systems exclude the people doing it. Workers trade names. Dancers talk in dressing rooms. Performers warn each other about rough clients, handsy men, unsafe houses, unpaid shoots, fake opportunities, and promises that turn into pressure. Those networks can protect people, but they also reveal a larger failure.

When safety depends on whispers, the official route has already left gaps.

Stigma widens those gaps. It keeps the work profitable while making the worker disposable. It pushes her away from banks, landlords, employers, families, police, doctors, and ordinary forms of protection, then judges her for relying on people inside gray areas. The public wants her to avoid danger while cutting off many of the paths that might make avoidance possible.

That leaves the gatekeeper with more power.

He can present himself as the better option because the alternatives are worse. He can offer a ride, a booking, a couch, an introduction, a customer, or a shortcut. He can make discomfort sound like inexperience. He can frame hesitation as immaturity, drama, paranoia, or bad business.

The worker is told to be professional. Be cool. Be easy to work with. Do not burn bridges. Do not make things difficult for the people who can help you.

Those instructions sound reasonable inside an industry built on reputation. They also protect the route before they protect the person moving through it.

A worker’s first public act may be a stage show, a scene, a profile, a booking, or a private room. Before that, someone has already shaped the terms. Someone has explained where to go, who matters, what behavior is normal, what she should ignore, and what she risks by objecting.

By the time she performs, much of the negotiation has happened around her.

Choice alone cannot explain adult labor. Choice exists inside conditions. A woman can choose the work and still be routed through unsafe people. She can want the money and still be pressured by whoever controls the booking. She can agree to travel and still depend on someone else for the room, the ride, or the way home.

Her agency is real.

So are the systems that narrow it.

People often treat those truths as opposites because it keeps the story simple. Either she was forced, or she chose. Either she was a victim, or she was responsible. Either the work was legitimate, or any harm inside it was expected.

Adult life does not divide that cleanly.

A woman can consent to sex work without consenting to every condition attached to the industry. She can want opportunity without accepting the behavior of every person standing between her and the paycheck. She can be ambitious, sexual, strategic, broke, excited, reckless, skilled, exhausted, and still deserving of safety.

The problem is not trust itself. No one survives without trusting somebody. Children need adults. Workers need contacts. Industry requires cooperation. Isolation does not protect vulnerable people. It gives the next gatekeeper more control.

The problem begins when trust replaces accountability.

A role should never be treated as proof of safety. A man should not become credible simply because he has been around for years, helped other people, made money, held status, or avoided consequences. Access to girls and workers should require more than comfort with the person already holding it.

In families, adults have to take responsibility for the people they bring close. In institutions, supervision cannot be symbolic. In adult work, safety cannot depend only on reputation, private warnings, or a woman’s ability to read danger before anyone names it.

The burden cannot stay with the person who has the least power in the arrangement.

A girl should not have to argue against a man’s title before anyone listens to what he did. A worker should not have to overcome someone else’s reputation before her warning counts. A woman should not be blamed for walking through a door that other people presented as the way forward.

I think about that sentence differently now.

Go with him. He’ll take care of you.

It no longer sounds like reassurance. It sounds like a transfer of authority. Someone else has decided where safety is located, who owns it, and how much resistance will be tolerated.

The pattern begins there.

Not always with a stranger. Not always with force. Sometimes it begins with adult approval, ordinary convenience, and a man whose role makes his access look natural.

Later, in the adult industry, the same arrangement appears with different language. A contact becomes a path to money. A manager becomes a filter for opportunity. A photographer becomes proof of legitimacy. A producer becomes the next step. A room becomes work. A ride becomes dependence. A favor becomes leverage.

The public usually looks at the visible performance and calls that the risky part.

Sometimes the risk starts earlier.

It starts when someone else controls the way in.

Next Week: Adult Agency: A Memoir - Chapter 7: The Door Was Already Open

If you’ve been following the writing and want to talk directly, I keep a small number of one-on-one conversations open.

This is where I work with people who want more than what platforms offer.

CONTINUE PRIVATELY

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BUY ME A COFFEE

A platform can help a model earn money without helping their build an independent business.

Many adult creators use platforms for traffic, visibility, payment tools, messaging, advertising, content sales, subscriptions, calls, cam traffic, or client discovery. Those tools can be useful. A platform may bring attention a worker could not easily generate alone.

But, platform access is not the same as ownership.

A model can be busy, visible, and earning while still building most of their business inside a system they do not control. If the account is suspended, search placement changes, payment rules shift, messaging is restricted, or the platform closes, the creator may lose access to the very things she thought she was building.

Separate what the platform provides from what the creator keeps to evaluate platform independence.

The most important categories are client access, image control, payment control, reputation, and booking infrastructure.

Client Access

Client access means the ability to reach, recognize, and retain the people who are interested in the worker’s services, content, or time.

Some platforms function mostly as advertising or discovery tools. They help clients find the worker, but the worker may still control much of the relationship after that point. Other platforms keep the client relationship inside the platform’s inbox, payment system, search ranking, subscription feed, or account structure.

This difference changes the worker’s long-term position.

When clients only know the worker through one platform, the platform controls the doorway. If the worker loses the account or leaves the site, the client relationship may be lost too.

When clients know the creator’s name, brand, public presence, or direct booking path, the relationship is more portable. The worker is not as dependent on one platform to be found again.

Client access is one of the strongest signs of platform independence because repeat clients are often the foundation of adult work. A model who cannot carry any client relationship forward may have to start over every time a platform changes.

Image Control

A model’s image is part of her business.

Photos, videos, thumbnails, profile names, bios, verification images, previews, banners, and promotional material are not just decoration. They create recognition. They help clients identify the worker. They help platforms generate traffic. They can also create safety and reputation risks if the worker loses control over where they appear.

Image control includes several practical issues.

A worker should understand whether she can remove her photos, reuse her content elsewhere, delete old profile material, control how her likeness is promoted, and prevent her image from continuing to serve a platform after she leaves.

This is especially important in adult work because a model’s image carries personal, professional, and safety consequences. A photo or profile is not just marketing. It is a public identity marker.

Some platforms may allow creators to upload material easily but make removal, reuse, or separation from the platform harder. Others may use images in search previews, affiliate promotion, thumbnails, internal recommendations, ads, or public-facing pages.

Control over likeness and business identity is a core issue.

A worker’s image should not continue creating value for a platform in ways she does not understand or cannot reasonably manage.

Payment Control

A platform can advertise a favorable percentage and still leave the worker with low payment independence if the platform controls the entire money path.

Payment control includes payout timing, payout method, minimum payout thresholds, account reviews, refund decisions, chargeback handling, payment holds, discipline-related freezes, and the ability to receive money outside that system.

When the platform controls payment, the worker depends on the platform not only for customers but also for access to the income already earned.

This matters during disputes, policy changes, technical problems, account reviews, processor interruptions, or sudden suspensions. A worker may still have demand for her labor but lose access to the payment channel that converts that demand into income.

A more independent business has more than one way to receive payment lawfully and safely. That does not mean every worker can or should process every kind of payment directly. It means payment dependence should be understood as a business risk.

The question is not only how much the platform takes.

The question is how much control the worker has over getting paid.

Reputation and Proof of Work

A model’s reputation can become trapped inside a platform.

Reviews, ratings, followers, favorites, badges, profile age, sales history, subscriber counts, rankings, and repeat-client activity may all help the worker earn while she is active on the platform.

But these forms of reputation are not always portable.

If the worker leaves, loses access, or starts over somewhere else, she may not be able to carry that proof with her. A profile with years of work, reviews, and client recognition may have value only inside the platform that hosts it.

This creates a dependency problem.

The worker may appear established while the account is active, but her credibility may collapse outside that one system. She may have to rebuild trust from nothing even after years of experience.

A more durable business preserves some reputation outside a single platform. That can include a public name, a personal site, a mailing list where appropriate, independent testimonials, published writing, consistent branding, social presence, or a direct booking page.

The point is not to abandon platform reputation.

The point is to avoid letting one company hold all proof of the worker’s credibility.

Booking Infrastructure

Booking infrastructure is the basic system that lets a worker operate without depending entirely on a platform.

This can be simple.

A worker may need a recognizable name, a public page, clear service boundaries, screening procedures, scheduling rules, communication limits, location or travel policies, and a way for appropriate clients to understand how to book.

The stronger this infrastructure is, the less the worker is forced to accept whatever structure a platform gives her.

A platform may still be part of the business. It may bring visibility, leads, traffic, content sales, subscribers, or calls. But it should not quietly become the only place where the worker can be found, paid, evaluated, contacted, or recognized.

A model with no independent booking infrastructure has less leverage. She may feel unable to leave a bad platform because leaving would mean losing access to clients, payment, visibility, and reputation all at once.

A model with even basic independent infrastructure has more options.

The Platform Disappearance Test

The platform disappearance test is a simple way to measure dependency.

Imagine the platform is gone, the account is closed, or the rules change overnight. The worker then looks at what remains.

The strongest business assets are the ones that still belong to her outside that platform:

• her name

• her image and likeness

• her client recognition

• her payment options

• her reputation

• her booking process

• her public presence

• her ability to be found again

The more of these assets remain with the worker, the more independent the business is.

The fewer that remain, the more the worker depends on the platform for survival.

This is not about purity. Platforms can be useful. Many workers need them, especially for discovery, traffic, technical tools, or income stability.

The issue is not whether a model should use platforms.

The issue is whether she understands the trade.

A platform can help a worker earn today while still making her business harder to carry tomorrow.

Adult Platform Audit compares adult platforms by the practical control workers appear to keep over clients, money, pricing, communication, visibility, rules, discipline risk, portability, and work. A platform can help a model earn money without helping them build an independent business.

Many adult workers use platforms for traffic, visibility, payment tools, messaging, advertising, content sales, subscriptions, calls, cam traffic, or client discovery. Those tools can be useful. A platform may bring attention a worker could not easily generate alone.

But platform access is not the same as ownership.

A model can be busy, visible, and earning while still building most of their business inside a system they do not control. If the account is suspended, search placement changes, payment rules shift, messaging is restricted, or the platform closes, the worker may lose access to the very things they thought they were building.

To evaluate platform independence, separate what the platform provides from what the worker keeps.

The most important categories are client access, image control, payment control, reputation, and booking infrastructure.

Client Access

Client access means the ability to reach, recognize, and retain the people who are interested in the creator’s services, content, or time.

Some platforms function mostly as advertising or discovery tools. They help clients find the worker, but the worker may still control much of the relationship after that point. Other platforms keep the client relationship inside the platform’s inbox, payment system, search ranking, subscription feed, or account structure.

This difference changes the worker’s long-term position.

When clients only know the worker through one platform, the platform controls the doorway. If the worker loses the account or leaves the site, the client relationship may be lost too.

When clients know the worker’s name, brand, public presence, or direct booking path, the relationship is more portable. The worker is not as dependent on one platform to be found again.

Client access is one of the strongest signs of platform independence because repeat clients are often the foundation of adult work. A model who cannot carry any client relationship forward may have to start over every time a platform changes.

Image Control

A model’s image is part of their business.

Photos, videos, thumbnails, profile names, bios, verification images, previews, banners, and promotional material are not just decoration. They create recognition. They help clients identify the worker. They help platforms generate traffic. They can also create safety and reputation risks if the worker loses control over where they appear.

Image control includes several practical issues.

A worker should understand whether they can remove their photos, reuse their content elsewhere, delete old profile material, control how their likeness is promoted, and prevent their image from continuing to serve a platform after they leave.

This is especially important in adult work because a model’s image carries personal, professional, and safety consequences. A photo or profile is not just marketing. It is a public identity marker.

Some platforms may allow workers to upload material easily but make removal, reuse, or separation from the platform harder. Others may use images in search previews, affiliate promotion, thumbnails, internal recommendations, ads, or public-facing pages.

Control over likeness and business identity is a core issue.

A worker’s image should not continue creating value for a platform in ways they do not understand or cannot reasonably manage.

Payment Control

A platform can advertise a favorable percentage and still leave the worker with low payment independence if the platform controls the entire money path.

Payment control includes payout timing, payout method, minimum payout thresholds, account reviews, refund decisions, chargeback handling, payment holds, discipline-related freezes, and the ability to receive money outside that system.

When the platform controls payment, the worker depends on the platform not only for customers but also for access to the income already earned.

This matters during disputes, policy changes, technical problems, account reviews, processor interruptions, or sudden suspensions. A worker may still have demand for their labor but lose access to the payment channel that converts that demand into income.

A more independent business has more than one way to receive payment lawfully and safely. That does not mean every worker can or should process every kind of payment directly. It means payment dependence should be understood as a business risk.

The question is not only how much the platform takes.

The question is how much control the worker has over getting paid.

Reputation and Proof of Work

A model’s reputation can become trapped inside a platform.

Reviews, ratings, followers, favorites, badges, profile age, sales history, subscriber counts, rankings, and repeat-client activity may all help the worker earn while they are active on the platform.

But these forms of reputation are not always portable.

If the worker leaves, loses access, or starts over somewhere else, they may not be able to carry that proof with them. A profile with years of work, reviews, and client recognition may have value only inside the platform that hosts it.

This creates a dependency problem.

The worker may appear established while the account is active, but their credibility may collapse outside that one system. They may have to rebuild trust from nothing even after years of experience.

A more durable business preserves some reputation outside a single platform. That can include a public name, a personal site, a mailing list where appropriate, independent testimonials, published writing, consistent branding, social presence, or a direct booking page.

The point is to avoid letting one company hold all proof of the worker’s credibility.

Booking Infrastructure

Booking infrastructure is the basic system that lets a worker operate without depending entirely on a platform.

This can be simple.

A worker may need a recognizable name, a public page, clear service boundaries, screening procedures, scheduling rules, communication limits, location or travel policies, and a way for appropriate clients to understand how to book.

The stronger this infrastructure is, the less the worker is forced to accept whatever structure a platform gives them.

A platform may still be part of the business. It may bring visibility, leads, traffic, content sales, subscribers, or calls. But it should not quietly become the only place where the worker can be found, paid, evaluated, contacted, or recognized.

A model with no independent booking infrastructure has less leverage. They may feel unable to leave a bad platform because leaving would mean losing access to clients, payment, visibility, and reputation all at once.

A model with even basic independent infrastructure has more options.

The Platform Disappearance Test

The platform disappearance test is a simple way to measure dependency.

Imagine the platform is gone, the account is closed, or the rules change overnight. The worker then looks at what remains.

The strongest business assets are the ones that still belong to them outside that platform:

• their name

• their image and likeness

• their client recognition

• their payment options

• their reputation

• their booking process

• their public presence

• their ability to be found again

The more of these assets remain with the worker, the more independent the business is.

The fewer that remain, the more the worker depends on the platform for survival.

This is not about purity. Platforms can be useful. Many workers need them, especially for discovery, traffic, technical tools, or income stability.

The issue is not whether a model should use platforms.

The issue is whether they understand the trade.

A platform can help a worker earn today while still making their business harder to carry tomorrow.

Adult Platform Audit compares adult platforms by the practical control workers appear to keep over clients, money, pricing, communication, visibility, rules, discipline risk, portability, and work method.

The goal is not to tell workers where to work.

The goal is to help workers see what they keep, what they rent, and what they may lose when they build on someone else’s system.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

BRENTWOOD, CALIFORNIA 1984

I had imagined that mom’s marrying Groomer meant more time with her family at home, a full refrigerator, and her supervision after school. Instead, Groomer quit his job, Stu went to military school, Mom stayed at work for longer hours, and Groomer took on the role of being my primary authority.

No more football in the hall. No more playing with other neighborhood kids. Groomer, the man my late grandfather had referred to as having short arms and deep pockets, controlled every minute of my time before and after school. Their union resulted in my brother’s absence, and me making the best of things.

Arriving home from work, Mom relished watching Groomer lecture me as I tried to please them by sitting before him quietly.

One autumn day in Brentwood, I came home from school and Groomer brought me into the kitchen. “I want you to do whatever dishes are here each day after school.”

I felt his presence looming behind me in khaki shorts and a yellow polo shirt as he watched me rinse off a few dishes in the yellow basin and put them into the dishwasher. He took the sponge from me. He felt too close, but I didn’t want to earn more time with him by saying anything. Over the next hour, he instructed exactly how to do the dishes, where to put them in the dishwasher, and where each belonged in the cabinet. Aside from my daily chores in the kitchen, I took out the trash with Groomer. Two mornings a week. Each weekend, I vacuumed the house while Groomer supervised before I could go with my dad.

I missed my relationship with Stu.

Stu didn't have daily chores when he visited. Even on holidays home, he escaped to Chris’ house so, over time, we grew to barely know each other. But Mom and Groomer compared us constantly. Mom was never so happy with me as when I made Groomer happy.

Adult Agency: A Memoir

Previous chapter: Chapter 5

Next chapter: Chapter 7

Next week: How care becomes access, from childhood to adult work

If you’ve been following the writing and want to talk directly, I keep a small number of one-on-one conversations open.

This is where I work with people who want more than what platforms offer.

CONTINUE PRIVATELY

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BUY ME A COFFEE

Before joining an adult platform, read the creator terms, payout rules, content rules, messaging rules, and account policies.

Do not rely only on the signup page, other creators’ income screenshots, or a platform’s reputation. Look at what the platform can actually do with your money, account, content, visibility, customers, and likeness.

Use this checklist before you build income on any adult platform.

Pricing

Check whether you control your own prices.

Look for:

Subscription price.

Clip price.

Custom content price.

Live cam rate.

Private show rate.

Message price.

Phone or video call rate.

Tip menu.

Bundle price.

Booking minimum.

Rush fee.

Exclusivity fee.

Travel fee.

Discounts and sales.

Also check whether the platform can:

Set minimum or maximum prices.

Push automatic discounts.

Reward cheaper creators in search.

Limit what you can charge for customs.

Require free previews.

Require unpaid chat or unpaid promotion.

Change pricing tools without notice.

Pricing affects boundaries. If a platform pushes low prices, free access, or constant discounting, customers may expect more time and more access for less money.

A useful platform lets creators price their work clearly and refuse work that does not make financial sense.

Payments

Find the payout page before you earn money.

Check:

Platform percentage.

Processing fees.

Tip percentage.

Payout schedule.

Minimum payout amount.

Available payout methods.

Currency conversion fees.

Refund policy.

Chargeback policy.

Account reserve policy.

Tax forms.

Hold period for new accounts.

Hold period after complaints.

Hold period after account review.

Rules after suspension or ban.

The most important questions are simple:

When do you get paid?

How much does the platform keep?

Can the platform delay payment?

Can the platform reverse payment?

Can the platform keep funds after suspension?

Who decides refunds?

Who absorbs chargebacks?

Adult payment processing is difficult, so a platform may charge for payment access. That is different from unclear fees, long holds, or open-ended control over completed earnings.

Good sign: payout rules are public, specific, and easy to understand.

Bad sign: the platform can hold or reverse money without clear limits.

Customer access

Check whether you can build a customer relationship that exists outside the platform.

Look for rules about:

Messaging customers.

Recognizing repeat customers.

Sending announcements.

Posting your website.

Posting your social media.

Posting a booking form.

Using a mailing list.

Moving customers to approved outside channels.

Keeping customer notes where allowed.

Exporting customer or subscriber information where allowed.

Redirecting customers if you leave.

A large follower count is not the same as a portable audience.

If all communication stays inside the platform, the platform controls the customer relationship. If your account is suspended, hidden, deleted, or restricted, you may lose access to everyone who paid to follow you.

This matters for cam sites, subscription sites, clip stores, directories, phone platforms, chat platforms, and AI companion platforms.

Good sign: the platform allows clear branding and at least some approved outside connection.

Bad sign: the platform blocks all outside identity, links, and customer migration.

Visibility

Check how creators are shown to customers.

Look for:

Search ranking rules.

Category placement.

Location placement.

New account boosts.

Paid promotion.

Featured placement.

Contest placement.

Activity requirements.

Response-time ranking.

Live-hours ranking.

Rating systems.

Review systems.

Customer spending signals.

Algorithmic recommendations.

Shadow restrictions.

Profile hiding.

Search removal.

Also check whether the platform tells creators when visibility changes.

A creator can have an active account and still be hard to find. The platform may control where the profile appears, how often it appears, and which customers see it.

Visibility rules matter because income often depends on placement.

Good sign: the platform explains ranking, promotion, and search placement.

Bad sign: the platform can bury, limit, or hide a profile without notice.

Links and outside contact

Check exactly where links are allowed.

Look at:

Profile bio.

Pinned posts.

Menus.

Messages.

Captions.

Livestream chat.

Directory ads.

Booking instructions.

Content descriptions.

Custom order forms.

Auto-replies.

Support articles.

Check whether you can link to:

Your website.

Your link page.

Your mailing list.

Your social media.

Your other adult platforms.

Your booking form.

Your payment instructions, if allowed.

Your store.

Your off-platform screening process.

Some link restrictions may come from payment rules, spam rules, safety rules, or legal concerns. The effect is still important.

If you cannot link out, you may have trouble building an independent business from platform traffic.

Good sign: the platform allows some clear, approved outside branding.

Bad sign: the platform blocks all outside links and all outside usernames.

Rules

Read the actual rules, not only the FAQ.

Check rules for:

Nudity.

Sex acts.

Fetish content.

Prohibited words.

Hashtags.

Public previews.

Private messages.

Custom requests.

Payment references.

Off-platform contact.

Meeting language.

Age verification.

Consent documentation.

Co-performer documentation.

AI content.

Studios.

Agencies.

Managers.

Account sharing.

Refunds.

Chargebacks.

Harassment.

Buyer conduct.

Creator conduct.

The rules should be specific enough to follow.

Watch for vague language such as:

Inappropriate behavior.

Unsafe activity.

Circumvention.

Misleading conduct.

Community standards.

Harmful content.

Policy abuse.

Those phrases may be reasonable if the platform defines them. They are risky if the platform can punish creators without explaining what the words mean.

Good sign: rules include examples and update notices.

Bad sign: broad rules allow punishment for conduct that was not clearly prohibited.

Discipline and appeals

Check what happens when an account is reported, reviewed, restricted, suspended, or banned.

Look for:

Warning process.

Content removal process.

Profile review.

Messaging limits.

Search limits.

Payout holds.

Temporary suspension.

Permanent ban.

Appeal form.

Appeal deadline.

Review timeline.

Human support access.

Reason given for discipline.

Evidence provided to creator.

Access to account records.

Access to download content.

Access to tax records.

Access to unpaid earnings.

This matters even when creators follow the rules. Reports can be false. Buyers can lie. Competitors can report accounts. Automated moderation can make mistakes. Rules can change.

A platform should explain the accusation and provide a way to respond.

Good sign: clear notice, clear appeal, clear timeline.

Bad sign: account restriction, payout hold, or removal without a stated reason.

Portability and exit

Check what you can take with you if you leave.

Look for:

Content download.

Order history.

Subscriber history.

Customer notes where allowed.

Reviews.

Ratings.

Messages.

Profile text.

Stage name.

Photos.

Videos.

Menus.

Captions.

Custom listings.

Booking history.

Tax documents.

Payout records.

Also check what you can delete.

Can you remove photos?

Can you remove videos?

Can you delete captions?

Can you close the account?

Can you remove your profile from search?

Can you stop ads using your image?

Can you stop affiliate pages from using your image?

Can you stop the platform from using your content after exit?

Leaving should not mean losing everything with no warning.

A creator may leave because of safety, stalking, doxxing, payout problems, health, family issues, policy changes, account discipline, or better business options.

Good sign: the platform explains download, deletion, closure, and post-exit content use.

Bad sign: the platform keeps content, reviews, customer access, and promotional rights after the creator leaves.

Account control

Check who actually controls the account.

This is important when working with a studio, agency, manager, promoter, editor, photographer, assistant, partner, or model house.

Confirm:

Whose email is on the account.

Whose phone number is used.

Who controls two-factor authentication.

Who has the password.

Who talks to support.

Who receives payouts.

Who controls tax forms.

Who sets prices.

Who edits the profile.

Who answers messages.

Who uploads content.

Who deletes content.

Who manages customers.

Who controls the schedule.

Who owns the equipment.

Who owns the content.

Who can remove the creator.

Who can keep using the account after the creator leaves.

Help is not the same as control.

A creator can hire help and still own the business. The problem starts when someone else controls the login, payout method, support relationship, content library, or customer access.

Good sign: the creator controls login, payout, recovery, and support access.

Bad sign: someone else owns the account or receives the money.

AI and likeness rights

Check AI, digital likeness, voice, face, and training language carefully.

Look for terms about:

AI chat.

AI companions.

Digital twins.

Voice cloning.

Generated images.

Generated videos.

Automated messages.

Personality simulation.

Training data.

Content licensing.

Likeness rights.

Post-exit usage.

Fan disclosure.

Creator approval.

Revocation rights.

Deletion rights.

Ask:

Can the platform train AI on your content?

Can it use your photos, videos, voice, captions, messages, or chat style?

Can it create new content using your likeness?

Can it keep using your likeness after you leave?

Can it let fans interact with an AI version of you?

Can you review what the AI says?

Can you turn it off?

Can you delete training material?

Who owns generated content?

Does the fan know whether they are interacting with you or automation?

AI tools may be useful for scheduling, translation, captions, admin, and customer support. That is different from allowing a company to keep selling a version of your face, voice, body, or personality.

Good sign: AI use is opt-in, limited, revocable, and clearly explained.

Bad sign: the platform can keep using your likeness, content, voice, or AI version after you leave.

Green flags

Clear fee structure.

Clear payout schedule.

Worker-set prices.

Specific content rules.

Specific messaging rules.

Transparent refund rules.

Transparent chargeback rules.

Clear appeal process.

Human support access.

Allowed branding.

Allowed outside links.

Content download options.

Account closure options.

Creator-controlled login.

Creator-controlled payout.

Limited and revocable AI terms.

Yellow flags

Unclear ranking.

Limited links.

Limited customer access.

Pressure to discount.

Vague content rules.

Slow support.

Unclear payout holds.

Broad refund rights.

Broad moderation language.

Heavy use of contests.

Heavy dependence on ratings.

No clear way to export information.

AI terms that are hard to understand.

Red flags

Someone else owns the account.

Someone else receives the payout.

Fees are hidden.

Payouts can be held without clear limits.

The platform can keep funds after suspension.

No clear appeal process.

No stated reason for discipline.

Profile can be hidden without notice.

Customer contact is fully locked inside the platform.

Content cannot be deleted.

Content cannot be downloaded.

The platform keeps using promotional images after exit.

The platform can use likeness, voice, or AI versions after exit.

The creator cannot tell what rule was supposedly broken.

How to review a platform before joining

Before signing up, find these pages:

Terms of service.

Creator agreement.

Community rules.

Content policy.

Payout policy.

Fee page.

Refund policy.

Chargeback policy.

Messaging rules.

Link policy.

Account suspension policy.

Privacy policy.

AI terms.

Likeness terms.

Studio or agency policy.

Save copies or screenshots of important terms before you start earning there. Terms can change.

For each page, ask:

Who controls the money?

Who controls the customer relationship?

Who controls visibility?

Who controls links?

Who controls rules?

Who controls discipline?

Who controls content?

Who controls account access?

Who controls exit?

Who controls likeness?

A platform may still be worth using after review. The point is to know the risk before the platform becomes part of your income.

Final note

Adult creators need tools, traffic, payment options, hosting, search, and customer access. Platforms can provide those things.

Before depending on one, check what the platform can limit, change, hold, hide, remove, keep, or use after you leave.

This is not legal advice. It is a worker-side checklist for reviewing adult platform structure before joining.

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BUY ME A COFFEE

A twelve-year-old girl stays after school to help clean a classroom.

The teacher doesn’t ask the boys. He asks her because she is responsible, mature, good at helping without making a fuss. At first, the request feels like praise. She stacks chairs. Wipes desks. Carries supplies to the closet. He stands nearby and corrects small things that do not need correcting.

Not that shelf.

Fold the cloth first.

Don’t rush.

He tells her she is good at this when she pays attention.

Nothing looks serious from the hallway. A teacher asked a student to help. A girl followed instructions. The room stayed quiet.

Still, something is being taught beneath the task.

Being chosen can hold a child in place. Praise can make refusal feel rude. Usefulness can become availability.

The work may be finished before the adult is done with her.

That kind of training rarely arrives as one clear event. It gathers through repetition. A girl learns tone, timing, privacy, and mood. She learns when an adult is explaining and when he is testing. She learns that attention can be flattering and restrictive at the same time.

Researcher Emma Katz writes about children living under “regimes of coercive control.”¹ The phrase moves the focus away from a single dramatic incident and toward the surrounding structure. Control can live in routine. It can shape privacy, confidence, movement, relationships, and a child’s sense of what she can want without later consequence.

A girl does not need to understand the structure to be trained by it. She only needs enough moments where someone else’s comfort outranks her freedom.

When sexual grooming enters childhood, the lesson becomes sharper. The child is not only learning obedience or politeness. She is learning that adult attention may have hidden terms. Kindness can be used as preparation. Secrecy can be called trust. Being chosen can feel special before it becomes isolating.

A groomed child may become fluent in the gap between what an adult says and what he wants.

That does not make adult work inevitable. It does not make a woman’s later choices an extension of earlier harm. It means some women arrive in adulthood with a skill they never should have had to develop: reading the cost of an offer before the cost is named.

By adulthood, that skill may look like instinct.

A woman may hear pressure inside a favor. She may notice when generosity is turning into leverage. She may understand that refusing too soon can close a path, while agreeing too quickly can create debt. She may seem calm because she can keep talking while assessing risk.

People may call that charm, caution, street sense, or social intelligence.

Sometimes it is old vigilance made functional.

Adult industries can make use of that fluency.

Not because adult work is the same as childhood grooming. It is not. A child being managed, sexualized, or coerced by adults is not the same as a grown woman choosing sexual labor. The distinction has to stay clear. Adult work, however, often asks women to move through informal opportunity, unclear expectations, and people who can influence income without being direct customers.

The customer is not always the hardest person to understand. In many forms of adult work, the direct exchange can be plain. A customer wants attention, fantasy, contact, or performance. A worker names a price, sets limits, and decides what is available.

The surrounding world is less plain.

A photographer offers portfolio help. A booker knows which clubs are hiring. A manager promises better rates. A performer offers an introduction. A promoter says exposure will lead to money. A regular customer has a connection. A man with a camera, schedule, contact, or reputation presents himself as the route to something better.

Some of those offers are real. Some people do useful work. Some introductions change a career. Suspicion alone is not a business plan, and no one builds anything without trusting someone.

The problem is that opportunity can carry unnamed terms.

A worker may have to decide quickly whether a person is helping, selling proximity, testing gratitude, or creating future pressure. The offer may arrive with friendliness and urgency. There may be no written agreement, no clear warning, no clean division between professional interest and personal access.

That is where choice becomes harder to discuss honestly.

From outside, adult work is often reduced to the visible decision. She danced. She filmed. She traveled. She met the client. Those facts matter, but they do not describe the pressure around the decision, the route to it, or the conditions attached once she arrived.

A person can choose the work and still face pressure around how the work is reached, priced, promoted, classified, and sustained.

Consent to perform is not consent to every expectation built around performance. Wanting the money does not make the path clean.

Liz Kelly’s phrase “space for action” helps describe this middle ground.² It names the distance between no choice and unlimited choice. Many adult decisions happen inside that space. A person can act with desire, intelligence, ambition, humor, and skill while money, stigma, family obligation, and survival shape what is available.

Sexual labor also contains more than public debate usually allows. Angela Jones writes about sex work through money, power, pleasure, and labor.³ That frame matters because it does not force one truth to cancel the others. Adult work can involve strategy, creativity, pride, exhaustion, risk, satisfaction, and compromise in the same life.

The mistake is treating choice as if it settles the labor conditions.

If a worker chose the job, people often assume the surrounding terms belong to her too. If she wanted the opportunity, they assume she accepted the power attached to it. If she pursued money, they assume every person who approached through that pursuit became part of the bargain.

Work does not operate that cleanly.

A dancer may want better bookings without wanting every private expectation attached to the person offering them. A model may want photographs without wanting the photographer to turn access into intimacy. A performer may want a credit without wanting gratitude to become compliance. An escort may want steadier income without wanting every intermediary to become unavoidable.

Sorting those differences is labor.

It requires reading motive, ego, timing, status, and pressure. It requires being warm enough to keep a path open and guarded enough to remain intact. It requires accepting help without allowing help to become ownership. It requires noticing when a person stops offering and starts collecting.

Many girls are prepared for that calculation long before money enters the story.

They are taught to soften refusal. To be polite while uneasy. To accept praise without seeming conceited. To avoid embarrassing adults. To treat male attention as compliment, threat, or obligation depending on the room.

When grooming has been part of a girl’s life, the lesson can become more intimate and severe. Danger may sound patient. Pressure may arrive as affection. Being singled out may feel like approval before it turns into isolation. An adult may call something private when he means controlled.

Later, in adult work, similar signals can appear under professional language.

Trust me.

I know people.

Don’t worry.

Everyone does it this way.

You’re safer with me.

I’m helping you.

You should be grateful.

None of those sentences is automatically false. That is what makes them difficult. A person can be helpful and self-interested at the same time. An opportunity can be real and still contain pressure. A worker may accept the chance because the chance is useful, not because the situation is clean.

This is calculation, not confusion.

Adult workers are often described as if they are either fully empowered or fully exploited. That split makes public conversation easier and makes the worker less real. It erases the person who chooses the work, understands some risks, wants the money, likes parts of the job, resents others, and keeps adjusting because bills do not wait for ideal conditions.

A woman may enjoy the costume, the strategy, the attention, the performance, and the cash while also knowing that the path to steadier income can run through people whose terms are not fully stated.

That does not cancel her agency. It describes where her agency has to operate.

The distinction matters because adult work is often judged through the body instead of the labor environment. People focus on the sexual act and ignore the conditions around it. They notice what she offered, but not what others inferred from the offer. They notice that she accepted help, but not whether help was made into a condition of advancement.

Stigma makes those conditions worse.

Once a woman sells sexual access in one setting, some people treat her boundaries as weaker in others. A dancer in a bank may still be read as a dancer. A model in a meeting may still be treated as available. A worker who is careful about terms may be called difficult because the culture has already decided she should be easy to approach.

Stigma lowers the social cost of crossing her boundaries.

It also makes credibility harder to hold. A woman can be expected to run herself like a business while being treated like a risk. She can be told she is independent while being denied the respect independence requires. She can be praised for desirability and punished for insisting that desire has limits.

So she evaluates constantly, not from lack of agency, but because agency has to move through the room as it exists.

This is where the classroom, kitchen, hallway, family room, or coach’s office connects to adult work. The early lesson is not that every girl becomes a sex worker, or that adult work repeats childhood harm. The lesson is that many girls are trained to understand permission as atmosphere. They learn delay, approval, praise, correction, isolation, and the hidden meaning inside ordinary requests.

If sexual grooming is involved, the training becomes harder to untangle. It teaches that the stated reason may not be the real reason. It teaches that attention can be reward and warning at once. It teaches that cost may appear only after trust has already been requested.

Adult industries did not create that history, but they can benefit from workers who know how to function inside ambiguity.

A woman who reads hidden terms may avoid some harm. A woman who senses pressure early may leave faster. A woman who can keep smiling while calculating may look composed to everyone watching.

Composure should not be mistaken for fair conditions.

Survival skills are still skills, but they are not evidence that the environment is safe.

The central problem is not that women enter adult work with histories. Everyone enters work with a history. The problem is that adult industries often depend on informal power while the public argues about morality. The debate stays fixed on whether the worker should be there at all, while the daily conditions of pressure, trust, advancement, and refusal remain underexamined.

The better frame is not abstract choice. It is what the worker has to manage after choosing.

A worker is not a symbol. She is not a public argument dressed as a person. She is a person inside conditions, making decisions with the information, money, leverage, and options available.

Some decisions are confident. Some are compromised. Many carry both qualities at once.

That is why the opening scene matters, even as a composite. The girl cleaning the classroom is not a future adult worker. She is a child learning how power can hide inside ordinary requests. She is learning that praise can hold her in place, usefulness can make her available, and the stated task may not be the whole task.

If grooming enters that lesson, the danger deepens. The child learns to study attention itself.

Later, when an adult industry asks a woman to trust the people near opportunity, that old training may surface. Not as destiny. Not as pathology. As recognition.

The offer may be real. The risk may be real too.

A woman can know both and still take the chance. Sometimes it is the only visible route forward. Sometimes it is the best bad option. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it costs more than she was told. Most of the time, she has to decide before all the terms are clear.

That is the condition worth naming.

Not whether she chose in some purified sense.

Whether the world around her made choice honest.

¹ Emma Katz, “Beyond the Physical Incident Model: How Children Living with Domestic Violence Are Harmed By and Resist Regimes of Coercive Control,” Child Abuse Review, 2016.

² Liz Kelly, Surviving Sexual Violence, 1988. Kelly’s later work uses “space for action” to describe constrained agency under abuse and social control.

³ Angela Jones, Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry, 2020.

Next Week: Adult Agency: A Memoir - Chapter 6: The lesson was control

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Mi publicación principal está en inglés, pero algunos recursos deberían ser más accesibles. Esta es una versión en español de mi guía sobre los principales tipos de plataformas para adultos.

Las plataformas para adultos muchas veces se agrupan como si todas hicieran lo mismo. No es así.

Algunas son principalmente sitios de anuncios. Algunas son sistemas de pago y suscripción. Algunas son plataformas de transmisión en vivo. Algunas venden clips. Algunas conectan llamadas telefónicas o mensajes pagados. Algunas involucran estudios, agencias o administradores de cuentas. Las plataformas más nuevas también pueden usar inteligencia artificial para crear o apoyar versiones digitales de la voz, imagen o estilo de comunicación de una creadora.

Estas diferencias importan porque cada tipo de plataforma maneja una parte distinta del negocio. El nivel de independencia de una modelo depende, en parte, de qué partes controla ella misma y qué partes son manejadas por otra persona o empresa.

Esta guía es solo un punto de partida. Cada plataforma puede funcionar de manera diferente, y los detalles importan. Los términos de servicio, las reglas de pago, los sistemas de clasificación, las políticas de contenido, el acceso a la cuenta y las reglas de salida pueden afectar cuánto control tiene una modelo en la práctica.

1. Reserva directa

La reserva directa significa que la modelo maneja citas o sesiones por medio de su propio sistema. Eso puede incluir un sitio web personal, número de texto, correo electrónico, página privada de reservas, enlace de pago o lista de clientes.

Este sistema normalmente le da a la modelo más control sobre su horario, precios, límites, verificación, métodos de pago y seguimiento con clientes. La relación con el cliente queda más cerca de ella porque no está completamente contenida dentro de la plataforma de otra empresa.

La reserva directa aún puede depender de servicios externos. Procesadores de pago, compañías telefónicas, alojamiento web, redes sociales y sitios de anuncios pueden afectar cómo funciona el negocio. Pero la transacción central normalmente es manejada por la propia modelo.

2. Sitios de anuncios y directorios

Los sitios de anuncios y directorios ayudan a clientes a encontrar modelos, proveedoras o creadoras. Una modelo puede crear un perfil, pagar por una publicación, verificar su identidad, publicar disponibilidad o competir por visibilidad en los resultados de búsqueda.

Estos sitios suelen ser distintos de las plataformas que procesan toda la venta. En muchos casos, el cliente encuentra a la modelo por medio del directorio y luego la contacta directamente por texto, teléfono, correo electrónico o sitio web.

Eso no significa que los directorios no tengan influencia. Pueden afectar la aprobación del perfil, la posición en búsquedas, las reseñas, la visibilidad del anuncio, los requisitos de verificación y si una modelo puede ser encontrada por clientes en primer lugar.

3. Plataformas de suscripción para fans

Las plataformas de suscripción para fans permiten que las creadoras vendan acceso continuo a contenido y comunicación. Una creadora puede ofrecer suscripciones mensuales, publicaciones bloqueadas, mensajes pagados, propinas, contenido personalizado, transmisiones en vivo, paquetes o medios pagados.

Estas plataformas pueden ser útiles porque combinan alojamiento de contenido, procesamiento de pagos, comunicación con fans y herramientas de venta en un solo lugar. También pueden crear dependencia porque los suscriptores, mensajes, pagos y reglas de contenido de la creadora normalmente se manejan a través de la plataforma.

Una creadora todavía puede tener control significativo sobre lo que publica, con qué frecuencia publica, cómo pone precio a ciertas ofertas y cómo construye su audiencia. El nivel de independencia depende de las reglas de la plataforma y de cuánto de la relación con los fans pueda mantener la creadora fuera de la plataforma.

4. Plataformas de cam

Las plataformas de cam venden acceso interactivo en vivo. Una modelo puede actuar, hablar o interactuar con espectadores en tiempo real. Los clientes pueden dar propinas, pagar por minuto, comprar shows privados, unirse a shows grupales o usar créditos específicos de la plataforma.

Estas plataformas suelen proporcionar la tecnología de transmisión, el sistema de pago, el tráfico de clientes, las reglas de cumplimiento y los sistemas de clasificación o colocación. Como el trabajo ocurre en vivo, la posición y la visibilidad pueden afectar fuertemente los ingresos.

Las plataformas de cam varían. Algunas permiten más flexibilidad que otras, y muchas modelos usan el camming como una parte de un negocio más amplio. Aun así, como categoría, las plataformas de cam suelen manejar muchas partes de la transacción al mismo tiempo: tráfico, pago, acceso en vivo, reglas, interfaz con clientes y estado de la cuenta.

5. Mercados de clips y contenido

Los mercados de clips y contenido venden piezas individuales de contenido digital. Una creadora puede subir videos, sets de fotos, audio, paquetes, clips personalizados u otros medios.

Esta categoría puede darle flexibilidad a las creadoras porque el contenido puede hacerse con anticipación y venderse repetidamente. Una creadora puede controlar su catálogo, títulos, descripciones, temas y calendario de publicación.

El mercado todavía puede controlar resultados de búsqueda, categorías, procesamiento de pagos, reglas de contenido, sistemas de reseñas, tarifas y descubrimiento. La creadora puede ser dueña del contenido que hizo, mientras la plataforma todavía controla gran parte del entorno de venta.

6. Plataformas de teléfono, texto y chat

Las plataformas de teléfono, texto y chat venden comunicación pagada. Esto puede incluir llamadas telefónicas, mensajes de texto, chat de fantasía, conversaciones estilo consejo, notas de voz o mensajería uno a uno.

Estas plataformas pueden ofrecer más flexibilidad que el video en vivo porque el trabajo no siempre requiere transmisión, cámara o el mismo nivel de actuación visual. Una modelo puede establecer tarifas, elegir disponibilidad, escribir su propio perfil y construir clientes repetidos por medio de la conversación.

La plataforma todavía puede controlar el enrutamiento de llamadas, los sistemas de mensajería, las reseñas de clientes, la posición en búsquedas, las reglas de pago, las tarifas, la aprobación de cuentas y los límites de contenido. El nivel de independencia depende de cuánto control tiene la trabajadora sobre precios, visibilidad, contacto con clientes y relaciones repetidas.

7. Estudios, agencias y casas de modelos

Los estudios, agencias, casas de modelos y compañías de administración se colocan entre la modelo y la plataforma, el cliente o la fuente de ingresos.

Esta categoría puede incluir estudios físicos de cam, casas de contenido, agencias de administración en línea, agencias de chat, equipos de marketing, administradores de cuentas y terceros que ayudan a manejar cuentas de creadoras.

Algunos acuerdos proporcionan equipo, espacio, edición, promoción, entrenamiento o ayuda administrativa. Otros pueden crear dependencia si el tercero controla la cuenta, contraseñas, horario, contenido, dinero, mensajes, marca o lista de clientes.

Esta categoría es importante porque agrega otra capa. Una modelo puede estar usando una plataforma, pero la agencia o el estudio puede moldear cómo se usa esa plataforma y quién controla la cuenta.

8. Plataformas de gemelos digitales con IA y acompañantes de IA

Las plataformas de gemelos digitales con IA y acompañantes de IA son una categoría más nueva. Pueden usar inteligencia artificial para crear o apoyar una versión simulada de la voz, imagen, estilo de comunicación, personalidad o interacción con fans de una creadora.

Algunas plataformas usan IA como herramienta de mensajería. Otras pueden construir acompañantes de IA o réplicas digitales conectadas a una creadora real. Esto hace que la categoría sea diferente del contenido común o del trabajo en vivo, porque el producto puede involucrar la identidad, imagen, estilo o persona de la creadora.

Las preguntas principales son prácticas: ¿puede la creadora editar la versión de IA? ¿Puede pausarla o eliminarla? ¿Quién posee el material de entrenamiento? ¿Quién controla las conversaciones con fans? ¿Qué pasa si la creadora deja la plataforma? ¿Puede la IA seguir generando ingresos después de que ella deja de usarla?

La IA puede darle a una creadora más flexibilidad de horario si reduce la necesidad de estar conectada todo el tiempo. También puede crear nuevos riesgos si la plataforma controla la versión digital, los datos detrás de ella o la relación con los fans.

Por qué importan estas categorías

Una plataforma puede proporcionar servicios útiles y aun así influir en cómo se hace el trabajo. Tráfico, alojamiento, procesamiento de pagos, búsqueda, mensajería, verificación, herramientas de seguridad y soporte al cliente pueden ayudar a una creadora a manejar un negocio.

Esos mismos servicios también pueden afectar el control.

Una plataforma que proporciona tráfico puede influir en la visibilidad.

Una plataforma que procesa pagos puede influir en el momento del pago, las tarifas y los contracargos.

Una plataforma que aloja contenido puede influir en qué se puede publicar.

Una plataforma que controla la mensajería puede influir en las relaciones con clientes.

Una plataforma que clasifica perfiles puede influir en quién es vista.

Una plataforma que administra herramientas de IA puede influir en la identidad digital de una creadora.

Por eso ayuda identificar primero el tipo de plataforma. Las plataformas para adultos no son intercambiables. Manejan partes distintas del negocio, y esas diferencias afectan cuánta independencia práctica puede tener una modelo.

Una revisión completa de cualquier plataforma específica tendría que mirar los términos reales, la estructura de pagos, las reglas de cuenta, las políticas de contenido, el acceso a clientes, el sistema de clasificación, los derechos de datos y las reglas de salida.

Esta guía es solo el mapa. El siguiente paso es mirar cómo funciona cada plataforma en la práctica.