MissCalico: blog

I’ve rated each type of work on a few variables.

Commitment: How might this work affect you in the future, even after you stop doing it? How serious and invested will you need to be to make money, or to excel?

Cost: What supplies will you need to buy? Will you be splitting your earnings or paying fees to work?

Contact: Will you be meeting your customers? Touching them? Seeing them naked? Having sex with them?

Risk: Arrest. Violence.

Of course, everyone’s practices are different. My labels are meant to be descriptive, not proscriptive.

1) Phone sex and webcam work. I think this is an excellent first sex-work job. Not because it thrills me particularly, but because it’s easy, safe, and — especially if you do phone work — totally anonymous. Phone sex and camming are no-contact, no-cost (if you already have a phone or webcam), very low commitment (your proof of age and identity are confidential), and no risk.

They are not usually as high-paying as other forms of sex work, but because you can work from home and work as much as you want, phone sex and camming make excellent side jobs.

Some sites: NiteFlirt, iFriends, and tens more you can Google up.

Tasty Trixie talks a lot about webcam work, especially in her early entries.

2) Porn. I don’t know much about vanilla porn. I don’t do it. I know, it’s a weird gap, but you can see where my priorities lie.

If you’re interested in doing amateur porn, Clips4Sale is booming. If your stuff takes off, you can even start up your own website. Pay attention to your documentation, retain copyright to your images, and your risk of trouble will be vanishingly low.

I will say, though: Do not do porn if your world would end if someone found out. You know the risk going in. If you can’t accept it, don’t take it.

I know more about BDSM porn, aka bondage modeling. Because of the rigorous nature of the work, you will earn more than vanilla porn for comparable levels of sexual (read: possibility of fluid exchange) contact performed. Commitment: You’ll be on the Internet doing compromising things. This might have implications for your professional career, although having little experience with this “career” business, I cannot elaborate on the details. Contact: High. Cost: low to none. You might have to front travel or lodging money, but expect to be reimbursed. Risk: Not high, but injury isn’t unheard of. Make sure you work with experienced and trustworthy people, and that you know the intensity and scope of the play you are getting into.

Modeling for any particular site is only a few days of booking, every few months to a year.

If you’re seriously interested in bondage modeling, check out Kink in SF, I cannot recommend them enough. *Love*. Tell them Calico sent you. I have also worked for Dungeoncorp in LA. Both will pay your airfare and lodging, as is standard in the industry.

3) Photographic modeling. It has a glamour to it, but it takes dedicated work to scratch out a living doing nothing but.

I don’t know anything about agencies, fashion, or Playboy: I’m funny-looking, short, and small-breasted. You’re on your own there. I would recommend against working for any website (e.g. Suicidegirls) that has an exclusivity clause in its contract.

The easiest entry point is to make free profiles on modelmayhem.com and onemodelplace.com. Post photos that show your face and body shape. If you’ll work nude, you should get a bunch of offers right off the bat. You may get offers from very talented photographers, and also from amateurs and picture collectors and even total creeps. It is up to you to decide which sort of work you’d like to do, to set your rates, to create your boundaries, and so on. Many girls like to check references, bring chaperones, or set up a safe call.

You don’t have to consider modeling sex work. I do if my photographer does, or if he acts like he doesn’t know the difference.

4) Pro-BDSM, professional domination and submission.

The easiest, if not most lucrative, way to do fetish/BDSM stuff is to start at a house. You’ll work incall (the clients come to you), usually under the supervision of a manager or owner.

There are benefits to working for a house, namely the lack of commitment: you just show up. To this freedom, there are not insignificant costs: the house takes about 50-60% of the session price. It’s not an enormous or reliable money-maker until you are established. You’ll work shifts, but only get paid for sessions. Usually there is a training period of little to no pay. Many girls spend a lot of money on shoes, outfits, and specialized toys. Contact: High. Even if you choose not to fuck men up the ass and piss on them, they’ll be naked, and you’ll be touching them intimately. Risk: You’ll never be alone. You do, however, run a possibility of arrest.

I get a lot of questions about pro-subbing. Again, this is just my opinion: it can be fun, but most people can’t live on it. It seems like you’d make a killing from looking at the domme ads, but there isn’t any analogous, under-served market. Men get most of it from escorts. Especially if you don’t offer sex, it is difficult to charge the actual cost of the extreme submissive fantasies that escorts won’t do. Popular sessions I’d recommend seeking are tickling, damsel-in-distress bondage, roleplay, and spanking.

Pro-subs really are few and far between, if all the bad links on that directory are to be believed. A couple sites I’ve dug up: NYC’s Submissive Ophelia (oops, bad link … retired now?), Submissive Lynx, slave molly (with the incomparable Rita Seagrave, heh!). If you know any actual pro-sub blogs, please send them my way!

If you choose not to go with a house, you can work on your own. Many places offer rentals for independents at $50-75/hr, but you have to advertise yourself, answer your email, confirm your appointments (by separate phone line usually), and book yourself. You’d be responsible for your own training, if not your equipment. Even then you might get stood up. It’s a lot of work and money up front, and so many girls choose to start out at a house before striking out on their own.

Maintaining your own dungeon and equipment is the highest-commitment option. If you work alone, it also (theoretically) raises your risk of violence.

Many girls make their own niche by offering foot fetish sessions, domestic discipline, or other specialties. There’s other great stuff out there too, like session wrestling (aka physical domination) if you’re lucky enough to have jiujitsu or wrestling experience.

5) Stripping. Hobo Stripper says it all best. Commitment: Low. No experience required, no photos, and unless you work in a small town, no one will have to know. Cost: Your initial investment will be minimal. (If you are smart about it.) However, you will pay house fees and tip-outs every night you work, whether you make money or not. Many girls choose to spend a lot of money on cosmetics, outfits, shoes, hair extensions and products, tanning, manicures and pedicures, and plastic surgery. Contact: Depends on your club. Risk: Prostitution laws vary by state, but I think low. The bouncers are there to protect you; still, expect constant drunken transgressions.

Again I cannot pimp Hobo Stripper highly enough. And read Chelsea Girl’s stripmemoirs. Start at the beginning and don’t expect to sleep til you’re done.

Stripperweb is a fantastic way to lose an afternoon … or many of them.

Private party dancing (stripping for an outcall party service for bachelor parties, etc) is a decent option if you can’t or would rather not work at a club. Contact: moderate to high. Private dancing often involves toy or “lesbian” shows, and more contact than the local strip clubs provide. Cost: shoes and outfits; your agency will take a cut, and your driver may expect a tip. Risk: You’ll have a bouncer, but as an outcall service, your risk of both violence and arrest seems slightly higher to me.

Panther in Pumps isn’t your prototypical dancer (or at least I didn’t have a morphine habit when I did it) but she has some great FAQ’s.

6) Escorting. It’s illegal. Um, what else? I think prostitution is a fine way to make a living, but legal brothels are not where it’s at. I don’t want to say too much because I have never escorted or worked at a brothel in New York — I’m too chicken — but from what I understand your choices, and the respective costs, are much like fetish work: house, agency, or independent. Unless you maintain your own incall location, the commitment is low (especially if you choose not to show your face in ads, or solicit customers in person). You do run a risk of arrest, which could make you more committed than you’d like. Many people find that the high contact complicates their relationships. But hey, so does college — I know.

A few high-end escorts blog (debauchette, Jet Set Lara, Belle de Jour) but I would love to know more blogs like College Callgirl’s.

Please don’t walk the streets. We have the Internet now. Hotel bars… maybe. Resources: Craigslist if you’re careful (or foolhardy?), Eroszine, TER, TPR, the back sections of local newspapers.

6) Other. The sky is the limit. Topless housecleaning, erotic massage, panty selling on eBanned, nude balloon popping …