Novembrrrr is officially here and you know what that means. No, I am not (necessarily) referring to blasting Mariah Carey’s “All I want from Christmas” in your living room every night or flexing the outrageous bargains you got for Black Friday. It’s that time of the year where holidays bring all of your family members – including that 3rd-grade cousin you never heard of – to lofty family reunions. And what can complement filling your belly with yummy food until your jeans zipper screams “No more!” in dismay? A glass of red wine, accompanied by a superficial small talk session.
The not-so-rhetorical question of “Sooo, what are you doing for a living?” is as unavoidable as getting drunk just to survive the family dinner. Silent mode is going to be turned on, while you are probably going to helplessly shrug and babble for obvious reasons. Your “coming out” moment as a cam model is going to be a truly raw and intense moment that will most probably cause a lot of jaw-dropping face reactions. We might live in an era where we assert inclusivity as the society’s vital core, but behind closed doors adult work remains a taboo subject. We can frankly thank conservative and religious extremists, as well as the trope of “broken sex workers” proliferated by Hollywood for that.
No matter how much you avoid it, you gotta do it
One could easily say marriage and family don’t fully correlate with their cam model career due to what most people would call evident arguments. Yeah, sure, those might not be the first things you think of when you hear the “adult work” expression, but let’s get real about it – our attempts to humanise sex work will ultimately fall flat if we disregard the impact of having a family outside of our cam model jobs. When two worlds collide, one of them is surely going to start a social stigma revolution. While there is no “how-to” manual that is a fit-all size, with a little bit of common sense and empathy, one will surely survive the challenge of trying to create a healthy and safe family environment.
Most of the people involved in adult work will try to keep their work under wraps and be as discreet as possible. No matter the shape and form of your hustle (you can cam, sell pics of your feet or do OnlyFans content on weekends), you have to take into consideration that at some point, it is going to become public knowledge. Regardless of your efforts to geo-block your country or show your face as little as possible, you need to anticipate that at some point, somebody who knows you might find out – next week, next month, or maybe 10 years from now.
Of course, this is a rather small possibility, but it is better to put yourself in that situation just to see how you will handle it before you embark on the cam-model Titanic. What you need to do is basically be honest with yourself. If you are absolutely 100% sure, of your own free will, that you are completely fine with the risk that it might become public knowledge at some point, prepare for a conversation with your loved ones. Oh, and also pray that your 3rd-grade cousin won’t say “You seem familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?” when he first meets you.
There is a time and a place…
And I gotta tell you, that’s not during the Thanksgiving dinner or the big family reunion. But you have to grit your teeth and just say it. Pick a time when nobody feels rushed and a place where you feel safe (deffo not a public space, if you ask me). Also, you can score extra points if you catch your family members in a good mood. Honesty and communication are the key elements that should make the conversation as smooth as silk. Breathe in, breathe out an be prepared to give them some time afterwards to process what you just told them – your revelation might blow your mind.
Remember, no matter what the outcome is, you did what you had to do. If someone does react negatively to your honesty, you should know it is not directly targeted at you. In other words, you are not responsible for however their choose to react. Be brave enough to face the possibility that some relationships might crumble, change for the worst or become distant.
Can you have it all at family reunions?
Yes boys and gals, it might be 2021 but some people can’t fight the urge to not wrap their minds around how adult content creators are also human beings. That subsequently means that we all have basic human needs and rights. Moreover, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights first said in 1948, one of the most crucial ones is having the support of a loving and caring family. Once again, while you might be sadden by the fact that there is no magic formula, adult work can prove to be super satisfying and wildy creative ride.
You just got to have thick skin and be prepared for a (conversational) battle at all times. No amount of zeros in your bank account is be enough to fill the daunting void that could easily be replaced with the presence of family and friends in your life. Don’t let your cam model career (or any type of career for that matter) prevent you from living life as you should.
