Community, Escorting, Internet, Marketing, Pro Domme, Sex Work

Backpage Seized By Feds

Backpage was seized by the feds, this is different from when Backpage themselves  took down the erotic services section (ads migrated to the personals section). This time the site was seized by the FBI. For several days the indictment was sealed but it finally was made public and as predicted by many sex workers and their advocates, it contains NO charges related to human trafficking and once again targets the owners of Backpage with facilitating prostitution, money laundering, etc. This is pretty much what happened last time and these charges were thrown out by a judge. I would expect that this will happen again but you never know cuz it looks like the feds are playing judge roulette and are hoping that one of their harassment adventures will stick with a friendly judge.

You can read the indictment here: https://drive.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=http://archive.azcentral.com/persistent/icimages/news/backpage%2520indictment.compressed.pdf

None of that of course is comforting to any sex workers who relied on Backpage for their livelihood which are often the most venerable among us. Just because Backpage disappeared doesn’t mean you can’t make a living. You will have to be clever and re-think your marketing strategies. Lots of things are changing right now and because of SESTA and FOSTA they are changing quickly and daily. No one really knows whats going to change next and how people are going to react. Its a good time to take some steps to protect yourself, your business and your livelihood.

Australian Sex Workers a new site advertising site when up to help fill the void of the disappearing Backpage http://crockor.com.au/

4 Things to try when your ad venue disappears: https://fairywhoremother.com/4-things-you-can-do-when-your-advertising-venue-disappears/

Consider hosting off shore in case American hosting companies decide to no longer host sex worker sites: https://redumbrella.ch/

A Mastodon Instance popped up AKA a twitter like sex work social media that it might be worth joining if only to next work with other Sex Workers so you can stay current on new options and info. I’m not sure its gonna be a great place to find clients but its worth having a profile up and to see what it evolves into.

https://switter.at/web/getting-started

You can follow me there under my name #JennyDeMIlo

Switter has  added a “listings” feature  to ry to fill the void of the Backpage seizure where you can post availability: https://listings.switter.at/

It’s a tough time and with SESTA set to be signed today its gonna be a dark day for a lot of sex workers. Be kind to them.

Jenny DeMilo: Dominatrix, Hypno-Domme and former GFE Escort

Community, Escorting, Internet, Legal, Marketing, Pro Domme, Sex Work

Escort safety in the age of SESTA – From Escort-Ads Dot Com

Escort-Ads.com is not a US based escort ad site and they had some solid advice on ways to stay safe. The most compelling on their list is Host your personal website on a server in a country where prostitution is legal. This  is very good advice. Though SESTA takes aim at advertising sites where sites can be held responsible for their users behavior, no one really knows how US Hosting sites will react and what preemptive measures they will take with hosting escort websites.  You might find your site has once day been disappeared.

My suggestion is to put up a second site hosting in a country where prostitution is legal and forward your current site to  the new one.

Here is the link to the Escord-Ads post about ways to stay safe. Also there is some very good information about ICANN and what the US has jurisdiction on.

https://www.escort-ads.com/news/sesta-update-list-solutions

Yes, this will cost some money but honestly its not cost prohibitive and its important to do even if its just for your own peace of mind. No one knows whats going to happen. City-Vibe, Reddit, Craigslist Personals  have all made changes and the law isn’t even signed yet.

Be proactive! Be safe!

 

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Community, Escorting, Internet, Legal, Sex Work

Escort Safety in the age of SESTA – From Harlot Advocate

Congress did it, 97-2 they fucked escorts in the name of human trafficking. Trafficking hysteria has captured to minds of our elected officials, once again. All except for Ron Wyden and Ron fucking Paul.

I’m going to try to collect all the best advice I  can to help escorts stay safe with this new law that is waiting the Orange resident of the oval offices signature.

First up is from: @HarlotAdvocate   On Twitter.

I don’t personally know her… BUT shes got some real solid, reasonable advice on how to be safer.  Her Step by Step Guide on  how to stay safe if advertising avenues are shut down. As seen on Twitter and posted here, with her permission.

1. Commit an entire day from your calendar to follow these steps. Then bring a bucket of green tea, water, coffee, a bottle of two of wine to set the mood cause it’s a lot of work.

2. Log into your current email & start to organize.. Listing in this order the A) The Contributors/Providers States.
B) Which Contributors/Providers Have Been Seen & Safe.
C) Which Contributors Are Just PreScreened.
D) Who is Professional.
E) Who Is Not.
F) Who is Blocked.

3. Open 2 Proton Mail Accounts.
A) One for professional business name.
B) Second for recovery email.

Or use the amazing @SafeOffice because they are literally that awesome!

4. After you have organized your original professional email into those folders… Transfer that information them over to the new professional email accounts I have listed above that you have made for yourself.

5. Yes it is a ton of work but trust me your email and organizing is your absolute best option for maintaining clients & contributor relationships.
“If it’s based overseas you are good to go.”

6. Make an announcement to the clients that you are closing your old email accounts associated within wonderful USA & if you so choose send them to your new email address.

7. Drink whatever you need, bathroom breaks were not done.

8. Go to each of your advertisement platforms that are based in the US and remove any and all special keywords that can be associated with sex work. Such as uncheck that incall/outcall, roses, gfe girlfriend etc, pricing unless on your website.

9. Treat each US based advertising platform as a profile for strictly dating.. Like think your looking for a breath taking “dating profile.” Keep that thought, and write your content appropriately.

10. (missing in the line up)

11. Go on your twitter and social platforms and clean house. Remove anything and everything that can or will be perceived as a worker verses a dating profile. This included comments, DM messages, paid profile links, etc that allude to worker status verses dating status.

12. Contributors This Is For You.
No MORE DMs.. You need to approach only through email… That’s it.. Do not waste a dating profiles time when you are just seeking an emotional connection.. This puts them at risk. Stop it and keep it professional.

13. Girls with phones…. We all have them or used too. DO NOT USE YOUR PERSONAL PHONE FOR ANY WORK PURPOSES. You have two phones for two reasons you do not ever mix the two. One is for booking dating spots, one is for checking your grocery lists.

14. Girls with phones.. USE A VPN AT ALL TIMES. Keep it on the minute that phone is on and the minute that phone is off. That simple! Your preferred form of contact should always be email, from the new email you have provided.

15. When posting photo pictures from your cell phone.. Keep that VPN ON. Make sure you always always screenshot at least 5-6 times, zooming in, and posting it then.

16. Providers DO NOT POST cell phone pictures from the hotel you are staying at unless there is nothing that identifies that room. Still for me personally it’s a huge no no hence I don’t do it.

17. Providers & Contributors quit tagging the location where you are at while you are still there. That is just blatantly putting it out there!

18. Discretion is key to staying busy. Supporting one another is the key to keeping safe. Avoid the drama like the plague. Follow all my steps listed above and you will be good to go!

There you have it folks. I know its a lot of work, you know whats more work? Trying to get out on bail for a federal crime or trying to make rent with no job. 

Stay Safe Ladies….

Helpful links:

Safe Office:  https://safeoffice.com/lp/

What is a VPN: https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-a-vpn

Burner Phones: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/saltzman/2016/09/17/whats-a-burner-phone/90382874/

SWOP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Workers_Outreach_Project_USA

How to find your government reps: https://whoismyrepresentative.com/

ACLU: https://www.aclu.org/

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Marketing, Sex Work

Increase sales, know your customer

In order to serve your customer the content they want, you have to know who that customer is. Dude who likes porn is not enough. All dudes like porn, what you want to know is, who is this person who’s buying my content. Why do you want to know? So you can better serve them what they want and in return you can increase your sales!

Create a customer profile. You need to know who’s buying your content.

Odds are you can go with male but how old is this man, is he married or single, is he submissive or dominant, what kinks or fetishes does he have. The more you know about him the more targeted your marketing to him can be. The more targeted your marketing, the more you will sell. It’s the number one mistake a see all kinds of business make is not knowing who their customer is.

Example: Escort advertising sites. They get this wrong on the daily. An escort advertising sites customer is the escort who pays for the ads on the site. Many sites get this wrong and do things that infuriate escorts (their customers) and direct the marketing/features to the person surfing the site. That person is not the advertising sites customer. That person is the ESCORTS customer.  This creates frustration for the customer (the escort) and in turn can cause loss of loyalty to a site, retention of business and the deterioration all around good will. It’s a problem.

So knowing who your customer is, is important. Knowing this customer profile or profiles will help you target your marketing to get your message out to the right person(s), and also help you to take away any barriers the potential customer might have to making the leap from observer to making an actual purchase. After all, what you want is more purchases. You want to serve the customer you have better because keeping a customer is easier and less costly then getting a new one. So customer loyalty should be something you think about and consider in your marketing strategy.

Building a customer profile is not always easy and you you will likely be fine tuning it for a while but its worth the effort you put into it. You can do polls, surveys, watch your analytics  like a hawk, how are people finding you in searches, what sells the most what wains on the shelf only to sell a handful over a long period of time. All this will help you make up this valuable customer profile.

Then craft your sales message to that person and viola you’re on your way to working smarter not harder and increasing your sales.

Jenny DeMilo: Dominatrix, Hypno-Domme and former GFE Escort
Follow Jenny DeMilo on Twitter

Clips, Internet, Marketing, Money Management, Sex Work

Sex work and payment processing

Its hard out there for a hoe! Being in one of the highest grossing industries doesn’t mean you get the benefits that anyone else would working in a “real” business. If you’re selling any kind of adult material from video to audio you will find a major roadblock to making money. Payment processing. It gets us all.  Since adult work is considered high risk most payment processors wont touch you with a ten foot pole. Those that do will take a giant chunk of your money. Sometimes upwards of 40%. That’s a lot of cash to give away to someone for them basically doing very little to actually doing nothing. A quick rundown of some options for selling your content and making money.

Paypal: Plain and simple Paypal is not adult friendly. Do not sell your material using them as a processor they will freeze your account.

Stripe: Its right in their Faq’s Adult content or services are a no go.

C4S: If you make video or audio C4S is an option. C4S is like old faithful, strong steady and they have been around forever. Thousands of people have studios with them, so its easy to get info on how they do business. They will host your content and they have their own customers to sell to  which means they bring traffic. They have a long standing reputable reputation. All that is great. They take 40% of every sale. That’s not great. Ive had a studio with them for years, customer service is great, they send me my money like fucking clock work and i rarely if ever seem them in pissing matches in forums with model. That’s called professionalism.  They are worth a look.

IWC: I Want Clips, popular with some people, others hate them. They pay out 70% and have contests where you can compete for more sales ( fun.. not) and occasionally have payouts that increase on holidays, which is a nice feature. I heard there was some kind of multilevel system where the more in sales you make the larger % you can take home of your cash. That may have changed, I’ve been alerted by a user of the site, its a straight percentage. It’s worth asking the question of you decide to use them. I have heard mixed opinions about how much traffic they actually bring to the table. Their niche is femdom more specifically video femdom. They are a small mom and pop shop, actually IWC has two dads. They have a lot of complaints about lack of customer service and a mysterious user agreement I haven’t been able to get my hands on but they could be a viable option if you fit their niche and don’t feel like you will have any issues that need addressing or immediate attention.

Niteflirt: A phone sex site where you an an independent contractor can use their platform to take calls or do webcam shows. However you can also sell your content which they call “goodies” video, audio, photos all kinds of things can be uploaded there for sale.  They have a large built in audience but its hard to get noticed on the site unless you pay for top placement so you need to bring your own traffic until your audience finds you. They also take 30% of every sale. They have been around a long time so some of the features seem dated as they don’t do updates very often but Niteflirt is a workhorse, put in the effort and this one  pays off, in spades.

CCBill:  a long standing adult payment processor. Ive been using them for years. It works out to about 12/14% of each sale but depending on your weekly gross that can go down.  You will need to build your own site to sell your content on and you will have to pay the yearly fees to Visa and Mastercard which can come to 1000 per year. Yes, you have to give them a chunk of money for the honor of them taking  a % of every sale.  Welcome to the world of being a “high risk”  content provider. They don’t bring any traffic that’s on you but I have found their customer service excellent and my account rep is always happy to help me if i have questions.  Also if you are a Hypno Domme you know how hard it is to find a processor who always you to use the world “hypnosis” CCBill does not have that restriction.

Clipvia: I told you they were shady years ago. They finally shut down after stealing money from so many people. Good riddance.

Kinkbomb: Shady AF – They shut down

If you have any platforms to add to this list? Get in touch with your experience!

Sage advice from bonifide whores