boundaries - Rem Sequence Official

The Five Must Have Boundaries for Content Creators – Part 2

In the first blog post I wrote on boundaries, I talked about WHY it is so important to have them in these five areas. But what use is a why if you don’t have a HOW? In this follow up blog post, I will talk about how I maintain boundaries in order to stay happy and healthy.

With your TIME

The first thing you need to do when maintaining boundaries is to set them. Time is probably one of the easiest areas to do this in, as it is an objective measurement. For example:

When will you work?
When won’t you work?
When are you available for your customers (how much time)?
When are you not available?
How much interaction are you willing to give to potential customers (how much time)?

Once you have decided on these, don’t be shy about it; make it known. You can do this through your 1:1 interactions with people, embed it into your social media postings or posting on your sites. I am not available after 10pm every night or before 8am in the morning my time and I am pretty vocal about this. At this stage, this works for me. If it changes, I will make it known again. Consider it the opening hours of your business. The thing is, if people know when you are open for business and what to expect from you, then there is no pushback. Why? Because your clients/customers then accept that that is how you operate. You don’t have to be snarky about it, just matter of fact “I don’t respond after 10pm, I will get back to this in the morning.” Treat it like any other business would.

With who YOU are

We all have lives that are separate from our content creator personas, and although there may be some crossover, it is important to keep some distance between the two (for the sake of your mental health). This is difficult though, as we develop relationships with our fans, customers and clients, it is normal that we may start to share more about our lives than we may have at the beginning. Also, the way this industry is now, people expect a certain amount of personal sharing and connection with their favourite content creators. I maintain this boundary by treating Rem Sequence as a job, both in practice but also in my headspace. My fans and clients do not know my real name; I ask that my friends and people who know me in real life call me by my real name. I am not a big sharer anyway, so I find it easy not to share personal details in public. I think this is useful to think about in multiple ways; the content of your photos (keeping personal things out of them), when you talk about places you visit, things you enjoy. Although these can build relationships with your fanbase, they can also erode the boundary between YOU and your work. How much are you willing to share? What things are you going to keep just for you? When I am pressed about certain details, I have a few strategies that I use. Sometimes, I will make something up; other times I will just distract the person. Remember, you are in charge of what and how much you share of YOU. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

With your CASH

As with time, how we maintain boundaries when it comes to our money is a bit easier as it is something objective. Your payment methods, your rates and your pricing are all things you can decide upon and rattle off very easily when asked. How to maintain that boundary? My best piece of advice is to stick to your guns, even if someone gets pushy. Lots of content creators get worried about losing business or what others will think about them if they budge around their cash. If someone really wants to have a piece of you, they will work with you and not waste your time by arguing with you over a payment method or a matter of dollars. Let these people walk. Don’t even bother arguing, just politely excuse yourself from the conversation. You are costing yourself MORE money by justifying why you run your business in a certain way to people that are not invested in what you are doing.

With your PERSONA

When it comes to boundaries around my persona, I have found that the number one reason that I may budge on them is because of a lack of confidence in myself. If I feel like maybe I should explore area xyz because someone has asked me repeatedly about it YET it is something I am not comfortable with, then the reason probably is because of a loss of faith in what I am creating. The way I manage this is by surrounding myself with supportive and encouraging people who are knowledgeable in the business and can pull me up by the bootstraps when I need it. Instead of questioning and exploring my boundaries with customers, clients and random peers, I will go back to this group of supporters and check in with them. Nine times out of ten they tell me that my initial reasoning was sound and not to worry about what anybody else says. I think when it comes to our personas, having confidence in ourselves and commitment to the path we are taking is absolutely key. And the way to maintain this is through the people we surround ourselves with.

With your ENERGY

In my first post on boundaries, I talked a bit about how to maintain these around your energy. It is definitely easy to get sucked into working 24/7 as a content creator and it is just not healthy. In my opinion, the best thing you can do in this regard is to treat it as if it were a vanilla job where you are accountable to someone for the level of energy you put in. Develop a work schedule and stick to it. Incorporate break times/days into this schedule and make sure you future proof yourself for if you are in the unfortunate position to have to take time off. The number one thing is to work out how much you can do in the time you have, and know that some other creators may work more than you and some less, but that doesn’t make you any better or worse than anyone else. And if people make you feel bad about that… well, that says a lot more about them than it does you. Working with people can be incredibly draining, and you must develop boundaries around this and maintain them in order to remain consistent and survive in this industry. Once again, having a strong support network who can encourage and support you in your decisions around this is vital.

I hope this piece helped to address questions you may have had about how to maintain boundaries. However, in writing this, I realised one of the key things to success is developing supportive and encouraging relationships with other content creators and people in our industry. In my next piece, I will talk about finding your tribe and some guidelines I have found useful when building and maintaining my support network.

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The Five Must-Have Boundaries for Content Creators – Part 1

Boundaries are important, in every part of your life. When I talk about boundaries, I am referring to rules you make around your interactions with other people. In the content creation industry, I believe they are mandatory and have definitely given me more clarity on where I draw the line on a number of things. In a previous post, I said I could probably do a whole blog post on my experience with boundaries. The response from the readers was “yes please!” So here are my five must-have boundaries for content creators.

With your TIME

Time is precious; it is something that once it is gone, you can never get it back. This is my number boundary area for this very reason. I have an extremely low tolerance for time wasters and for people who do not respect the boundaries I place around my time. I think it is important to look at your time in a number of ways, and make some decisions about what you will and won’t accept. For example:

When will you work?
When won’t you work?
When are you available for your customers (how much time)?
When are you not available?
How much interaction are you willing to give to potential customers (how much time)?

With my time, I have designated times when I am making content, online chatting with customers and fans, working on admin and answering messages. I am very busy in other areas of my life so I simply do not have time to waste. And if I want to get things done, then these boundaries must be rock solid. If people genuinely want your time, they will respect how precious it is and treat you accordingly.

With who YOU are

Here is a bombshell. I am not actually Rem Sequence. Crazy, I know, but hear me out. I actually have a life which has a little crossover with my model persona, but a lot of my life has little to no relation to my work. This is also a very important one to me, because I recently had an experience where my identity felt a little detached. For several weeks I felt extremely isolated because Rem Sequence is a part of me, not my entire identity. But when everyone you interact with knows you as this persona, all the other facets of you seem to drift away. The fact you need to remember is that you are not your model persona. Establishing boundaries around this so that you can keep some distance between the role you play for your fans and who you are when you are off the clock. Although this is important for safety (and why we adopt stage names for ourselves, protecting our real life identities from those who may want to exploit us), I think this is really important for our mental health. We are sharing extremely intimate parts of our lives, and exposing vulnerabilities at the same time. This can feel very unsafe unless we have ways to manage it.

With your CASH

Trust me. You know your business better than anyone and you know what works best for you when it comes to the almighty dollar. From how much you charge for content, to how much it costs per minute for you to provide a service, to the payment methods and timeliness of your clients paying, you are the expert. It doesn’t matter if Joe Bloggs got a 15 minute custom from someone else at a third of your rate (or twice your rate). It is completely irrelevant if Jane Smalls uses a tip or tribute function or if they think you shouldn’t use some other payment platform because the one you prefer isn’t safe. And one I think we have all heard a million times before: “I can’t pay through your method: do you accept any others?” If people really want to buy your content or services, experience tells me they will do backflips to do so and will not expect you to put the same effort into the negotiation.

With your PERSONA

As we develop in the adult content creation business, we finetune our persona and what we create based upon what we enjoy doing, what we are good at and what is successful for our unique situation. Some of us just make clips, some are stars of the photoset and merch whilst others smash it with live shows. For me, I know I have grown and stretched into other areas that I found I enjoyed. However, there will always be someone saying “why don’t you do xyz?” Or “I would love to see you do abc!” Feedback from our clients and fans is gold, but micromanagement from outside is a complete buzzkill. If there are services you are not comfortable providing, or types of content you don’t enjoy making, you are under no obligation to do so. Sometimes we may feel we have to respond to every request with enthusiasm and a can-do attitude, especially when starting out. But honestly, you do not have to. That is the beautiful thing about this industry; we have such a diverse and multiskilled community that there will be someone who would love to do what you don’t want to do. And the coolest thing about that? It leaves you open to do the things YOU enjoy and that make your work meaningful.

With your ENERGY

And now we come to my personal fatal flaw, and one that I am now making a conscious effort to work on. I have unrealistic expectations of exactly how much I can get out of myself and recently it backfired in a most spectacular way, resulting in a lengthy hospital stay. For those with ambitious, A-type personalities, this is going to be a struggle. I believe you need to be treating your content creation as if it is a vanilla job. You clock on and you clock off. You have break times and you have scheduled days off. If you are unwell, you be kind to yourself and you do not work. Working out how much you can do in the time you have is paramount. Some people are able to put more energy in, and some people less. I am here to tell you that that is totally ok, and that doesn’t make you better than or less than anyone else. The secret to success in this business is consistency. And if you do not develop boundaries around your energy, which, let’s be honest, is the fuel to this fire, then you are going to get a hell of a shock when you wake up one day to find the jerry can empty. Or like me, stuck in a hospital bed discussing the possibility of life saving surgery.

Don’t get me wrong; it is totally fine for your boundaries to change over time. After all, as people, we grow, develop and change our preferences and what we are comfortable with all the time. What suited me in 2017 may not suit me going into 2020. The thing is to be aware of it, to have these conversations with yourself and value you as the amazing and capable person you are. Because what is the saying? “You are worth it.” This post has really focussed on what areas I think you need to develop boundaries around. In a follow up post, I will talk about HOW I do this and offer some suggestions for how you could build them into your business.

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The Ten Porn Commandments… for Consumers

So my last blog post was Commandments for Content Creators. Buyers, consumers, clients, friends, supporters… this one is for you.

1. Thou shalt pay.

We are running businesses here. We want to make money. By engaging with people who don’t pay we are wasting time that could be better spent with paying clients. Also, if you are enjoying a model’s content, pay them something. $5 can actually mean the difference between us cashing out for the month or not. Can’t pay? Well, this is not hobby for you. Step aside and make way for the people who have cash.

2. Thou shalt respect boundaries.

We make boundaries for a reason, to keep ourselves feeling safe and in control. If you try to change a model’s boundaries you are telling them, in eassence, that you don’t care about them in the slightest. With such an intimate form of entertainment, respecting boundaries is even more important than in other occupations, because the hazards associated with it are huge. It could mean life or death.

3. Thou shalt respect privacy.

You are purchasing a service or content, not the right to know every little detail about the model. Privacy in this industry is so important, and like I would not invade the privacy of a consumer (finding out their real name, where they live, where they work, their marital status), you should not delve into the private life of models. This is our work, and can be very unsafe at times. Do not take our responses to invasive questions as personal; we need to tread very carefully in all domains of our lives.

4. Thou shalt provide feedback.

Sometimes, we as content creators sit in a cone of silence. People will buy content and never say anything about it; if they loved it or hated it. I personally love reviews, even if they are not 5 stars, because constructive criticism helps me grow. Like any other services tell us; good, bad or whatever. It honestly is so important.

5. Thou shalt communicate clearly, like an adult.

If you would like to purchase a service or piece of content, approach it as you would any other purchase. Abusing the seller, making them feel uncomfortable, emotionally manipulating or not asking what you want directly and succinctly is not how anyone does things. Especially if you want to develop an ongoing business relationship with someone.

6. Thou shalt understand the business if one wants to consume it.

Asking dumb questions of content creators and adult service providers is not a smart move. Not when it doesn’t take much effort to learn about the business. Learn about how the adult industry works and learn about your favourite creators. Where you can buy their content, what payment methods they prefer and how services are provided. It makes it easier for us and you, which makes for a much more enjoyable experiences.

7. Thou shalt comply with reasonable requests from models.

This one kind of follows on from the last. The kind of requests I am talking about are payment before product, their preferred payment method and times/method of delivering content/service. Make our lives easier, not harder.

8. Thou shalt not be a timewaster.

Timewasters are the bane of our existence. Our time equals money so wasting it is a serious indiscretion. We will not forget it either. It will taint any interaction with you thereafter. If in doubt, send a tip.

9. Thou shalt think before speaking.

Look, we know that when purchasing our content and speaking to us you are in a certain… state of mind. And sometimes this means you speak without thinking. But please, in order to get what we both need, just try to stop and put your thoughts together first.

10. Thou shalt not be a shit human.

Follows on from number 9 in a certain sense. Remember that you are speaking to a human with wants, needs and feelings. There is a real person on the end of your transaction who has to deal with some pretty rough behaviour every single day. Want to stand out and be remembered fondly? Want to have nice future interactions with us? Then be thoughtful and considerate. It will bode well for you.

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What Sex Work Has Taught Me About Relationships

Making friends and influencing people the Rem Sequence way…

To be perfectly honest, when I came into sex work, I had had some pretty rough life experiences involving people. Being raised by sociopaths and having 2 long term relationships with abusive men will do that to you. Sex work has given me insight into the workings of people that, in the past, I took personally and never really understood. I don’t just mean as a woman relating to men, but with people in general. I have learned things about people and how we relate to eachother in a sexual context that I knew on a theoretical level, but these concepts have finally sunk in. Here are 5 very useful things I have learnt about relationships from doing sex work…

Boundaries are important and negotiating them is a fine art

When you are a sex worker, you need to have firm boundaries. You have to know what you are willing to do and what you are not and not waver on this. There are a lot of factors in play though; you want to keep clients or develop trust with them, you want to make money, you want to remain safe. People will put pressure on you to change those boundaries if changing them will suit them better. But as with all relationships, sticking to your boundaries will help you in the long run, despite it being uncomfortable in the short term. For example, I will not respond to unsolicited messages without a cash tribute first. Some requesters do not respond to this well, but in the long term it saves me time talking to people who have no interest in spending money.

When people are hurt or embarassed, they will say stupid things

Following on from my point above, when you enforce your boundaries, some people don’t take this so well. Generally that is because they are hurt or embarassed by being rejected or being told no; they haven’t developed enough insight to accept responsibility for this so will lash out instead. With some people, it doesn’t matter how polite you are in saying no, they will be so hurt they will say stupid things like “you are ugly anyway.” Cool story, bro. But your response is illogical. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter who someone is, I don’t waste my time hand-holding people through their emotions. Unless they are paying me, that is…

People come and go… and come again; that is ok

Coming from a background of trauma and abuse, I am the first to admit that I have issues with abandonment. Sex work had taught me that people can come on very hot and heavy… but then be gone in the next 5 minutes. Maybe you will have radio silence for 5 months and then… BAM. They are back again, just as hot and heavy. This is not anything about me personally, but is about where people are at in their own lives. It helps me now to have no expectations about people. The fact is that people will say all kinds of things, and it doesn’t mean they are true or that they will happen. I trust actions, combined with patterns, above all else.

We all have preferences; you don’t know what they are till you try

Lots of people are locked into certain patterns of behaviour because they are comfortable and known. Thinking about other ways of being is foreign and a bit scary. But, it doesn’t mean those other ways of being might actually be your preference. In this instance, I am talking about domination and submission. Some people have never role played these positions so have never experienced them. Many people tell me, well, I am a dominant. Are you really? Or is opposite a bit scary? If you could explore this with someone you could trust, would you?

Societal norms about relationships are social constructions

You know how we think monogamy is a natural state for humans? And how we put so much emphasis on finding that one person to complete us? None of this natural. It is also how we have been conditioned since very young to view our intimate relationships. I believe it is used to maintain control of citizens as opposed to anything natural (more on this another time…). Sex work has shown me how relationships can be constructed differently, given open communication and opportunity to try different things. Love and sex are not the same things and are mutually exclusive. Society says otherwise which is extremely limiting for people who subscribe to this belief. It stops people being honest with themselves and eachother, which overall is unhealthy and unnecessary.

Sex work is many things, but I never expected it to change so many of my beliefs and assumptions. Intrigued to learn more? Then come over and say hi…