Aella: Sex Work, OnlyFans, Porn, Escorting, Dating, and Human Sexuality | Lex Fridman Podcast #358

1. 0:00 – 1:57

   Introduction

   1. AEAella0:00

      It was really shocking to me that nobody else was doing anything creative with sex work.

   2. LFLex Fridman0:02

      Yeah.

   3. AEAella0:03

      Like, for me it was, it was like breathing, like, you're just doing sex and you're bored and like, "What do you do?" "I don't know, let's try something funny." Like, it's just the natural progression.

   4. LFLex Fridman0:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AEAella0:09

      And it felt to me like there was almost no competition. Like, I would just be really creative and, like, immediately it was the top not-safe-for-work post on Reddit. And, like, I didn't even try that hard.

   6. LFLex Fridman0:21

      The following is a conversation with Aella, a sex researcher who does some of the largest human sexuality survey studies in the world on everything from fetishes to relationships. She is fearless in pursuing her curiosity on these topics by asking challenging and fascinating questions, and looking for answers in a rigorous data-driven way, and writing about it on her blog, knowingless.com. She's also a sex worker, including OnlyFans and escorting, and is an exceptionally prolific creator of thought-provoking Twitter polls. Aella and I disagree on a bunch of things, but that just made this conversation even more interesting. I like interesting people, in the full range of the meaning that the word interesting implies. I'm currently reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac, and, uh, would be remiss if I didn't mention one of my favorite quotes from that book that feels relevant here. "The only people for me are the mad ones. The ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time; the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles, exploding like spiders across the stars. And in the middle, you see the blue centerlight pop, and everybody goes, 'Ah.'" This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Aella.

2. 1:57 – 9:34

   Uncertainty

   1. LFLex Fridman1:57

      I feel like this conversation can go anywhere.

   2. AEAella1:59

      Hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:59

      Is that exciting or terrifying to you?

   4. AEAella2:02

      I think it's more exciting.

   5. LFLex Fridman2:03

      The uncertainty exciting to you?

   6. AEAella2:05

      Yes.

   7. LFLex Fridman2:07

      In conversations in general, or just this one?

   8. AEAella2:09

      I think conversations in general. Like, is anybody like, "Oh, the certainty is really exciting"? Maybe if the certainty is something new.

   9. LFLex Fridman2:14

      I mean, novelty always comes with uncertainty, right? Almost always.

   10. AEAella2:18

       That's why I'm trying to think of a counter-example.

   11. LFLex Fridman2:20

       (laughs) Immediately.

   12. AEAella2:21

       Yeah.

   13. LFLex Fridman2:21

       You're uncomfortable with generalizations of that kind.

   14. AEAella2:23

       Like, "always" is always a really bold word to use.

   15. LFLex Fridman2:26

       But if it's truly novel, that means you don't really understand it, it's outside your distribution.

   16. AEAella2:30

       ...

   17. NANarrator2:30

       Mm-hmm.

   18. LFLex Fridman2:30

       So therefore it's gonna have a bunch of uncertainty. But you don't think of it as uncertainty, you think about as something new, but it actually also attracts you because there's a lot of uncertainty surround it probably. Like, "What is this new thing?"

   19. AEAella2:42

       Yeah. Like, annihilating the mystery, like, that drive.

   20. LFLex Fridman2:45

       Yeah. What about the danger of it?

   21. AEAella2:48

       It's, like, part... I was just thinking of, on the drive over, 'cause I was like, "I'm, like, a little nervous about doing this podcast." And then an... I was, like, feeling into the unpleasantness of it, like, the, like, the fear of, what if something goes terribly wrong? And then I was also feeling into like how much that feels like part of why it's exciting. Like, if I knew that it was going to go great, I don't know.

   22. LFLex Fridman3:07

       Did you actually imagine all the possible ways it can go wrong?

   23. AEAella3:10

       Not, like, all of them. But I was like, "What if I say something really dumb?" Or, like, you ask me a question and I answer it in a way that makes me sound like a lot less capable than I am. I'm, like, really afraid of being perceived as stupid or something. I was also thinking about this on the way over, like, I'm kind of risk-averse in some ways. Like, I don't driving fast, like, driving fast in cars, 'cause I was driving very carefully here 'cause the roads are bad.

   24. LFLex Fridman3:31

       Yeah.

   25. AEAella3:31

       And now I think, but I'm very, like, pro-risk in other ways, like, being really exposed to, like, a wide variety of people who might hate you. And I think, like, from the outside that might look fine, but I think the monkey brain is really sensitive to lots of people yelling at you for whatever problems that you seem to have

   26. NANarrator3:47

       ... So that's the big risk you're taking, is putting yourself out there as an intellectual, like, through your writing, and then a lot of people yelling at you. Is that, is that the-

   27. AEAella3:56

       (laughs)

   28. LFLex Fridman3:56

       ... worst embarrassment you can experience?

   29. AEAella3:57

       It's pretty bad, yeah. (laughs) I think, I think the worst embarrassment is if I put something out there that I failed to, like, be properly skeptical of in myself-

   30. LFLex Fridman4:05

       Sure.
3. 9:34 – 22:03

   Sex, power, and death

   1. LFLex Fridman9:34

      Uh, what do you think is the primary driver of human civilization? Is it the desire for sex, love, power, or immortality? Like, avoiding, uh, the fear of death, constructing illusions that make us forget about our terror over mortality. So sex, love, power, death.

   2. AEAella9:52

      Is this a Twitter poll? (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman9:54

      It's-

   4. AEAella9:54

      There's four options.

   5. LFLex Fridman9:55

      This is reality.

   6. AEAella9:56

      (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman9:56

      Not everything-

   8. AEAella9:57

      (laughs) That's great.

   9. LFLex Fridman9:57

      ... maps perfectly into a Twitter poll, but in this case, because there's four options (laughs) and it is a small number of characters, it does. But I- I'd like to think I'm more interest- You know what? I think your Twitter polls are fundamentally interesting. There's something about the, the brevity of a poll limiting you to a set of choices and having an existential crisis in searching for the answer-

   10. AEAella10:20

       (laughs) .

   11. LFLex Fridman10:20

       That's beautiful.

   12. AEAella10:21

       That combination, limiting the-

   13. LFLex Fridman10:22

       Well, this one's a big one. Like, what do you think is behind it?

   14. AEAella10:24

       Do you believe that there is one primary driver? Like, do you think that it can be understood in the terms of primary drivers?

   15. LFLex Fridman10:31

       Yeah. I think, well, maybe it's an e- engineering perspective, like, trying to r- reverse engineer the brain. I don't think we're equipped or understand enough about the mind to get there, but...

   16. AEAella10:40

       Yeah. Like, what's the primary driver of a tree?

   17. LFLex Fridman10:43

       Yeah. Well, then it gets to the question of what is life, what is a living organism?

   18. AEAella10:47

       Like, to self-replicate probably.

   19. LFLex Fridman10:49

       That's a very clean simplification, but I think life is more interesting tha- than just self replication.

   20. AEAella11:00

       Yeah. But it sounds like you, there's a curiosity in you that you're trying to, like, poke at, and I, and I don't understand exactly what that curiosity is.

   21. LFLex Fridman11:07

       So if I, if I had to dedicate 1,000 years-

   22. AEAella11:09

       Mm-hmm.

   23. LFLex Fridman11:09

       ... to understand one of these topics, which one would be the most fruitful, I guess is the indirect thing I'm asking?

   24. AEAella11:16

       Fun?

   25. LFLex Fridman11:16

       No. Well, fun. Ev- to me, everything is fun. But... (laughs)

   26. AEAella11:21

       Really?

   27. LFLex Fridman11:22

       Yeah. I mean, I'm with Da- David Foster Wallace, "The key to life is, uh, to make sure that everything is unborable, or to be unborable," where ev- nothing is boring, everything is fun.... every, like everything. I could just literally sit. I honestly, 'cause I, I don't think, I don't know where you got that glass, but that glass exists and I forgot it exists and it was really fun to me to know that now it's there.

   28. AEAella11:45

       What about the really unpleasant things? Like, if you're in, in, like, a deep agony.

   29. LFLex Fridman11:51

       Yeah, that's fun.

   30. AEAella11:51

       Okay.
4. 22:03 – 23:29

   Free will

   1. LFLex Fridman22:03

      Actually to jump back, you don't bel- you believe that free will is an illusion.

   2. AEAella22:08

      Mm-hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman22:09

      So, uh, why does it feel like I'm free to make any decision I want?

   4. AEAella22:18

      Well, 'cause it's a cool illusion? I think that's probably, like, where a sense-

   5. LFLex Fridman22:20

      (laughs)

   6. AEAella22:20

      ... of identity comes from.

   7. LFLex Fridman22:21

      It's a fun illusion? Oh.

   8. AEAella22:22

      Like, when you, when you really meditate on your sense of identity, for, at least for me, it seems like it comes down to the sense of choice. Like, "Oh, I am doing the thinking." Like, what does it mean to do a thinking? It's like, "Ah, something in me has exerted agency over having this thought or not having this thought." Like, the sense of self really comes down to choice. And so when I say that, like, free will is an illusion, I also mean there's something like the self is an illusion, identity is a trick of the light.

   9. LFLex Fridman22:47

      But it's a really fun one.

   10. AEAella22:49

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman22:49

       You think a lot about your identity.

   12. AEAella22:52

       I have occasionally.

   13. LFLex Fridman22:54

       Yeah. Like, you really struggle with it. You're proud of it. I, I do, too. It's not ... We have different journeys, but-

   14. AEAella23:00

       Mm-hmm.

   15. LFLex Fridman23:01

       ... so ...

   16. AEAella23:01

       I really take a lot of delight in it. I used to be very into, like, deconstructing it. Like, you pro- maybe you know I did a bunch of, like, way too much LSD for a while. And at that point, very, no, no ego. And now I'm, like, very ego.

   17. LFLex Fridman23:14

       Mm-hmm.

   18. AEAella23:14

       And I really enjoy having a lot of ego.

   19. LFLex Fridman23:17

       I actually happen to know, uh, like, everything about you.

   20. AEAella23:20

       Really?

   21. LFLex Fridman23:20

       Yeah.

   22. AEAella23:21

       Oh.

   23. LFLex Fridman23:21

       Like, more than you do. It's interesting.

   24. AEAella23:23

       That's fascinating. Wait. Could you, can you solve my problems?

   25. LFLex Fridman23:25

       Yes. All of them. I did thorough research. Okay. Um,

5. 23:29 – 33:24

   Consciousness

   1. LFLex Fridman23:29

      what is consciousness then? I actually wrote that as a que- "What is consciousness?"

   2. AEAella23:35

      (laughs)

   3. LFLex Fridman23:36

      (laughs) To remind myself. So, like, uh, how does that tie in together with free will, and identity, and all of that?

   4. AEAella23:42

      (laughs) It does mean, though, what is consciousness, is, like, one of the biggest questions ever. I think, I- I do think that people often get confused when talking about consciousness, 'cause I think people are referring to two separate concepts and often, like, combining them into one thing. Like, we asked the question, you know, "Is AI going to be conscious?" Um, and I think this is kind of the wrong question. Like, uh, like, we can identify signs of consciousness, like, ah, they seem to refer to themselves. Uh, but this is not necessarily proof of consciousness in the same way that, like, dream characters s- acting exactly the way normal human d- people do in your dream is not evidence that they themselves are conscious. Uh, so, like, signs of consciousness are not proof of consciousness. But there is something that we definitely know, which is, like, I currently am conscious. I can tell because... Right. Like, I'm, like, just directly observing my experience.

   5. LFLex Fridman24:28

      Yeah.

   6. AEAella24:28

      Uh, and so, like, there's one kind of consciousness which is, "I am directly observing my experience," and that, you cannot replicate it. Like, there, I cannot observe two experiences. Uh, it is necessarily singular, and it is necessarily certain. Like, you can make all the arguments you want. Like, I'm still directly observing. It's not a thing that's subject to reason. Whereas, are other things conscious? This is something that's replicable. Like, you can apply it to multiple people, um, it's something that's not certain, uh, like almost definitionally not certain. Like, we don't actually know if there is, you know, an internal experience. So, my argument is that, like, when people are talking about other things having experience, they're using a different concept than the thing that they're actually looking at when they look at their own experience. I think they're two different things.

   7. LFLex Fridman25:08

      Definitionally not possible. No. If you understand the mechanism of consciousness, you would be able to measure it probably, right?

   8. AEAella25:14

      Yeah. But what are you measuring? Like, I think there's just, like, a subtle difference. Like, when you were asking the question, "Is this other thing conscious?"

   9. LFLex Fridman25:22

      Yeah. The easy thing to measure is, like, a survey. Does this thing appear conscious?

   10. AEAella25:26

       Yeah.

   11. LFLex Fridman25:27

       And then the hard thing is you understand the actual mechanism of, uh, how consciousness arises in the physics-

   12. AEAella25:34

       Yeah, but-

   13. LFLex Fridman25:34

       ... of the human brain.

   14. AEAella25:34

       ... you could do that in a dream presumably. Like, if you had a very good dream or a very good simulation.

   15. LFLex Fridman25:38

       Yeah.

   16. AEAella25:39

       But we could then have somebody in a simulation or a dream where they go through and they fully understand, you know. They do all the tests, and the tests come back exactly the way you'd expect them to.

   17. LFLex Fridman25:47

       Yeah.

   18. AEAella25:47

       Uh, but from the outside, we're like, "Well, this is misleading. They're not actually conscious." Like, your dream characters aren't conscious, right? Probably.

   19. LFLex Fridman25:54

       I don't know. Are you asking? Or are you telling?

   20. AEAella25:56

       I'm, like, appealing to an intuition. (laughs)

   21. LFLex Fridman25:59

       (laughs) But it sounds like you're driving towards a narrative. I don't... You, you did a poll about men and women and dreams.

   22. AEAella26:04

       Yeah.

   23. LFLex Fridman26:04

       There was some kind of difference. I couldn't tell what the difference was except that more men than women reported.

   24. AEAella26:08

       Quite a lot more women dream vividly than men.

   25. LFLex Fridman26:11

       Oh.

   26. AEAella26:12

       Which I actually found on my chaos survey. So, I, I did a survey, maybe you know that... I just had people-

   27. LFLex Fridman26:17

       I know everything, remember?

   28. AEAella26:18

       You do know. Yes, I'm sorry. So, as you clearly know.

   29. LFLex Fridman26:20

       I'll try not to talk down to you through this conversation 'cause I know-

   30. AEAella26:22

       (laughs) I'm sorry.
6. 33:24 – 46:22

   Childhood

   1. LFLex Fridman33:24

   2. AEAella33:24

      Yeah.

   3. LFLex Fridman33:24

      Can we talk about some practical things?

   4. AEAella33:26

      Sure.

   5. LFLex Fridman33:28

      Uh, so one of the many amazing things... I think of you as a researcher, uh, but you've also been, uh, doing research in the field.

   6. AEAella33:37

      (laughs) Yeah, field work. (laughs)

   7. LFLex Fridman33:39

      Field work.

   8. AEAella33:40

      The Jane Goodall of, uh-

   9. LFLex Fridman33:41

      (laughs) You're the, you're, yeah. Right.

   10. AEAella33:43

       ... sex work. (laughs)

   11. LFLex Fridman33:44

       Uh, how did you get, uh, what's the, the short and the long story of how you got into sex work?

   12. AEAella33:50

       How'd I get into sex work? Well, the, I mean, there's a whole, like, childhood thing where I was conservatively homeschooled. Uh-

   13. LFLex Fridman33:57

       Do you wanna actually talk about your childhood? I think it's interesting 'cause you also worked at a factory, so, like, your childhood-

   14. AEAella34:02

       Yeah.

   15. LFLex Fridman34:02

       ... is really fascinating, uh, and difficult, uh, traumatic. So, um, and you've written about it. There's a lot of ways we could talk about it but maybe what are the things you remember, the good and the bad, of your childhood, of your maybe interaction with your father?

   16. AEAella34:21

       Yeah. My dad probably has narcissistic personality disorder, and so, uh, it, it was very centered on, very controlling childhood. Uh, immensely so. Um, we were homeschooled and k- pretty isolated from the outside world. Like, we didn't know anybody else who wasn't homeschooled. We went through a program called Growing Kids God's Way, um, which was very, it was like the kind of program where you're not supposed to pick up babies when they cry to train them that they can't manipulate the parents. Because, like, baby crying was viewed as, like, uh, you're just teaching them from an early age that they're allowed to make the parents do what the kids want.

   17. LFLex Fridman34:52

       Yeah.

   18. AEAella34:52

       And were very against this philosophy. So, you know, that combined with a narcissistic personality disorder dad was pretty rough. Uh-

   19. LFLex Fridman35:00

       So controlling?

   20. AEAella35:01

       Super controlling, yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman35:02

       And developing and feeding the self-critical aspect of your brain?

   22. AEAella35:06

       Yeah, very much. It was, you know, I was, like, lazy. I was never gonna accomplish anything in life. Was gonna move out of the house and realize how good I had it at home, you know? The classic stuff. Uh, he was very, like, logical and smart though. And so he would also, like, teach us logic stuff. I remember some of my earliest memories are him, like, giving me basic logic puzzles, like, "The dog has three legs. You go how many dogs have four legs?" And I, I would mess up and... Uh, but he was, he was a ev- evangelist basically, a Christian evangelist. So we did, like, Bible study five nights a week. I memorized, I think, 800 verses of the Bible by the time, before I became an adult. Um...Yeah, it was, and it was very patriarchal also. So I was expected to grow up and become a housewife basically. They're like, "Oh, you can go to college to meet a man, and also to get a little bit of education so that you can homeschool your own kids." Like, we were explicitly told that women were subordinate to men, um, in regards to, like, making decisions when you're married. Our pastor's daughter was not allowed to leave home because she would be outside of the authority of a man. So when she got married she was allowed to leave 'cause she was never allowed to live in a house where she was not, uh, under a hierarchy. So this is like the kind of culture that, that we lived in.

   23. LFLex Fridman36:13

       So there's a hierarchy-

   24. AEAella36:15

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LFLex Fridman36:15

       ...and, uh, there's a gender aspect to that hierarchy. There's men at, men at the top of that hierarchy.

   26. AEAella36:20

       Men at the top.

   27. LFLex Fridman36:21

       Okay. But your own psychology and your own mind, um, so m- most of that self-critical brain is bad, right?

   28. AEAella36:30

       It was confusing 'cause he told me, uh, that I was smart but also that I would fail. Uh, but I- I-

   29. LFLex Fridman36:35

       Right. But not smart enough, right? Or, like, smart but not smart enough. Is that-

   30. AEAella36:38

       Smart but, like, not virtuous or something.
7. 46:22 – 59:38

   Dancing

   1. LFLex Fridman46:22

      thing. By the way, I enjoyed, uh, I saw a video of you dancing-

   2. AEAella46:25

      Hmm.

   3. LFLex Fridman46:25

      ... at a bar drunk.

   4. AEAella46:26

      (laughs)

   5. LFLex Fridman46:28

      He wasn't a bar drunk, he didn't look drunk, but just the dancing.

   6. AEAella46:31

      Oh.

   7. LFLex Fridman46:31

      It was like ballroom dancing type of thing. I was like-

   8. AEAella46:33

      Yeah.

   9. LFLex Fridman46:34

      Yeah.

   10. AEAella46:34

       Something like that.

   11. LFLex Fridman46:35

       I've, uh, been doing a bit of tango dancing. I like it.

   12. AEAella46:38

       Really? Argentine?

   13. LFLex Fridman46:39

       Mm-hmm.

   14. AEAella46:40

       Nice.

   15. LFLex Fridman46:40

       I like stuff with the body in general, like, uh, like wrestling or comba-, like usually when there's a tension you have to understand the mechanics of, of how two bodies move when they're in conflict, and dancing is similar. (laughs)

   16. AEAella46:55

       Like, you have to do like rapid thinking also, like rapid intuitive physical thinking, and that's my favorite kind of thing. Like, a lot of exercise is really boring to me because you, you can just do it while your brain's off. But something like ballroom dancing or fusion dancing, like, you have to constantly be, like, figuring out, like it's a rapid puzzle, and that's so wonderful.

   17. LFLex Fridman47:13

       What's fusion, what's fusion dancing?

   18. AEAella47:13

       Uh, that's the video. That's, uh... Fusion dancing is like if you have any sort of dance background, you can come and you just kind of mix those together.

   19. LFLex Fridman47:19

       Oh, you just kinda improvise.

   20. AEAella47:19

       So you can have, like, people doing ballet with people doing ballroom-

   21. LFLex Fridman47:22

       That's fun.

   22. AEAella47:22

       ... with people doing blues.

   23. LFLex Fridman47:23

       Cool. And then there's an interesting dynamic 'cause there's, I don't know, maybe you can correct me, but there's, uh, well, that's very meta, there's usually a lead and a follow.

   24. AEAella47:32

       Mm-hmm.

   25. LFLex Fridman47:33

       I guess most dances have that.

   26. AEAella47:34

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman47:35

       Yeah. And so that, but both have a diff- like you both have to be quite sensitive to the other human being but in a different way.

   28. AEAella47:41

       Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   29. LFLex Fridman47:43

       Yeah. It's interesting.

   30. AEAella47:44

       Yeah.
8. 59:38 – 1:01:53

   Casual sex

   1. AEAella59:38

      it took me awhile to figure that out.

   2. LFLex Fridman59:39

      What's the negative of casual sex?

   3. AEAella59:40

      Uh, it's just, like, not good. I mean, b- if you, like, figure out the chemistry you have with someone better, then th- then it can be a lot nicer. But I wasn't doing that. I was just, like, somebody I met, and I'm like, "You seem kind of cute. Okay."

   4. LFLex Fridman59:53

      Mm-hmm.

   5. AEAella59:53

      Like, I didn't bother to try and develop this, any chemistry. I mean, I didn't know.

   6. LFLex Fridman59:56

      Chemistry even outside of sex, just chemistry, like, human chemistry-

   7. AEAella59:59

      Yeah, just basic.

   8. LFLex Fridman59:59

      ... like, conversation?

   9. AEAella1:00:00

      Yeah.

   10. LFLex Fridman1:00:01

       Okay.

   11. AEAella1:00:01

       I would, I would, I'm s- it's, like, kind of cringey, but I would, like, I would, like, walk up to guys or send them messages, like, "Would you like to have coitus," is what I would say.

   12. LFLex Fridman1:00:09

       You would say coitus?

   13. AEAella1:00:09

       I did, said that. (laughs)

   14. LFLex Fridman1:00:12

       (laughs) I mean, it's kinda, it's kinda cute in a way. It's just-

   15. AEAella1:00:15

       I mean, yeah, it's the girl asking you to get laid, so they probably didn't care that much.

   16. LFLex Fridman1:00:19

       (laughs)

   17. AEAella1:00:19

       But anyway, I'm saying that, like, I had a lot of rebellion out of my system by the time I started sex work.

   18. LFLex Fridman1:00:23

       Yeah.

   19. AEAella1:00:24

       Um, so, like, for me, like, maybe... I'm sure it was somehow related 'cause we were extremely sexually repressed growing up. I remember the day I learned I had a vagina, which was absolutely horrifying. Uh, do not recommend figuring out you have another orifice in your body. Um, but like-

   20. LFLex Fridman1:00:37

       Do you want to share the process of you figuring out that you had a vagina, or is that-

   21. AEAella1:00:40

       They told me I had a vagina. (laughs)

   22. LFLex Fridman1:00:42

       Oh, like, intellectually? Like, there was somebody who said-

   23. AEAella1:00:45

       "You have a-"

   24. LFLex Fridman1:00:45

       "... you have a vagina."

   25. AEAella1:00:46

       " ... vagina." Yeah.

   26. LFLex Fridman1:00:46

       And that was horrifying to you.

   27. AEAella1:00:48

       Yeah. I didn't know I had a... 'Cause you weren't supposed to ever, like, touch or look at yourself, ever, so I never did.

   28. LFLex Fridman1:00:53

       Oh.

   29. AEAella1:00:53

       It was really disgusting.

   30. LFLex Fridman1:00:56

       (exhales deeply)
9. 1:01:53 – 1:16:48

   Camming

   1. LFLex Fridman1:01:53

      I mean, what are the, the pros and cons of camming, and how does OnlyFans map into this? Did you switch to OnlyFans at some point?

   2. AEAella1:01:59

      I did, yeah. I cammed for, like, five or six years, and I burned out eventually.

   3. LFLex Fridman1:02:03

      What are the good aspects, what are the bad aspects of camming?

   4. AEAella1:02:06

      Well, the good aspects were the, it's just your own terms. You get to decide. Everything about it is under your control, which I loved at the time.

   5. LFLex Fridman1:02:13

      Mm-hmm.

   6. AEAella1:02:13

      I was like, "I can work when I want, how I want." Any sort of expression, I experimented. And I was very successful. I was making around $200 an hour, which for that website at the time was, like, pretty good. Um, I had elaborate routines. I was a mime. I would do, like, s- dress up as a mime and then dress up a chair, and I would seduce the chair.

   7. LFLex Fridman1:02:30

      Oh, cool.

   8. AEAella1:02:31

      Yeah. Or, like-

   9. LFLex Fridman1:02:31

      So was almo- it was, wha- was there an artistic element to it almost?

   10. AEAella1:02:34

       Yeah, very (laughs) much. I had, like, gnomes.

   11. LFLex Fridman1:02:36

       Did you talk to the chair? You had gnomes?

   12. AEAella1:02:38

       No, I was mime. You don't... Yeah. (laughs)

   13. LFLex Fridman1:02:40

       Oh, sorry. Uh, right.

   14. AEAella1:02:41

       Yeah, yeah. Get it straight, dude. (laughs)

   15. LFLex Fridman1:02:44

       (laughs) You s- you know what I really appreciate about you, is I'm asking some really dumb questions and you're answering it in a very intelligent way, so I appreciate that.

   16. AEAella1:02:50

       (laughs)

   17. LFLex Fridman1:02:52

       All right. "Did you ask the chair questions?"

   18. AEAella1:02:56

       (laughs)

   19. LFLex Fridman1:02:56

       "I was a mime, you fucking idiot." Okay, I'm sorry. (laughs) It's true.

   20. AEAella1:03:01

       (laughs) Yeah.

   21. LFLex Fridman1:03:01

       But there's gnomes on the-

   22. AEAella1:03:02

       Yeah, there were gnomes.

   23. LFLex Fridman1:03:02

       Like, big gnomes or small gnomes?

   24. AEAella1:03:04

       Like, lawn gnomes.

   25. LFLex Fridman1:03:05

       Lawn gnomes?

   26. AEAella1:03:06

       Yeah.

   27. LFLex Fridman1:03:06

       And you seduced a lawn gnome on the chair, the gnome is sitting on the chair?

   28. AEAella1:03:08

       There were some, yeah, gnomes on the chair. I, I did a photo set which I submitted to Reddit where I got abducted. I was, like, stripping, uh, taking my clothes off, and then slowly the gnomes surrounded me in the background then dragged me off.

   29. LFLex Fridman1:03:19

       Oh.

   30. AEAella1:03:19

       And I did this as a photo set. And I s-

Episode duration: 3:57:48