DD selling her body online

[Throwaway966846]

Throwaway so it isn't linked to my account.
HELP please
My DD19 has informed me that she has been making adult videos and 'camming' to help pay for uni living.

I feel so let down. I no longer know the strong young woman I raised, I'm sure she's been influenced by uni friends that 'sex work is work' and empowering to do.
I don't know what to do, I don't want to alienate her but I can't stomach the thought of her selling her body online. How can I persuade her to stop? I feel like I've failed as a mother

I think it takes a lot more than encouragement from friends at uni to make a women sell her body online.

woofwoof not really helpful.
OP I feel your pain. Ask her what she'd do if a relative - father/ brother/ cousin or someone she knows discovers her site?
Maybe she hasn't really thought it through.
Come up with some tangible other means for her to make some money. Good luck.

I wouldn't bamboozle her with the negatives. I would try to take a more balanced approach in order to guide her in the right direction.

For example, you could try to get her to write down the pros and cons of such work? Once written, she may come to the conclusion that there are far more negatives to positives with this kind of work.

You could also gently ask her how she may feel about this when she's 40, 50, 60, when she will probably be in a different career? How would she feel if her future work colleagues found out? Is she happy to keep switching careers every few years? As this may well haunt her.

There’s not really anything you can do. If she told you, I imagine she was either looking for support or to shock you. I would just let her know you don’t really approve because it isn’t what you wanted for her, but you are here if she needs anything.

I do think you can’t really blame her friends’ influence though. At nineteen years old this is her decision and I don’t think it’s helpful to blame other people. It must be awful for you though, hope you are okay.

Great advice from TBHno, just to add many women have done short term work such as this and managed to come out the other side unscathed, and if anything far more educated about men!
It’s great she’s told you, perhaps because she wants the support to leave this behind her.
Remember she’s still your baby girl inside ❤️

You haven't failed as a mother. But honestly, if you try and dissuade her you risk making her carry on without telling you, and potentially stopping her from confiding you in the future when she really needs you.

Realistically all you can do is ensure that she is staying safe and being practical. For example there is potential for ex clients down the line to recognise her, does she know how that will effect her in terms of jobs etc. Does she have a plan for if anyone attempts to use the video footage for nefarious means, such as shaming in uni or the workplace or worst case scenario blackmail. Is she ensuring that her identity is as secure as possible?

Not that it matters I suppose, but has she said what kind of videos she is making? A girl I went to uni with used to sell pictures and videos of her feet online. She felt secure and safe in the knowledge that feet are feet and it would be impossible for anyone to know it was her, so wouldn't have any risks of identification down the road.

How utterly awful. Tea and and and sympathy.

I disagree with some of the others here about friends. Friends are always a huge part of what teenagers do. If they thought it was uncool, she wouldn't consider it. It may be her decision, but in that context.

And I disagree with you that you've failed as a mother! Parenting is only some of what kids absorb. There's a whole world out there bending them every which way. Keeping them away from it only makes for really weird kids, as you see in some cults.

I'd think the worst practical effect, aside from the increased risk of bad experiences in the present, is all the opportunities it shuts out in the future, given that the internet is forever. She's obviously not thinking about that, but if there was some way to help her take it on board, it'd be worth doing.

Anyway. I wish there was some real help I could provide!

I'd just point out that anyone can take a screenshot or onscreen recording (using Game Bar on windows, for example) and hold that for posterity. And that if such a video surfaces later on, it may ruin her chosen career, depending on what that turns out to be. And she may change her mind about her preferred career later on.

I disagree with some of the others here about friends. Friends are always a huge part of what teenagers do. If they thought it was uncool, she wouldn't consider it. It may be her decision, but in that context.

Untrue. I had a couple of friends who did similar work 30 years ago when I was young (magazines rather than online). I don't know any of their friends that thought it was 'cool'. They did have abusive fathers though.

They came through it to have professional careers, one works with children.

I'd focus more on her future. What does she actually want and how can she achieve it?

Lots of girls seem to do this at the moment, I know of a couple personally.
I guess the attraction is an easy income without standing at the checkout at Tesco's for 8hrs at a time.

The chances of people getting hold of the pictures/videos and sharing them around is slim as she will likely be using a subscription service, along with thousands of other girls.

I do feel for you though OP, I wouldn't like to be in your situation, as whatever you say against it she is unlikely to listen.

I think that pointing out that screen grabs are always going to be taken and will be outside her control is a good idea.

The young tend to be liberal and short sighted.

At that age I thought porn and sex work we're empowering and that radical feminists were grumpy old prudes. I did some work along those lines myself. I know people who did much worse.

It's easy to think that getting your kit off is empowering when you have a youthful and in demand body that people will pay for and haven't yet seen what it is to be a woman in society. I thought feminism was won when I was younger. We'd done it.

So point out some things such as the screen shots, send her some Gail Dines, but don't call her wrong for doing it. The chapter Visible or Invisible in Dines' Pornland is great.

It essentially says that to be visible in a pornified society girls have to present as overly sexual. She also adds that at such an important age it's not fair to ask girls to render themselves invisible, so we can't blame the girls for doing it.

And don't you blame yourself for having a daughter who's affected by the society we live in. Women and girls are sold the happy hooked myth everywhere. Don't alienate her. It's like having a loved one in an abusive relationship. She needs to be able to come to you when she realised she's gone wrong.

Good luck OP. Love and strength.

@Boatingforthestars

Lots of girls seem to do this at the moment, I know of a couple personally. I guess the attraction is an easy income without standing at the checkout at Tesco's for 8hrs at a time.

The chances of people getting hold of the pictures/videos and sharing them around is slim as she will likely be using a subscription service, along with thousands of other girls.

I do feel for you though OP, I wouldn't like to be in your situation, as whatever you say against it she is unlikely to listen.

You can use GameBar or other software to record what's on your screen without anyone else being aware of it. You can also screenshot. I don't see how being on a subscription service would circumvent that possibility.

I feel your pain OP, I'd be very upset and concerned too.
I think your priorities must be to keep lines of communication open and not risk alienating her - you are obviously a great mother as she has felt able to confide in you and ensuring she is keeping safe.
ShopTattsyrup gave some excellent advice.
Not to add to your worries, but whilst it may feel safe, doing this in the privacy of ones room rather than actual physical contact there have been one or two bad cases where women were encouraged to harm themselves by men who enjoy watching violent porn. I'd encourage you to discuss safety and boundaries.
Also are you aware of the group Nordic Model Now? You may find some experienced help and advice through them.

nordicmodelnow.org/

You should also check she is taking adequate precautions regarding internet safety. I'll look out a good guide to internet safety I have tucked away somewhere.

Finally, I know students are having an incredibly hard time just now, with a lack of casual jobs available. Are you able to offer her financial support to help her so that she doesn't need to do this? I realise she may see this as easy money and quite lucrative so that may not be an option.

And rather than blame friends - she may have one or two who are concerned for her or she might even be keeping it secret from them. If you know any of her friends or are able to be in contact with her flat mates I'd discreetly keep lines of communication open there too.

Is it on OnlyFans? I know a lot of women on there. I’m 25 and currently it is the very ‘in thing’. If so, the positives are that often these videos are quite tame, and people have to pay to subscribe on a subscription, and you can confirm who subscribes. It’s not like PornHub or anything, and a lot of girls are using it to get through uni. I don’t agree with it nor do I see it as empowering - but it’s not a reflection on her character so don’t feel like you’ve failed. It is worrying for you, but it’s not a reflection on your parenting, either. I think perhaps sit her down and make her very aware of the consequences and how she’ll feel when she’s older. You never know what people will do with these videos.

Here you are OP: A DIY guide to feminist cyber security.

hackblossom.org/cybersecurity/

Nothing more helpful to add other than to say you absolutely haven't failed as a mother. While I love my mother we can't talk about a lot of subjects. You have a good relationship so she felt confident to tell you. Be proud of that. Some excellent advice about possible next steps has been given. I hope things work out.

She is talking to you about it, which means you are in a great position to support her. Keep talking to her. I honestly wouldn't be giving her things to read or trying to persuade her. I would just keep getting her to talk about it. Ask her what she likes and dislikes about it. Ask her about the men she's interacting with. Let her know you're concerned about stuff like screen shots without pushing her to make decisions on it. Just keep talking. Good luck with this. And find someone to talk to yourself, to give you a bit of support.

I couldn’t imagine either of my DDs doing this when they were students. They took jobs delivering leaflets, working in shops, and doing shifts in call centres. I raised them as feminists, with good self respect.
OP, I’d ask your DD what happened to her self respect and why she is demeaning herself to be the fodder for men’s wanking.
It might just shock her into realising what a sordid world she has chosen to inhabit for money. Could you help her financially, or could she get a loan - interest rates are very low just now - or find a less squalid occupation instead? I’d be worried this was a gateway to prostitution if it escalated.

I would ask about the money, and why she needs it.

It is possible to hang out with a frugal crowd and not spend much at all.

Other students will come loaded with money and expect to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle meeting friends in coffee shops, using taxis, and ordering takeaways, nice clothes and posh cosmetics, and going to clubs and bars. Is she trying to keep up? Are there ways in which she can save.

The other danger is drugs. There are a lot around and often stronger than they were. Most will be fine, but some students will get sucked into the rabbit hole and find it difficult to see a way out.

Depending on where your conversation is at, I might duck the main issue and talk about budgets.

The chances of people getting hold of the pictures/videos and sharing them around is slim as she will likely be using a subscription service, along with thousands of other girls

You can just aim a camera at the screen out of view from the webcam to record anything going on or use tech that the sites cannot detect. This was actually a topic covered on The Stranger on Netflix where the mother was blackmailed to stop the release of her daughter's images.

Other students will come loaded with money and expect to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle meeting friends in coffee shops, using taxis, and ordering takeaways, nice clothes and posh cosmetics, and going to clubs and bars. Is she trying to keep up? Are there ways in which she can save

The number of moving into uni halls videos I have watched where some 18 year old moving into a brand new building with an en-suite declares the en-suite is small is astounding. Or things I eat in a week and it is avocado on toast with a poached egg on top. Ds1 is in year 13 so we are watching to see rooms and food choices.

So this could well be about money, lifestyle etc. It is very sad that she has felt the need to do this. I did have mates nude modelling when I was at uni, I was asked and I said no.

I can understand your worry about this but I don't think it is a parenting fail on you - young people can have a limited perception of risk and I can see how she might have seen it promoted on various platforms as a cool thing to do and some of her friends might have a similar perceptions with some rose tinted glasses.

In my 20's I shared with a group of people and one girl (now a well regarded international business consultant) made some serious plans to become a medium scale drug dealer because she needed some fast money and another was making enquiries about becoming an escort. We all had various debates and discussions and thankfully both girls did decide that it wasn't going to work for them but it took a while to decide.

I wonder if it would get the message across if you got more involved? Say 'Dad and I thought we would check out your channel/whatever it is and give you some feedback' .... I read something recently where a girl was on one of these sort of sites and putting in crazy hours and getting paid a tiny amount so it might be that she finds that it is not going to work for her after all.

I always say to my kids, never post anything online that you are not happy for your grandma to see.

Best of luck to you and she is lucky that she has you to worry about her and support her when she needs it.

I've resurrected an extremely old name for this post as it's all still very close to the bone for me. I had a similar situation a couple of years ago with my uni age daughter, and without going into too much detail it ended up with her being stalked and the police and CPS being involved.

I don't feel comfortable saying too much as it's her story not mine, but it was all horrendous for a while and in some ways still is. And that's the thing that might give your daughter pause for thought. Mine was all very cavalier about it - 'everyone does it these days Mum, it's fine, you don't know anything about it' - but when it went wrong it went badly wrong. As the saying (almost) goes, a stalker is for life, not just for Christmas. The men who are the end users of these services are not always decent, well-adjusted people.

Like lots of girls her age, the internet is an integral part of my daughter's life, which was a factor in how she got drawn into this. Now she can't do anything online with a public profile. All her accounts have maximum privacy settings and she can't use certain platforms. She works in an arts/media field but can't have an online portfolio of her work with contact details because he'll know where she is and where she's been. She can't advertise any freelance services. She can't have a linkedin account. Employers in her field expect to be able to see an online presence and she is hugely disadvantaged by not having that.

She truly thought she was doing something empowering and so much better and cleverer than going out to work for minimum wage in a shop or pub, but just didn't realise the potential implications. I don't think she ever worried about her safety, but I think if she'd been aware that her future freedom could be so compromised she would have thought twice. Once you've given away your privacy and anonymity it's almost impossible to get it back.

Those posters saying ‘my daughter would never do this’, you are supremely unhelpful. OP, you are not a bad mother, and your daughter isn’t bad either. This is a result of a clash between pornsick, misogynist society, the all-consuming influence of the internet in young people’s lives (particularly instagram, in the case of many young women) and libfem ‘sex work is work’, girlpower culture. I’d agree with pp – keep the lines of communication very much open, lots of affection and conversation, listen for subtexts in what she’s saying, and grasp any opportunities you can to boost her self-esteem.

Good luck. Sending strength and solidarity your way. (And to think, we thought the terrible twos were challenging!)

It's sadly very normalised now in certain circles. What they don't discuss is that any kind of disgusting man in her area could find her content, and stalk or harass her about it in real life. Nude images don't stay private on the internet.

I feel for you, OP.

What would worry me these days is, as noted above, that her images can and probably are likely to be recorded and shared elsewhere. She won't have control over it. The internet is such a tricky mix of permanency, disposability, privacy and lawlessness. She is careful to keep her real name concealed, I hope?

Agree with queen of knives, above, that it's great she's talking to you about it. Keep supporting her, keep talking to her. Can you help her out financially? Offer a loan?

I have a fabulous friend who is now a college prof, used to work as a stripper. Wrote so eloquently and movingly about it - I'll see if I can find some of her work online. Ultimately, she became very disillusioned with it.

All best wishes.

She’s going to potentially ruin her career prospects by doing this, the images could resurface. It could affect future relationships and children.
Are her friends doing it?