“$140 an hour?!” a guy friend exclaimed when I men­tioned a mod­el­ing gig. “For that kind of mon­ey, I'd do what­ev­er they told me to.”

It's easy for men from the out­side look­ing in to assume that mod­el­ing is easy for any head-​turning hot­tie — but there's more to it than show­ing up and sit­ting pretty.

If you want to make mon­ey mod­el­ing, gear up for the busi­ness grindset.

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Knowing Pros & Cons of Different Types of Modeling

First things first — mod­el­ing gigs have vary­ing lev­els of involve­ment and skill sets.

• Art school fig­ure mod­el­ing: come as you are — there's no need to main­tain any spe­cif­ic look as a nude art mod­el— but low­er pay with poten­tial­ly lots of sched­ul­ing and driving
• Glamour and lin­gerie mod­el­ing pays espe­cial­ly well if you land gigs and brand deals, but it may be high­ly com­pet­i­tive — which means more time off the clock main­tain­ing your appear­ance — and can be espe­cial­ly chal­leng­ing if you don't live in a huge city.
• Online adult mod­el­ing: com­plete cre­ative con­trol, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and high earn­ing poten­tial, but takes mar­ket­ing savvy when income can be incon­sis­tent and algorithm-​dependent. Also, some clients can be rude, demand­ing, and unstable.
• Fetish and kink mod­el­ing can mean a very loy­al audi­ence will­ing to pay lav­ish­ly for some­thing niche — and that can mean more stig­ma. Finding and build­ing rela­tions with the right audi­ence can also take time.

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Marketing & Owning What Makes You Unique

In a sat­u­rat­ed mar­ket, suc­cess is show­ing up and stand­ing out. Branding and mar­ket­ing your­self strate­gi­cal­ly is just as impor­tant as cre­at­ing content.

What's the char­ac­ter your shoot is try­ing to con­vey? And why does your client want to unlock your lewd or nude mod­el­ing con­tent or tip you specifically?

The exag­ger­at­ed ahe­gao face, for exam­ple, isn't for every­one, but those who love it loooooove it. They're will­ing to pay extra for it, and Belle Delphine knew that.

Even with online nude mod­el­ing, cus­tomers might not nec­es­sar­i­ly be just pay­ing for visu­als of T&A; they might also invest in the vibe, the expe­ri­ence you're giv­ing them, and the paraso­cial con­nec­tion of chat­ting with you.

What char­ac­ter are you show­ing up as?

• Are you a bitchy pro-​Domme ready to break down beta boys and drain their wallets?
• Are you going for a sweet peachy vibe or girl­friend experience?
• Are you going for a ther­a­pist vibe, con­vinc­ing your client you're the only one who under­stands and sees them as lov­able and redeemable — kinks and all?
• Cuckolding vibes? Friendzoning?

You get the idea.

The brain is a fun­ny place, and under­stand­ing that can help make sense of dif­fer­ent nude mod­el­ing plat­forms and Onlyfans fan­metrics.

Cross-​promotion can also help out here — there are so many types of hot that shar­ing anoth­er con­tent creator's pro­file doesn't nec­es­sar­i­ly take away from your fan base.

Once you gain trac­tion, long-​term bound­aries are nec­es­sary for a sus­tain­able business.

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Setting Time & Energy Boundaries

Say you're work­ing on the East Coast of the USA, stay­ing up late to chat with (and get tipped well by) a client on the West Coast, and you're about to clock out… but then some guy in England wants to talk to you while he's start­ing his day.

Just because some­one is will­ing to pay doesn't mean they get unlim­it­ed access to you. Establishing clear work­ing hours, stick­ing to them, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing expec­ta­tions upfront is essential.

Demanding clients will push lim­its, whether it's:

• Wanting you to do (read: expose) more for less
• Assuming you're sub­mis­sive and talk­ing to you as such
• Making last-​minute changes
• Trying to skirt the platform's terms of service

But it's up to you to enforce your lim­its — hang up, block, or report— with­out guilt. Your time, atten­tion, and men­tal health are valu­able. You decide the dol­lar amount.

Falling For Your Clients

Speaking of bound­aries — yeah, falling for online sex work clients hap­pens. People seem to imag­ine these work­ers as mas­ter­ful­ly cal­cu­lat­ing seduc­tress­es with hearts of ice. However, doing emo­tion­al­ly inti­mate­ly rela­tion­al work and — gasp — gen­uine­ly lik­ing the oth­er per­son can be intense­ly intoxicating.

I won't be so naive as to say, “Be care­ful” or "Don't fall for them.” It might be more real­is­tic to:

• Recognize that it can happen
• Set your lim­its for what you're will­ing to do before it happens
• Make room to take care of your­self in the fol­low­ing funk, know­ing you're not alone in feel­ing that way, and seek sup­port from SWer friends who get it.

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Reading the Fine Print

Read and reread the terms and conditions.

I know — it's some­thing we all claim we do — but dif­fer­ent adult mod­el­ing sites, social media plat­forms, pay­ment proces­sors, and banks have dif­fer­ent policies.

Keep back­ups of your files, know­ing that accounts with any­thing even the slight­est bit “too” spicy can get sus­pend­ed or shut down. (THANKS, FOSTA/​SESTA! I HATE IT HERE.)

OnlyFans, for exam­ple, is a super well-​known nude mod­el­ing plat­form but quite vanil­la com­pared to, say, Fansly, Niteflirt, SextPanther, or Sheer. Each one draws the line dif­fer­ent­ly for what is and isn't acceptable.

As far as main­stream plat­forms go, TikTok was quick to ban me for post­ing videos of dil­dos, and you reaaaal­l­ly want to be care­ful with any men­tion of SW sites on Instagram. I've been sus­pend­ed and rein­stat­ed after being flagged for sup­posed sex­u­al solic­i­ta­tion over there.

And yes, I also said to look at your bank's fine print. JPMorgan Chase bank has shut down sex work­ers’ accounts due to their moral­i­ty clause pro­hibit­ing any adult enter­tain­ment — and big banks tend to have sim­i­lar poli­cies. When in doubt, look for a small­er cred­it union near you and call them to ask.

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Reporting Your Taxes

My life isn’t all orgasms and rain­bows; there’s much unglam­orous admin work behind the scenes.

If you want to kill a bon­er, just men­tion pay­ing tax­es. Unfortunately, tax returns are part of the busi­ness of sex blog­ging in the United States

—How Do Sex Bloggers File and Pay Taxes?

And that applies to free­lance nude mod­el­ing, too — if you make more than $400 with your hus­tle, you'll like­ly have to esti­mate your tax­es and pay quarterly.

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TL;DR The real ques­tion isn't whether you're hot enough to mod­el; it's whether you're hype to run a busi­ness where you're the ser­vice provider, mar­keter, accoun­tant, and executive.

"I think the thing I love the most is that I get to con­nect with peo­ple. I'm told my con­tent is a bright spot for many peo­ple, and that is some­thing that is so incred­i­bly satisfying."

—Dekilah Divine in my post, 5 Things to Know About Nude & Lingerie Modeling Online (Interview with Dekilah)

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This post con­tains a spon­sored link, but the writ­ing and thoughts expressed are my own.