you are not behind, you are mid-sacrifice

"This work is not a slot machine. It is a wage on your expertise, and the wage climbs as the expertise climbs." — MelRose Michaels

$200/mo is the a number that has been used to shame adult creators.. and it is what sex work exclusionary radical feminist, Julie Bindel, claims the average OnlyFans creator earns..

I already took that number apart in this week's video, with the full SWR Data report, so I won’t get into it again here, instead, I want to write on more than the number itself.. and that is… time

and truthfully, what that time actually cost me, the sacrifices I made, and the lessons I learned along the way..

in my first year of doing this work, I treated cam like a factory shift (except worse)

I would go into a session with a specific $ in mind, sometimes (literally) my entire rent payment.. there was no clocking out at 5pm.. I was online, until I reached my goal. point blank period.

unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on perspective), this mindset was closer to survival than strategy.. and I don’t say this to glamorize the hustle, I say this to share the sacrifice, and time it took..

I sacrificed a lot of things in that season, I sacrificed flexibility entirely, and the version of rest that most people take for granted. I showed up every single day because showing up was the only lever I knew how to pull..

I moved away from family and friends, to a place with fewer distractions (the bible belt to make matters worse lol), and I put my head down.. yes, I came up for air occasionally, and saw my friends, when they visited, I even got married during that stretch but I made the deliberate choice to wait on starting a family, because I knew what building this required of me, and I was not willing to split my attention.. this was my season of sacrifice..

and if you’re reading this you’re probably thinking of your own sacrifices..

and while I’m here, spilling the tea, I am going to share something else..

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the hustle was not always good to my body, I did not listen to it for a long time, but I do now. I have a team around me today that I lean on, and I’ve had to learn how to lead instead of just grind, which is a completely different skill set than the one that got me through those early years..

there were also things I did not understand yet, in all of that grinding, and that was the business side of it all (especially taxes lol) or structure or systems.. I was earning, yes, but I was not yet running a business.

I am telling you this because I do not want this to read like a highlight reel either. The version of this industry that gets sold to new creators is often either the seven figure fantasy or the $200 horror story, and neither one is the truth..

the truth, according to the same SWR Data survey, is that more than half of creators, earn income outside of the adult industry too, and only about 35% are fully dependent on adult work to survive.

The typical creator is running this business alongside another job, school, kids or something else entirely, and succeeding at it part time.. because we all understand that it requires a level of time and sacrifice to make this work..

the good news, the part I actually want you to walk away with, is that the time you are putting in right now is not wasted (even when it feels invisible), especially when it feels invisible..

and before you ever compare your income to another creator’s, ask yourself this:

are they playing the same game? same years in the industry, same full time or part time status, same business model, same sacrifices?

If the answer is no, that comparison was never fair to begin with, and that is exactly where the shame needs to stop

for the love of time,

MelRose

P.S. Want the receipts? I am sharing my numbers, for the first time ever (year 1, 5, and 10) inside CEO Society, and you can read it here