In sex work, it’s good business to gravitate toward where the money is. Or, rather, where the money flows most easily toward you.

By that I mean that when I started filming fetish videos, I filmed for a bunch of different fetishes as a way of testing out my market. When it became clear that a handful of fetishes were selling more than the others, I focused more videos featuring those fetishes.

You’d probably think, as I did, that videos would sell best when I’m genuinely interested in the subject matter—fetishes that I share, concepts I’m excited about, and so on. Right?

Nope. Quite the opposite. The fetishes I do best in not only are ones I don’t share—they’re ones I actively dislike.

There are two of them: ABDL and feederism.

ABDL, which stands for adult baby diaper lovers, I first dipped my toes in because, well, I don’t really have a solid reason. It was just a test, like I said before, to see how I liked filming it and how well it sold.

It sold well. Damn well. My first ABDL clip broke my record for how much money I made on a single video. So I made another, and another, and so on, until here I am. So. fucking. sick. of adult babies and diapers.

Feederism, which refers to a fetish for overeating and/or gaining weight, was a little different. I gave it a try out of self-consciousness about my body shape. I’m not obese, but I am chubby—and in the world of sex work, chubby is a difficult position to occupy. I’m bigger than “normal,” but I’m not big enough to technically qualify as a BBW (big beautiful woman, usually referring to a plus-sized woman).

If any viewer would appreciate or at least not care about my chubby body, I thought, it would be someone who is into feederism.

I didn’t see as immediate a success in feederism as in ABDL, but I did see enough that I decided to dig in and make myself a decent foothold in the niche.

Now, this isn’t a post about how I regret making a name for myself in these two communities. Even if I don’t love the content I’m producing, I’m still making money from it, which is all I really want in this job.

This is a post about how very, very odd it is that I’m being praised by customers for my passion for two fetishes I dislike.

It started with ABDL, early on. As people bought my first several videos and started following me on social media, I got a handful of messages saying it was “cool” and “refreshing” to see someone making ABDL content that “really gets it.”

I didn’t really think much of it then. I knew that my usual Domme/Top persona had a lot in common with the stereotypical Mommy Domme persona, and I figured that’s what these customers were referring to. They were sensing that it wasn’t much of a stretch for me.

With feederism, though, I’ve only just started getting similar reactions, and these are the ones that have given me pause and made me look back on the others more critically.

I’ve started doing phone sex—a topic I intend to write about later, hopefully—and the first two men who contacted me were fans of my feederism content. When I learned this, I admit I had a moment of dismay, since I’ve been trying to step away from feederism as one of my main niches. But, well, money is money, and it’s nothing I haven’t talked about at length on camera.

The irony was almost painful when one man went on and on about how much he enjoys finally finding a fetish producer who “is really into” feederism and not just “pretending like other girls.” The second guy wasn’t quite as direct, but said basically the same. I’m the best at the fetish because I’m genuinely into it.

But I’m not. I’m so, so not. Feederism, I’ve realized over the last few months, triggers my deep-seated food issues and makes me uncomfortable. Babies, and diapers especially, make me similarly uncomfortable, and hedge a little too close to my mommy issues.

So what the hell are these men picking up on in my content that’s suggesting I’m “really into” the fetish and not just “pretending”?

I should step back for a minute to say, for people who aren’t in online sex work: customers/clients (who are largely cis straight men) are strongly, weirdly fixated on rooting out who they think are “fakes.” Pro-Dommes and women who produce femdom videos get this especially bad, with whole Twitter accounts existing to “expose fake Dommes.” They zero in a woman’s mannerisms on camera, the way she talks about herself (and her partner if she has one), how she interacts with clients/customers online and, if applicable, in real time. Accusations like “She’s only in this for the money!” get bandied around a lot.

It’s ridiculous, of course. There is no one way for a dominant woman to behave. Plus, just because an electrician gets paid for his work doesn’t make him any less an electrician. But it happens, and I think this is what my customers are tapping into when they make their comments about how great it is that I “don’t pretend.”

Even though I do pretend. A lot.

So what’s going on? Am I just that good of an actress, that good at channeling the psychology of fetishes I don’t share that it seems like I do share them? Have these men just decided they like me better than other producers and therefore this must make me “real” while the others are “fakes”?

The question that’s started weighing on me more heavily lately is: What about the fetishes I am into? Is the reason those don’t sell as well that my interest doesn’t read as genuine even though it is?

Truth be told, I’m starting to wonder if cis straight men even know what a woman’s genuine interest looks like.

A complaint I hear constantly among female producers of fetish content—and a complaint I make constantly myself too—is that our best content doesn’t sell. The videos I’m most proud of, most excited for, most turned on by, consistently sell like shit. Added to my own experience, there are at least two videos made by other women that I’ve fallen over myself raving about how hot, how creative, how awesome they are, and the producers have admitted to me they don’t sell—and not only that, but I’m not the only woman raving about these videos that men aren’t buying.

And, without fail, the videos of mine I don’t like, the ones I don’t think fully represent the quality I’m capable of, and the few I almost don’t publish because I’m not satisfied with them—those are my best sellers and the ones men praise most vociferously.

It’s almost unreal. I half ass, I screw up, I pretend to care about fetishes I don’t care about, and I get paid and complimented for how I don’t pretend like other girls.

Maybe I’m thinking too much about this. Maybe the handful of men that have said this to me are just a small yet loud, exceptionally dim portion of my fans. Maybe they say the same thing to every content producer they contact.

Maybe this is just another in the huge collection of signs of the vast disconnect between the experiences of men and women in our society.

Although, if it is, then as far as those signs go, it’s not the worst I’ve encountered. At least this one I’m getting paid to deal with, one way or another.