Emma Lilly, currently age 25, is from Florida/ Though Lilly has been dabbling in the adult industry for about five years, she began seriously pursuing her work in the space in January 2020.
Lilly is a consummate educator — “Something most people may not know about me is that in my past life I administered and taught at an outdoor nature school!” Lilly shared with YNOT Cam — and her passion for education has carried over into her sex work life.
“While I don’t have formal education in sexuality,I do a lot of my own research and reading,” she explained, regarding her sex education pursuits and offerings online. “For this reason I don’t charge for any education that I provide and always make sure to pass along my sources so that people can make their own informed decisions.”
“To me, accessibility to information is really important,” she continued. “So much is kept behind paywalls, and so little is taught in the public school system. In my mind, the best thing any educator can do is connect people with resources and information.”
Lilly told us that she tends to “stick to education and advice for people on the asexual spectrum on sex, masturbation and relationships.” She’s also a gooning pro!
Read on to learn more about Lilly and her career-wider mission of education via sex work.
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YNOT Cam: Tell us about your work life prior to online sex work? What prompted you to start your career in the field?
Emma Lilly: Before I was a performer, I was a teacher. I left because I wanted to have more control over my work and have less pressure to live a sanitized life.
In my old life, even being seen out at a bar for an after work drink was frowned upon. Working online has let me set my own hours, establish my own style and explore every part of myself freely.
Wow! Well, in addition to the freedom to live your off-hours life freely, what are some good things about online sex work? Since nothing is “perfect,” what about challenges?
Working online has been an amazing opportunity for me to develop skills such as graphic design, photo and video editing, html, marketing and more. These are things I will keep with me forever and will continue to make me more marketable in the future. I think that people are looking for connections online now more than ever before due to covid, so I couldn’t have picked a better time to make this a full-time job.
There are some challenges, like the occasional technical difficulty and the opportunity for miscommunications when you can’t determine a customer’s tone. But as someone that grew up with technology, I find the online world very easy to navigate.
Can you tell us more about gooning? How did you become interested in this area?
Gooning is when a person masturbates, edging themselves repeatedly until they reach an altered state of mind. The term is thought to come from your face looking like a “goon” when you get to that overwhelming leak of pleasure.
I have always been someone who has enjoyed porn and masturbation. I discovered gooning online on tumblr during one of my breaks from my online sex work and fell in love. I saw that there weren’t many creators that made content for this niche and even fewer that actually participated in it themselves.
On top of that, when men found out that I was a “gooner girl,” they were chomping at the bit to have private audio and video sessions with me. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to work in a niche that I find so much fun!
Happy Hump Day ✨ pic.twitter.com/izo7hudejF
— Emma Lilly | Exxxotica Miami (@theemmalilly) April 1, 2021
Gooning seems to be becoming more visible in recent years – any idea why?
There have been underground communities of “gooners” since at least 2005, but in recent years we have really started to see it coming into the mainstream. Big name stars like Angela White regularly make content aimed at gooners now, so in my opinion it’s going to become more and more popular. If you go to any clipsite, especially those where you see a lot of female dominance content, clips aimed at gooners are heavily featured on their front page.
Gooners often seek out content that is visually or audibly overwhelming like porn music videos, compilations and hypnosis. Since it is all about maximizing pleasure without orgasming, we — yes, I consider myself a gooner! — like longform content over shorter videos.
You’ve stated that one of your goals is to “help people on the grey-asexual spectrum become more comfortable and informed about their sexualities.” Can you tell us more?
[A person experiencing g]rey-asexuality is someone who feels little sexual attraction or only feels it sometimes. There are a growing number of people, myself included, that prefer masturbation and mutual masturbation over sex. We have started labeling ourselves as “solosexuals,” but I think grey-asexual is also a good descriptor.
In our world, we tend to just assume that everyone likes to have sex. When someone says they don’t or that they have a low sex drive the first instinct is to assume that something must be wrong with them. Traditionally, it’s been important for people to have sex and even more important to have children. In our modern worldm that’s changing. Pleasure has started to become the main focus of sex and people are starting to realize that they may or may not enjoy it in the same way other people do.
If you are a sex worker, people jump to the conclusion that you must love sex. I think maybe we as sex workers are afraid of destroying that fantasy for our customers.
In reality, when you read accounts from anonymous sex workers, especially on Twitter, there are many of them who consider themselves asexual or on the ace spectrum. Working in sex can be so fulfilling in ways outside of arousal.
Figuring out another human’s mind is almost like a puzzle for me and learning about new and unique fetishes really speaks to the psychology lover inside me. I wouldn’t be surprised if other asexual sex workers felt that way too.
I am currently working on a book all about relationships and sex for the self-described solosexual. I am hoping that this can become a resource for people who may be questioning how they have can fulfilling relationships and sex lives without actually having sex or having sex frequently.
Librarian vibes https://t.co/jG1CVY7gRe pic.twitter.com/FH1iQPBiry
— Emma Lilly | Exxxotica Miami (@theemmalilly) March 29, 2021
Outside of your career, what are you most interested in?
Right now, I am becoming obsessed with the world of erotic dance — specifically pole dancing and the art of burlesque. There are some incredible artists out there in both of these worlds and right now I’m working on soaking up as much knowledge about them as I can!
Who knows, maybe one day if I suddenly develop coordination, you may see me on a stage in a glittering corset one day.
If you could change one thing about today’s world, what would it be and why?
I truly wish that we wouldn’t be so quick to put our thoughts out on social media, especially when they are critical of other people.
It’s easy to say things out of anger without realizing how our words affect people and even easier to get caught up in arguments that end up going nowhere. That’s not to say that I’m against holding people who do harm accountable, but maybe the 19-year-old who said she likes the new Star Wars movies over the old ones on TikTok shouldn’t receive hundreds of hate messages.
Kindness will always be my motto, and I’m trying every day not to be baited into saying things that might hurt another person.
Find Emma Lilly on Twitter at @theemmalilly.
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Erika is a sex positive people watcher (and writer). Email her at erika@ynotcam.com.
