Aerie Saunders: Sluts Doing Whatever They Want! (Interview)

“I’ve been in the adult industry since I was 18 and joined in February of 2015,” Aerie Saunders shared with YNOT Cam.

Saunders shared her path in the industry thus far – ever becoming a home owner in a few short years!

“When I started in the adult industry, I was living in my girlfriend’s parents’ basement in New Jersey, thanks to the overwhelming support I received from fans and customers over the years I was able to relocate quite a few times, spending some time in Florida and South Carolina, before settling down and buying a home in South Carolina,” Saunders shared.

Saunders also shared this interesting and insightful bit of family history.

“Something that might surprise people to learn about me is that I am not the first sex worker in my family!” Saunders explained. “My mother was a sex worker, and we even had sex worker roommates while I was growing up. I’ve always been a strong supporter of sluts doing whatever they want, as it was something I got to see in action growing up. It was very character building for me because I entered adulthood not being scared of my sexuality.”

Read on to learn more about what the “next generation” can bring to the table!

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YNOT Cam: What prompted you to begin your career online?

Aerie Saunders: Before I started working in the adult industry I was a Barista and Assistant Manager at a Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin Robbins combo store. I actually decided to give camming a try because I knew about since I was a teenager and my mom had roommates that were cam models, I didn’t know what it was at the time but I knew that around 9pm every night we had “quiet time.”

I was living in a state where the cost of living was super high and even working full time while also in high school I couldn’t make ends meet, so I gave it a shot and was blown away by the support I received during my first show. Granted, my lack of industry knowledge gave me a boost since I was camming from a Chaturbate account that wasn’t approved yet so I was in exhibitionist mode.

I ended up getting 800 viewers during my first show and called out sick from work for the next two weeks which lined up beautifully with a store remodel that was going on and quit on the spot once I received my money from cashing out. My former boss was really creepy and tried to coerce me into going on dates with him to discuss a raise and promotion, so the opportunity to make a decent wage and not have to leave my house was super enticing.

Since you started out on Chaturbate, you’ve done a lot of various work in the adult industry including performing, blogging, affiliate marketing and website building. Which is your favorite? 

My favorite would have to be website building.

I’ve actually recently started offering Linkhub websites to performers so they can know that their website is secure on an adult friendly platform, and I am also taking measures to ensure they can be safely linked to on anti-adult social media platforms like Snapchat and TikTok so that performers can continue to get direct traffic from these platforms without intimidating warnings often found on commonly used Linkhub websites like AllMyLinks or LinkTree.

I am also offering cryptocurrency video stores to performers, like the one on my personal website, so that performers dealing with the bans due to payment processors can still host their content online. My pricing is pretty cheap in comparison to most other solutions available because I genuinely enjoy doing it. The cost ranges from $50-$500 and includes hosting.

Good morning! ☀️ it’s foggy here this morning. No cam today, will be making clips. What do we know about Tuesdays? I hate them. pic.twitter.com/PEzkngWU74

— aerie saunders (@AerieSaunders) December 28, 2021

Speaking of crypto – crypto still seems to be pretty intimidating to many people. Any tips on how to make it less so? 

Cryptocurrency is understandably intimidating to a lot of people. Most people don’t see the volatility of their currency in action because it doesn’t fluctuate in value like cryptocurrency does. Instead, the things we purchase with it fluctuate in value to accommodate the changing price of our default currencies.

Volatility is super scary when you can watch it in real time, but it can also be super beneficial! If you do research on cryptocurrency that is trending upward or utilize stablecoins, then you can save yourself a lot of heartache of losing money in cryptocurrency.

Personally, I’m a strong advocate for the adult industry moving to more cryptocurrency solutions because of the increased limitations that are being put forth by credit card processors. These limitations and hoops to jump through are only going to continue — and cryptocurrency is something that isn’t monitored in the same way, therefore you can sell pretty much anything with crypto. The content sweeps removing popular fetishes because suddenly Visa or Mastercard deems these things inappropriate results in loss of money and wasted time for performers. If performers switch to crypto, then they can still have these pieces of content available and able to be sold.

If you’re new to cryptocurrency then the best way to get started is with stablecoins and accepting payments for tips and custom content. Once you get comfortable with that, then you can start incorporating cryptocurrency into video stores and more. Here’s some resources that can help!

https://adultmodelmentors.com/guide-to-cryptocurrency/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDniv1bpyfQ&t=2s

What’s your favorite collaborative content to make? Do you have any exciting collaborations coming up? 

I absolutely love doing collaborations, matching my energy with other people and putting that content out for customers is so much fun. The networking and combining of fan bases coming together to enjoy the content is always so amazing to see.

As far as my favorite collaborative content to make, I love making fetish content and will jump at any opportunity to work with another creator to make something fun and fetishy. I do have some exciting collaborations coming up. I will be working with Fox December, Audrey Pine, Amiee Cambridge, and Lilith Rose in [2022]. I’m trying to jam pack my new year with lots of collabs.

The best thing about working online is also a challenge about working online, and it’s creating your own schedule. As someone who struggles with finding self motivation, it’s been a blessing and a curse for me to try to create my own working schedule. While it’s super great for my mental health and being able to step away when I need to is something I won’t find in another job, it’s also challenging to structure my day in a way that includes productive work.

As someone who struggles with mental illness, specifically Borderline Personality Disorder, holding a schedule feels nearly impossible some days. Although I have observed that many customers and fellow performers are understanding about mental health and I’ve learned that if you strategically queue posts most people won’t even know that you’re actually in bed staring at the ceiling instead of being hot that day.

I see on your site you write “cornstar” – what on earth?

I’ve had about eight different TikTok accounts now — because they keep deleting me (but don’t get me started!) “Cornstar” is my preferred way of referring to my job instead of “accountant,” which is another TikTok pseudonym for sex workers.

I like to use the corn emoji to reference porn because it helps keep things mildly safe-for-work but still allows me to mention my career. I’m just a humble corn farmer and many viewers want to… till my soil? Plant seeds in my farm? Who knows, lots of room for farming and corn puns.

Outside of TikTok, it’s also a fun way to avoid the stigma against sex workers and shadowbanning in general. When you read that, you knew it was a pornstar reference right? But it doesn’t actually say “porn,” so I can slide it into my website and bio on various platforms while avoiding triggering certain keyword flags that could make my accounts harder to find.

They just instantly banned this one LOL pic.twitter.com/hR7P0vrSYn

— aerie saunders (@AerieSaunders) December 31, 2021

Your email signature reads — (Former CEO @ Webcam Startup / Owner @ Adult Mutual Aid) – can you elaborate?

I worked on Webcam Startup for nearly six years, but due to some issues with my business partner I’ve decided to transition away from Webcam Startup in order to work on my own projects. Technically I’m still the CEO of Webcam Startup, but I say former since I am no longer actively working on the site.

Instead, I’m focusing my efforts on Adult Mutual Aid which is a forum based website dedicated to connecting sex workers looking to ask for or provide mutual aid. I’m also working on launching a new project very similar to Webcam Startup called Adult Model Mentors which will be officially launching on January 15, 2022. The site is a collaborative project between myself and former Webcam Startup staff news writer Katy Churchill. We will be offering consultations and mentoring, free blogs with information about adult websites and fetishes, website reviews and more.

Earned a bit more than you expected this past few weeks? You can give back to the sex worker community directly by browsing the mutual aid requests on Adult Mutual Aid!

Donate to a SW: https://t.co/Rz9fMtO0Nu
Request Aid: https://t.co/vlk1pqk9ET

Every small bit helps! pic.twitter.com/O5pObzRn4C

— aerie saunders (@AerieSaunders) December 30, 2021

Outside of work, what are you most passionate about?

Outside of work, I am most passionate about writing and animals. While writing is part of my career, as you can probably tell from all of the blog oriented things I’ve worked on, I also love to write poetry. You can actually read some of my writing on Vocal if you’re interested! I’ve had one of my poems published in a book, which is my biggest accomplishment in writing but I am also hoping to start working on some short books in the new year and vetting publishers.

Aside from that, I love animals! I have 17 animals: 5 dogs and 12 chickens, and I’m also currently fostering a dog named Ninya. I’ve been fostering her for 5 months now, so she is practically my dog. Nobody wants her because she isn’t pet friendly and she’s older, but she is my grumpy little princess. Actually come to think of it, if you’re reading this and you live in the Southeast US and want a grumpy princess, hit me up! I’ve always been very passionate about dogs and have done quite a few charity and fundraiser nights on cam to donate money to my local animal shelter and humane society. Most of my dogs didn’t get adopted until COVID hit though, since I couldn’t go out I started my own little petting zoo.

If you could change one thing about today’s world, what would it be and why?

If I could change one thing about today’s world, it would be the common lack of individual responsibility that most people have become complacent with. COVID really enlightened me about the people I know that lack individual responsibility to get vaccinated and help prevent more people from getting sick, but it’s more than just vaccines.

It’s racism, misogyny, fatphobia, sexism and many other issues that people stay quiet about because they feel it isn’t their own individual responsibility to change things. If more people took it upon themselves to be the change they want to see, even if others won’t do so, but simply because they know it’s right, then we would see more positivity and changes take place.

Find Aerie Saunders on Twitter at @aeriesaunders.

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Erika is a sex positive people watcher (and writer). Email her at erika@ynotcam.com.