Pornomiseria or Internet Begging in Porn

Sex work sales can fluctuate a lot, and the time comes when sensitive circumstances, personal drama, and tragic situations add up to a bad sales period. Bills start to pile up, you haven’t reached a payout on any of your platforms, and negativity clouds your mind. Your rent is due, your fridge is empty, and you haven’t slept in days out of anxiety.

What should you do?

Maybe you think it’s time to get personal about your situation with a regular client, post a help call on your socials, or vent during a livestream. But, please, don’t do it. Or, please, avoid it as much as you can.

I’ve been there. The last thing I’d want to do is make you feel ashamed for it. In the past, I’ve also pushed a sale to solve an emergency. It’s okay. Someone close may feel good helping, and you may release some pressure off yourself that day.

However, you can’t rely on pornomiseria if you want to sustain a positive image of your brand. 

What is pornomiseria? 

Pornomiseria is using poverty and human suffering to create a narrative. The term was coined in the 70s by the Colombian filmmaking team Grupo de Cali while shooting the documentary Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty). It doesn’t aim to create awareness about anything in particular but to sell entertainment. If we want to translate the term and put it in the context of porn, its meaning nods at “poverty porn” and “Internet begging.”

How does it hurt your business?

It creates a negative image of your brand.

Your audience will have facts to sustain the perception that you’re unsuccessful, have bad money management, or have a bad sales strategy. This may not be true, but can you really fight what others think? On the other hand, it can attract cheapskates, manipulative spenders, bloodsuckers, and scammers. Who doesn’t hate the “I’ll get you out of your country and give you a better life” pick-up line of some Internet hobbyists?

If you show your vulnerability to the world, people will try to take advantage of it. 

It makes you look financially irresponsible. 

In a way, we are our client’s entertainment investment. We bond with them and become their favorite part of the day. What we do with our earnings, or the mishaps of our lives is, indeed, nobody’s business. However, if we turn our sales pitch into a begging discourse, customers can second-guess the value of our services and even push for discounts or freebies. They’re “helping” after all… so, asking for help also makes you subjectively powerless. 

It can break your mental health.

Whether you’re telling the truth or not, and people believe you or not, e-begging can break your mental health.

Bonding with a customer through a narrative of struggle can get out of your hands. While some customers are happy to be your white knight, it is possible to be guilt-tripped to trespass your boundaries because you were “saved.”

Do this instead:

Let’s rewind to the intro of this article. Let’s say you just got a lead from the website you’re close to reaching a payout. What should you do?

First, lead the natural flow of the conversation toward securing a voluntary purchase.
Second, make your services an immersive experience.
Third, go hard on your never-stopping promotion and get more eyes on you.
Fourth, market a sale of your services (offering a discount is a better option than begging since you hold the power of the sale by creating a sense of urgency).

And, last but not least, if there’s no other way around it, use e-begging wisely. It’s your job to make it look like it’s more beneficial to your customer than it is to you.

I’d like to give this article two endings:

1. There’s a saying in Spanish, the one who sucks your blood is none other than the one who pays and consumes your own misery. Don’t turn your urgent situation into a spectacle. 
2. Be the sex worker you can be. “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.” W. Clement Stone. 

Let’s view customers as people seeking entertainment, and human beings with feelings, emotions, problems, and a need for escapism.

Header Image credit by Lukas from Pexels.com
First Image credit by Kemi Taiwo from Pexels.com

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A candid young lady with an over-the-top personality, Linda Ashford is the friend you can always talk to without feeling judged and get a good laugh afterward! You’ll always find a good thing to read from her. Follow her on Reddit and Twitter.