About a month ago I wrote about plans for a sex worker collective photo shoot here. The aim was to provide extra encouragement to donate towards bushfire relief charities through the sale of erotic content. The end result was Cheeky For Charity which has so far raised $2,898.21 and donated in equal shares to the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund and Cobargo Wildlife Sanctuary! It was such a privilege to be part of this awesome collective project.

Here's the beautiful message we received from the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund Management:

Thank you so much for this contribution and for thinking of us in Cobargo. We were thrilled to see sex workers supporting our fundraiser - it fits so well with our message of strength in diversity. People sometimes look at small rural communities like ours and think mainly of farming or forestry when in fact we are much more diverse and proud of it.

Please pass on our thanks to everyone involved in this fundraiser.

Kindest regards

Zena

This project would not be possible without the time, energy and help of all of those involved whether they attended the shoot, took BTS content or are helping with social media promotion. Thank you to: Audrey Parker, Sara Fennic, Dylan Fiera, Honey Jones, Heather Hunter, Lola Hunt, Nova Hawthorne, Paige Aster, Gabriella May, Jessie Lee Pierce, Lily Lawrence, Mistress Malissia, Georgia Hart, Emily Nguyen, Amber Leigh, Maia B & Crystal Rae, together with Alyssa Forde, Blaire Hunter, LoveLust Gifts Australia, Flat Pack Fox, Charlie Forde, Estelle Leon, Harley Sinn, Leo Embers, Abigail James, Amber King, Jayde, Molly Lock, Alice York, Alena Easton, Blaire Belrose, Sienna Saint, Olivia Winsome, Darth Lacey & Lea Nights.

Photo Credit: Jac & Heath Photography

If you don't already know (and I meet a half and half mix of clients who know or who are totally surprised by it), but I am married to a sex worker. I can't believe out 2 year wedding anniversary is coming up. It's cotton for anyone else in the same boat as me.

Anyway, I often get asked for resources that would be useful for partners to read so here's a little list:

The Partners Portal

Scarlett Academy is a small SWer owned organisation and they host a central resource hub for practical sex industry information. The Partners Portal has web articles, videos, and Q & As aimed at supporting partners of sex workers. Here's the link: http://www.scarlettacademy.com/partners-portal

Christian’s Blog on Dating a Sex Worker

This is said to be the must read article to read for any partner of a sex worker: https://christianbvega.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-to-date-sex-worker.html?m=1

Partners Subreddit

There's a Reddit page for partners. People ask questions here and sex workers, other partners and the odd internet troll answer. Here's the link: https://www.reddit.com/r/partnersofsexworkers/

Discord Chat Group

There's also a chat group with a few partners from all over the world in it. I think of it more as a social group but the members are there to support each other if needed. Send me a DM on Twitter or Instagram and I'll pass on the link to you.

Suggested Therapists in Australia

This list was sent to me and I've never used their services before so I can't vouch for them personally. If you do have a good experience please let me know.

Matty Silver

Phone counselling (based in NSW) M. 0411 131 619 Ph. 02 9664 8927 mattysilver@optusnet.com.au

Tammy Moran http://www.tammymoran.com.au

Dr Irene Panagopoulos

Prahran Psychology Clinic. Vogue Medical – Shop 1- 009, 670 Chapel Street, South Yarra 3141

0408 521 889

Medicare rebates available with mental health treatment plan from GP. Bulk billing available for eligible clients. If client discloses their referral from RhED they will be bulk billed

Would you like to see Melbourne based escorts, Georgia Hart, Estelle Leon, Lola Hunt and Paige Aster as you’ve never seen them before - getting frisky for to raise money to go towards bushfire relief in Australia? It was such a privilege to join these four on this project to create cheeky never before seen nudes and BTS footage, which they are adding daily to their newly created ‘Wild For Wildlife’ OnlyFans account, for the next 3 weeks. If you’d like to give more, feel free to send them tips too!

Also being auctioned off are 15 polaroids of all the action at this shoot for you to keep. To place your bid to own your very own physical spank bank, please email lolahunt@protonmail.com. Bidding started at $200 but is now up to $1000 at the time of writing! Get in quick or you’ll miss out!

All proceeds are going towards the wildlife and communities affected by the bushfires in Victoria and New South Wales.

Its interesting that as a lawyer in a mid sized national law firm, we had aspirational targets of 10 hours a year to do pro bono work which nobody ever met, as we slaved away keeping our billable hours up as high as possible to avoid getting sacked. I’ve been thinking about how to provide the same pro bono service as a photographer and projects like this are just perfect. Please give it all the support you can whether finanically, or just by sharing the social media posts. Here are links to the social media accounts of all the girls to help with that:

Lola Hunt: Twitter | Instagram

Estelle Leon: Twitter | Instagram

Paige Aster: Twitter | Instagram

Georgia Hart

It’s hard not to be moved by all the amazing things I have seen the sex worker community do as I watch on from overseas. Now that I’m back I want to do my part to help too. I’m certainly not asking many of you to do any more than you already have, but whether you’ve already done plenty and still have the time and energy to help, or if you’re in the same boat as me, and feel like you haven’t done enough yet, I’d love for you to join me, my wife (Tash Hamilton) and a few other friends, in Melbourne, for a group effort to fundraise for those effected by the bush fires.

I’ve booked a simple studio location in Brunswick for a half day shoot on Thursday 16 January 2020 from 1pm. I’ll cover that cost as well as giving up my time for free. I hope the below is not too much information as I want this to be simple., fun and effective, and hopefully helpful to all those effected by the fires. But also there are important details to discuss too.

THE CONCEPT

My idea is to ultimately make large donations, as a collective of members of the sex worker community, to a few charities. Those charities haven’t been decided on and I’m happy for input on this via the group chats.

To raise the funds, my idea is firstly for every one involved to publish the same group photo simultaneously, together with BTS video content like boomerangs. The concept for this photo will be to wear what you like in neutral tones of nude and white as pictured below (special thanks to Alyssa Forde for this suggestion). Both those face out and face in are welcome and if you’re face in I’ll pose you so your face is hidden. The message for the photo is that the sex worker community is doing all that it can to help. LoveLust Australia will try to donate a few outfits to help anyone who needs it.

Secondly, and only for those interested, I will also want to take a couple raunchier semi-nude group photos to sell via a password protected gallery, probably hosted on my website. The concept for this photo will be to be:

1. stripping out of the clothes in the first photo; and

2. taking photos of each other with phones and polaroid cameras as a way of celebrating how this community has raised so much money by selling nudes. Someone also suggested holding hand written signs like Save the Koalas or anything else you might think of.

Any polaroids taken and BTS content can also be sold.

COLLECTING THE FUNDS

I’m thinking the main way of collecting funds would be via bank transfer to a business account held by my wife Tash Hamilton. The donations have to be marked as donations in the reference field. I’d like to encourage you to promote this in your networks, and then to distribute the password to those who have confirmed payment to Tash’s account. That way everyone is essentially doing their own admin rather than having just myself or Tash doing it all. 100% of the donations will be donated. There are no overhead or running costs.

Doing it this way also avoids paying commissions to a third party and the risk of being shutdown by the third party i.e. Go Fund Me has been shut down fundraisers due to being organised by a sex worker. The only downside is its likely donations won’t be tax deductible. If anyone wants to make a tax deductible donation then perhaps they should be directed to one of your choice. If they show you confirmation of a donation, you can pass on the password to them.

Before anything goes live, I’ll send details of everyone’s social media accounts so everyone can tag and give credit to everyone else involved. If you have your own fundraising promotions, those details will also be shared.

I’m definitely open to suggestion on all of the above, including the concepts, which can be discussed in the group chats. But I am pretty happy with the colour palette for everyone's outfits, as nudes and whites should be easy for everyone to hopefully find in their wardrobes or to borrow from a friend.

Speak to you soon!

A little bit behind this shoot…

This is Abigail and Kitty. Can you tell which one of these two was at their first ever photo shoot?

If you can’t, that’s because this is a trick question, because neither of them had ever had a photo shoot before. Would you believe that more than half of the clients in the last 2 years have never had a professional photo shoot before working with me?

I’m not 100% sure why this is the case, but I’m also not complaining. I think it might have to do with my style, which is very classic, and boudoir-esque, and probably suits the girlfriend vibe that seems to be a common starting point for many of my clients as they begin developing their brands. It might also be because if you look around my website, you’d be hard pressed to pick out the first timers from the seasoned vets, because I'm great with giving directions.

Anyhow, there is a little bit of a story behind this post. Kitty and Abigail are friends in real life. Kitty was the initial point of contact, trying to book a shoot for the both of them towards the end of last year. However, for reasons unknown to me, Kitty dropped off the radar, but shortly after that Abigail contacted me about a shoot on her own.

I had no idea they knew each other until I rocked up to Abigail’s shoot, where I also got to meet Kitty. She explained that she was there not just to support her friend, who was understandably nervous about the shoot, but to also get an idea of what it would be like to work with me, because she was also nervous. 

I told them both what I tell all my clients, that half of my clients are first timers just like they were, that I’m excellent with direction, that I would run the show, and that they had absolutely nothing to worry about. If you’re shooting with me, all you need are your outfits, hair and make up is optional, and to be present, preferably on time. I’m more than capable and happy to control everything else - where to stand, how to stand, what to do with those awkward hands, and so on. There’s nothing else to worry about once you arrive at the shoot.

At the beginning of the shoot I told Kitty by the time Abigail was finished, she was going to want to book in her shoot. At the end of the shoot, I asked Kitty what she thought, and she said we’d definitely be working together soon. And now we have!

“With kindness, dedication and detail to his work, my girlfriend and I were able to feel safe, comfortable and have a great photo shoot. Once he started giving us directions of poses and angles, we automatically knew that all photos would come out fantastic! And yes that did happen! We would love to work with him again. Thank you very much.”

— Naomi Bloom, Sydney based independent sex worker