I went on the Cam Girl Diaries podcast: sex is 5% of this job

I told Gary Gabagool that sex is about 5% of this job, and I meant it. The other 95% is names, DMs, paperwork, uploads and figuring out who your buyers are, and that's most of what we talked about.

Gary hosts Cam Girl Diaries, a podcast about the real stories behind being an adult creator. He introduced me as "the dadbod pleasure Dom," which I'll take. The conversation ran just under an hour, and I've pulled out the parts I think are most useful below, with timestamps so you can jump straight to them.

Where can I watch the episode?

The full episode is on YouTube: Cam Girl Diaries with Sly Panorama. If you like it, follow the show. They're on Instagram at @camgirldiariez and on X at @CamGirlPodcasts, and they talk to creators about what happens behind the scenes.

How did I get into adult content?

Through the side door. Coming out of a divorce, I dated a few women who were doing OnlyFans, one of them a cam girl, and I got to see the operation from behind the scenes (2:05). What struck me was how much of it was business: marketing, advertising, driving traffic.

The other thing I noticed was a gap. I'm not the stereotypical porn star, and there's a real market of people who want to see someone who looks like them. That market is underserved, so I decided to serve it. When Gary asked what I call myself, the answer was adult content creator and producer, because starting one of these operations means running a small media company.

Why does your creator name matter so much?

Because people have to find you again. A name that's memorable and doesn't collide with a thousand others in a Google search is worth more than most creators think (7:58). There are a lot of Ravens and Candys out there.

The trap is that everyone starts with a screen name, and once you're known by it, rebranding is scary. You don't know if the following comes with you. The same fear hits anyone who's lost an account to a ban and had to start over from zero. Pick a name you can live with for years, and keep an owned home base like this site so a ban doesn't erase you.

How do you ask a creator to collab without being creepy?

Treat it as business from the first message (13:32). My pattern: follow them, like and share their work, and if they follow back, send a short message. A small compliment, a thank-you for the follow, and "if you'd ever like to work together, let me know." Then I leave it there. If they want to go ahead, they will.

Creators with a real presence don't treat collabs as hookups, and they can spot the guys who do. A brand-new account with 12 followers, no verified platforms and nothing posted, throwing around the word "collab," is a dead giveaway (20:23). Some creators won't work with you until your brand is bigger, and some charge a fee. Both are fair. Take the no, and stay friendly, because you never know who will want to work with you later. I wrote the longer version up in how to ask a creator to collab.

The no-pressure approach works upward, too. I've worked with women who have 50,000 to 60,000 followers, far more than I do, and they still chose to shoot with me.

Why do so many collabs get shot during expo weekends?

Everyone is already in the same city. In my experience, a lot of collabs get scheduled around Exxxotica, AVN or XBIZ, and that's how my AVN-week shoots happened, in the hotels around the event (15:27). It also changes the math on what a scene costs you. Testing, the hotel room and travel are spread over several scenes instead of one.

If you're thinking about getting into the industry, my advice on the show was to go to an expo as a fan first (32:36). Some creators won't give you the time of day until they've met you at the booth and decided you feel safe. I wrote about going to an adult expo as a fan from my own trip.

Who works with me on camera?

Mostly women, though I'm bisexual and plan to work with more male creators (5:54). The reason it's been mostly women is that the men I've tried to book have been the flakiest. Some talk a big game, then back out when it comes to testing or filming.

Big Bear has been the exception. He and I are both bi, but on our scene with Fortune Cooke we agreed beforehand to keep the focus on her, and that's what we did.

Who buys a bear's content?

Mostly men, and mostly bi men or chubby bears themselves (26:52). They see me doing the things they wish they could do, and the fantasy feels within reach. Subscribers tell me directly: "You look like me. This is great." There's also a gay following that's there for my solo content, and a smaller share of women.

On the show I called it representation. If you never see someone who looks like you, you assume you're the outcast. When you do, you feel included. I went deeper on the numbers side in who actually buys male performer content.

On labels: a lot of people would call me a bear, and plenty of the women I work with do. In the straight market the term is BHM, big handsome man. I answer to both.

Do more followers mean more money?

No. From what I've seen, some creators with hundreds of thousands of followers are barely breaking even once they've paid an agency and editors, and some with a small following that buys everything they post are doing very well (34:24). Be careful about chasing clout. What matters is how many of your followers are buyers.

The related point for new creators is solo content. Before anyone established will collab with you, they want to see that you're building a brand: photos and videos of just you, posted on your own page. It doesn't guarantee subscribers, but it shows you're running this as a business.

What do fans ask for?

More variety than you'd guess (37:08). Some people want toys, some want a particular angle, and some want the whole arc from soft to finished and back again. Most of my requests for that last one come from women. Women on my page have also asked to see my face when I finish, and I've done audio customs for women who mostly want to hear my voice say "good girl."

Early on, that variety is how you find out what sells. If people keep buying it, keep making it until it stops working. On the toy side, JoyHub sent me a full-size torso toy to make content with. Full disclosure: it was a gift from them.

I also answered the inevitable "weirdest request" question (44:59). The one I turned down, and blocked, involved an animal. The strangest one I did was a FaceTime session where I played a virtual bull for a husband and wife's fantasy. We got into how a cuckold fantasy can feel very different once it's about to be real, which is the same gap I write about in the first time watching your partner with another man.

How do I talk to fans?

Through DMs and OnlyFans messages, and I answer them myself (28:11). No agency, no chat team. That's slower than the accounts run by "a guy named Chuck in a basement," and I explained the trade-off in do I answer my own DMs.

I haven't started live streaming yet. I still have a 9-to-5, and streaming needs time and a setup that looks the way I want. It's on the list, because live is one of the best ways to talk with fans in real time.

Do I still love doing this?

Yes (51:38). If you want to run a business and your special interest happens to be sex and human psychology, this is a great fit. Every piece of it is a challenge, from performing when you're exhausted to surviving rejections and marketing ideas that flop, and I like that.

The best moments are the ones I never expected. I'd followed Sara Star's content for years before I got into this, and I never thought I'd work with her. Within my first year, I did.

Thanks to Gary and Cam Girl Diaries for having me on. You can find Gary on Instagram at @garygabagooler and on X at @GaryGabagooler. Go watch the episode, follow the show, and if this is your first time here, everything I do is linked from my links page.

— Sly