Want to make money selling feet pics? Here’s the cold hard truth

‘I’ve decided to give sex work a go!’ the message read.

My chest sagged, for I knew I was about to be pummelled for information by a friend who imagined my job was immensely easy, the money quick, the rewards limitless. 

Which can be true, with the right mindset. 

Soon, however, her opening remark was qualified. ‘Obviously, though, I can’t show my face, because of my other work. And my boyfriend, my mum, the kids….’

Well, obviously.

‘And I don’t want to actually meet men, because, you know, as a woman, I’m worried about my safety.’

Quite so. About 41 to 61% of sex workers experience workplace violence, it’s not uncommon.

‘And I don’t really want to degrade myself by showing any other body parts either, you know, the private bits. But I understand I can make money just by selling pictures of feet?’

You can. But there are millions of women in your predicament trying that very trick.

Feet content is already the highest revenue generator year on year for porn site Clips4Sale, with countless creators putting up their prices by 56% for things like boot worship and 36% for dirty feet. Put simply, the market is already saturated.

Then you saunter into the scene, waving your newly pedicured trotters vaguely near your phone, feeling thrilled by your own daring, and expect to be a millionaire by sunset? Sister, dream on.

Sometimes the kinkier ones ask to sit in on my own sessions, perhaps give a feeble, misjudged blow to a gentle regular’s kidney, then expect gratitude, a slice of the fee, and me to provide them with more work. 

Give a girl a client, she’ll eat for a day; teach a girl to net a client, she’ll eat for life. And I do try to guide them, really I do. Advertise, market yourself, get your own clients, practise walloping a pillow, I urge! 

But no. They prefer to turn up at my house and simper at how easy I make it all seem. They want the money I earn without running any of the risks, doing any of the work, or spending decades building up contacts and knowledge, a reputation for delivering on my promises.

Kinksters are slow to trust, reasonably: their lives are in your hands.  

And underneath my girlfriends’ pleas for help all I hear is: ‘Obviously, I’m far too valuable and important to degrade myself with any of the disgusting risky muck you undertake, but I really want all the money you have, and this irresolvable conundrum is now your problem, so tell me how to fix it.’

Sorry. I can’t. I realise now how lucky I was to begin sex work so young, when I had nothing to lose, no proper job, no kids, no boyfriend, and to come from such a low social class I suffered no parental expectations either.

My family were never respectable, thank goodness. How the dreadful strain of respectability wears a decent girl down.

Occasionally, however, being bold, and brave, and admitting who you are and what you’ve done, can earn you some grudging respect from the respectable world, too. Why, it even scored me a column in Metro, and a place on the reality show Nobody’s Fool.

You must decide what you want more than anything. If it’s money, and you’re a woman, sex work isn’t a bad option: but it does involve closing off a lot of other options.

For me, it is money, and I regret nothing.

Still, becoming a sex worker reminds me of the Little Mermaid who chose to walk, for love’s sake, every step agony. You must completely surrender any hope of a normal life. It will be painful, and in the first few months, it won’t feel worth it; you’ll make almost no money at all.

Even with my help: you’ll be just another lonely lady screaming into the abyss, begging the abyss to scream back at you.

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