This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Side Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk where each week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry and we give you a tip on buying and selling websites. This week we’ll be speaking with Steph Sia from the podcast Striped by Sia. I’ll be at the TES affiliate conference in Seville, Spain March 9th through the 11th. I’d love to sit down with you and discuss buying and selling sites. To book an appointment, go to our website at adultsidebroker.com. Refer sellers or buyers to us at Adult Side Broker and our affiliate program ASB Cash will pay you 20% of our broker commission. This can amount to tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Check out ASB Cash.com for more details and to sign up. And we’re proud to announce our latest project thewaronporn.com. You’ll find articles on age verification laws and more on the industry’s plight in the war on porn and the numerous attacks on us. Go to thewaronporn.com and check it out. Now time for our property of the week that’s for sale at Adult Side Broker. We’re proud to offer a white label cam site that’s rapidly growing month over month. In fact, it’s more than doubled its business from 2023 to 2024. Because of this, we’ve had no other alternative but to raise the price. This is an excellent opportunity if you’re already in the live cam business or want to enter it. All traffic is either direct or organic. This is excellent for a company with cam traffic or one willing to purchase more traffic for the site. Best of all, the site is easy to maintain. Someone could easily add additional sites through the admin system without doing any more work. This gives you truly passive income with zero hours required to maintain it. Only $504,000. Now time for this week’s interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Steph Sia of the podcast Stripped by Sia. Steph, thanks for being back with us on Adult Site Broker Talk. It’s so good to be back, Bruce. So happy to catch up with you again. Thank you so much for having me. It’s so nice to have you. Always great to hear your voice. That sexy voice of yours. So Steph is a stripper, digital content creator and pull dance instructor based in Vancouver, Canada. She’s the host of the Sex Worker podcast, Stripped by Sia, a podcast dedicated to destigmatizing the sex industry by sharing the lived experiences of its workers. Steph, a sex worker of varying mediums, invites different guests onto the show from all corners of the adult industry to provide a transparent approach to the work that they do. Each episode tackles a topic that affects sex workers to educate those who are and aren’t in our industry, as well as humanize and legitimize the vital work that they do. Join Steph every Sunday for new episodes, wherever you get your podcasts and on Patreon. You can find her on Instagram @siastef on Twitter, Patreon and anchorfm at stripbysia and on her website, stefsia.com. Steph, besides being a sex worker, you’re an activist for sex worker rights. Talk about some of the issues that are currently impacting sex workers politically. Oh my gosh, there’s just so much going on. I’m on the ground for sex workers right now. We’re talking post-election right now at the time of recording. I’m Canadian, but yeah, I’m sorry, we have to go there, but we’ll likely go into it right now. We talked about it before when I just read today that Matt Getz is nominated as attorney general. Yeah, let’s put a child fucker in there. That’s the way to go. Right? So many problems there too. I mean, potential problems, but real problems, real roots in bigger problems. I guess for you guys in the States, I’m just assuming that a lot of our listeners might be in the States. I know that you’re in Bacock. Well, I’m American, so... But you’re American though. Yeah. You got what I’m saying. Sadly, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, we all know the stance with prior to 2025 and that being a huge problem, potentially batting corn, potentially batting anything to do with LGBTQIA folks, it’s posing a real threat to sex workers and our livelihood, our jobs that can be gone in the click of the button. And then now I heard in the news too that Elon Musk is appointed for a certain position as well, which I haven’t... I’m just exhausted. He’s a dick. He’s a dick too. He’s very smart. He’s a genius. I can’t talk about that. He’s a genius dick. But a genius dick, but I’m not sure if he’s on the side of sex workers and Trump is also not on the side of sex workers. All of his team are anti-sex work as well. So a lot of our well-being will be threatened by that. I mean, in Canada, I mean, similarly in a similar vein, politically, it’s not great either. Canada, sorry, Canada because I’m Canadian. So I want to give you some context there, but we’re also moving towards a conservative government, which is the similar equivalent to a Republican government. So it’s a little bit concerning. I know I’m in a lot of groups here locally where I live in Vancouver, Canada, and there’s a lot of uncomfortability with the political climate when it comes to sex workers. People are feeling uneasy. People are feeling obviously disappointed. And as I mentioned earlier, threatened because this can change the course of our work. Our work might not be a thing, but it’s a very real fear. And I guess on the ground, there’s so many things that affect sex workers that we just don’t talk about. I mean, here, I’m very active here in the local scene with activism and advocacy, talking about just even sex workers’ access to housing. Obviously bank accounts getting suspended. A big thing right now amongst my peers is getting detained at the border. I’ve heard about that. There’s a lot of things. Social intelligence being used to scour escorting ads, saying that everyone’s traffic victims. Those are just a few things that are kind of top of mind right now that I can think of. I mean, they’re all terrible and unfortunate, but that’s just the reality that a lot of our sex workers in our community are facing today. People just have to realize that trafficking and sex work aren’t even close to each other. I know. Is there trafficking involving sex work? Sure. But it’s a minuscule percentage of actual in-person sex work. It is such a minuscule percentage. I remember reading that today, and I actually don’t want to quote this stat in case I’m wrong, but I remember it being a very low percentage. Really shockingly low because with all the rhetoric and the narrative that goes out into the media, you think that that number would be a lot bigger the way they’re preaching. Right. Right. Well, and they tie it to porn too, which is ludicrous. I know. I mean, people don’t do porn because they’re forced to. It’s surprising to me. They do porn because it’s work. We’ll say it again. Sex work is work. Oh, I love the hoodie you were in on X the other day. That was great. Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah, I got that recently. It’s like a sex work is work hoodie on the front and then it says on the back something about harm reduction, which is really great. But I have had a lot of inquiries about that, but I did not make it. Unfortunately, I did not make it and the person doesn’t have a website. You didn’t know what the back said because you couldn’t see it because you were wearing it. No, no. I’ll have to like post it. I’ll repost it for sure. Just wear it back. It was in high demand. I got like a lot of messages about it. Just wear it backwards. I should. Make it a look. What other challenges that affect sex workers are you most concerned about? Yeah, I’ll let they briefly mention that. So again, on the ground here in Vancouver, yeah, housing is a big issue. I know there are a couple things to do with this city in terms of destroying street-based survival workers. There are places of work basically. They’re there wanting to build streets or building more things that kind of infiltrate their corners, their strolls. So that’s something that is of concern right now in a couple groups that I’m in. Also talking about, yeah, like I was helping one of a student, like a master’s student that helped her conducting her research. She was doing research on artificial intelligence being used to scour escorting ads. And like trying to prove like, what does a trafficked victim look like? And that’s what they’re trying to use this technology for. And you’re like, like first of all, again, that conflation between someone who is exploited versus consenting adults. Like they’re very different things. And oftentimes this is an argument that like so many political parties are getting behind. And anti-trafficking groups have to see narrative, but they get a confused a lot and that is a root for a lot of problems. Well let’s face it, quote unquote, anti-trafficking groups that aren’t really anti-trafficking groups, but are really anti-sex worker groups. They’re not getting it wrong. They know they’re wrong, but they say it anyway to get their way. Totally. It’s dangerous. And I hate to see that kind of stuff happen because like we’re here trying to prove how much we have chosen this line of work, but it continues to be trivialized and people not taking it seriously. And people still continue to view that this is a non-legitimate profession. And like the whole rhetoric of like, why would anyone ever choose this line of work? Right? There are many reasons why we choose a lot of work, but I feel like most realist men would know that. So. Hey, it pays well. And you know, attractive women and attractive men are using what they have to benefit. And I don’t blame them one single bit. And there’s a freedom to it. They work for themselves. There’s so many reasons. Flexibility, accessibility, like just so many great reasons. But yeah, those are probably the main buckets for sure. So based on all that, do you think the world’s getting easier or harder for sex workers in 2025 and why? Yeah, I mean, it’s a little bit of both, to be honest. So like I feel like, yes, like with technology and like automation and artificial intelligence and stuff, I actually think it’s making some of the work easier, like automating things. You’re able to like make a clone of yourself now and your fans can talk to you that way. And like, you know, depends on how you’re looking at it. I think that’s a really interesting perspective. I mean, on the other side, yes, when we’re talking politically, I don’t know if it’s getting harder. It’s going to be harder if things go south. Further south. Further south. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for the question. Further south and yes, I think it would be a lot harder, but I feel it’s kind of at bay, if not slowly drooping downwards a little bit. It’s not a really great place to be right now, if I’m being honest. In some areas, I feel like the work gets easier. And then other aspects, I feel it gets harder, like, you know, the oversaturation of models and all these paid subscription platforms and fans in terms of like getting access to us, having those demands constantly coming at you all the time. I don’t know if we’ve coming at you is the wrong choice of words, but like, I find that fans are more demanding now, or maybe that’s just me. I don’t know. It’s either they’re more demanding or I just respect myself more in terms of my time and where what it yeah, yeah, maybe it’s that maybe it’s that. Maybe I’ve just grown up a little bit. This is my last talks. Yeah, maybe. Well, I think along with that, and it kind of leads into our next question, you’ve had a bit of a shift in your career. You recently married. Is this why you’re doing less in person sex work and more of it online? No, not at all. For me, it’s going touching based on what I said about like valuing my time and what I think is worth it or not. For myself, marriage has nothing to do with it. My husband is so supportive and he’s been there since day one. He knows exactly what I do and it’s just extremely supportive. So that can never be a reason for myself. Maybe the reason for some, but that’s never a reason for me. For myself, it’s just like the time to get ready, the time to go somewhere, the time and the money spent to conduct in person work just is not aligning with where I am right now with life. Like for myself, I like to be in the comfort of my own home mostly and like not have to go out from that comfort zone too much. And what I mean by that is just like, I want to make as much money as I can and really try to maximize that. And I don’t have to leave my house. I can work from home comfortably or I can work from wherever I am on vacation and I really enjoy that. I’ve really like leaned into that energy. That’s kind of where I’m at right now and like, I know we’ll be talking about later on, but like that’s also like, you know, why I’m not dancing as much. One of the reasons why I’m not dancing as much, but I’ll leave that conversation for later. Yeah. It’s a little spicy. Yeah. Definitely. You know, you mentioned something earlier about financial discrimination. Let’s touch on that. And that’s something that I’ve discussed many times on this podcast. Talk to Mike Stabil, Allison Bowden, the two of the FFSC. Talk to Savannah Sly. I need to have her on. Yeah. Yeah. She’s phenomenal. You know, I’ve talked to Ricky from Woodhole, you know, kind of the group of superstars of advocacy in our industry. And we’ve talked a lot about financial discrimination. Now I know FFSC is trying to do something about it because they’re working on and they’ve applied for a credit union for adult workers, which is amazing. But talk a little bit about financial discrimination and how it impacts you. Yeah. It really just depends on like what kind of context or perspective you’re asking in terms of like financial discrimination. Like for myself, attitudes towards sex workers, we can start there. There are a lot of assumptions and stereotypes that come with that. Like it’s an assumption that we make, we all make a ton of money, that this work is quote-unquote easy. And actually there’s like a lot of work that comes behind it. But like, I don’t know, like some of the attitudes, and this is just like one angle, and I’m not sure if you’re asking about this angle, but I won’t give you my answer for this angle. But with these assumptions that I have mentioned to you, the assumptions that can be make a lot of money, that’s not everyone’s reality. Yeah. Like I feel like the average, and I remember reading a stat on this and I can’t remember where it’s from or what the percentage is. I’m not going to quote it completely, but I feel like the average sex worker doesn’t make a ton of money. I think it’s like something like super low. Like yeah, like it’s actually, I don’t want to say super low, but like comparable to an entry level office job, at least here in Canada. Well, I’ve heard the average only fans model makes, I don’t know, a couple hundred, and I will quote it because it was pretty close, was like a couple hundred a month. Yeah. I’ll be transparent. I am in that bucket of only fans. Only fans bucket for me is like, I don’t care to have it, but it’s kind of like you need to have it because everyone’s a familiar with it. Only fans for me, I make it like a few hundred extra a month, which actually takes a lot of time for me to upkeep versus like if I’m camming, I could easily make that in like a day, you know, or like when I’m stripping, I can easily make that in a few hours, right? So like, I think that stereotype is really dangerous because like even when I’m unfortunately being introduced at parties and stuff too, like it’s not great that my friends are like, oh my God, she does this and this, like it’s not great. But then once you, once it’s out in the open and this label of sex worker gets slapped on my face, then everyone’s asking about money. Everyone’s asking about this and that and like, I don’t know, people treat you differently, not just because of the label. I mean, yes, they’ll treat you that because of like the stigma that comes with it, but also like when money’s involved with anything, I think people just always treat you differently, whether you like it or not. Absolutely. But how about bank accounts and things like that? Have you, have you faced any of that? I don’t want to jinx anything. You know, yeah, it hasn’t personally happened to me. So far so good, knock on wood. I feel very grateful and lucky that that has not happened to you, but that it’s happened to friends of mine, whether PayPal gets shut down or their bank account gets shut down. And that is like a really scary reality for sex workers because that’s, you know, your client writes something like a note on his quote unquote donation and that is a red flag for the bots or for whoever’s like looking at those accounts that like, okay, this isn’t a legitimate form of making money. This is criminal. This is illegal terms and conditions, right? Conditions, unfortunately. Yeah. And that can even, I mean, the terms and conditions conversation can extend to a lot of things too. You, I mean, that has happened to me personally where my account has been shut down on a platform because, you know, I didn’t fully understand what I was getting myself into for a certain act. And then, you know, having to kick, beg and scream to get my account back. That’s been hard. What was the platform? It was a camming platform that I’m still on right now. It was stream-aged, but yeah, basically I’m still on stream-aged. It’s fine. I got my account back. That’s been great, but that hasn’t been everyone’s reality, right? And like, yeah, like this, it’s scary because like that is like your money. That is your money that you use, that you make. Even in our industry, it happens, which is amazing. By the way, pro tip, don’t use PayPal. Don’t use PayPal. Yeah, right. My God, don’t use PayPal to receive payments for anything in adult. God sakes. They will shut your account and they can freeze your money. They can take your money. So don’t do that. Please don’t do that. Yes. Anytime the topic comes up, I always preach the same thing too. So I’m like, please don’t, please don’t. I love God now. I know it’s painful. Read the terms and conditions. Make sure that porn or sex work or anything else is not in there as something that is not allowed. And you know, be very, very careful because it’s your money. How much longer do you plan to work in this industry? And when you leave, will advocacy take most of your time? Yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately, Bruce. Because yeah, like I have some like potentially some big life changes happening next year that is happening that might be having my personal life. So like I don’t know how long that is, but I’ve been kind of planning a little bit right now to plan for when I’m potentially about to leave or perhaps take a hiatus. I don’t know what that’s going to look like yet, but it might be sooner than we think. So I’ve been thinking about that a lot and trying to set myself up in terms of trying to get as many passive like constraints as I can now and just try to build my fan base while I can now. And I don’t know how long I’ll be actively doing this for and I don’t know if I’ll be returning after, you know, potentially having a baby next year. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, potentially. I’m not sure. We’ll see what my body decides to do, but that’s kind of like a plan for next year. And you know, I’ve thought about like, you know, there’s so many, I have so many peers and colleagues in the industry that have like gone back to work and they’ve been amazing. And I like, I’m so impressed and inspired by that. I just don’t know what that’s going to look like. And I’m just keeping it up in the air because I’d like to try to remain as neutral as possible because like I don’t want to set myself up to be disappointed, you know, when you have all these expectations and you’re like, I’m going to go back, I’m going to start working right away and I just don’t know what my mental capacity is going to be at the time, my energy level. I don’t even know how I’m going to even look at myself the same and think that I’m like quote unquote sexy anymore. Oh, you’ll be sexy. You’ll just be a mouth. You’ll just be a hot mouth. Give me a break. You can’t convince me you won’t still be sexy staff. I’ll take it. Thank you. You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You are. I have been asking that a lot like for myself. So we shall see. And like in the guess in terms of like the second part of the question, I think well, advocacy take most of my time. I don’t think so. I think I will have to take a step back from that too. And like I am pretty involved with the advocacy scene here in Vancouver and I’ve already kind of given them a heads up with the two boards that I sit on with the two organizations that I one of the organizations that I chair the other organization I’m a director. So it’s busy. But I’ve already kind of given the heads up like I don’t know what’s going to happen next year. But this is kind of like what I’m trying to plan for myself and my potential like family next year. So yeah, I don’t know. I just it’s big question marks again, just I don’t want to be disappointed with like promising too many things when I think the first priority would probably be my family. Sure. Absolutely. Hey, whatever you decide to do, I know it’ll be something that makes you happy. So that’s good. Thank you. And we should give the disclaimer. We are doing this interview in November right after the election and it will run in 2025, which I think is what you’re referring to as next year. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. Or maybe it’ll be 20, 20, you know. I know dancing is a passion for you. How much are you still stripping? Not a lot right now. And honestly, that has been both a decision of mine and my agency. So this is a frustrating topic. Frustrating topic in the sense that to be a feature dancer here in the West Coast of Canada, specifically in Vancouver, you have to be represented by an agency. I have an agent. She’s okay. I’m not getting the impression you really feel that way, but we’ll move on. Tell me how you really feel. Yeah, your tone of voice didn’t indicate she’s okay. I like to be transparent. Yes, you do. But you know, like there’s so many new people coming into the industry. There’s all those influx of new girls that come into the industry and it’s great. I think it’s awesome. But however, I am no longer getting my regular bookings anymore and that has like sucked. I’ve been really disappointed with that. I’ve been really disappointed and like me getting the leftover bookings is like, okay, no one wants to drive out an hour and 15 minutes to go to this random club in the middle of nowhere. I’m like, I guess I’ll take that one. Sure. So there’s that aspect that I’m like, you know, kind of bitter about because like, you know, it’s a whole thing. Like it’s very toxic, not the girls, but the agent and like agency and like the expectations that we’re supposed to have. Like there’s so many problems I can make there in terms of like not knowing the distance between an employee and an independent contractor and just them trying to dictate when we have to be at the club and all stuff. Like it’s a big mess. Well, I would imagine you’ve got a pretty good following though. Yeah, I have a decent following. Yeah, I have some like pretty nice regular and so I have unfortunately have not seen me in a long time, but they have at least follow me and other platforms. So that’s been good. But yeah, it’s been frustrating, but I will say that along with our conversation earlier in this episode talking about like, you know, reevaluating and reflecting on what I value my time at. I’m personally, the past couple years have been not great when it comes to stripping. And I don’t know if that’s a mixture of like the economy and inflation and people not being as generous anymore. But I’ve definitely looked those numbers have really dipped a lot. And when I’m doing the math of like, okay, the time to get ready, the time to commute to work, my gas money, the amount of active hours I am working at the club divided that by my earnings that week, it just doesn’t make any sense in terms of like, I can like yes a lot, a lot of money, it can be a lot of money to some people. But then I’d rather just be in the comfort of my own house, you know, making a little bit less money, but at least I’m only having to work like two hours versus six hours after working time and like the work it takes to get there. And just it just doesn’t make sense for me financial sense for me anymore. Can’t get another agent. No, no, because then the there’s only the one agency they have a monopoly here. And the closest of yeah, they have one is just the one agency. It’s the whole thing. And it’s honestly that side of the business. I am like, it’s probably one of the least favorite areas in the adult industry that I’m not a big fan of. Yeah, there’s a lot of politics with that. Yeah, you should find you should find some somebody in the industry with clout like a club owner and start an agency. Yeah. And then I mean the club owner, that’s like another thing. But I mean, they’re all affiliated with gang is here. Oh, it’s all mafia. Yeah, so it’s a little complicated. Oh, lovely. Lovely. I’m happy to be here at home. I bet you are. I bet you are. Yes. Okay, moving on. You have a real job as well. How do you balance the real world with your life and sex work? Yeah, quote unquote real job. Yeah, I have a couple, a couple quote unquote vanilla or civilian jobs. Like I work as a marketing consultant for a section of health educator and also work part time at a hotel. So it’s a lot. I actually just recently went like officially part time on paper at the hotel because I wanted to make more time for sex work and really prioritize this and with my plan of like, you know, really trying to garner my fan base while I can and also just, you know, help create more of the steady income stream that’s passive talking about like balancing. Well, first of all, I’m a Libra, so I’m good at juggling a lot of things and managing my time or so I like to think that I like to think that I’m organized. But it’s really is a lot of multitasking. To an extent, but a lot of multitasking and prioritization right now I’m liking kind of dividing my day into different chunks of time. So if I have like a couple hours of undisturbed time, then I’ll dedicate that to like my marketing gig and then if I have a certain times of the day, obviously, or more or much busier in the online world, which I’m camming so I prioritize those hours. And I guess like eating well and working out all the things like certain things are higher than others, right? Like obviously my health is really important. So I really try to prioritize health and self care and obviously money. It’s like those three are pretty high. So yeah, but I’m also trying to work on like being more forgiving and like, okay, you should probably take a break because I’m very, very go go go and I like balance, but I can be really extreme like I’m gonna be working at today. Yeah, like today it’s like been a long day. Like it’s 1030 at night where I am and I’d like, you know, taught a workshop today. I went to the gym, I cam, I worked a bit on my thing. My day in the life is like, it sounds hectic, but it’s actually, I would say evenishly valid if that makes any sense. So nice to be here. Yeah, organized chaos. There you go. The last time we talked about the war on porn, which is really also a war on sex work. And where do you see that today and where’s it going in your opinion? Oh, gosh, I mean, can tell what we were speaking about earlier. Yeah. The man whose name will go on said. Yes, like it’s not great. And it’s just going south. I feel like there’s more and more radical people out and more radical folks having power, being given power that are not friendly to sex workers. So it to me, it’s not pretty. Unfortunately, like I don’t know. I’m hoping that more progressive people will be able to stand up. And advocate for us. That’s like, there are so many of us that work in this industry. And you know, and so many more people that consume porn. So it’s like, come on. We need some people on our side. We need some like powerful people on our side. And I think that can make a difference. I just don’t know what or who that would look like. But hoping it’s within our lifetime that some progressive change will happen. But it feels like everyone’s against us though. Well, yeah, unfortunately, not everyone, but a lot. I was just I was just thinking today when I got a lovely response to a promo tweet for my interview with Mike Stabil of Free Speech Coalition. And I when I say lovely, I was being facetious from one of the anti porn haters. And I was just thinking, why can’t we do that? They’ve got so many numbers. We’ve got so many numbers. Why can’t we get our followers, our supporters together and go after the haters and advocate for us? Yeah, I also wanted the same thing. Like we I believe we have strength and numbers. I just don’t know. Like no one wants to take that risk. Unfortunately, I sound like a downer on this episode. I’m so sorry. I’m just like, really shouldn’t be realistic though too. Hey, Trump was just elected a week ago. I understand. I’m not exactly full of bubbly joy right now myself. Okay. Not doing any cartwheels around here. No. Yeah, I mean, I mean, talking about like the with ACT had some anus lie on. Did you guys have to talk about like the EPA, like the erotic professionals association? I think that’s what the acronym was. That we did not. I thought the EPA was the was the environmental protection agency. Sorry. No, no, I don’t believe that came up. We talked about a lot. Savannah was great and she’s been on and please listen to that episode because it was very important. Her new new moon fund is just fabulous. Yeah, that’s exactly why I want to bring her on to talk about that. I’m happy. Well, on your podcast. Yeah, I reached out to her. So, but yes, sorry to sidetrack. No, no, no, I’ll be glad to put you guys together for sure. Yeah. Yeah, like I know that she like helped found the EPA, which I believe the acronym stands for a broader professional association and like they were really trying to get more sex workers to know get out and vote. I’m just I’m now I’m curious about I want to like ask in that since post-election to be like, oh, what was the outcome for that? Because, you know, there’s so many of us that work in the industry. I’m curious to see like what the outcome was for those numbers that they were able to gather. Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, and tangent. Talk about your own personal milestones in the advocacy space since we last spoke. Oh, my gosh, this was some really great stuff. Honestly, it’s been a really fantastic last week and a half at the time of recording. I’ll work my way backwards. So you mean year and a half, right? Yeah, and that too. Yeah. So it’s not going to take too much. I’ll name the highlights. But I was nominated for an Allyship Award specifically for the Philanthropist of the Year Award. Congratulations. Yeah, I was nominated and they actually ended up winning the award this past weekend, which was such a surprise. So that was really cool. That took place in Waterloo, Ontario. It was part of this sex worker friendly, inclusive, pole dancing competition, a discompetition kind of honor, like what studios are doing great work, what individuals are doing amazing work in their community. That was my category. And there was like another, like what’s the best club that’s being really inclusive and great. So I ended up winning that, which was again, took me by surprise and so lovely to be, like acknowledged that way. So I’m very happy about that. Just the week before that, or not even the day before that, I was speaking, I was invited to speak at Gala, which is part of the Wish drop-in center, which is an organization here in Vancouver in the downtown East Side, which is like one of the roughest neighborhoods in Canada, and that they help support a lot of street based and survival sex workers. And I was asked to do a speech on sex worker rights. So the speech was very well received. I feel really great about it. And just honored to have been asked to present at this amazing Gala. It was so much fun. Yeah. And other than that, like, you know, guest lecturing and just being able to hear the testimonials from all the students that I get to teach. And of course, like the master’s student that I’m working with, her thesis defense is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m hoping to watch and support her there. So lots of really cool things happening in this space there. And of course, just being really heavily involved with the two organizations that I briefly mentioned earlier, I didn’t actually name them, but Living in Community and Swan Van Cooper, those are two organizations. One of them helps, you know, benefit, helps support and benefit sex workers. The other one helps migrant and immigrant sex workers here in BC. So yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy work here locally because I think it’s really important to get involved. And I really want to like put my money or my mouth is basically after all these years of advocating on the show, I chose to start doing more volunteer work here a couple of years ago, and it’s been so fulfilling. And I’m going to make a prediction. You told me that you plan to pull back and not do advocacy after you retire. My prediction is you continue to do it. Yeah, I know. I just because I hear your voice, I hear it in your voice. You’re so passionate about it. I can’t see you stopping. I know. I just like don’t know what capacity. I will be chairing anymore because Karen takes a lot of work, but it’s like it doesn’t feel like work to me because I really feel that the work is really meaningful and purposeful and important. So yeah, very, very happy and proud to contribute where I can. That’s my prediction. Anyway, we’ll see. Discuss the need for community in the sex work space when it comes to issues like isolation and burnout. Oh my gosh. It’s so needed. Community is so important. As a person that started off in sex work as a sugar baby back in the day, I couldn’t talk to anyone about what I did because it was really shameful and filled a stigma back in the day. I just wish I had resources and people and community and people to talk to back in the day. I wouldn’t have made as many mistakes or risky decisions. Especially with, I can definitely speak to burnout as well because burning out is such a real thing because you are working for yourself. There’s always this constant need to want to push yourself further and further and let’s just work another couple of hours. We’ll continue working with another hundred dollars and we need that. And it can be really tiring because this work can be really physical too on our bodies and us not getting enough rest is terrible. The next thing you do, you’re burnt out and then you literally can’t do anything for a week and then that is actually more harmful to your business. So you’re not getting the adequate rest and then now you’re just like, "Okay, now I’m out of a week. What is that?" And dollar signs. It’s terrible. And I know we’re all guilty of it. You lose customers and they don’t come back. Yeah. Yeah. Because it’s all about maintaining those relationships with your fans, with your clients and stuff. So it’s really imperative that you should really take care of yourself and encourage breaks. We need to stop this whole attitude in terms of like, "Why do we need to take a break? There’s no such thing as breaks. You just keep going, keep going, keep going." You’re not an energy rider, it’s funny. That battery is going to run out at some point or you’re going to get sick. It’s just so many terrible things. It’s just like an athlete. Athletes need to take breaks. Absolutely. They absolutely treat that the same way. Take a time out. Yeah, take a time out. It’s encouraged. What’s the latest with your podcast strip by Sia? And what exciting guests have you had on lately? Oh my gosh. It’s been so great. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been really focusing on intentionality with this season. So we’re on season seven right now. So I’ve been really trying to tackle and find people that will be a good fit for the topics that I have in mind. And I have so many good topics right now. Some really notable episodes and guests that I’ve had on. I’m not biased, but maybe I’m biased. But I had my executive director and one of our program managers at Swan come on to the show and that episode is actually airing like this coming Sunday. But I know we’re recording November. But yeah. Eww, already beyond. And it’ll be out. So y’all can listen to it. But yes, we’re talking about the immigrant and migrant sex worker experience and how they often get ignored or left out of any kind of legislation. They have like stricter things with their visa here in Canada. Like you, it literally says when you have a visa, you cannot be participating in sex work. So a lot of the work is underground under the table. But that also exposed you to more risk averse situations for you to be abused, et cetera, et cetera. So I’m really glad to finally be doing this topic because I’ve been wanting to do this topic for a long time because it’s a perspective we don’t hear about often. I’m so proud of that episode and I can’t wait for that one to air. What other topics am I tackling? Yes, that I’m having on. So many good episodes I have recorded. I loved having Violet Voss on. She was incredibly informative. Talk about online doming versus in-person doming, what that contrasted the similarities, what baby doms are doing wrong right now, like how dangerous that can be. I was speaking with Annie Temple, who’s an icon in the city where I am in. Yeah, Vancouver, Canada. I finally got her on and I just read her book. She’s amazing. I’m going to be interviewing tomorrow with Dominic Ford. Oh. Yeah, just for fans. I’ve had Dom on a couple of times. I’ve known him forever. I was going to say, I’m pretty sure you have on your show too, but I’m curious to see what that conversation is going to be like. I don’t usually have a lot of founders on, but... He’s outstanding. Make sure you tell him I said hi. Absolutely. He said hi. I mean, those are just a handful of people I’m having on or have had on just very memorable conversations. Yeah, Dominic’s an icon. He was a star in the gay porn world and then established just for fans and that has been a huge success. Yes. I am so excited to talk to him about that. I’ve had a Christmas argument fall down from my tree. I hope you didn’t catch that. Sorry about that. It’s okay. We move on. Well, Steph, on that note, I’d like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk. I hope we’ll get a chance to do this again soon. Well, thank you so much for having me and then maybe we’ll see what life updates happen this year or even next year. We’ll chat again. Thank you. Thank you. The next tip today is part three of how to buy a site. Last week we talked about finding the right site to buy. Once you find it, what do you do? Once you’ve either reached the broker of the site or the seller, review the information about it. The broker should provide you with the following. A profit and loss statement of at least three years that’s up to date. If it’s June and they give you financials only through the end of the previous year, you need to see what the site is doing now, not last year. If it’s a pay site, get a username and password for the site so that you can review the content. Ask how often the site is updated. Get some history on the site. How long has it been in business, the story behind the site, and why the seller wants to sell. Get an inventory of the content and how much of it has current technologies. Find out if all the content is exclusive to that site. Ask the seller if the content has ever been on VOD or DVD. See if there are any clip stores the content is on. Find out how much the content costs to produce and what the current cost to production is. Very importantly, see if this operation can run without the owner. Do they do the shooting themselves or do they hire someone to do it? And if there’s an outside producer, will that person continue to provide content for the site? Find out how many new joins and rebuilds there are a day. Ask them what’s the retention rate on the site. And find out if they do advertising on the site and where they get their traffic. Ask for Google Analytics access so you can see where the traffic comes from. This information will give you the opportunity to truly evaluate what it is you’re buying. Then if everything looks good to you and you want the site, it’s time to make an offer. Only you can decide what the site is worth to you. If you’re working with a broker, say, oh, I don’t know, adult site broker, of course your broker can help you determine the value of the site. We’ll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we’ll be speaking with Natalie Pannon of Mojo Host. And that’s it for this week’s adult site broker talk. I’d once again like to thank my guest, Steph Sia, from the podcast Striped by Sia. See you again next week on adult site broker talk. I’m Bruce Friedman. [MUSIC]
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