Axel: From office job to pornstar in the making.

The average day

Axel is a well known pornstar and all-round sex worker based in South London, I just so happened to meet up with him on a recent business trip they took down to Manchester. We walked around my local park and shot what I assume is a lot more vanilla content than what Axel is used to shooting. There was something quietly moving about seeing the gentler side of someone so towering in both stature and success. Axel turned out to be a sweetheart, putting feminism and equality within the industry,  at the front of his conversation topics. 

From an “average person's” point of view, a pornstar's life is full of sex and money.  Particularly (ill informed) men often say their dream job would be a male pornstar, but they don't understand the mass amount of work and dedication that goes on behind the scenes. I asked Axel what an average day would look like to him.

“Oh, the average day that's really quite dull. Average day is wake up, check my socials, my platforms for messages from fans. See if I can make any sales, check my emails for sales from the clip sites, and then check social media, do some networking, and then really just jump into editing and promo. Which is what I would say, is probably 90% of this job. And a lot of people are like, ‘oh, you make adult content?’ and they think it's all just fucking and it's really not. I have seen quite a few people fall into that trap where they only focus on the fun side and not the actual hard work side. Not to say that performing isn't hard work sometimes as well, but it's nowhere near as hard as the promotion side, because being seen on the internet, as I'm sure as any freelancer, or any person who has a business that requires visibility, understands it's difficult as fuck.”

We went on to chat about Axel's most successful way of promoting his work, they referenced Twitter, Elon Musk's most recent online endeavour and the conflicting notion of using a platform owned by a fascist, to make a living. “I hate to say it, but it's Twitter, and I will continue to dead name that platform, and that's only because it works. If I didn't have to have engagement, or my stupid little blue tick on Twitter, I would not because… fascism. But in terms of what actually works the best for me at this stage; being as explicit as possible. Twitter seems to work. I've lost two Twitter accounts now, one because I called out racism, and the second one because they found out that I made an account after calling out racism, and each time I did that, my earnings dropped off a cliff. So I think it's definitely a lesson to everybody to not put all of your eggs in one basket, and my eggs aren't in one basket, but that's my most profitable basket.” 

Transition into sex work 

I wondered how he had gotten into this scene, Axel seemed so well educated within sex work that I assumed they had been involved for the most of their adult life…

“One of my long term ex partners set up like a foot page, you know when everyone was like, ‘I'm gonna sell feet pics and become a millionaire.’ So she did that. Never actually did anything with it. And then we got talking about it years later, I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds like an interesting thing. And we just kind of flirted with the idea for about two years, and then we started seeing it going a lot more mainstream… And while all of this was going on, we were terrorized by capitalism. I had a “fancy city job” that depressed me, and she was working in beauty, which also depressed her. One day I actually had a daydream, and I was like, it would be really good right now, if this job let me go, pay me my three months, and then I could just go and focus on sex work. A week later, my partner lost their job due to mental health, and then three days after that, I was made redundant. They had moved my job to a much cheaper country, so it was like, my daydream came true. So I was like, wow, I've got this money to survive on for a decent amount of time, and we can start doing what we wanted to do. So we did. It didn't really go to plan, because I think she wasn't entirely sure if it was for her. I think, you know, being a woman, there's a lot of shame and stigma involved that came from friends and family, so I definitely understand that. But once I got to the swing of it, I realized it was for me, and then I've just been going with it ever since.”

Schooling for sex workers 

One of the biggest complications that came up for me, as an event organiser and photographer is that there aren't really any regulations in place when it comes to the sex worker and kink community. Within specific events you have your own little ecosystems with their own rules, but for the most part of it, everybody is freelance and self employed, it's much different than the 9-5 structured workplace. There's no HR, there's no boss you have to speak to, there's no schooling or specific systems of education, the government and police don't take sex worker rights seriously. In some ways it really is the wild west out there, you have to completely look after yourself, prove you're reputable and fight for your rights. I asked Axel what his stance was: 

“Because there aren't really any barriers to entry, pretty much for anyone, if you have a phone with a working camera, you can join the industry. You might not be successful with just any phone and any camera, but pretty much anyone can join. So I think because there's no barriers, no qualifications, there's no test, there's no vetting beyond you know, community vetting and word of mouth, it does attract a lot of people who are only out for themselves.

…I have seen some terrible, terrible practices. To give an example, it was a massage scene, (terrible scene.) My friend was one of the performers. You know, she's professional, so she made it work. They were using that cocoa butter, like moisturizer oil, and it was used for massaging, terribly, and then it was used for lubrication. I watched that scene a few times because it's funny. And then I realized, oh, shit, he did not just do that. And I just don't even think that something that even entered his mind, that could be a potentially harmful thing to do. You know, at best, you're throwing off the pH. At worst, you're introducing a vehicle for thrush or BV to just thrive. But you know, most people that don't have vulvas don't really think about stuff like that. Like I use a lot of coconut oil in my scenes because it helps me get my cock rings on and off. And also, I can my body in it, I can also cook with it…”

As someone who has been in the scene for three years, I have had my fair share of encounters with predators and those looking to take advantage of people in the scene.  I know Axel had recently gone through an incident, regarding predatory behaviour so this naturally came up while chatting. We talked about how the scene welcomes in vulnerable people, although unfortunately this leaves them open to manipulation…

“I think probably three largest demographics that this scene attracts are vulnerable people, socio economically or otherwise, neurodivergent people, and predators, and it probably overlaps through different levels between the three. But yeah, that's interesting. I found neurodivergence is incredibly over-represented in the sex industry…

I have quite a few disabled friends that really enjoy the job, because they can do it all on their terms. Most of it, pretty much all of it, actually, can be done from home. Pick your own hours. Having a fatigue day or an achy day, just take a day off and be honest. I need to make money to survive. You have the freedom to do that… It is probably one of the highest paying freelance positions that also has zero barrier to entry… And that works for a lot of people. Why work minimum wage, five, six days a week, when you could work four to eight hours a day, three days a week, and then earn the same, if not more.”

Advice for those starting out in the industry

“If you're a man or masc in any form of sex work, (or just full stop,) understand feminism inside and out. Understand intersectional feminism inside and out, understand consent inside and out. That's the bare minimum. A lot of people fail that but that's your baseline. Everything else that comes after that is a bonus, that's to stop you from harming people and also puts you in a good position to make genuine friends.”

Axel went on to comment on how a lot of it comes down to luck, mostly orienting around physical appearance and how “Well endowed” you are. “Some people like girth master are born with a seven inch girth cock and build their entire brand around it. One thing which I do admire, is he admits he's just lucky and didn't need to earn it” His most important tips include understanding lighting, staying consistent and eventually saving up for the best camera you can comfortably afford. The Blackmagic Camera app is apparently a “game changer” as well as angles being vital. His final remark was to learn your niches, before deciding on not gatekeeping his holy trifecta of niche money makers: piss, puke and anal. 

If you'd like to see more of Axel you can find them on Instagram @axel.reigns !