“Be So Fucking Proud of What You Do”

Paths of Emancipation in the Sex Workers Jungle

Free online porn changed everything in the adult entertainment industry. Tons of videos, no more money around. If you ask the survivors, they will tell you about harsh times. Then, slowly, the new environment presented some possibilities to the braves. But still, tough industry.

Imagine someone joining this kind of environment saying: ‘I want to provide tools for adult performers to be safe, feel respected, empowered and successful‘. That’s Bella French, who co-founded ManyVids in 2014. Five years later, ManyVids.com counts 58,414 girls and 886,477 videos and is one of the top 1000 websites in the world according to Alexa Rank. And Bella French, ManyVids CEO, is still talking about the same topics:

Model First

This is what she told us: “From Day One, the ManyVids business strategy has always been model centric. Our only priority from a business perspective, and how we approach decision-taking, is through the lens of how it will impact our business partners, our MV Stars. We drive our feature development to ensure it benefits the MV Community, they are our only stakeholders. When we explore how to evolve the MV Platform, the only question we ask is, how will this benefit the content creators?  That is the compass that drives the evolution of our product and given how far we’ve come in over 5 years, I believe it is this strategy resonates well with the growing MV Community. We work to serve them, it’s that simple.”

But the road to make adult industry a great place to work for everyone is still long. As Bella said in an MV Video during the campaign #WeAreMany, dec. 2017: “Abuse, violence, discrimination. I’ve not yet met a sex worker that has not have been though a lot of abuse in her or his life“. Here at ThePornMap we will follow and support ManyVids ambitions and projects. We want to see if their experiment will last and became the norm throughout the industry.

Revolution

Bella describes today’s industry situation like a place where something very important is happening: “What is new is the groundswell we are witnessing taking place in the adult industry. Individual content creators are rising up to rightfully claim their power and embrace their beauty and worth, and mainstream society is beginning to recognize sex workers and welcome them into the fold. We are so happy to be at the epicenter of this movement and doing everything we can to help this revolution. The harsh divide between adult entertainers and the rest of society is fading, as more and more media outlets turn their attention to sex workers, and portray them as talented, hardworking individuals just like anyone else. We are entering a new era of inclusivity and it’s only the beginning.”

Revolution is a word she likes to use. We like it as well here. And one of the toughest battles ManyVids is fighting is probably against performers social stigma. Which is recognised by many performers like the biggest issue of the industry. Bella is proud to remember that she was a sex worker, and always will be. Watching ManyVids documentary #WeAreMany, the idea is that sex workers have to be proud of their job. And this is revolutionary. It worked in other situations. It will work with sex workers.