Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 110 with Dr. Monique of Pineapple Support

Speaker 1 (0s): This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site Broker and welcome to Adult Site Broker Talk, where every week we interview one of the movers and shakers of the adult industry, and we discuss what's going on in our business. Plus we give you a tip on buying and selling websites this week. This week we'll be speaking with therapist Dr. Monique.

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The main developers available to continue as a contractor only 372,000 us dollars. Now time for this week's interview, my guest today and adult type broker talk is Dr. Monique Dr. Monique, thanks for being with us today on adult side broker talk,

Speaker 2 (2m 44s): Thank you for having me

Speaker 1 (2m 46s): Great to have you. Dr. Monique is a mental health therapist contracted with pineapple support who provides therapy and coaching services to performers around the world. By the way adults, I broke her talk is a, a pineapple support, and we believe very strongly in what they do. She earned a doctorate in behavioral health with a primary focus in health psychology from Arizona state university. She also holds a master's in mental health counseling with an emphasis in crisis and trauma from Walden university.

She's a long time therapeutic practitioner who has a unique passion for working with professionals in the adult industry and sex workers of all sexual expressions. She's contracted. As I said, with pineapple support and works daily to de-stigmatize mental health and sex workers in her experience, she's noticed that sex work is an industry that lacks a safe space for sex workers to be their authentic selves. As a result, her longtime goal has been to connect and help our clients develop better emotional, cognitive, and positive coping skills while valuing, respecting, and providing sex workers with the dignity they deserve.

She brings an effective blend of experience, clarity, concern, and action to the therapeutic process. In order to maximize treatment outcomes, provide genuine healing and wholesomeness to her clients so they can make positive changes in their life. Now she has a private practice rose LLC. That's based in Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas in a work with sex workers, and she does up to 16 sessions of therapy, regardless of location and sorry, Dr.

Monique that's all the time we have for today. Just kidding.

Speaker 2 (4m 34s): So

Speaker 1 (4m 37s): How did you first get interested in working with sex workers?

Speaker 2 (4m 42s): I've always been kind of an outcast. The majority of my close friends, close female friends are sex workers, or they work in the adult industry from Arizona to California to Miami. And they have been a part of, of my, of my own personal growth. And I figured the only way for me to give back to them other than going in, supporting them at their events or at their clubs or wherever there might be performing, that would be, you know, to, to work with sex workers on a more intimate level and create that safe space for them.

Speaker 1 (5m 24s): That's fantastic. Yes. Sex workers definitely are outcasts by society and to find somebody like yourself who has that commitment, that's, that's really fantastic.

Speaker 2 (5m 38s): Very rewarding for me.

Speaker 1 (5m 40s): Yeah. It would be rewarding because you know, when you're dealing with a group of people that others don't want to work with, it must be really nice to be dug in with that group.

Speaker 2 (5m 56s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (5m 57s): So it is sex worker counseling, all you do, or do you work with non-sex workers?

Speaker 2 (6m 4s): Yeah. So it's actually not all I do. It's so half of my private practice is adults and half of those adults are sex workers or in the adult industry. And then the other half are non-sex workers and then the other half. So the other 50% are children, children and families.

Speaker 1 (6m 24s): Interesting. Interesting. So what do you, what do you see the differences between the issue sex workers face and non-sex workers

Speaker 2 (6m 34s): For me? I would say my experience in the last couple of years kind of post COVID has been just the stigma around the job or the jobs that's about it.

Speaker 1 (6m 48s): Okay. Okay. Can I, can you get into a little more detail on that?

Speaker 2 (6m 52s): Yeah. So, I mean, when someone comes in, even if they're referred through pineapple support, they don't know, they don't know that. I know that they're a sex worker, unless I tell them. Right. So they don't, there's a place on my intake form that says, will you tell me about your employment history? Like, are you currently employed? And most people leave that blank. Even non-sex workers leave that blank. So it's something that I always have to bring up during the first session after we chop it up for the first 15, 20 minutes, I asked them.

So, you know, do you need a, do you need an excuse for missing work today? And then usually it comes out then? Well, no, because I work for myself. This is what I do, or yes, I do. Can you give me an excuse? Like a doctor's not.

Speaker 1 (7m 37s): Yeah. Do you find that sex workers are less likely to tell you what they do or more likely?

Speaker 2 (7m 45s): I would say after the first, like 15, 20 minutes, they're more likely to tell me everything.

Speaker 1 (7m 52s): , they're more open. Okay.

Speaker 2 (7m 55s): And I also don't look like a lot of therapists. I think when they come in or they read my credentials online, they expect something. So I try and have all of my social media and stuff, kind of reflective of me. I post pictures of myself or post pictures of my family and my husband. I don't look like the typical therapist, you know, they expect they're going to walk in and you're going to have like this cookie cutter person in the suits or something. I'm laying on a couch with a clipboard and that's not, that's not what I do.

Speaker 1 (8m 28s): Yeah. What's been your impression over time in sex worker, just issues. I mean, what issues are common with them

Speaker 2 (8m 44s): And say the most common ones are relationships like how to manage relationships well-being in the industry. Is that something that's possible? Is it something that's looked down? The other big one are addictions. So drugs, alcohol, even recreational alcohol, recreational, marijuana, tobacco, everything too much of something is bad. Too much of anything is bad. Too much. Coffee is probably the top two.

Speaker 1 (9m 19s): What about trauma?

Speaker 2 (9m 20s): Yeah, definitely a lot of trauma. And usually once we get into those first two topics, trauma always comes up.

Speaker 1 (9m 27s): Okay. When you're dealing with trauma with sex workers, what are your biggest challenges?

Speaker 2 (9m 37s): I I'd say the first biggest challenge is for them to say out loud to a stranger, what their trauma is. I always tell people, you know, in that first session, like I've been on the other side of the couch. I've been on the other side of the couch as a mom and as a human being in many different forms throughout my whole entire life. And as a wife and as a girlfriend and as an addict.

And so once I, once I kind of give them some self disclosure and let them know they're talking to another human being alphabet soup behind their name, to help them through their journey, they're usually able to open up.

Speaker 1 (10m 21s): So you've had addiction problems yourself,

Speaker 2 (10m 23s): Definitely.

Speaker 1 (10m 25s): Oh, wow. Do you want to get into any details?

Speaker 2 (10m 28s): My choice of drag was cocaine and in 2005, my oldest daughter's dad was murdered. And that's what I did to cope for a long time. And it took, you know, lots of things to happen. The world took that energy and did with it, what it did and told me I need to get my head out of my ass or I was going to lose my kid.

Speaker 1 (10m 57s): And you, you express your experiences. You tell them what you've been through.

Speaker 2 (11m 3s): Yeah. If I find it, it's going to be helpful for the therapeutic relationship or for the therapy P whatever's going on with them. Especially if I sense some hesitation, I'll let them know here. Let me tell you something about me. So you don't see me. Cause a lot of times people come in and they see, oh, a therapist while they're holier than thou furthest from the truth.

Speaker 1 (11m 27s): Yeah. Yeah. Talk about the trauma that you went through, obviously with the murder. Talk about that and talk about how it relates to the trauma that you see in sex workers. In general. I know you can't get into specifics with clients, but talk about the differences and the similarities.

Speaker 2 (11m 56s): I would say the only differences would be like the act of trauma. So my trauma was being the homicide survivor and their trauma. Some of them have very same, you know, similar stories or, you know, they are homicide survivors themselves. They refer to them as something else. I always refer to everyone who survived anything as a survivor. And so just the act, the actual trauma act is different, but everything else is the same.

The grief that goes along with it, you know, I think now there's nine stages of grief. So nine stages of grief in and out over the course of many years and many therapists and medication, even for me personally. And you know, there's still bouts where I get sad and that's what happens with people as they work through it, they feel like, okay, I've come to a place in my journey where they've accepted this. And then lo and behold, you're driving down the street and something comes on your, you know, playlist and you're hearing your feelings again.

It takes you back to whatever happened.

Speaker 1 (13m 1s): How long ago was that?

Speaker 2 (13m 2s): Well, it was in 2005. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (13m 6s): Sure, sure. But yeah, I, in 17 years that doesn't go away.

Speaker 2 (13m 11s): No, no, not when you have a kid that looks like him every day.

Speaker 1 (13m 14s): Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine. I, I can't imagine actually. So what types of trauma do you face dealing with sex workers? What are some of the acts of trauma? When we talk about sex workers, I know we're talking about adult performers, but we're also talking about prostitutes to, to use a slang word. And I'm sure in Las Vegas, you come across a lot of those, it being one of the prostitution capitals of America.

What types of trauma do you come across in dealing with your clients

Speaker 2 (13m 59s): And say a lot of trauma related to consent? So sexual trauma, addiction, trauma, a lot of domestic violence like intimate, intimate violence, intimate partner violence. IPV is a new term. So a lot of, a lot of violence like that. And then, you know, for my clientele, I'd say of the 25% sex workers that I work with about 10 to 15% of them have children.

So this trauma related to their children that they deal with as a parent,

Speaker 1 (14m 38s): Okay. Now the sex workers that deal with clients out there, do you find that there's a lot of violence against them that they relate to you

Speaker 2 (14m 50s): I'd say so during quarantine, and then since Las Vegas has kind of opened back up to kind of run, normally, if you will, it's minimized or at least from what's reported to me.

Speaker 1 (15m 6s): Interesting. Interesting. Now the people with children, what kind of traumas do they go through?

Speaker 2 (15m 14s): Well, things like getting their kids into school, the majority of my clients have kids that are like in middle school, middle schoolers, look that look up on the internet. Lots of things. So the potential of, you know, some, some parent getting found out like, Hey, your mom does this or Hey, your dad does this and kind of forecasting. What is that conversation going to look like? Or if it's already happened, let's figure out how we can make it an open conversation to not make them feel uncomfortable, or you feel uncomfortable as a parent.

Speaker 1 (15m 52s): Do you find most of your sex worker clients that their kids know what they do?

Speaker 2 (15m 59s): I'd say it's like half and half.

Speaker 1 (16m 1s): Okay. And I would imagine that for the other half, well, for both half. So it probably creates issues, right?

Speaker 2 (16m 10s): Yeah. Yeah. It definitely does. I don't know if you have kids, Bruce, but kids will throw anything in your face parent or no parents.

Speaker 1 (16m 18s): I was a kid I got picked on bloody. So, you know. Yeah. I mean, I understand, I understand how cruel children can be. I think everyone can cause they were all kids at one point. So yes. And I can only imagine. I mean, what happens when somebody works in porn? Okay. Works in an adult and I mean, let's face it. Okay. Kids sadly are able to get on the internet and look at adult content.

What happens generally when a client of yours gets found out and they come to you,

Speaker 2 (17m 3s): It's usually a conversation. I process it with them. And when I say process, we go through it all, like, how was it brought to your attention? What did you feel in that moment? What are you feeling now in that moment telling me what can we do to work through it? A lot of times we'll have to bring the child in and they have a session with me, their parents. They're kind of me as a mediator just to kind of get everything out in the open.

Speaker 1 (17m 32s): Yeah. I guess having children as clients definitely helps that.

Speaker 2 (17m 38s): Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1 (17m 41s): Okay.

Speaker 2 (17m 41s): I have lots of cool things in my office, in my office too. So I have like a sand tray. I have Legos. So a lot of times, even I think my adults play more with the sand tray or the kinetic sand have like these little emotion cons. I can send you a picture of the adults play with more with those than the kids do.

Speaker 1 (18m 1s): We're all big kids now. Aren't we really now how can your mental health cause burnout?

Speaker 2 (18m 11s): Well, what do you define? How do you define burnout? Can I ask you that?

Speaker 1 (18m 17s): I define it. That's a good question. Why don't you tell me how you define it?

Speaker 2 (18m 24s): So for me, when someone comes in and they're telling me, Hey, Dr. Mooney gone and filling, let's see, I'm filling one of the big trigger words. This year has been imposter syndrome, thanks to tick knock and all that. So I have lots of clients coming in sex workers and they taught me, I'm feeling very, imposturous like, I play this person on scene or I play this person at work. And then I come home and I was just me. And so there's a lot of, self-doubt a sense of failure, not being good enough, feeling helpless or defeated, or even trapped feeling detached.

So like, you know, they can be working these wonderful doc jobs, a great, you know, see me, but leave and just felt completely like, not themselves. Like they're no longer there. A lack of motivation is another sign of burnout, having like a cynical or negative outlook, decreased satisfaction in things that they once like, like having no, no sense of accomplishment essentially.

Speaker 1 (19m 34s): Hmm. You mentioned motivation. So how can your mental health affect your motivation and what do you do about it as a therapist?

Speaker 2 (19m 44s): So your mental health can affect motivation. And a lot of ways, I don't know if too many people know this, but I was taught in my master's program. That there's five stages of burnout. There's a honeymoon phase, which is where you feel so burnt out, but you know, you gotta do it. And so it's like the stage of that comes with lots of energy, lots of optimism, lots of motivation. There's the onset of stress phase, which comes right around when that honeymoon phase dwindles out and you start to experience the stress.

So I don't know if you've ever done like so many podcasts recordings in a week and you feel like, oh yeah, I'm so, so happy and excited and motivated to do it. And then comes like the next week. And you've just like

Speaker 1 (20m 32s): Completely

Speaker 2 (20m 33s): Pummeled into the hole. And you're like, oh my God, I got to edit these now. Or I don't know the processes, but you're just like, Ugh. So that's the onset stress phase of

Speaker 1 (20m 42s): Burnout,

Speaker 2 (20m 44s): Chronic chronic stress phase where that onset phase continues and it doesn't go away. Then it's the actual burnout phase and then habitual burnout phase where you just don't, don't come out of it and you need to find help.

Speaker 1 (20m 58s): And once someone comes to you with that fifth phase, how do you get them out of it?

Speaker 2 (21m 5s): Well, hopefully they come to me by like the second or third base. But if I get them at the fifth stage, then I have to sit with them and kind of reevaluate what got them there. And that's really hard for people because in that moment, all they can think about is what got them to therapy in that very moment

Speaker 1 (21m 22s): Where they are.

Speaker 2 (21m 23s): Yeah. It's not until we meet three or four times that they're like, oh, okay. Well, I remember two months before I reached out to pineapple support and got paired with you, I was going through a, B and C and then we're able to kind of bring it back to light. I call it rakes through it. So I imagine like we live a life of leaves and when we're experiencing burnout, it turns into a big pile of leaves that we just landed. And then you need someone to help you break that out and I'm there to help you rake out everything.

We make piles and we throw some stuff away, some other stuff we don't need anymore.

Speaker 1 (22m 1s): Right. So how are sex workers with past unresolved traumas affected by sex worker experiences?

Speaker 2 (22m 11s): In my experience thus far, working with sex workers, what I'm coming to the conclusion too, is that a lot of sex workers who have unresolved trauma are in sex work to resolve that trauma,

Speaker 1 (22m 25s): Interesting

Speaker 2 (22m 26s): Sex work offers a lot of freedom to people who have previously been in a, in a controlling, you know, domestic violence relationship or controlling family life, a lot of older siblings and middle children. And if you're going to come from me, I'm sorry, but I'm a middle child. So, so I understand that

Speaker 1 (22m 49s): A I'm a beginning, middle and end child.

Speaker 2 (22m 53s): Oh, wow. Okay. And so I think a lot of, again, in my experience with my clientele, a lot of these performers have unresolved traumas that they're working through actively and that that's, what's kind of pushed them to the sex work industry.

Speaker 1 (23m 12s): So once they do that, and you said a lot of them are coming into sex work to try to confront their traumas, do those traumas get healed or do they not get healed or what ends up happening? In most cases

Speaker 2 (23m 31s): I would say, well, I don't know. I don't know in most cases, but I know what the clients that I see that I, or clients who, who are proactive on their mental health and asked for help probably have a, have a higher rate of working through that trauma. I think other times it goes the other way where like those addictions take into place, they go back into, you know, negative, unhealthy relationships, not just with significant others, but even with family members or with, with work environments.

Speaker 1 (24m 7s): I mean, in most cases, do you think that sex workers are totally healthy and I'm pro Megan in trouble for asking this, but are totally healthy mentally. And God knows, I don't know how many of us are when they come into sex work or are they coming into sex work and in, in a lot or most cases because of their past experiences,

Speaker 2 (24m 37s): I would say they're coming into sex work because of their past experiences.

Speaker 1 (24m 41s): Okay. And what are some of the past experiences that lead people into sex work?

Speaker 2 (24m 48s): I'm not sure. I can't speak to that as a whole though with my clientele. The themes that that are common are like the ones that I said, relationships, poor relationships, unhealthy relationships, not just with a significant other. It can be with previous employers, both in and out of sex work, family, you know, toxic family members. That's a big one. That's a real big one.

Speaker 1 (25m 14s): How about, how about, how about, how about their upbringing? How does your upbringing affect somebody getting into sex work as they're, as they're being raised by their parents?

Speaker 2 (25m 27s): One of my methodologies that I work from is a foundation of attachment styles attachment. So one of the first things I do with clients when they come in is I send them a short quiz that they complete. They send me the results and it basically gives me their attachment style. From there. I ask them some questions through a conversation similar, like the one we're having today and I evaluate their adverse childhood experiences.

And then from there I'm able to glean kind of what their childhood was like. Mostly what it ends up is, you know, people have an insecure or an unhealthy attachment style. So we latch on to different things in different ways because it makes us feel safe.

Speaker 1 (26m 16s): What is attachment style?

Speaker 2 (26m 18s): So attachment style is basically the way you interact with people, but there's four main ones. There's a secure attachment style, an anxious attachment style avoidance, which is avoidant and then fearful avoidant, which is kind of a disorganized, like that's the type of person where you're like, I want to be in a relationship and I'm going to make this relationship happen. The moment that motherfucker gets serious, you start blocking them and putting them on shine and not wanting to talk to them.

Speaker 1 (26m 50s): Ah, yes, yes. I dated one of those. So, you know, she had, she had, she had all kinds of issues. So how important is a sex worker support system and how diverse should their support system be?

Speaker 2 (27m 6s): I think sex workers, Stover support system should be as diverse as possible. It should not just be completely other sex workers will be completely just, you know, outside of the sex work and it should be a little bit of everyone and it should be people that support you, but at the same time, hold you accountable. And that's where it gets tricky. Because a lot of times, as people, as a person, as part of someone's support system, we want to, we want to help them.

And the last thing we want to do is piss them off. But in reality, what are we doing? We're enabling that person. We're enabling whatever behavior or whatever thing they're doing. That's not serving them. Right, right. So we're not doing them any good. So if you're going to be a part, you know, as you're picking your support system, try and think about like, okay, when he has a big mouth, but I know she'll tell me when I'm doing something good, but I also know she'll hold me accountable. If I tell her, Hey, I'm going to do this. And then I come back three weeks later and she's like, all right, where's the progress for this?

Show me that, you know, accountability partner and I don't have it to show it. She's going to call me out on it.

Speaker 1 (28m 11s): And, and I mean, but, but do people actually do that consciously

Speaker 2 (28m 18s): Do

Speaker 1 (28m 19s): Pick their support system really. Okay. That's, that's interesting. And I assume that a support system is important.

Speaker 2 (28m 32s): Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It helps when you're burnt out and helps when you're getting past that honeymoon phase or if you're in that honeymoon phase and you have, you know, a person who's grounded in your support system that can tell you, Hey, you know, things are going really good right now, but I want you to be able to know that it's not always going to happen like that. Right. So instead of going in spending, you know, I don't know, a thousand dollars or spending all this on outfits or on cars or on a lifestyle.

How about you save it? How about you invested in this? Or how about this

Speaker 1 (29m 7s): And how important is the support system for sex workers versus non-sex workers?

Speaker 2 (29m 13s): And we'd say they're both as important. There's not one.

Speaker 1 (29m 17s): Okay. What are some positive coping skills that work with sex workers?

Speaker 2 (29m 24s): So the first one would be being mindful. So mindfulness is one of those things that has been pretty big recently and being mindful is just being fully present and aware of like where we are and we're doing,

Speaker 1 (29m 42s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29m 43s): It helps us not be overly reactive to something or overwhelmed by what's going on. And I think for me, when I asked people, can you be mindful? They look at me like with this blank stare. And they're like, you want me to sit there and meditate? And I'm like, no, no, that's not. What mindful means mindful is, you know, there's mindful breathing where yeah, you take a moment, sometimes 30 seconds a minute and you take a deep breath. If you have one of those fancy smartwatches that usually has something on there to take a minute of mindfulness and know times you with your heart rate and stuff,

Speaker 1 (30m 20s): That was irritating me. I finally turned it off.

Speaker 2 (30m 25s): You have to start it again. Then maybe on your own terms though, mindful breathing, then there's just concentration being aware of your body. Being aware of what you're eating. A lot of us, me included, you know, we go out to eat for lunch or dinner or whatever breakfast. And we sit there and we're sitting with someone, but you know, I'll be down. If I don't put my phone on the table to make sure nothing comes through. So in that moment, I'm not being mindful of what I'm doing.

I'm not being respectful either, but that's a different topic

Speaker 1 (30m 59s): Sign of our times, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (31m 1s): Yeah. But releasing tension, walking, using coping skills and how to be mindful. Some other coping skills that I utilize with clients is being aware of where they feel it in their bodies. And so maybe throughout this podcast, someone's going to listen to it. And maybe I said something, or you said something earlier and they fill it in their thighs or size hold a lot of stuff. We always go for our guts, like our bellies or shoulders, sometimes our test.

But a lot of people don't even acknowledge like that their thighs get tense. Like you start to flex your butt. You start to flex your legs. Another part that often gets ignored is your tone. Your tongue in an upright position will make you stress all the way through your jaw, your neck all the way down.

Speaker 1 (31m 55s): Interesting. I got to tell you, this is fascinating. I'm learning a lot. And a lot of the things you're saying I'm, I'm relating to my own experiences, my own life, my own stresses, my own, you know, relationships. And yeah, I got to tell you already, it's it's helping me. So thank you. How does sex workers suffer from body insecurity?

Speaker 2 (32m 23s): That's a common one earlier. I had mentioned something about, I don't know, I think filling like imposter syndrome, right? So that's kind of just feeling like, like, how'd you get here, someone's going to find me out. Someone's to know that I'm not like this bad-ass person and there's a lot of body insecurity and sex workers. I think, I think because of how they have to portray themselves, whether it's camming or whether it's dancing or whether it's performing, they know they can't be that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Although they still try. And that trying is what kind of eats them up.

Speaker 1 (33m 8s): Yeah. I bet it would. I bet it would be exhausting.

Speaker 2 (33m 11s): Yeah. Oh

Speaker 1 (33m 14s): No, no, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (33m 14s): I was going to, I was going to say, when I work with clients and they tell me no, I'm having a lot of body insecurities. What I, what I try and help them, help them learn about more is kind of where those insecurities are coming from. Is it something that like society really expects them to look like 24 7? Or is it the narrative that they feed themselves? Because a lot of us feed ourselves, even myself. I'm, I'm not in sex work, but when I, when I work, I want to look presentable and my, my version of presentable cookie cutter version.

So I want to look nice. I wear a little bit of makeup. I have most of my makeup tattoos, so that's easy, but I want to look decent. I have my nails done and there are some times where I'm like, okay, I'm human. I don't want to dress up today. I just want to throw my hair in a bun and come into work.

Speaker 1 (34m 4s): Right.

Speaker 2 (34m 5s): And then what happens then is I start feeding myself or reinforcing this negative narrative of this lie that I tell myself that I'm not good enough that I don't look like a therapist because I don't look like a therapist. I'm not a good therapist. And I think a lot of the sex workers do that, we feed ourselves this negative, negative narrative or negative facts that we think are facts that support our negative narrative.

Speaker 1 (34m 33s): Yeah. You sound like a great therapist. So

Speaker 2 (34m 37s): Thank you.

Speaker 1 (34m 38s): So how important is an effective work-life balance for sex workers?

Speaker 2 (34m 44s): I think it's very important. It's as important as anything else, they need to be able to differentiate the two. And that's where, you know, that support system comes in. That's why you can't just hop, you know, the same type of support system, because they're gonna, they're not going to be able to balance where you,

Speaker 1 (35m 4s): Okay. So how to interpersonal relationships such as dating or being in a relationship affect sex workers, mental health and their work.

Speaker 2 (35m 14s): That would be another, another podcast, Bruce. But in a nutshell,

Speaker 1 (35m 20s): I don't know. I don't have a time limit. So go forward.

Speaker 2 (35m 24s): Okay. In a nutshell though, I think it affects sex workers greatly. There's a lot of times where it, you know, they can't have a relationship with certain.

Speaker 1 (35m 38s): Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35m 39s): I think that's a pretty open thing. Or they have an Eden. If they have an agent, they have an agent telling them, Hey, you know, maybe you should slow down on this or maybe you shouldn't, you know, be seen out with them. And you know, to put those kinds of restrictions on people who are being vulnerable and have a vulnerable job is really, it's really hard. It's really defeating. It kind of goes back to that, feeding them selves a negative narrative. So you don't know what's going on in that other person's head. So if you're an agent and I'm telling you, Hey Bruce, you can't, you can't see Monique no more.

And you're already in your head about how, you know, you shouldn't be in that relationship. What's that going to do? That's going to support that negative lie. And then before you know, it, you're down this rabbit hole, you can't find yourself out of,

Speaker 1 (36m 24s): Do you ever come across a client where you advise them to get out of sex work for their mental health?

Speaker 2 (36m 33s): As of yet? I have not. I do advise them, you know, I do advise them to make sure that they're setting good boundaries, that they're respecting themselves and others, if they find that that work life balance is more work than life, then I'll sit with them and we'll figure out a plan. Like I have had clients who've taken out their itinerary with me and then like, okay, I'm going to Miami for four days. And I'm supposed to be camming this day, trading this day and doing this.

And so we go through each activity, we determine, okay, how is this going to support me? That's one of my biggest questions that I ask my clients to ask themselves, how is this going to support me?

Speaker 1 (37m 16s): Yeah. Yeah. And I would imagine the ones with families that gets even more complicated. What are, I mean, what are some of those, those additional complications with their schedule and their kids?

Speaker 2 (37m 31s): The majority of the ones that, like I said, the ones that have children have a strong support system that, you know, takes care of their kids if they're kind of away at shoots for a long period of time. So they have like reliable babysitters that's super important, trustworthy babysitter, more so important. Or they have like an older child that can care for the other ones.

Speaker 1 (37m 56s): Yeah. Okay. So how has the pandemic effected sex workers, mental health? I'm sure it's been devastating.

Speaker 2 (38m 3s): Yeah. I would say from what I gather from my clients so far, it hasn't been, there's been a lot of transitions that sex workers have gone to, or had to go through. A lot of them that were working kind of in person like a local gentleman, clubs and stuff had to move everything online to coming to phone sex, work to all the other sex work that's available. And some of them had good results from that and others didn't, but they're still struggling to going back.

They still don't know if they want to go back because they haven't been back for like two years.

Speaker 1 (38m 43s): Yeah. I would imagine it would be traumatic for many sex workers to risk getting COVID.

Speaker 2 (38m 53s): Yeah. And I know a lot of the places locally here, they all require, you know, some type of COVID testing. In addition to the regular testing that goes on some of the producers I work with, they require everyone on set, you know, to have a COVID test. And if there's any sign of any kind of, you know, immune systems stuff going on, even if it's just a cold, they may just cancel things.

Speaker 1 (39m 22s): Okay. Well at least there's some safeguards in place.

Speaker 2 (39m 26s): Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39m 27s): That's a good thing. So Monique, how can someone contact you?

Speaker 2 (39m 31s): They can contact me through pineapple support. There's other wonderful therapists on there. Also, you can usually go and look on there and click on your state pineapples because pineapple support does offer counseling and coaching. If you like. I have clients who live in New Zealand, but I have some that live in Japan. And so as long as we work out the time difference, I am able to see anyone from anywhere.

Speaker 1 (40m 1s): That's all. And now about your private practice.

Speaker 2 (40m 5s): Yeah. So you go online, it's key rose LLC, and I have the Twitter, Instagram, all the social media stuff.

Speaker 1 (40m 17s): Great. Hey, one more question. And we really didn't cover this about pineapple support, you know, in when Leah for started pineapple support, I was thrilled and obviously there was a real emergency with performers taking their own life. Talk about the importance of something like pineapple support for the adult industry and how pineapple support needs companies and individuals and adults to support it financially.

Speaker 2 (40m 52s): Well, without I know with my clients without, without pineapple support, they would have never gotten help. And I often, you know, personally, just wonder like if, if they wouldn't have gotten help, would they even be on this earth today? Pineapple support continues to help everyone. So they offer, like you said earlier up to six teen sessions. So if a performer is in a financial bind where they can't afford it, they will cover the entire cost. All 16 sessions, no matter their gender, ethnicity, social status, age, sexual orientation, none of that matters to have an ever-growing team of sex worker friendly kink-aware therapists like myself to see you face-to-face or online.

They also have, I believe a 24 7 like connect to a listener online that you can click on. You can even call them, they have support groups that are free. And then once you sign up, you can even look at all of that stuff online. Or even without signing up, you can look at it online.

Speaker 1 (42m 3s): Can people request you there?

Speaker 2 (42m 6s): Yeah. Yep. There is a place that they can fill out or it's like a request therapy. And then from there you, you can put, you know, here or there you want therapy with Dr. Monique.

Speaker 1 (42m 20s): Well, I know for a fact and talking to layer that, you know, one of the unfortunate but results of the pandemic and the current economy is, you know, support and sponsorship is down. Like I said, we continue to support it. And because we truly believe in their mission and I hope anyone and everyone listening will take that into account and go to pineapple support dot Oregon, really give very generously because the work that Dr.

Monique and the other therapists do at pineapple support is just so, so important. So, Dr. Monique, I'd like to thank you for being our guest today on adult side broker talk. And I hope we'll get a chance to do this again soon.

Speaker 2 (43m 9s): Thank you again for having me.

Speaker 1 (43m 11s): It was a pleasure. My broker tip today is part three of how to buy a website. 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 the site. 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 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 as 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 of 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 for 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 such as, oh, I don't know, adult site broker, of course your broker can help you to determine the value of the site. We'll talk about this subject more next week. And next week, we'll be speaking with porn actress, Seca black. And that's it for this week's Adult Site Broker Talk. I'd once again like to thank my guest Dr. Monique. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I'm Bruce Friedman.