Adult Site Broker Talk Episode 188 with Annie Temple

This is Bruce Friedman of Adult Site 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 author and performer Annie Temple. Starting tomorrow I’ll be in Las Vegas for AVN and Internext. If you’d like to sit down and talk business drop me a line on our contact page at adultsidebroker.com. Speaking of events we’ve added an event section to our website. Now you can get information on B2B shows on our site as well as special discounts reserved for our clients. Go to adultsidebroker.com for more details. Would you like an easy way to make a lot of money? Send sellers or buyers to us at Adult Site Broker through our affiliate program ASB Cash. When you refer business to us you’ll receive 20% of our broker commission on any and all sales that result from that referral for life. You can make $100,000 or more on one sale for some of our listings. Check out ASB Cash.com for more details and to sign up. At Adult Site Broker we’re proud to announce our latest project thewaronporn.com. You’ll find articles from industry websites as well as mainstream publications from around the world. It’s designed to raise awareness of our industry’s plight in the war on porn and the numerous attacks on our industry and online free speech by hate groups, the religious right and politicians. You’ll find all that and more at thewaronporn.com. Now let’s feature our property the week that’s for sale at Adult Site Broker. We’re proud to offer for sale an innovative marketing agency that specializes in managing the top .01% only fans profiles in the world. It’s just under a year old but is growing very rapidly. They fully manage creators workflow from promotion to monetization. They’ve developed an internal CRM that empowers the sales management, marketing, automation and analytics. This is one of the most relevant advantages of the agency that allows it to drive in target traffic to profiles and monetize them. The company is already doing over 2 million euros in annual revenue from just over 20 creators. With a database of over 1 million contacts and 600,000 unique user accounts. This is an outstanding opportunity for anyone to enter the world of only fans management and immediately become one of the top agencies in the world along with its software, processes and know-how which will allow you to bring models up to three times their initial gross monthly revenue. Therefore established agencies can acquire the company and expand their business. Only 2.59 million euros. Now time for this week’s interview. My guest today on Adult Site Broker Talk is Annie Temple. Annie thanks for being with us today on Adult Site Broker Talk. Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure. Annie is an erotic entrepreneur and mother. She’s faced poverty, disability, divorce and societal discrimination but she’s always picked herself up and faced each challenge as it came. Annie’s inspiring journey of hope and healing has led her to reinvent herself as an author and speaker sharing her story of empowerment and challenging societal norms about sex workers and the people who love them as well as other common beliefs that affect people negatively. Her focus is on personal growth, relationships and entrepreneurship. Join her as she explores life’s complexities, defies conventions and encourages others to challenge their own belief systems. Annie has worked in the adult entertainment industry for over 25 years. You can find her on OnlyFans proudly displaying Annie’s irrepressible sensuality as a lovable Canadian OSTO MILF. She also runs a weekly newsletter for fans of adult entertainment at TNTAnnie.ca. Check out her latest book and watch for her upcoming memoir release at annietemple.com. So let’s start with this, okay? What’s an OSTO MILF? So that is just what I recently became. I had a huge surgery that gave me an ostomy, which is basically like a little poop bag on your stomach. Oh, how fun! I know, right? But I don’t poop the traditional way anymore. And I was so scared because last few years I really embraced my adult entertainment work and I really finally realized that this was the industry that I wanted to be in. So when my health turned, I thought, "Oh my gosh, I might have to give up the industry that I love." But fortunately, my clients and my fans have been really supportive and encouraging me to stay in the industry. And so I kind of thought I would call myself an OSTO MILF. OSTO MILF. I love it. I said, "Ostio MILF." My apologies there. Oh, no worries. So what was the greatest lesson you learned in university? You know, honestly, the greatest lesson that I learned in university is to question everything, including academia. And I grew up in a household with family members. My mother and father taught me not to believe everything I’m told on the street, but they never taught me to really question academia. And my mom really pushed me to get into university and all of that, but I had never been taught to question anything. I was taught in university. So it was a real wake-up call for me when I was a young exotic dancer in university and I was taking women’s studies classes. And I was told that women who work in the adult entertainment industry are perpetuating rape culture and that I was degraded and exploited and all these kinds of things that I didn’t feel like I actually was. Because you weren’t. Yeah, not at all. I was feeling very empowered compared to my usual minimum wage jobs, etc. When I realized that feminism and a lot of what we learn in university and in general is really just theories. They’re not facts, they’re theories. And I never realized that. I took everything that our society kind of tells us and just took it for fact. And so that was a big eye-opening experience for me to become more of a critical thinker and question everything. Yeah, you know, I find that quote-unquote feminists who are supposed to be for female empowerment tend to be some of the worst critics of women in the adult industry. We were in the UK one time, I think it was ex-business first show in Europe. Well, it used to be Europe, but we won’t talk about that. And they had a protest. We got wind that we were having the event there. And there was a protest in front of the hotel where the, it was Radisson Blue, I believe, where the event was going on. And oh, they had these crazy costumes on. And I could kind of understand why these people were protesting because, sorry, but they were all but ugly. What can I say? Anyway, so it’s really funny because I was downtown, I think it was at the Apple store or whatever I was doing. And I rode up on this horse-drawn carriage. It was pretty hilarious. And I’m slowly pulling up there and I’m looking at this and I’m going, what the fuck? And I’m walking into the place and they’re yelling and screaming at me. I’m like, yeah, fuck off. So, you know, I have a lot of friends who are performers. Okay. And they are some of the best people I know in this world. And they’re a hell of a lot more grounded than these people that were out there protesting that are just going to protest something else next week. And I commend you for actually walking past that protest line and going inside. Oh, no, I wanted to. I went back outside as well. Good for you. The world needs more people like you because I know when I was exotic dancing in the strip clubs, that would be a problem. These do-gooder groups would come and protest outside the strip clubs and a lot of the gentlemen wouldn’t come in because of it. Well because it was their wives. Yeah. But it would take turn away customers, you know, and the only people who would come in are the guys who were like, whatever, fuck off, just like you. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think there’s so much shame pushed on people in the adult entertainment industry. And it’s like, I did a Toastmaster speech a couple of weeks ago and my speech was about how ridiculous the sex work laws are in Canada. And one of the things that I said was, you know, that like you can’t- I’m sure it was good at the time. It was so good at the time and I’m losing my train of thought. But like the whole speech was just like, what would it be like if you were a realtor and you had the same laws as sex workers? And it just is so ridiculous, you know, because you can sell their property but no one can buy it. Tell me about the sex worker laws in Canada because I’m not really familiar and I’m guessing a lot of our listeners aren’t either. Yeah. Our laws changed a few years back. We had all of our laws turned over and then the conservatives came into power and then they just reinstituted a bunch of kind of worse laws based on what’s called the Nordic model. You’ve probably heard of it. I did hear about that. Yeah. So basically they don’t criminalize people who work as sex workers but they criminalize the people who purchase sex work services. Well that sucks. I know. And it makes no sense, right? As a consumer that really sucks. But like imagine you’re a real estate agent and you’re trying to sell real estate but no one’s allowed to buy it. Yeah, that’s crazy. But are they actively enforcing it or is it more a law than isn’t enforced much? It really depends on the province of Canada. So in BC because we have a lot of sex worker activists that have lobbied really hard and we also had a terrible tragedy of the missing women in the downtown east side of Vancouver and also the highway of tears here in BC. And all of that has contributed to inquiries where everyone gets together and they’re forced to listen to sex workers. And so when you get our voices in the room we can help. We can help steer people in the right direction. And I think that’s a huge issue with the whole human trafficking lobby because they don’t ask for sex workers input and they just assume that adult consensual sex workers, they have two assumptions. One, we’re either too degraded to know that we’re being exploited or two, we’re too privileged to have any insight for them to listen to us. So either way we’re silenced. Yeah, I wish the US Congress would listen to sex workers but that’s another story. Have you ever lived a double life and if so, tell me about it and how did you feel? I think it’s really common for most sex workers to live a double life at some point, if not throughout their entire career. For me it was mostly because I had children. So I’ve tried not to be very open about my sex work because I don’t want the trickle down effect to impact my children. So you didn’t talk about it at the PTA meetings, I guess? Yeah, yeah, exactly. But because I’m an activist and I have been in the news and we had one viral type of situation in 2007 where I had my 15 minutes of fame, my face was all over the newspaper. So suddenly the schools and yeah, the PTA meetings got a little bit awkward. Yeah, just a bit. Yeah, yeah. So it’s interesting but it was also very liberating to have my identity kind of out in public. And then later years when I became a sex worker, sorry, we’re all sex workers but it’s all in different ways. But doing sensual massage then I also went into hiding at first. We have a lot of that here in Thailand, by the way. Yeah. Sensual massage, yeah, there’s a little bit. Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s like so funny because I didn’t know that I could do just sensual massage. I thought that I could be a stripper or I could be an escort. I didn’t know there was an in-between and the in-between is perfect for me. There’s all kinds of lovely categories. Just go to any website that sizes such things. Yeah, that’s what I found out. And what I’ve learned is that you just pick your own boundaries, you pick what you’re willing to do and then you just let people know and then they decide if that’s the fit for them. Bingo. So, you said you worry about how your children will be affected by the work you do. Tell me about that and what do you feel is your most important job as a mother? So yeah, I have been through that situation where I told someone at my daughter’s school that I was a stripper and this was way back when. And then she kind of like led it out to a few of the other moms. And I shouldn’t have said anything, but I trusted her. But then the play dates dried up and I could tell people were like talking about me and you know, you get that feeling and you see the behavior. And it was kind of frustrating for me. And then later years when kids would like trash talk about strippers or hookers or anyone in the sex industry and here are my kids and they know that their mom is in the sex industry then my daughter in particular, my oldest daughter would feel the need to defend me. So she would get into arguments and almost fights over me being a stripper at her school. And so, I mean, these things have happened. But now later in my life here, so my youngest is 12, I still have to deal with the whole elementary school politics and all of that. These are so cruel. They are. The moms are just, you know, like a lot of them are so much younger than me too. Moms aren’t much better. Yeah. They’re quite caught up like I was when I was younger and like more of the dramatic stuff, you know. I look back on myself when I was young and I’m a complete different person now. And so, I try to be forgiving young people. But, and you don’t want it to trickle down to your children. So you have to be like the upstanding citizen, you know. By the way, I’ve got a question. You said you have an older daughter. How old is she? She is 23 right now. Okay. How would you feel, I think you know what I’m going to say, how would you feel if she came to you and said, I want to be a stripper? How would you feel about that? I mean, she’s done that. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. And actually this is so funny because I’ve been asked this question since she was about five years old. People have asked me this question, not to like say that’s a bad question. It’s a very interesting question and that’s why I think people keep asking it. And when she was a really young child, I said, I hoped that she wouldn’t get into the sex industry because I didn’t want her to experience the stigma. But now as a mother, like that has watched her grown up and become a young woman, I would feel more concerned about just her handling her business and her boundaries. But it wouldn’t bother me at all if she became a sex worker in any sense of the term. Well, you told me she’s a beauty and like a mom. And it’s one of those things where it’s like I have a very strong belief in use what you’ve got. Yeah, I’m jealous I’m not a chick because I would definitely be the sluttiest one around. Hey, embrace it. And I say that in a very positive way. You know, it’s one of those things where I’ve never thought negative towards a woman who is quote unquote, "permiscuous" or is a sex worker. I think sex work is one of the most noble professions on God’s earth. Yes. Thank you. And that’s what my husband feels too. He thinks that my what I do is valuable and it benefits people and he even gives me advice on how to do it better because he believes in me, you know, helping people. And that’s a huge part of what I think a lot of sex workers do. I think the ones that aren’t doing that are probably not making as much money or are probably not finding as much fulfillment or reward in their business. Big time. So that’s the other question then. What about your husband? Has it ever created any issues with your relationship? And that’s so fascinating because I must be the luckiest woman on earth. He has been amazing. So in the past, because I have been doing sex industry work since I was 23, every person I ever dated was jealous. It did cause problems. It did cause issues. But my current partner who I’ve been with now for seven years, it is not a problem for him. I would say if you wanted to find the perfect person as a sex worker, you want to find someone who’s not jealous and someone that you can tell anything and they’re not going to make you feel bad. Someone who makes you smile and laugh all the time and he does that for me, which is awesome because I want to enjoy life. Yeah, hello. Yeah. And I think the fact that he’s kinky, like what happened when I started doing massage is that he started to open up to me about some of his sexual kinks and that actually opened up our communication and our communication became so much better and me becoming a sex worker and the way that it affected our communication has actually made our relationship so much stronger. You two need to get up on stage and give a talk. You definitely do. Yeah, do a TEDx or something, but the only thing is he freezes on camera. Absolutely. Oh, well, you know, you can do two, you two can rehearse a little bit, but absolutely you two should get up and do something like that. I think it would be so valuable for everybody. Maybe it like an erotica or something, you know? I agree. I agree. Like what we’ve achieved in our relationship is really special and a lot of it just comes from not taking things personally and acknowledging that we can be attracted to other people without it lessening our love for each other. There you go. Perfect. So you’ve been through a lot of surgeries that have changed your body over time. You told me you’d had a major one recently. How have your health challenges affected your body image and your sexuality? Well, yeah, it’s been a roller coaster. That’s for sure. So being a stripper, the cool, like, I don’t know if this is good or bad. It depends on your perspective. But for me as a woman who’s like really tiny and I don’t gain weight very easy and I love to dance and my body was flawless when I was young. Like it was just smooth skin and I just, you know, I had tiny little boobies. So I didn’t have like the big, huge boobs, which I had a lot of pressure to get my boobs done. But I had beautiful, tiny little perky boobies and I just was confident in my body and it was smooth and perfect. And I had a belly with a perfect belly button and I stripped. I went back to stripping over and over anytime I needed to return to the industry. But then I went through like a life changing surgery that caused me to have like scars all over my stomach from like top to bottom. So I knew I couldn’t strip anymore because they honestly wouldn’t put someone with that those kind of scars on a stage. I could have maybe possibly done VIP dancing, but I would have probably been, well, at least at that time I felt way too insecure about myself to even think about that and to compete with the other girls who had these flawless bodies. So stripping is amazing in the way that it makes you like, it makes you want to exercise and tan and look amazing and get on stage and just like strut yourself and you feel so good and you’re paid to look good. But it also, when you change as you get older or as you go through surgeries or your body changes, it can make you feel like, oh my God, I’m not perfect anymore, you know, which can be a little bit devastating. So for me, it was really hard when I first had all those scars and then interestingly enough, it was getting into sensual massage and the fact that my clients didn’t even care about my scars, didn’t even notice my scars or if they did, they had no problem with it and they kept coming back and it was a nothing to them. And it was a nothing to my husband, but that wasn’t good enough for me. I had to have all these strangers, you know, tell me. You know, women are naturally vain. So that just kind of goes with the territory. And that was my next stage, but now I’m just very recently, like September 15th, I had a very major surgery that I’ve been trying to avoid for years and years and years because I have Crohn’s and the rest of my intestines and I have an ostomy, which is where my intestine kind of sticks a little bit out of my stomach. Like I said, doesn’t sound like fun, but sounds like you’re dealing with it well. You know, you really have no choice. It’s like I can look at what’s bad about it or I can look at what’s good about it and I’m a person who chooses to just accept what I’m dealing with and move forward. Sounds like you’ve got a lot of positives in your life and as long as those outweigh the negatives, then it’s easy to say, hey, it is what it is. Let’s move on. I think you are absolutely correct. Absolutely. Like for instance, I was already planning my business Bible book launch that I recently released this book and when I found out I had to have this major surgery and I wanted to give up, but I didn’t. And a big huge thing that helped me get through until the surgery was focusing on my goals, focusing on the things that excite me that I’m a passionate about and not focusing on this big scary thing that’s, you know, and the only thing we really have control over is our minds, right? 100%. That’s very true. So what drives you to challenge people’s beliefs and societal norms? That’s definitely because of stigma. I’ve just faced so much stigma in my life as a little girl. I watched how my family was discriminated against. I grew up in a family with a lot of addiction and people who engaged in criminal activity and lived in a poor neighborhood. And I, you know, it’s just like the generational trauma of the indigenous and all of that. But these are the people that I loved and it was normal to me, but I watched how they were treated. And so from a very young age, I felt, I don’t know, defensive, I guess. And then as I got older, I latched onto the causes that were really important to me, especially like sex work and how it wasn’t what everyone tells you it is. But I think the biggest problem that I’ve noticed in our society and between people and that interrupts our connections with each other is this idea that we’re against each other, the us versus them. So I feel like the biggest thing I want to do to challenge people’s beliefs and what’s made a huge impact for me in challenging my own beliefs is to not look at people like it’s me versus you or us versus them and to try to see the commonalities and the humanity in each person, you know, and come together. Yeah, there’s a lot of that. I blame social media. I blame the politicians in my home country, not the one I live in, but in my home country, the United States, it’s just pathetic. And there are two camps and you’re either in one or the other and something’s really wrong. And the great perpetrator of it is back on the scene. Hopefully he’ll be behind bars soon, but we will see. Anyway, I don’t want to get all political, but I’m just really tired of the politicians pushing people’s buttons. I allowed it to happen with the 2016 election and now I just don’t watch news. I glance the Washington Post here and there just to see headlines and CNN and I don’t really get too deep into it because, yeah, I don’t want to. I got rid of my television news in 2010. And the reason why is because I used to, well, I became a public relations professional and I used to do media relations. That was my job because I’ve been in and out of the sex industry. When I was doing media relations, I was really like schooled and learned a lot about how the news gets into the news and how to get your own news into the news and what the gatekeepers are like and what gets through and what doesn’t. And it’s all, there’s an agenda behind every story. And so I became really skeptical and I also didn’t like how most stories are just so focused on fear porn. And I just, I don’t want that in my life. So yeah, I got rid of the TV too. Yeah, I still have the TV, but I watch sports that it’s easier on my eyes. I have Netflix on my TV. There you go. There you go. And I’ve got HBO now and I’ve got Amazon and that’s more than enough for me. And you’re into sports. I’m not. See if I was that I would have. I’ve been binge watching old episodes of all in the family lately. So that’s been a blast. You know, if it makes you laugh, it’s good. Exactly. But now in today’s age, that would be canceled. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. The Archie Bunker would be canceled for sure. I mean, Norman Laird was brilliant because he realized nobody really believed in Archie Bunker. And today they go, oh, you can’t say that on TV. Nobody has a sense of humor anymore. Nobody. I mean, comedians get canceled. Comedians should never be canceled. I agree. They’re comedians. They’re here to make you laugh. If it doesn’t make you laugh, then turn it off. My goodness gracious. I mean, it’s been a little while back, but Sam Kinnison, who I used to enjoy and Sam was just disgusting, but I loved it. And I saw him live like seven times and today he’d get canceled and he was brilliant. He was absolutely brilliant. Rodney Dangerfield would get canceled. I mean, I could just go on and on. Don Rickles would get canceled because he talked about Jews, even though he was one. And he talked about the Irish and he talked about blacks and he talked about this and that. And the other thing, he insulted everybody. He was an equal opportunity in Soulder. And those were some of the best shows. But the reason they were so good is because they made people challenge their beliefs. Absolutely. I saw a documentary on him a while back and it was just brilliant. I’ve also watched some old Tonight Show episodes with him, with Rodney Dangerfield, with some of the other old comics and oh my God, just brilliant stuff. I saw Rodney live once and I mean, my side was hurting. He was so funny. And I mean, most of his comedy was pretty dumb, but it’s okay. It made you laugh. So people need to get over themselves. Okay. Moving on. How do you handle your most difficult life challenges? So very recently, I started to get into something called Stoicism, which it started with a book by Ryan Holiday called The Obstacle is the Way. Because it was so fascinating to me, I delved deeper and I got into Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and a few other of the philosopher greats that were into Stoicism. So Stoicism is basically, it’s not just about being stoic, not reacting. A lot of people think when you say someone is stoic, it usually means they don’t freak out, they don’t react, they don’t get overjoyed, they also don’t get angry. They just kind of calmly deal with every issue that comes up. That is a part of Stoicism. But Stoicism is also very value based and focused on how you treat other people, how you respond to other people. And it also helps you to respond to challenges. So for me, like especially with my recent surgery, I was avoiding that surgery for over 10 years, trying to never get it. And I finally was like, what is the obstacle right now? Well, the obstacle is the surgery. Well, the obstacle is the way, damn. You know, I have to get the surgery. So yeah, it’s helped me to just kind of face things as they’ve come and try to accept them. And a very interesting aspect of Stoicism is the belief that everything that happens to us as humans happens to all humans. And so instead of saying, why did this happen to me? Why did this have to happen to me? We should ask, why not me? It could happen to any human. So why not me? And so then to be able to withstand with courage and grace the pain and the suffering that you need to go through, because whatever it is happened to you. Interesting. I like it. So what scares you about the world today? We were just talking about it with the whole cancel culture. That is what scares me. I feel like cancel culture, there’s a lot of things that people say that I don’t like and I don’t agree with. And there’s definitely a part of me that wishes that we could just shut them up. But the problem with that is that when you shut down any kind of free speech, no matter how much you disagree with it, you’re shutting down discussion. You’re shutting down the free flow of ideas. And so the whole thing with cancel culture is really upset me. Just today I was talking to someone who her friend has a jewelry company. She’s an indigenous woman trying to sell her jewelry. And she’s running into a problem where people who are not indigenous won’t buy her jewelry because they’re scared that other people will accuse them of cultural appropriation. What? Yes. So here we have, we want to support our indigenous community by not culturally appropriating them. But we’re not supporting them by deciding not to purchase their goods and services. Like it’s, to me, that’s like, it’s like cancel culture. That’s what cancel culture leads to. Well you shouldn’t be too supportive of XYZ group because you’re going overboard and I’m like, well, look, if I’m supportive of a group, I’m going to be supportive of the group and I’m going to do what’s appropriate for me. And if it feels right, I’ll do it. But as you can probably already tell, I’m not especially PC. I’ll say things that come across inappropriate. I’m like, oh, sorry. Well, I think our industry, you know, attracts people who don’t fit the mold and aren’t conformists. Big time. We’re definitely outcasts and I like it. Yes, exactly. We can’t be conformists if we decide to do an industry that everyone’s against. Big time. So what are your views on monogamy? This is such a loaded question and I love it so much. I actually love monogamy. I love the idea of monogamy, but monogamy culture, to me, is a problem. And so, like, we’re taught when we make a commitment to another person. I don’t know if we’re taught this or where it comes up, but people have the sense that they now own the other person. And so now they need to know everywhere that person is at all times. That that person is doing it all times. I own you. You can’t look at anyone else. You can’t think about anyone else. You know, it’s just crazy. To me, it’s crazy. So to me, that’s monogamy culture. That’s not monogamy. The decision to stay faithful to each other is a decision that you is monogamy, but not the whole ownership thing. And then the whole idea that cheating is the worst thing in the world. We raise our children to believe that being cheated on is the most horrible betrayal that anyone can go through. And every girl and every boy thinks, "Oh my God, cheating is the worst." But honestly, cheating is not the worst. I realized that I could make love to someone else or have sex with someone else, and it would not change my feelings of my spouse in any way. And so therefore, cheating is not really the worst thing I could do to him. The only way it could be the worst thing is if it changes your feelings. Exactly. In that case, if you love the person, then you want them to be with the person they love. And yeah, it’s hard to be able to release a person that you feel like you own and say, "I love you so much that if you meet someone else and want to be with them, I will accept that and give you my blessing." But that is really exactly what we should be like, because if you say you love someone, then you should want them to be the happiest they could be. Yeah, you always want the people that you’re closest to be happy. Sure. Yeah. And that is the whole ’til death do us part thing. I think that is wrong. And the reason I think that’s wrong is because it makes people stop trying. And so I live with the whole, "Am I happy today with my partner? Then I’ll keep him around tomorrow." Right. Not because somebody told you in it, and you said it in a vow. Or we made some promise. Yeah. Yeah. And now we own each other. I think instead it should be ’til shit happens. Yeah. You know? Or ’til toxicity do us part. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And then that also gives you the option when you do say goodbye to the person to let them go with love instead of it being like, you know, blame and anger. And you can just say, you know? It’s amazing what a fine line there tends to be in relationships between love and hate. And it shouldn’t be that way because if you love a person, you shouldn’t instantly hate them because they made another choice. So yeah, I know I completely get that. How do you feel about the people who purchase your services as an adult? Hmm. Yeah. I love them. So yeah, that’s the funny thing, you know? Because when I was an exotic dancer, when I first started stripping, it was before I learned to question academia. So I was doing something that they call internalized oppression where I thought that the men who go to strip clubs, et cetera, et cetera, were like bad, horrible men and fuck them. I’m going to take their money. And I was internalized oppressing myself that I was contributing to this bad thing in society where I perpetuate this culture. And so I had shame, but at the same time, I was like, but I don’t feel bad for what I’m doing. And like a lot of the guys I met in the club were great guys. And so I had all of these conflicting messages and thoughts, you know, until I was able to say to myself, okay, academia is just a bunch of theories. I actually live this experience. And so I can make a decision about what my experience is and not internalize what they’ve oppressed upon me. Right. Now that’s great because so many people, oh God, this country is the worst in terms of believing everything your teachers tell you, everything your bosses tell you. These people are totally brainwashed because when they’re raised, they’re told the rules are the rules and don’t question the rules. And you can imagine it causes some problems for somebody like me who’s an American who’s here and then going, yeah, but that makes no sense. I don’t care. It’s the rules. So now I completely get that and living here. Boy, it really crystallizes that what is one of the most powerful practices that you’ve used to overcome obstacles and to level up your life. Oh, yes. Oh, I was hoping to share this with you is something that I’ve been doing for years, but recently really learned a new process for. So visualization, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of that, but where you imagine yourself in the situation that you want to manifest. And so I was doing that for years. I have this like manifestation idea of me living in a house on a lake. And like I have this whole like, it’s amazing little movie I run through. But I recently read a book called "Fighter" by Aaron Valpatty. And that book is so inspiring because he went through a lot of really hard stuff and he got through it with visualization. And at the end of the book, he shares his process. And so his process takes you through like a past and then present and then future visualization to music and you write your own script. So three or four weeks before my surgery, I was just distraught about it. And I learned about this book and I listened to it on audio audible. And then I created my own visualization script and I started doing it every day and it just changed everything for me. It changed how I felt. Visualization can really help you. It definitely can help you. It’s incredible. It’s so real. I actually had part of my visualization was a memory of a dream that I had. I put it in there and then in the dream I’m in heaven. It was when I was waking up from a past surgery where I almost died and I had this dream right before I woke up. And so in my visualization, I have this dream again, but I superimposed my deceased father into that part of my visualization so that I could give him a hug every day. So every day in my visualization, I’d hug my dad and it was just, it was amazing. It was so real. That’s beautiful. Now, most life coaches and other professionals consider it very bad practice to develop an intimate relationship with their clients. Now, in your opinion, can a relationship be both intimate and professional? That’s such a good question and so many people my whole life, like I’ve been working in transition houses and different kinds of situations where you’re supposed to keep yourself at arms length with all of your clients. And it’s just exactly right. It’s very bad practice, considered to be very bad practice. But when I became a central massage provider, then I realized that it’s all bullshit. You can have an intimate relationship with your client as long as the boundaries are very explicit and you have good communication and your client is reasonably intelligent. It’s definitely something that can be done. And a lot of people will deny it. They’ll say it absolutely can’t be done, but it’s done every day by professional sex workers. Yup, for sure. Now, you talk a lot about mindset. What’s the mindset that most directs you in your day to day life? Definitely what happened to me with all my surgeries and my near death experiences is I spent a lot of years too sick to do anything. Like I just kind of played a supportive role to my children or to my partner and I couldn’t do much. I was just bedridden a lot and stuck in the house and in too much pain and too much chronic pain. I’m sure a lot of people who are in that situation understand what I’m saying. But I just was so unable to live. I felt like I was just there cheering on everyone else who was living. And so as I slowly built my health back up and became healthy enough to start to have a life again, my whole life became about living just for today because I really knew from experience that you never know what will happen tomorrow. It’s very true. I’ve been through my own near death experiences and when I was 13, I got into a serious accident and lost a ton of blood, broke my hip and jaw, was an attraction cast, jaw wired shut. That’s a lot for a 13 year old and I got through it and I’ve suffered with bipolar disorder and made it through that. So look at me now. Things are good. Well, I think it shows that anyone who’s been through hardship, if they have determination and the willpower and just the strength and the belief in themselves to do it can do anything. So what advice do you have for sex workers who are looking for love? God, I feel like I’m going to break into a song, but find that their job makes that an issue. Yeah. I kind of went over that earlier about like not jealous, definitely not jealous, maybe a little kinky. I also think a big one is not to take things personally. I think a lot of people in relationships take things so personally when they could just let it go, walk away, roll your eyes and don’t take it personally because it’s almost never about you. Yeah. And you know what? I definitely need in my own life to take that advice, to not take things personally, to just kind of walk away, to just let things roll off my back. I’m not the best at that. A little high strong, just a little bit high strong, but... Need to do some stoic practice. Stoic practice. I’m going to look into that. What do you wish all sex workers knew? I really honestly wish that all sex workers knew that there’s only one thing that we can control and that’s how we think. And I truly believe that there are so many incredible, amazing sex workers out there that could do anything that they want to do, but they’re crippled by their beliefs in themselves. And the only thing holding them back is their beliefs. And I had to learn that through personal development and hardship and everything that I’ve been through in my life. And I would just love for other sex workers to know that because it’s just like freed me. And actually, I have a whole chapter in my business Bible for erotic entrepreneurs that’s about manifesting money. And the whole thing is... I got to read it. I got to read it. Yeah, you got to read it. It’s all... That particular chapter is the chapter that I feel the strongest about out of that whole book. The whole book is mostly logistics, but that one chapter is about really about mindset. And I think that is the biggest thing that would change a person’s life. Okay. Final question. What’s been the biggest driver for you to continuously strive to achieve a better life? It’s really funny that you asked that because I have thought about that recently, really seriously. Like, what does drive me? But it’s so funny because the first thought I had was to prove to other people, prove to them, prove to them. And then I was like, who? Who though? Who was... Who did I try to prove my life to? And I ran through the different people that have kind of criticized me through my life. And I realized, no, I never tried to prove anything to them. And I realized the person I’ve been trying to prove myself to all these years is myself. Oh, it is. Look, and I think we’re all victims to that. I think we all have to be comfortable with ourselves and be happy with ourselves or other people to be happy with us. That’s always been my feeling. True. Very true. Because it’s very unlike as a stripper and as a sex worker, you’re always thinking about what makes me attractive and what makes me unattractive. Well, one thing that makes you very unattractive is insecurity. Another thing is jealousy. Another thing is like spazzing out over little things. Those are very unattractive things. It’s true. Yeah, definitely. Well, Annie, I’d like to thank you for being our guest today on Adult Sign Broker Talk. And I hope we’ll get a chance to do this again. It’s been amazing. Me too. Thank you so much. Appreciate you inviting me to be a part of your show. My pleasure. My broker tip today is part six of what to do to make your site more valuable for when you decide to sell it later. Last week, we talked about eliminating unneeded expenses. Next, you can trademark your website. Having a trademark instantly protects your brand and makes your site more valuable for when it comes time to sell it. Having your site will cost an average of about $1,500, but should be more than worth the investment when it comes time to sell. Show buyers ways you feel the site can make more money in the future. This includes showing them future plans you may have, traffic trends as well as sales trends. If things are growing and you can show them how to grow them more, they’re likely to be willing to pay more for the site. Do something unique with your site. If you have competitors, figure a way to do it better. Be different in some distinguishable way that makes you better. Your members will notice and spend more money with you. Make your site a place that people want to visit, not just to buy things or view porn. Be creative, not just one of many. Keep thinking outside the box and make positive changes to your site. Think like a buyer when planning or updating your site. Don’t think like a tech. Think like the consumer. We’ll talk about this subject more next week. And next week we’ll be speaking with Lisa Moskotova of Loud Bids. And that’s it for this week’s Adult Site Broker Talk. I’d once again like to thank my guest, Annie Temple. Talk to you again next week on Adult Site Broker Talk. I’m Bruce Friedman. [MUSIC PLAYING] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]