Understanding your Niche: Lessons On Branding And Building Your Business Empire With Christy Mack

Branding yourself and leveraging that brand is just one of the many things you need to do if you want to create a business empire that lasts. In this episode, we hear from a woman who is no stranger to building her brand. Our host, Stephanie Joplin, talks to her long-time friend, Christy Mack. A former adult entertainment star, Christy has parlayed those experiences into a profitable personal brand. Listen in as she discusses boundaries, getting into sex work, and how to build your personal brand.

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Understanding your Niche: Lessons On Branding And Building Your Business Empire With Christy Mack

I’m here with my best friend in the whole world, Christy Mack. We met years ago and I was an MMA journalist at the time. I was introduced to a person that she was seeing and I interviewed him. He ended up putting me on the line with her and we chatted. We ended up meeting in person and we’ve got along well.

From day one, it was like peas and carrots.

From there, we developed a close friendship. We have been making each other’s lives hell ever since then.

Trying to.

In all honesty, she is the best person I know, the most empathetic, loyal and kind. There’s going to be a lot of people that are familiar with you, not only because of your notoriety but because you are my best friend. People that have been following me for a while probably know who you are.

The entire years, from day one.

The fact that we go on vacations together, you are basically a part of my family. You are like the third sister as my mom likes to say. For those of you who don’t know Christy Mack, she has been in the leadership of the sex work industry for several years. She built her brand so that it was long-lasting and would give her longevity in her chosen career path. It wasn’t one of those things that she dabbled in it when she was younger to make a buck and got out. She was tactful and planned all of her moves like chess from the beginning. To me, that’s why she has been successful for many years. First of all, Christy, can you give us a background about how you’ve got into sex work, what you did and how the beginning part of that was like for you?

I started doing sex work when I was nineteen years old. Back home in Indiana, I woke up one day and I hadn’t even watched porn before and I was like, “This sounds fun. That sounds like something that I want to do.” A young girl from the middle of nowhere found an agent online and flew to Florida. I filmed three scenes in my first week. I was told that I probably wouldn’t get that much work because I had a Mohawk and tattoos. It was different at the time. Back then, nobody looked like me. Nobody was that alternative as you could say. It was out of the left field. Everyone liked the bleached blonde hair, the big boobs, the straight body, and the very Girl Next Door also with a little bit of slut thrown in there. I was completely different at the time.

You were more grunge.

I was prepared to stack some money for a month, see how much work I could get and see how long I can make it last. After my first week, I became number one on several sites. It was what the market was calling for and I found my niche.

Did that surprise you?

Absolutely, because I was told I can’t and I decided I was going to do it anyway.

Did it surprise the people that you were working for as well? Were they surprised?

Absolutely. Even after I became number one, I was told that this wouldn’t last long. I’m going to shoot several scenes, get that little bit of money and then the market was going to dry up. That’s it. That’s all the further I could work. I wasn’t happy with that answer. I wasn’t happy with the management team telling me to put extensions in the side of my head and telling me not to get any more tattoos because that’s who I was. That’s who I wanted to be. That’s what I wanted it to look like. I didn’t listen to it. I kept going with all of it. I kept going with the sex work. I kept going with my hair, how I wanted to be with more tattoos, experimenting with plastic surgeries, doing what I wanted to do and expressing myself how I felt I needed to.

It’s almost like a musical artist who gets told what music to sing. It’s the same thing. You told me that when you do a sex scene, you get paid for the sex scene but then you don’t get paid royalties. Is that correct?

That is correct. If you are doing a scene for another company, you get paid one flat fee and it can range anywhere from a few $100 to a few $1,000 depending on what scene you are performing, who you are performing with and what contract you are under. You do not get paid the royalties unless it is for your own website or you have set something up for yourself.

Can that ever be negotiated?

With most companies, no. In most companies, that’s your flat fee. What they do is they own that content now. In the time of DVDs, they would sell them out to different companies to make compilation videos. There are still new videos coming out now with my scene or content from years ago and marketing it as new because it is a new compilation with several other ideas. I don’t own that content, never have, never will. I sold my rights to that.

Over the pandemic, there was an influx of these beautiful women wanting to express themselves, hustle and make some money to bring into their income, into their household, doing OnlyFans and other similar websites. My question is twofold. What advice would you give to the girl who wants to go into the actual porn industry? Would you recommend, for example, getting a manager representing yourself? Would you recommend researching before you go into it? Who are the people you need to approach? The second half of the question would be, if you are going to the OnlyFans route, what advice would you give to those women?

It depends on what area of sex work you choose to go into. If you want to do video work, it depends on it. If you want to be a “porn star” that is well-known and marketed by a different company that can build your market for you or if you want to be an independent creator and control 100% of your funds. There are many great options. The great thing about OnlyFans is it allows you to be anonymous, sell only, do only what you are comfortable with and build your own base how you want it. You can market with other women that are similar to you and build off each other’s fan bases. That’s wonderful. That’s how the future of the industry is exactly where it’s going to go.

The DVD companies and the large companies are going to start dying out. I don’t think there is as much of a need for a marketing manager or a manager at all at this point. I’m sure there are always going to be the big-name porn stars that the large companies do find online. From OnlyFans, Instagram, Twitter, there will always be a few of those, I’m sure. The OnlyFans and the personal sites are the way to go. The DVD companies, the management companies and the large porn companies are going to become more obsolete.

What about online sites like Pornhub for example? How does one get onto a platform like that? What are the workings of that?

Pornhub is a polarizing site for a lot of people and for a lot of reasons. It has become the scapegoat for anti-sex trafficking and anti-sex work. They think that people are selling underage girls through that website or they are putting revenge porn on there and they are not moderating it enough, which 100% does happen but seldomly. It is a website like any other that allows users to post whatever content they want. It is going to be difficult for them to moderate it.

They have cracked it down to where you have to have your own username and verification to be able to post that content now. That has helped a great amount and shut down a lot of the anti-Pornhub people. It does have a lot of other problems. The porn stars of the past like myself would rip content from our independent sites or the companies but it wasn’t them doing it. Sometimes it was the companies themselves putting it on Pornhub to make Pornhub work for them.

There would be people that would buy the DVDs and buy the content, download it on their own computer and upload it on there. They would be the ones making money. The company saw that and they are like, “We’ve got to start doing this before they can do it.” The company started doing it. Now it’s down to the girls posting it. People will take our things from OnlyFans. Now we have to be the ones that take it from our OnlyFans, put it on Pornhub and either monetize it or link it to our own sites. There’s a direct evolution of how things have gone for sites like Pornhub.

It’s such a lot of work.

Whether you want it to be or not, once you put yourself and your body on the internet, it is there for good. Click To Tweet

You have to be sure that other people aren’t doing the same thing with your own content. You have to search through it and make sure that you are the only one.

You would have to flag it.

They get to it fairly quickly. It still could have thousands of views or sometimes millions of views on things that you are not getting paid on.

If you are getting into the sex industry now and you want to go and be a “porn star,” you would suggest monetizing it yourself, being in charge of yourself, and not going to someone and saying, “Place me in this video here or this scene here.” Do it yourself. Be in control of yourself.

Unless you know one of the major porn stars already and you can be like, “Will you do a video with me?” Even then, you can still be in charge of your own content and not be contracted through one of the large companies. It’s not worth it if you plan to make it a money game rather than, “I don’t notoriety gain.” A lot of people are in it to find fame, which is a weird way to go about it. If that’s what you want to do, by all means.

They always say sex sells.

It always has and it always will.

Some women do think that to get famous, that’s their only ticket. It’s not their only ticket but it’s the quickest way.

There’s still no guarantee that you will be famous. There’s still no guarantee that you will make money. You have to think about longevity, “Is this something that I want to put online to last forever?” It will never come down once you put it out there. That’s not something you can take back.

You can’t pull a Khloe Kardashian.

If only we could. I’m not saying I would.

One bikini picture.

She still looked great.

She looked amazing. What I want those out there to know is that when you get into sex work, I don’t want you to go out there with the idea that you are going to make $10,000 and then hop off again. If your goal is you need to make $10,000 and that’s all, that’s fine. If you want to build a career or build financial wealth and security, I wanted Christy to come on and talk a little bit about that.

She quit the industry years ago. You would never know that. People still think she’s in the industry actively. You have your OnlyFans but you are not active in the porn industry like you were before doing the AVNs, doing all the publicity and all that. We were in DC and this guy was in a van quite far away on the other side of the street and he yells out the window, “You are a porn star.”

We are sitting there, the eyes on some people, “How. Out.”

Does he have 20/15 vision? I’m like, “You are accurate.” I’m impressed. She’s still recognizable. We will be sitting at dinner and a lot of time, it’s women. There’s one guy in DC that came up to us who’s super sweet and he was on speakerphone with his wife. They are respectful to her, which I love. She has been in charge of that herself because she’s put it out there. She does not tolerate disrespect or tomfoolery of any kind.

I will not be touched. You will not speak to me a certain way.

She will fuck you up. Honestly, I respect that about her. I have been defensive of her over the years. If anyone tries to come up and touch her when she was living in Vegas, I would turn into the Hulk and I was like, “Get off my friend. Don’t touch.” It was dramatic.

It’s still is.

She’s also small, cute and little so I don’t want anyone touching her. It hurts my feelings. Building longevity, continuing her success and keeping her wealth intact has been something that I admire. You can work a corporate job for fifteen years and still not have a savings account and still not have $20,000 in the bank to even retire on, which means you are broke again by the time you are 70 years old. Let’s give some advice to you aspirational sex workers that want to build that longevity and do not necessarily want to work until they are 50 years old. What did you do to ensure your success?

There are quite a few things. A lot of people see the money that they are getting and they think, “I have never had this before. I can keep this going for a long time.” It feels permanent. It has a feeling of permanence but it’s not. Your money flow can stop at any time. It’s important to start saving immediately. Once you build decent savings and you get more comfortable, start investing, build your portfolio and see where you want to go. Pay your taxes.

Especially with OnlyFans, a lot of people think that it’s a cash game but it’s not. You will see little cash and sex work unless you are a dancer or escort. Those are the only times that you will see the cash. Other than that, the IRS is getting your number. You have to remember to pay your taxes, keep track of everything and find a good accountant. That is valuable. They will teach you lifelong lessons. Even if you are not going to stay in this industry forever, they will tell you how to keep track of your money, where to put it, what to do with it and how to make your money work for you.

This is not a permanent industry for anyone, whether it lasts five months, five years or however long you choose to stay, it will not be forever. The cashflow will not be forever. Plan for that. Plan what you are going to do after sex work, whether you want to build your brand, and then start marketing yourself differently. I built my brand. I started selling products while I was still in the industry. I quit shortly after. I was only shooting for main companies for maybe a year and a half. It was not a long time.

It was only about almost two years.

I started selling products and merchandise while I was still in the industry. I quit shortly after that and didn’t tell anyone. I never told anyone that I stopped shooting.

That’s why people think she still is.

I started letting people know in Instagram comments years later that I haven’t shot since 3 or 4 years ago at the time. People were still confused, “When are you going to shoot for Brazzers next? When are you going to shoot for this next?”

They are confused about how sexy you still are.

All the time, people are like, “You look different.” I’m not going to look like I’m nineteen forever. It’s not going to happen. It’s impossible. I’ve got my Botox look. That’s the only thing.

I wish I could pull up your skater boy photo at this point. She has this photo from Myspace that her brother sent me. It legit looks like Avril Lavigne.

I went through a phase. Everyone goes through phases. In high school, I was Christy Death. You can still find it. You can still search for it on Google, Myspace or whatever. You can see photos of me in the shower because that was my white background and my face against it and all dramatic. All of my makeup and my hair were all kinds of fuck. It’s a sad selfie. It was bad. That set me up for who I was after that with a Mohawk and everything. I never really changed. She’s still in there. There are still photos out there. People will try and bring those up or bring up photos from before I had my nose job or my boob job and should I be embarrassed by that? No. I was still cute as heck.

Let’s say the nose job was something you didn’t choose.

It wasn’t my choice. I like this nose anyway.

I’m not going to say anything else about it but that’s my subtle shade.

It’s cute.

You are more beautiful now than when I met you.

I would agree with that.

I’m being legit.

Thank you. I know how to take care of my skin better now. When you met me, I wouldn’t even moisturize.

She wouldn’t eat properly. She would eat whenever at whatever time. We still indulge and we still have dessert, eat pasta and whatever but we know what and when to put into our bodies.

I eat mostly for sustenance now instead of pleasure. I’m happy. Now I can eat chicken rather than eating a hamburger from McDonald’s. I cook for myself. I live in a place where I must cook for myself almost all of the time. There’s little opportunity to go other places.

Your lifestyle is completely different. You live day-to-day back then. Now you live for a particular future. That is an important message to send to young women because you have to remember that it’s not about just tomorrow, it’s about looking ahead. I know that we are always taught like, “Don’t look too far ahead. You will stress yourself out.” I’m not saying you have to write out a five-year plan. I’m saying think about how your actions are going to affect you ten years from now.

Especially going into sex work, that is something that you have to think about because that is something that is forever, whether you want it to be or not. Once you put yourself and your body on the internet, it is there for good. Think about how this will impact your future. Let’s say you want to be a teacher, don’t do mainstream porn. You can do OnlyFans if you are not going to show your face or you don’t have any identifiable tattoos. That’s fine. I support that 100%. You have to think not everyone is going to be as open-minded as you hope they are.

A lot of people aren’t.

It’s never going to happen.

It’s funny because, to me, Americans are the most sex-crazed people in the world and the most conservative at the same time.

I would agree with that.

If you go to Italy and there are boobs on TV on a commercial, it’s no big deal. Here, if there are boobs on TV, there would be an uprising. There’s OnlyFans. It’s strange.

I agree with how we shame the sex workers that we also indulge in. It’s the dichotomy of sexualized America. You can’t force people to see things the way that you do. I live in a conservative place and I do feel judged quite a bit. Once somebody gets to know me and myself, I’m fine. Nobody is going to speak badly about me, for the most part. I do rub people the wrong way sometimes, everyone does. You can’t love everyone.

If anyone says something judgmental, you will be the first to say something. You will speak up. Even if you don’t even know the person, you will say something. That’s fine. I find that even introducing you to my other friends, immediately once they met you, they were like, “I love Christy. I can see why you guys are best friends. I get it.” People do prejudge. They see the tattoos, they see what you have done in the past and they were like, “She’s this certain way.” You are not. You are the complete opposite of what that is.

Even if you choose to indulge in that sex worker personality, persona, that’s who you are, you are a bimbo and you love it, good for you. That’s fantastic. That is some people and I love that.

You have to remember not everyone is going to be as open-minded as you hope they are. It's never going to happen. Click To Tweet

That’s their schtick.

For me, I’m wholesome and down to Earth. I don’t even know how to tell people about myself or describe myself.

Do you know that trend that was like, “Tell everyone your accountant because no one asks any other questions?” It’s like, “I have a full-time job as an accountant.” It’s a conversation killer. They don’t ask questions. After you were done with filming, how did you choose how you wanted to brand and market yourself to continue your revenue stream?

It was difficult how I was going to figure out what I would do next in my progression as a sex worker or an individual. I was selling products online at TheMackMarket.com and that sustained me for quite a while.

Were you also working behind the scenes with that?

Absolutely, 100%. I did porn, I was a sex worker and then I was peddling products that were about my brand. I was selling my own magazines. I was selling hats with my name on them. I was selling T-shirts.

That Inked Magazine, was it with the lollipop?

There was one with the ice cream and then one with my snakes.

I remember you texted me on the day of that shoot and you are like, “I’m covered in a sticky mess.” You had the ice cream all over you.

There was ice cream. There were watermelons. I was covered in food and I don’t know why they chose it.

Food is a fetish.

They covered me in food all day. It was a solid twelve hours of me eating sweets all day.

The Campout, I love that shoot.

I did two of them. It’s a cute shoot. I would sell magazines, hats, T-shirts and posters, everything with my brand, my face, my name. My name is powerful. It’s one syllable, Mack. That’s how I branded it.

People like to tell her what her name is. It’s our inside joke.

They will go on my Instagram and leave a comment, “I love you, Christina.” It’s not even my name. It’s not on my birth certificate. One guy argued with me, “We went to high school together.” He’s like, “I remember when you were Christina Mackinday.” I’m like, “I have never been Christina Mackinday.” He’s like, “I have proof. It’s in my yearbook.” I’m like, “Go look at it, please, because that’s not my name.”

Should we call your mom now?

Call my mother.

“Mom, what’s my real name?”

“Mom, what did you name me?”

She would be like, “What the hell?”

“Why are you calling me?”

That was smart though. Mackinday if you think about it now it makes sense. Coming up with Mack right away, did you think about it? Was it something that came over time?

When I was younger, I was working at Nike with my brother, they would call us the Macks because it was a shortened version of our name. It’s easy because you won’t be like, “Mackindays.” No, it’s the Macks.

Your brother also goes by that moniker.

It was easier to lump us in that way and we both kept the name Mack. I figured going into the industry if you see me, you are going to know it’s me. I’m easily identifiable, I always have been. Why not keep my name? Why not keep it short? I did.

Instead of naming yourself like Narwhal or something.

I haven’t heard that before.

There was this stripper that was on TikTok and her name was Sativa and I was like, “She must like a weed.” I thought, “Narwhal, a mystical unicorn.”

It’s a good thing you are not going to be a sex worker, OnlyFans.com/narwhal.

We know that you merchandised yourself. We know that you put your name out there. We know that you put your face and your name on everything. You did also dance. Tell us a little bit about how that came to pass and how you have kept that going.

It was probably four years after I stopped doing porn that I started to dance. A lot of girls would Feature dance while they were doing porn and then escort on their tours.

Can you explain what feature dance means?

Feature dancing, a club will contact you and offer you a spot on a weekend to promote you and your fans to come out. Sometimes you will dance Thursday through Sunday or Friday and Saturday. You will do 1 or 2 stage shows a night. Your fans will come and tip you. You can do private dances. You can sell your merchandise. Meet and greets. You can sell pictures and you can do whatever you want.

I did mine a little differently because a lot of girls would show up, Feature, wherever and plan this for a moment. I planned about a year in advance a whole tour. I had T-shirts made with my tour dates and everything for my first year. I wanted it to be an event. I wanted it to be like a concert. I wanted people to show up and show out. I wanted to feel like this was an event.

Like a rock star.

That’s how I want to feel. I tried to negotiate a tour bus. It wasn’t happening.

The Mack bus? That would be fun.

The dogs rolling with me across the country. I’ve got it dialed in. I took pole dancing classes.

You took them seriously.

Yes. I hired a private teacher. I designed my own outfits. I wanted something unique. I did an electrical tape outfit. I had never seen it done before. I never heard of it being done before. Since then, there have been a few but they have contacted me first like, “Is it okay if I use this?” “Absolutely, by all means.” I would design intricate outfits on myself of electrical tape that looked like a tight-fitting bikini or something that was painted on. As I would go out in the audience, I would have women in the audience peel one piece of tape at a time. It was interactive but not aggressively overly sexual. It felt classier to me.

You wanted to be more Burlesque.

More Burlesque and less stripper. Not that there’s anything wrong with stripping, I do it but I wanted something different.

That was your vision.

I wanted everything about this Mack tour to be unique, different and an experience. It’s something that these people would come to the strip club for, even if they have never been before. It was phenomenal. Every year that I did was amazing. I had the best time meeting everyone. My shows were fantastic. They were packed.

It’s very professional always.

My manager would come on tour with me. The security and all of the staff were always amazing. Everything was as I had dreamed it and it always has been since. I haven’t danced in the past couple of years.

It’s like a musician. They put her up in a hotel, they gave her a stipend, a dinner or whatever it is. They would provide transportation for her from the airport back and forth, and things like that. Everything was taken care of more or less for her.

I had a rider. Anything that I wanted would be at the club for me already. I had a private dressing room. I had all my candy and Cherry Coke. I would have everything that I wanted. I would have my own hotel room with my manager. The flights out, transportation was covered. They would pay my fee every night. They would pay separately for my meet and greets because I never charged my fans to take pictures with me.

The club would charge the ticket price, whatever their fee was, and that would be it. I would never ask for more money from anyone for anything. I would hand out merchandise on stage, whether it be a hat, T-shirt or stickers. That way, people can feel like they’ve got something for coming into the club that night as well as seeing me dance.

Tell them about the other dancers. They were excited that you were coming in, too.

Whether it was for financial reasons because I was bringing a new clientele in and 600, 700, 800 people a night. Some of them could be cheap but it’s a new clientele that maybe had never been to the club before. Some of the girls had seen me online and are excited to meet me in general. I loved the club dancers, the house dancers. They are always amazing. I never had a negative experience with any of the girls or with anything. They were thrilled. I have never had a bad experience on the road.

Do whatever you're comfortable doing, and do not push your own boundaries because you will regret it in the long run. Click To Tweet

I remember them thanking you. They were like, “The house is packed. Thank you so much.” They were grateful. I thought that was cool.

They are always sweet and kind. If I ever go to their stage, of course, I’m tipping them as well. If someone tries and gives me their tips, I’m like, “No. You keep your money here and take some more. Make that man give me his money and then I will give it to you.”

Speaking of being generous, you don’t get enough credit for this. If you are comfortable, we can talk about it. I want to talk a little bit about your charitable efforts. You don’t have to name them all. There are so many. She helps out not only charitable organizations but she helps out friends, friends of friends, no matter who it is, it wouldn’t matter what they are going through. If something were to happen to me and I didn’t have any financial way of getting out of it, she wouldn’t even think twice to help me. I know that. Let’s talk a little bit about the charitable organizations that you are fond of. Let’s give them a little bit of light. Let’s talk a little bit about what your passions are in that aspect.

I donate myself five figures every month to charities. I have never stopped with one charity in particular, whether it is a dog rescue or a domestic violence application. It could be a cancer fund. It could be anything. If there is a world event that’s happening that I feel needs more donations, I will put funds in there. I do that all silently. I don’t need to put it online. I don’t need to show like, “Look, I gave $30,000 to this.” It’s nobody’s business. Whatever charity I see that needs funds at the time, I will post it on my Story.

A lot of people give me flack for it, they are like, “You have money. Why don’t you do it?” I would never put a charity up that I haven’t personally donated to before because that’s silly. I put up a lot of charities on my stories. If you guys want to go on my Instagram, it’s Instagram.com/christymack. In my Stories, every day or two, there are adoptable dogs or there are different charities through domestic violence resources that could use a little help at the time. There’s any fund that you could possibly think of.

If you don’t want to donate to that particular fund, you could find one in your own community that you feel you could impact even if it’s $2. It doesn’t matter. Donate your time. Donate old blankets or towels. They can go to so many different resources. If you have old rags around, if you have T-shirts that have holes in them that Goodwill won’t take, an animal shelter will. There are so many different places that you wouldn’t even think of donating to but maybe a post of mine or a post of somebody else’s that I repost will spur you to think about that. There are many ways that not even your own monetary self but your physical self can help.

Even if you like to spread knowledge about the cause or even sharing a post would help. That’s what I have found, too. Maybe not necessarily I have been able to donate money at that time but sharing information about it has helped a lot to make people informed.

You can spread anything. Hopefully, it’s a positive thing. The internet does give you access to everything.

Also, falsities, too.

You have to look into whatever charity you are going to donate to. 501(c)(3)s are the best because they are registered. Sometimes it is like a GoFundMe of somebody that has cancer or anything like that. GoFundMe is a great system since we don’t have universal healthcare and we don’t have access to a lot of things that could help. If it is found to be a fake thing, they will give you your money back. It’s great. GoFundMe is a great resource for people. Sometimes I will browse on there and see if there’s anything that I could help with. If I’m feeling down on myself that night, sometimes things like that make me feel better knowing that I am making a difference in somebody’s day positively.

That’s her love language, by the way. That’s how she shows love, gift-giving.

I will send people flowers. It’s like, “I’m not having a good day. I’m going to send somebody flowers.”

It depends if it’s romantic or friendship. For friendship, yours is quality time the way you receive. Between physical touch and quality time for romantic, I would say. The way that you give out is gift-giving.

I am a gift-giver. I’m not always good at words of affirmation like, “You are doing great.”

If I’m crying, she will listen to me and she will take in everything that I’m saying but she’s not necessarily the most like, “It’s okay. Don’t worry.” That’s not her personality. She will send me a coloring book that’s like, “Go fuck yourself,” or whatever.

That works.

That’s her way of being like, “It’s okay.” That’s the way she expresses her love.

It doesn’t work for everybody. It’s not going to be okay for everyone. For some people, it works.

It works for us.

Our friendship is unique. We figured each other out over the years.

We know how far we can push each other by making fun of each other. It’s at the line. We are almost at the edge.

I will push her over. If I have the opportunity to throw someone off a cliff, I’m going to do it.

I want to talk about one more thing before I get to my last question. How would you advise a girl in her twenties that comes from a stricter family that is afraid of the stigma and of being labeled a “slut?” What advice would you give to those women who do want to genuinely get into sex work the correct way but are struggling with that thought in their head, “I’m going to be judged?”

If you are not secure enough with yourself to make that leap and take the criticism, maybe it’s time to rethink your route. Maybe sex work isn’t the best for you. Maybe give it a couple of years to stew on it, think about it and openly discuss it from a third-person perspective, “What about if this person were to do this?” Do hypotheticals with your family and friends, and get a feel for how they are feeling about it. If they are going to be negative, it’s going to ruin your relationships and if it’s going to burn all your bridges, I would say don’t do it unless those are things that you are comfortable losing and if those are people that you don’t necessarily want in your life.

For me, let’s say hypothetically that my mom was a racist, which she’s not and I’m dating a black man. I would be fine with cutting her out of my life because I don’t want somebody like that in my life. I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. I would choose my new path over something like that. That’s something. It’s personal to you, whether you want to make that jump and, whether you want to burn those bridges and those connections. If you think that a personal connection, in that way, such as you being a sex worker will make them see a new path, new light and turn them into someone more open.

You get your own feel for that. You have your own choices to make. I can’t guide you 100% about what to do and say, “Fuck it. I’m going to do it. You should do it.” That’s a personal choice that you have to consider. It’s not something that you can take back. It’s not something that everyone will forgive you for even though you don’t need forgiveness or permission. It’s not something that a more conservative family would be open to. It’s not something that friends that are constantly putting down women for being a slut would necessarily forgive or understand. You have to assess your relationships and your personal bonds with people in your life and see if that is something you want to do.

How did your mom first react when you told her?

She didn’t mind at all.

She’s chill.

She 100% has always been of the mind if I’m not hurting anyone else, then why would it be a problem? I’m not doing anything that is negatively impacting people. The more conservative people do see porn as negatively impacting people. I have never directly harmed anyone with my action. My mother has never seen a problem with it. My brother has never seen a problem with it.

Except he’s screaming.

“I can’t watch porn anymore.” That’s not my problem. There’s OnlyFans.

Me too. If I ever scroll through porn, I’m like, “No.”

Nobody in my life has ever judged me for my actions because I have not harmed anyone in any of our eyes.

I would say my family is freaking conservative compared to most. They never once hesitated to bring her in family because they met her. They don’t prejudge people. That’s something about my family that is cool. They didn’t prejudge even though I did tell them at the time that she was in the sex work industry. They met her and they fell in love with her because of her amazing personality. She’s witty and intelligent. She could match wits with anybody. Mark me on this. Except for about narwhals, maybe planning a trip or calling down for more pillows but besides those things, she can match them.

I have anxiety. I can’t call people on the phone.

Not when I need things though, then I don’t have anxiety.

I could never pick up the phone and call someone.

You have. You called for the buggy that one time in Indonesia.

It was hard.

They never did judge her. Going back to that, I want to say make sure you feel out your family before you cut out your dream. Make sure you fill them out because you might be surprised that they might be supportive. Depending on which way you go about it. If you go to them and you say, “This is my business plan. This is my goal for this. These are my financial things. This is what I plan to do every day to create content.” They may be supportive.

You have to remember it is extremely difficult to keep up a lie. Don’t do it if you can avoid it. I understand some people need a familiar support system. They have to keep up with this life for a long time. Every situation is different. I wouldn’t say 100% never lie. If you have to lie to your family for a long time, it’s got to be hard. Maybe don’t do that.

If you can avoid it, don’t lie to your family. Don’t lie to your support system because you will have hard days going through being a sex worker. You will have difficult days ahead. Lying to your support system in that is asking for a lot of mental and emotional trauma that you don’t have to put yourself through. Unless you can afford a great therapist, by all means, do it.

There are ways to be on OnlyFans without showing completely nude, without having sex on camera. There are different ways to go about that.

You create your own content. You create your own market. I have advised several women how to do OnlyFans without being nude, without selling sex, without doing all of these things.

You could do a tough workout in a bikini.

I have suggested that before, do workouts, do whatever you are comfortable doing and do not push your own boundaries because you will regret it in the long run.

I ask this to every guest on my show. What I want to know is let’s say you walked up to yourself on the street. You saw yourself at twenty years old on the street, you ran up to her, you gave her this big warm hug and you were excited and emotional to see her. You pulled away from the hug and what is the first thing that you say to that woman?

I would tell her that everything is going to be okay. I have a lot of women message me and tell me that they have been in similar positions to myself, and that seeing me live my life to the fullest and without exception has given them confidence and knowledge to know that they are going to be okay. Life does go on and everything gets better. That’s what I would say to myself, it gets better and it’s going to be okay.

Would you warn her about any of the stuff coming?

No. I wouldn’t change a single thing that has happened in my life.

Not many can say that.

Life does go on, and it gets better. Everything gets better. Click To Tweet

Even with my negative experiences, I wouldn’t change them. For having those experiences, I am better, I have a greater reach and I have a better message. I have a more in-depth knowledge of what a great number of people have gone through. It gives me a reason to help and a way to help.

I like that message. There would be some things I would warn your younger self about, maybe 1 or 2 things I would probably tell her to stay clear. Thank you for coming on the show. You are such an amazing friend.

Thank you.

This has been insightful and I have learned some stuff about you that I didn’t know before. How can my readers support you?

If you want to see more of the charities I post or me in a bikini, there is Instagram.com/christymack or OnlyFans.com/christymack. Also, Twitter.com/christymack, TheMackMaket.com, I have hats, T-shirts, stickers, posters and everything on there if you are interested. No pressure.

Until next time. I love you, guys. Bye from me and Christy. We will see you at the next one.

Important links

• Christy Mack
• Instagram.com/christymack
• Facebook.com/christymack
• GoFundMe
• OnlyFans.com/christymack
• Twitter.com/christymack
• Myspace – Christy Mack Photo
• Snakes – Inked Mag
• Sativa – TikTok

About Christy Mack

Christine Mackinday, known professionally as Christy Mack, is an American model and former actress.