Aella (writer)

Aella, or Aella_girl (born February 22, 1992) is a pseudonymous American writer, blogger, sex worker, and camgirl who, as described by David Auerbach, "has written extensively about the psychology and economics of online sex work, conducting extensive surveys and research in order to lay out the ecosystem of online sex workers." '' GQ'' magazine has described Aella as a "data-driven former tech worker", and ''Reason'' magazine has described her as a "data scientist".

Career

Aella moved out at age 17 after a fallout with her parents, and in 2012, after quitting a job as an assembly line worker in a factory, began working as a camgirl, initially on MyFreeCams. She eventually became one of the highest-earning creators on OnlyFans, making over $100,000 in some months. By 2021, she was described as having set herself apart partly by conducting extensive market research, e.g. surveying almost 400 fellow female OnlyFans performers about their incomes and identifying factors that were correlated with higher earnings.
After camgirling, she began work as an escort. As of 2024 her main source of income was her writing on Substack. She has also been involved in several startups.

A 2025 article in ''The Atlantic'' by Helen Lewis noted Aella's willingness to ask controversial questions, and compared her to celebrity sex researchers and advocates of sexual liberation such as Ruth Westheimer and Alfred Kinsey. Psychology professor and sex researcher J. Michael Bailey criticized Aella's "casualness", but praised her willingness to brook controversy and said her work was worthwhile. The article noted that "Thanks to her talent for virality, she has been able to create huge online surveys that, despite the limitations of the medium, provide some of the broadest insights that we have into sexuality in the 2020s... She is as uninhibited about asking inflammatory questions as she is about posting nudes: She has written about whether penis size is correlated with race (“We haven’t had a good, high-''n'' study”) and asked her followers if they would support the creation of realistic child-size sex dolls for pedophiles (77.4 percent said no)".

In 2023, Aella appeared on the Lex Fridman podcast.

Personal life

Aella grew up in Idaho as the oldest of three daughters of conservative parents who were part of a community of fundamentalist Christians; their family name has been withheld in media coverage for privacy reasons. Her father was a well-known evangelist and radio host. In a 2018 blogpost Aella described him as physically and emotionally abusive with "narcissistic personality disorder", though her father disputes that notion. According to Aella, she was homeschooled except for three months spent in public high school, which she was withdrawn from "because I had access to computers without parental supervision."

After moving out at 17, Aella briefly attended college in northern Idaho, but ran out of money after a semester. She then worked at a factory, which required her to wake up around 4 a.m. and often work more than 50 hours a week. She lived with five roommates, slept on a mattress and was paid $10 an hour. After quitting her factory job, Aella became a camgirl due to lack of money. Her two younger sisters also began work as camgirls after reaching the age of majority, at Aella's suggestion.

Aella has stated she has "libertarian-leaning" political views.

Aella describes herself as a member of the rationalist community. She joined in 2015, after dating someone interested in LessWrong.

References

External links

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Living people
American sex workers
American sexologists
American bloggers
OnlyFans creators
1992 births
American libertarians
Rationalists