Beginnings | How I First Got Naked

I have said before that I am a big voyeur. I love to people-watch, and not just in a sexual way. I’m fascinated by others, their habits and how they interact, dress, carry themselves. Right now, as I am tucked into the back corner seat of the train, I’m watching this Dutch couple in front of me. Like I imagine what commuting must be like in Europe, they have brought an almost full breakfast onto the train with them - proper picnic breakfast, not Tim Hortons bagels and coffee. Fruit, crackers, cheese (with a knife?!). These are moments that make these mornings unique and send my mind away from the mundane routine working in the city has become. 

One of the questions I get very now and then - and something most recently asked by my Twitter friend Bushmonke - was how I got started in my naughty little hobby, and what has changed in the years since.  friend

Kind of a loaded backend to that question ;-) 

You know, I don’t think that any woman really grows up with dreams of being a “porn star” - amateur or professional. As we mature, we may embrace the idea, find a comfort level, or fascination with it. But I can’t see a little girl aspiring to it. 

I started my website in July 2002. I bet if you had asked me in July 2001 if I would have been doing something like this I would have said “no way.” 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had done some modeling as a teenager, and had some photographic fun of a more adult nature with my husband, but I didn’t aspire to becoming a Southern Charm. There was a number of reasons why things have gone the way they have. Shortly after 9/11/2001, my husband lost his job. While it was a bit of a depressing time - we had a 20-month old and 5-month old - he wasn’t going to be defeated by it. Thankfully, through some business contacts he had in the entertainment industry, he managed to get something going while looking for work back in his primary career. That took about 7 months. 

So, at the stage we were looking at the reality of our situation. We had managed to tread water, but still were left - like so many other people - with some intimidating debt. 

Not connected to that, we never lost our sense of adventure and intimacy as a couple. There were points when I wasn’t exactly feeling like a desirable woman, having just had two children, struggling with our new financial reality as we had agreed I would stay home with our children until they were in school. One weekend, my husband and I made a silly bet, which I lost, and the “consequence” was he was going to prove that I could still attract the attention of other men. At first I had no clue how he was going to do this, until he introduced me to an amateur website, the kind where all the photos are posted by every day women. 

The “dare” was that if I received enough comments on my images to prove the argument, I would then have to post another series; this time more revealing. All that happened, and it wasn’t long after that we got an e-mail from one of the other posters on the site telling us about Southern Charms. We checked it out, read all the info and kind of left it at that for a bit. 

I was surprised by what we discovered though. Up until that point, all I had seen in “porn” on the Internet was professional model sites, and even those were only because I was snooping into someone’s surfing habits! But on SC there were women of all shapes, sizes and ages. I was pretty naïve to the idea that everyday women like me would be into something like this. It was enlightening, shocking, curious and erotic all at the same time. Together we kind of found a new appreciation for this “amateur” stuff. 

I think each of us was quietly thinking the same thing. About a month later my husband asked me, as he was cleaning out the e-mails, what my intentions were with the one about SC. I said: “I don’t know.” After about an hour of not saying anything, he just asked me “Do you want to try it?” 

Secretly I did want to, but was very nervous. This wasn’t just a couple of anonymous photos; this was my own site on the largest amateur website on the web! But it was the opportunity I needed, if for no other reason than to dispel the myth that my husband seemed to have about me, and any kind of broader sexual appeal. 

At first, we were both a bit clueless as to what we should be doing - in everything from photo size and quality to settings and outfits. One of my early sets - the one of me in a pantsuit - was taken after we got home from a friend’s wedding, as we kind of threw things out there. And none of it at the time was really about the money, as much as it was about the adventure and putting some extra spice into our marriage. But that said, with the stress of the debt we had accumulated, getting paid for being naked and having sex (while trying to pretend the camera wasn’t there) was turning into a liberating experience. 

I’m not going to recommend it for everyone – because there are some dark sides you have to prepare for. 

So, it took a while to figure out what was going to work. To this day, I’m still not sure … but I think I have found a little more understanding of the “niche” in where I fit. It was much easier to figure out what I am not as a model … 

It’s now been 9 years and well over 20,000 photos and dozens of mpgs and videos.

TOMORROW: Part 2 - What has changed? 

Andee     xoxo