Aella (born February 22, 1992)[1][2] is a pseudonymous American writer, blogger, sex worker,[3] and camgirl[2][4] 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."[5] Sex researcher J. Michael Bailey has called her online surveys "some of the broadest insights that we have into sexuality in the 2020s".
GQ magazine has called Aella a "data-driven former tech worker",[6] and Reason magazine has called her a "data scientist".[7]
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.[2][7] She eventually became one of the highest-earning creators on OnlyFans, making over $100,000 in some months.[7] 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 correlated with higher earnings.[6] Following this, she began work as an escort.[3] As of 2024 her main source of income was her writing on Substack.[8] She has also been involved in several startups.[2][6]
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. He wrote, "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)".[9]
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.[2][6] Her father was a well-known evangelist and radio host.[2][9] 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."[11]
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.[2][7] She lived with five roommates, slept on a mattress, and made $10 an hour.[6] After quitting her factory job, Aella became a camgirl due to lack of money. Her two younger sisters have also worked as camgirls, performing without nudity.[2]
Aella has said she has "libertarian-leaning" political views who has said, "I like capitalism."[7] She describes herself as a member of the rationalist community.[9] She joined in 2015,[12] after dating someone interested in LessWrong.[13]
In 2024, a Sankey diagram made by Aella showing the participants in her birthday party gang bang gained popularity online.[14]
↑Yeoh, Ben (November 14, 2021). "Aella: escort work, home school, rationalism, circling, working in a factory, losing faith, polls and endless questions". BenYeohChats (Podcast). ThenDoBetter. Event occurs at 10:43. Retrieved April 10, 2025. Aella: A long time ago I dated a guy who kept sending me LessWrong articles and I was like whatever, I'll read it later and then I started reading it and then they have interlinked and I started following the interlinks and then it was no going back from there.
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