In memory of Astra
A few weeks ago, I lost an Instagram account.
Years of photos and captions were snatched into the ether by a social media platform. They shamed me for my sex work in their sterile, algorithmic way leaving me to grieve its absence and all of the followers that may never again find me.
As a performance artist with a Venus in Scorpio, it is my great honor to mourn the loss of this account. While some might consider the experience of an Instagram to be primarily professional or social or even inconsequential, that was not my experience.
This account was where I posted sexy photos of myself with captions of poetry beneath them.
The thing is, it wasn’t exactly the poetry or the pictures that made @astra.adara what it was. The content itself was photos of me looking quite sensual, often in lingerie or the bathtub. The captions were erotic poems that were mostly unrelated to pictures.
The poems themselves were very raw. I detailed love affairs, spiritual experiences, and sexual fantasies. Writing about death, life, and love in the captions gave me a unique fulfillment. I didn’t really know if people were liking my photos or my poems, but I wanted to believe it was both.
As a practitioner of sex magic, I was experiencing the energy exchange of this page as alchemical. A way to embody the two most divine aspects of myself: My creative expression and my eroticism.
The platform gave me the experience of merging those things in a way that I believe they are merged at the deepest levels of human experience.
To me, there is very little difference between a poem and a sexy selfie.
Since the death of it, I’m a little nervous sharing the content that was there outside of its original context. The act of using social media in this way was almost part of why it was so intimate- Like you might turn down an alleyway in the streets of Instagram and happen upon me: A den of foggy and dark emotions, inviting both arousal and contemplation.
Now, did all my followers feel that way? Probably not. I’m sure plenty of people scrolled right by or didn’t feel the vulnerability of it. Maybe double-tapping because of my cleavage and moving on.
For me, however, Astra Adara was an alter ego I adopted when I was starting my journey as a cam girl. I was finding my niche and my voice as an erotic artist through her creation. I was learning about the nature of myself as a performer of sexuality online and finding out how I wanted to connect with people- How I wanted to serve them.
The combination of these photos and these deeply personal poems was the ultimate expression of my desires for Astra.
The reason the account was taken down was because of the OnlyFans link in the bio.
Here’s the dill pickle:
Just because my sex work is ~artsy~ and ~aesthetic~ does not mean it deserves more respect than the traditional pornographers making sexual and erotic content.
There is an entire economy of people making pornographic content that challenges the status quo of the internet porn industry as we know it. Every single manifestation of that is worthy of respect and support.
