Recently, these OOH banners (a.k.a.: Out Of Home) appeared on several boulevards in Bucharest (Romania).
The texts on the banners read:
”Your sneakers have four stripes? Change your job!”
”Have you seen ***** only in the sky? Change your job!”
”Is your paycheck missing a figure? Change your job!”
”Have you seen Paris only in movies? Change your job!”
The target audience of the campaign? Women looking for high incomes and a coveted social status (travel, expensive clothes, exotic experiences).
*** DISCLAIMER: I’m making this deduction based on the campaign’s messages. These are not my own judgments about videochat models. If these messages trigger anyone, we’d do best to remember those are created by an advertising agency and agreed by the woman manager of that videochat agency. ***
Beneficiary: a videochat agency (out of many) from Bucharest (Romania). A recent article estimated there are about 450K (-!!) Romanian videochat models and the agency offers services online, on the international market. I have never looked for more market shares of an industry in which I neither operate nor consume.
My angle? The partners or spouses of those who consume videochat services.
Why them? My job is somatic coaching in intimacy/sexuality, and I chose to address it primarily and mostly to women. I could have work with men too, my training did not set limits like this, but I chose to put a big filter on my clients.
Somatic coaching in intimacy/sexuality works with physical sensations, psycho-emotional states associated with bodily sensations, the five senses, awareness of the sexual triggers inside the body, problems, blockages or lack of bodily sensations, communication about everything related to intimacy and sexuality, personal boundaries and how we navigate them, transforming or even bringing sensations into the body (what in the field we call “somatic openness”).
Absolutely all these topics are delicate, difficult, and (to my torment in promoting my work) even intimidating. And they are too little known at all collectively. Unfortunately, we still do not fully know, at the societal level, that we can work with professionals from a personal development and education angle.
(Slightly offtopic: women who seek coach from me inform their partners about it before they write to me; most men who enquire about coaching do not tell their partners at all, saying that they wouldn’t understand, would get scared, worried, or even upset if they heard that; when I tell men that they that I can invite their women partners to take coaching services with them, many quit then and there.)
So, what would I say to women whose partners/husbands pay big bucks for videochat services?
In essence, it is about the dynamic itself: what men say to those models, what they ask for, what they want to hear from them, or what they want to talk to them. Videochat is just that: communication; a certain kind of communication. (-!) Obviously, men can’t have it with their partners. If they could, they wouldn’t pay so much money to videochat.
Why don’t men have this dynamic with their partners?
Here are some of the reasons I heard from the men who took coaching with me:
1. Most of the time, they asked, but they were not heard, understood, or honored in their requests. The good news here is that you, woman, can work on it. It’s up to you how you respond or react to your partner’s requests. If he comes with them to you, it means he trusts you to say what’s on his mind or heart. (see below why you are in a good scenario).
2. He may be ashamed to tell you certain things he wants. Yes, shame with you, his longtime partner, or his wife. You can work on that, too, although it’s a bit more subtle. You are practically working on the space created between you and him, where he feels that he may be vulnerable enough to tell you or ask you certain things. So he wouldn’t have that much reason to pay that money there.
3. He may not be able to associate you with the image and/or dynamics he is looking for in videochat. Unfortunately, here there’s not much you can do about it. Most of it is in his court. However, you still have a smaller part to play (it’s never just about one person in the relationship). That part is this: how do you approach your development and exploration in this part of your life?
In personal development (regardless of the niche), it is well known that when one partner gives clear and palpable signs that they want to grow (and take concrete steps in that direction), often the other partner responds. Especially when it comes to something they do together (nutrition, finance, spirituality, career development, childcare, or even intimacy).
So if you start working on your sexuality, and they see or learn this from you, they may start opening up to you about certain topics.
However, there is an exception even so: many people project before checking in or getting more details. The projections look something like, “You don’t do these things,” “You’re not that kind of a woman” or “You know you’re upset if I bring up X, so how could I bring up sexuality topics with you?!”
Here, no matter how hard you work and no matter how hard you try, you can’t transform the person next to you. But you can set a constructive tone in your relationship. Namely, you can ask him what his opinion is about some sexuality-related stuff, what he would like to explore, what he never dared to tell a woman in his past, and so on. That is, you apply the principle of absolute leader: “Lead by example.”
P.S.: It is not my goal to impoverish videochat models but help couples better manage their budgets. What if the money saved was donated to an environmental cause? Or put aside for some big dream they have?
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