Imagine making thousands of pounds without leaving the house – apparently it can become a reality if you're willing to get saucy.
A cam girl opened up about how she went from sharing sexy snaps on Reddit to making $25,000 (£19,941.00) a week by fulfilling fantasies online. But it wasn't that long ago that Nova Hawthorne, from Melbourne, felt like nothing other than a "plain Jane".
The online sex worker fell into the industry "by accident" when she was trying to boost her self-esteem. It started out as a bit of a hobby for both "fun and validation".
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It wasn't long before people started commenting to tell Nova how "hot" she looked, and it made her feel great. Then people started asking if she offered paid-for content and video calls.
In 2015 she started to produce sexualised content people can pay for. She used the cash to help fund her lifestyle while she was studying a social work degree at university.
Just four years later she moved to Melbourne to complete her social work degree. She also started dancing in clubs which helped her to make "good money".
When she completed her course she decided to take a gap year to dance and save some money. It was at this point she told her mum about her saucy career.
Now her whole family knows about her job too. She told Femail: "I just called her and said I was going on holiday with money I made dancing. I didn't tell them until I had that success because I wanted them to see I could make good money."
Her gap year didn't pan out as she'd hoped, as Covid lockdowns meant she wasn't able to work in strip clubs. The profession become unsustainable, so she had to focus her attention online.
Now she rakes in as much as $160,000 (£127,601,60) a year as a cam girl. This is now her main job, and she works on a saucy platform on the side too.
"I want to be retired by the time I am 40,'" she added. "I don't want to put everything in real estate so I have a lot of other investments."
Even though she's making good money, she said social work is still on the cards for her. When it gets to a point where she doesn't have to work, she plans to use her skills to help others.
There are also moments when Nova gets surprised by her success, as she admits she doesn't "look like a Victoria Secret model".
She said: "I didn't have the best body or big boobs. I didn't even really think I had a sexual side. But posting to Reddit brought out my exhibitionist side. It just felt good to have a connection. Someone who liked how I looked. Liked my body."
Nova said many of her fans are into balloon play, and they like to see her squeeze them, blow them up, sit on them and pop them. Sometimes they're even happy to see her smack them around.
She now sees hundreds of men online every month, but she says there's a core group of around 100 who she considers regulars. It's got to a point where she now knows most things about their lives, and she even knows their pets' names.
"The biggest thing for me is how normalised it all is now," she said. "I will tell people about something I did and they will think it is wild. Where as I think I am bored."
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