Sex Workers Offer Nude Incentives To Fight Australian Fires

It probably won't come as news to anyone reading this, but sex sells, as does mere nudity. It also won't surprise many that even those who have sex or simply take their clothes off for a living also may have social consciences—and at least two sex workers have combined those two realities in an effort to help Australia fight the massive fires that have been ravaging that country for several months. According to CNN, more than 14.7 million acres have been destroyed by the fires across the country's six states, with 136 fires currently burning just in the state of New South Wales (NSW), with 69 of those not yet contained. Moreover, in NSW alone, 1,300 houses have been leveled by the flames, with 18 people confirmed dead in the state, not to mention 480 million animals, including a third of the state's koalas. Also Sydney, the country's largest city, had "air quality" measured at 11 times the "hazardous" level during the month of December. Hell of a thing, eh? Well, some people in the sex work community are trying to do something about it. Kaylen Ward, a 20-year-old cam model and Instagram influencer who adopted the pseudonym The Naked Philanthropist, tweeted on January 3 that she would reward those who donated at least $10 to one of the Australian relief organizations by sending them a nude photo of herself—and within two days, she'd already received nearly $700,000 from horny (or perhaps simply civic-minded) contributors. In fact, the money was rolling in so fast that she had to hire a team to help her sort through all the messages she'd received to verify the donations and to put the photos in the mail. Just one problem, though: Instagram caught wind of her philanthropy and promptly shut down her Instagram account, even though none of her photos on Instagram were nude, though the company claimed that her Twitter campaign "violated its guidelines" by posting "sexually suggestive content," according to a story on Buzzfeed News. "This account was disabled for violating our policies. Offering nude images is not allowed on Instagram," a Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed. Before being summarily kicked off the network, Ward had 50,000 Instagram followers. Around this same time, however, a similar campaign was started by former Playboy model Jaylene Cook, who created a Patreon page on which she offers fire-relief donors access to a "completely nude uncensored album" for a $15 pledge and to her "entire nude uncensored archive" for a $100 pledge respectively, with all proceedings going to "selected charities supporting the Australia bushfire crisis," according to an article posted on the Russian news site SputnikNews.com. Eligible charities mentioned in the article include NSW Rural Fire Service, VIC Country Fire Authority, the Salvation Army, the Australian Red Cross, Australia Zoo Wildlife Warriors, the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital and NSW Wildlife Information, Rescue and Education Service. "At the time of writing, Cook’s page had already attracted at least 42 patrons, whose pledges amounted to about 10 percent of the $100,000 milestone set by the model," Sputnik News reported. Cook's effort may be intended in part to help restore her reputation. In 2017, she was widely criticized for having posed for nude photos atop Mount Taranaki in New Zealand which, according to the country's Maori natives, is considered the burial ground of the tribe’s ancestor and is itself seen as an ancestor—and those who stand on its summit are considered "cursed for life." Still, in 2019 Cook became the Miss January Playmate for Mexico, and she has 298,000 followers on Instagram, and continues to have layouts in magazines like FHM and Peeled. Guess curses aren't what they used to be! Pictured: Jaylene Cook