Maji Claire is a magical creature

–You’ve talked about feeling alien, other, mystifying where you are right now. Can you go into the details of this – do you think this is something that is possibly just an innate quality in being a creative, no matter where you are ? 

I feel very fluid as an artist, and I have a tendency to really easily feel trapped. That goes for my creative process but also my life – which I feel like is kind of the same thing. Being perceived as one thing gives me extreme anxiety because I feel like I am expected to perform a certain identity that is expected of me to the people around me. I’m a cancer sun, so therefore I tend to be very accommodating in terms of giving people what they need. I tend to compromise on who I want to be for and adjust to who people need me to be. 

Four months ago I had a mental breakdown, so bad that it was physical. I was constantly shaking and couldn’t walk or speak for weeks. I didn’t sleep and I had massive anxiety. I couldn’t even masturbate or write in my diary. I felt so alien to everything I ‘were’, or everything I was perceived as. When I say mystifying or de-mystifying my own existence it’s reflecting on the perception that people get from social media and then meet you with in real life. At that time I would meet people and they would be like – “oh you’re doing so well”, and not know that I was actually – literally – falling apart. In this process I started to use onlyfans as an intimate diary where I showed my followers the full picture – my healing process, my thoughts, my tears – the other side of all that was shown on instagram which was generally ‘fab’. As for being a creative I think it is very easy to start identifying yourself with your work because it literally is an expression of your soul. And when that becomes idolized or praised, then the ego enters and you start to surround your work around the way you’re being perceived by others and not from the inside out. That is a huge danger because it traps you in one state, it becomes a constant performance, which is super exhausting.

I was struck by the post you made earlier in the summer about your decision to add a “secret link”,  as you say, to your bio. It was possibly one of the most considerate, gentle and honest posts I’ve seen about OF in a while. Can you talk more about your decision to start this project?

That’s so sweet, thanks. Yeah, I started OF because I needed some coin and I knew that I was being objectified anyways so which not profit from it? It was weird because a huge part of my expression is very sensual and exposed, but all of a sudden I realized I had so much more internalized slut-shame that I thought I had gotten rid of. In the beginning I only dared to promote on reddit where I could be anonymous, but I still thought it was super cool when people had the guts to put their link on their main page. Especially when that wasn’t necessarily what it was about; my social media is mostly my work but then I could be like – “hey, and if you’re here for my ass here’s a link to it”.  At first I was very accommodating to what I thought my followers would think was ‘hot’, but it has become more and more me sharing my own personal journey in sexuality and life in general. I’m trying to actually provide ‘intimacy’, since with my previous experience in sex-work that is what I realise we all crave anyways. 

It has been so healing the way I have received support and consideration from my OF followers, and I have realized that I didn’t even know that I could be fetishised in a consensual and caring way. It’s a huge eye opener and reflection on how and who I’ve been sharing my intimate space with before. I think it is extremely interesting to dive into the fact that you can be honest about sexualising people in a respectful way, a way that is supportive and respects boundaries.