The story

The confrontation between Caterina Collovati and Andrea The Angel Face begins with two very different ideas about motherhood, work and sexuality. The setting is La Zanzara, an Italian talk-radio programme hosted by Giuseppe Cruciani and David Parenzo, where arguments are rarely allowed to remain polite for long.

Andrea is introduced as a woman originally from Slovakia, living in South Tyrol in northern Italy, and the mother of two teenage girls. She says she has supported herself exclusively through making and selling adult content online for around two years, after doing a range of other jobs.

She describes working in a medical practice, in food retail and as a waitress. Photography provided the route into adult content: modelling came first, followed by an offer to make more explicit pictures, and eventually a full-time business.

From modelling to adult content

Andrea discusses the photographs and explicit videos she sells without appearing particularly embarrassed. She says she is not an escort and distinguishes that work from what she does, although, when challenged by Cruciani, she concedes that an exceptionally large offer might make her consider a proposal.

She also says that conversations with subscribers are not limited to sex: they discuss politics and other subjects too. But the tone of the exchange changes decisively when Cruciani asks about her daughters.

What she told her children

The girls are now 16 and 15. Andrea says they have known about the nature of her work for roughly ten years, since they were very young. She describes telling them that their mother was selling her body online.

In her account, they were initially too young to understand fully and came to understand more as they grew older. She nevertheless insists that she keeps the content away from them and that they cannot access the material she produces.

This is where Collovati intervenes most forcefully. Her objection is not simply to Andrea’s occupation, but to telling the children about it when they were so young.

Collovati argues that she should have kept it hidden

Collovati says that children of that age should have been concerned with entirely different things. She considers it deeply wrong to involve them, even through an explanation, in their mother’s professional sexual life.

She describes the situation as something a social worker should be concerned about and rejects the assumption that telling children the truth is always beneficial. In her view, Andrea should first have avoided the work itself; having chosen it, she should at least have shielded her daughters completely.

Andrea replies that she has never felt ashamed of what she does and defends her decision to be open about it.

The concern about their teenage years

Collovati then turns to the social consequences. Now that the girls attend secondary school, she argues, classmates might discover their mother’s work, find photographs or videos online, and use that knowledge to put pressure on them or direct comments at them.

Andrea says that, as far as she knows, her daughters have not received propositions of that kind. Collovati remains unconvinced: even if something had happened, she says, the girls might not have told their mother.

Cruciani asks the question more directly. Does Andrea worry that her daughters could accidentally come across one of her videos? She repeats that she keeps the material protected and separate from their lives.

The financial argument

The discussion becomes more concrete when it reaches money. Andrea says that after separating from her husband she was left without a network of grandparents, aunts or friends able to help with two small children day to day.

She initially continued in conventional employment, but says her wages were not enough to provide the life she wanted for her daughters. She describes struggling to cover the end of the month, buy groceries or afford a holiday. According to her account, her former husband contributed around €200 per child.

She now says she earns approximately €4,000–€6,000 a month from online content. For Andrea, that is the tangible result of her decision: being able to support her children and improve their circumstances.

Charity, alternative work and shame

Collovati does not accept financial need as sufficient justification. She says she would sooner have sought help from Caritas, the Catholic charitable network, and argues that training or other employment should have been considered before selling sexual content.

She characterises Andrea’s work as a form of virtual prostitution and returns repeatedly to the idea of shame. Andrea rejects that judgement. She says she has already done the jobs considered normal and that those experiences showed her how hard it was to support two children on the available pay.

Cruciani also points out that money is not the only motivation Andrea describes. She acknowledges an exhibitionist side and says she enjoys the work.

Two incompatible views of motherhood

The exchange ends without common ground. For Collovati, becoming a mother imposes limits on personal choices, particularly when public sexual work could affect children’s development or social lives.

For Andrea, motherhood also means taking financial responsibility and refusing to feel ashamed of work she considers freely chosen, while protecting her children from material intended for adults.

One side argues that a mother cannot make her body a public product without indirectly involving her children. The other is a woman who says that selling content online enabled her to provide for those very children when the alternatives had failed.