Image via limbic.
After finding this essay on McSweeney’s, I’ve had it in the lineup waiting to share it with you. Funny, interesting, well written, and all too familiar… Here’s a snip from the middle of The Conflicted Existence of a Female Porn Writer by Lynsey G.:
(…) After a few months of reviewing, the constant humping was wearing on my retinas and getting tedious. My personal sex drive, initially amped up by the bouncing boobs and facials, was declining in the face of overexposure. I was getting paranoid that I’d never be adequate in bed, or that I’d start thinking really kinky things were normal and scare off my boyfriend. I was finding it easier to come up with derogatory slurs about the performers’ bodies and actions. And, I realized, I was coming to understand the bitterness that edged the voices of my editors and co-writers, the disgust with humanity that drove their daily routines. I told myself I wouldn’t let it happen to me; I’d keep my life and my work separate.
My employers, no doubt interpreting my naiveté as enthusiasm, recommended me to the editor at another, much more prominent skin rag as a set copy writer. This work was easier, paid almost as well, and involved no porn watching; in fact, I never even saw the girls I was writing about. I’d just make up a 500 word story about Karly from Kansas who wanted to be a state trooper but whose jugs threw off her shooting aim, or Eufgenia from the Ukraine whose boobs had grown to an astonishing Double G cup after the Chernobyl disaster, and the editor would match some stock photos to my copy. Not exactly respectful of the girls who had posed nude, but it was the easiest thing I’d ever done for money.
And then, one day, as I was writing up my To-Do list (“write set copy; get groceries; deposit check; watch Jailbait 5; do yoga”) I realized I had become an actual writer. A porn writer. I was a specialist, and my specialty was coming up with funny terms for boobies. Oh. My. God.
Panic ensued. I’d never be a legitimate author now! (…read more, mcsweeneys.net)
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