The Real Life of a Naked Nerd

It has come to my attention that people are idiots.

Well, ok, I already knew that. I bet you knew that too! (High five!)

But I am talking about a very specific kind of idiocy, where you can tell a person something over and over and over again, yet they will continue to believe whatever they thought in the first place.

One of the things that seems to be most often ingrained in people's psyches, and that drives me absolutely insane, is the stereotype of who a stripper/porn star/escort/cam girl "really is". The image of the slutty, scantily-clad, menthol-smoking, coke-snorting, money-wasting, label-hogging, attention-seeking, anorexic hoochie with a boyfriend in jail. You know the one!

It's not the only one, of course. There is also the desperate crack whore being pimped out by some nasty dude with a gun and a mustache. And, on the only slightly less depressing end of the spectrum, we have the poor girl working her way through school, scrubbing the shame off every night when she gets home, or the single mother just trying to scrape together enough money for her kids snack-pack because she's dumber than a box of rocks and couldn't possibly do any other job.

Sigh.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that these women exist. In fact, I have definitely met a couple stereotypes along the way. Except...they are few and far between. The eastern european with a quasi-pimp for a boyfriend and way too much plastic surgery - well, she accounts for maybe 2% of the women that I have met.

So why is it that these stereotypes are so prevalent? What is it about them that sticks?

I think that it has something to do with visibility. You see, in the club, every girl is going to play up the party-girl part of herself, because, well, that's what the customer wants! On cam, we DO want attention, because attention = money. And some girls will play the pity card - pulling out pictures of kids or stories of med school to try and get more cash for less work. All power to them.

Then, when the clubs close, when we log out....we disappear. The women that actually fit the stereotypes are still visible - getting drunk at a different club, strutting into the tanning salon in six-inch stilettos, and often broadcasting their career choice. People see these women, and think "ah yes, there goes a stripper. You can always tell". A stereotype is born.

Of course, the vast majority of dancers and porn stars DON'T do these things, but are all but invisible because of it. No one looks at a woman doing her grocery shopping in jeans and a t-shirt and thinks "look at that, total porn queen". No one pays attention to all the adult industry workers who just go about their business quietly. Why would they?

It's a horrible, vicious cycle. Women in the industry who aren't binge-drinking, responsibility-phobic party girls don't broadcast the fact that they are sex workers, because they don't want people to assume that they fit the stereotype, and judge them for it. So no one knows that they are sex workers. All the general public sees are those women who DO broadcast their stripper-status, because they enjoy living up to the name. Round and round we go again.

This is me, trying to break that cycle.

This is me, about to open up my actual, real life to the internet, so that you can see that being a sex worker, and being a happy, "normal" person are not mutually exclusive. I can try and SAY it all I want, but the force of judgement is strong with this one, and talking till I am blue in the face will do less good than actually showing you that my life is pretty freaking awesome. People have a wonderful way of rationalizing their bigotry - assuming that the girl who is saying "I don't party that hard" just has a really warped view of what "that hard" actually is, or that the girl who claims she can do another job is just deluding herself, or batting self-esteem issues.

So from next week - rationalize this! I'll be posting some pictures, but mostly just talking about my crazy glamorous life in the sex industry - chock full of home cooked meals, board games, dog walks, brunches.....and all kinds of other insane shenanigans.

Hold on to your hats! (Or, y'know, pop them in the hall closet and let me make you a cup of tea.)