It's a real shame that Diablo Cody hasn't kept her old blog online.  I realize she's a famous Oscar-winner now and has important celebrity encounters and movie openings to blog about, but her earlier work was among my favorite stuff to read when I was new to the adult industry.  I recently sought out one of her posts via Archive.org, and I wanted to re-post it here as a little piece of sex worker history the web has almost forgotten.

This was written November 16th, 2003.

Under glass.

Saturday night is the cruelest shift at the peep show, and not just because I'd rather be abusing alcohol at my favorite bowling alley. No, Saturday nights suck because S-Mart attracts throngs of drunken curiousity seekers and couples who think it might be "fun" to go to that giant sex shop downtown.

Now, as you know, I do the dirty stuff in a private booth, away from prying eyes. But when I'm not doing a show, I have to sit in the "den," which is basically a big glass display case in the middle of the fucking store. I'm basically a doll. Anyone who walks in can ogle me in my underwear, tap on the glass, hurl insults, cluck with disapproval at how "exploited" I am, compare me to an animal in a zoo, etc. And they do.

Most nights, this isn't a problem. The usual gang of perverts who frequent the store are used to seeing us in there, and they don't even approach the glass unless they want to buy a show. But on Saturdays, that's when we get the kind of people who aren't used to seeing peep show girls in the flesh.

Worse yet, we get women.

Women shopping for bachelorette parties. Women on "girls' night out," who have had one too many Flirtinis and are feeling self-righteous, hilarious and/or bitter. Women who are with their husbands, and suddenly turn sour when hubby approaches the glass. I stiffen whenever I see a woman coming. They never have anything nice to say, even though I've mastered my sheepish "It's a living, sister" smile.

What made last night especially agonizing was that I was working alone. I brought a book on Buddhism and zoned out on the sofa (so much for mindfulness.) Everytime I slipped out of my book-induced reverie and looked up, there was a group of people standing at the glass. "Hey, she's real!" someone inevitably said. Or (with disgust) "They pay her to sit in there and read?"

I came home at 1:00 a.m. and had nightmares.