by Furry Girl

08.28.09

More than the occasional misogynistic viewers, exorbitant credit card processing fees, and normal people thinking I'm going to molest their children, I get annoyed by those who treat me as though my work could be done by a retarded monkey.  After all, if I possessed any skills, ambitions, or intelligence, I wouldn't be "selling myself", would I?

Sex work exists in the consciousness of almost everyone as the last refuge of the stupid, the lazy, and the desperate. This dismissive viewpoint takes many forms, but the one that often irks me the most is when it's coming from people who express interest in being sex workers.

I get questions (on Myspace, Twitter, and email) all the time from people who want to start their own porn sites.  Most of them including wording such as, "Quick question...", or "If I could have just a few minutes of your time..."

Asking me to explain how to run an independent porn company in such a manner is insulting, and it means you assume that everything I've worked for and learned in the last 7 years can be taught in a couple of sentences.  I basically have a master's degree in making internet porn.  Would you contact an engineer or any other (non-sex) professional and assume they can teach you what they do in a handful of off-hand remarks?

Running a porn site is not a get-rich quick scheme where you click a few buttons on your computer and hundred dollar bills start shooting out of your DVD drive.  It's a job - a skilled job - and it takes plenty of time to get good at it.  You're going to need to pour a lot of energy in it, and it can be quite some time before it's profitable.  You're going to need some capital for investing in equipment and consulting with a local attorney.  You're going to need to learn new skills and hone your existing ones.  Plenty of people fail at operating porn sites - even those who have good content and a love for their work.

Jobs that involve sexuality aren't magical zero-effort high-yield professions, and by assuming they are, you're showing me that you haven't thought this through before contacting me.  It's not that I don't ever dispense helpful advice, but you have to demonstrate that you're not expecting me to try and spoon-feed you information when it's obvious you haven't spent any of your own time researching this new career path for yourself.  If you don't care enough to try and learn about it independently, why should I care about it for you?  And if you're unwilling to take the initiative to seek out information on your own, do you really think you'll be good at running a business?

Perfectly acceptable questions to send me:

"Do you use a content management system?"
"Merchant account or third party billing?"
"Do you encode to multiple video formats?"

Unacceptable questions:

"How do you make a website?"
"Are there any laws or anything I need to know about?"
"How much does a digital camera cost?"

The first set of questions show me that the person has done their own research, and they're looking to fill in the gaps.  They're also not asking me questions that Google could answer for them, which shows that they respect my time.  The second set of questions tells me this person hasn't contemplated the idea of being a pornographer for very long, and probably doesn't know much about the internet or technology in the first place.  (If I reply at all, I tell them to spend at least a hundred hours reading adult webmaster resource sites like YNOT.com before contacting me again.)

Much like the "Sex Workers Are People, Too" PSA, I'd love to see a "Sex Work is Work" PSA.  I think that we're much more accomplished at convincing the world that we're people than we are at getting them to believe that what we do is work.

Whether it's running porn sites, escorting, pro-domming, or phone sex, those of us who are successful at what we do have gotten to that point because of plain old hard work, determination, and smarts.

Just like any other person who's good at their job.





6 Comments »

  1. Yeah, I get e-mails from former friends who have had a hard time accepting the woman as I am for one purpose and one purpose only: to do anything and everything they do not know how to do, for free.

    And I would also recommend A List Apart to those unfamiliar with the practice of web design.

    Comment by Jessica Sideways — September 13, 2009 @ 11:38 am

  2. Heh.

    Laughing here. I'm a writer - very minor, as yet - in SF, fantasy, and so forth. And every time somebody asks me about it, sooner or later we get around to the bit where they want to tell me about their novel. And how they really ought to publish it. And who do I think they should see, once they've written it?

    Nobody ever assumes that the task of writing a decent novel might be something that could take both talent and skill. You see, everybody speaks the language, right? And anybody can mash the keys on a word-processor, write a shopping list, send an email to grandma, right? So naturally, writing a novel is just an extension of existing skills...

    ... you have my sympathy. And for whatever it's worth, my respect. I've got no idea of your skills in the porn industry, but you're articulate and thoughtful, and it was a hoot stumbling across this site. All the best.
    df

    Comment by Flinthart — September 23, 2009 @ 4:41 am

  3. I really enjoyed reading this-it's important to know, and I wasn't fully aware. So, Thank You.

    Comment by Lou — October 20, 2009 @ 8:56 pm

  4. This complaint is very common on the internet in general. About half of the stories on http://www.clientcopia.com/ are people pissed that some potential client just told a professional webdesigner that they shouldn't be charging more than the client's 12-year-old because the kid can also make a web page. The intersection of web work and sex work is like doubleplusunreal work. It's one step away from dividing by zero.

    Comment by lovesickrobot — June 9, 2010 @ 4:41 am

  5. One of the most wonderful things about the web is that now, you can do that- run your own site. That wasn't really possible back when I was doing porn, it was pretty concentrated.

    But eventually, in the few years before I finally gave up sex work, I ran my own escort site. That was a lot of work, actually seeing the clients was the easy part. And of course, always the comment - "Well,you don't really have a real job." Yeah. Sure. I did everything any other business owner did and then some.

    Comment by Comixchik — May 23, 2011 @ 5:03 am

  6. Thanks for all the comments! I guess it is a universal thing if you have certain skills, people assume that what you do is easy and that they could surely do it, too.

    Comment by Furry Girl — May 25, 2011 @ 11:36 am

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Comment policy for Feminisnt: I do not publish blatant insults and trolling. You must use a name/handle other than anonymous or asdf because I am tired of giving space to detractors who are too lazy to pick a fake handle and too scared to use a real one. I no longer publish comments bitching at me about how feminism is the greatest thing ever. And I may not publish your comment if I have already addressed that specific issue several times already. Read my responses to other comments before asking a new question. Finally, if your comment hinges on an obvious logical fallacy, I might not publish that, either, except to make fun of you. All new commentors have their first comment held for moderation. Commenting on my blog and taking up space on my server is a privilege, not a right.

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