I've never given blog space to one of my favorite dystopic tales of all time, a short story that is both clever speculative fiction, and applies to parts of the porn debate.

As a precocious 12-year-old in the smart kid English class, I was introduced to Kurt Vonnegut in the form of Harrison Bergeron, a short story from the 60s.  Vonnegut was one of those authors I read at just the right time when I was growing up - alongside Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell - folks who crafted tales that resonate so perfectly with how awkward outsider kids feel about the world.

Vonnegut's story begins,

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

In this future, we have finally achieved the feminist/liberal dream of equality through by punishing and handicapping those who are beautiful, strong, and intelligent for the heinous crimes of making others feel insecure.  In effect: affirmative action taken further down its slippery slope, this time, to equalize out any and all "unfair" advantages which no one must be allowed to possess in life.

After all, if one person (like a feminist or unattractive woman) reacts to another person (like a supermodel or porn star) with insecurity and jealousy, the only way to solve this "problem" is to punish and criticize the attractive party, and try and pass laws to prevent the delicate party from ever being "forced" to feel insecure ever again.

I highly recommend reading Harrison Bergeron, which isn't terribly long, and will perhaps cause you to ask interesting questions about "equality."

A week ago, a tragedy befell a popular dancer and altporn performer.  Joanna Angel and Jessie Lee were in a car accident on the way to an con called Exxxotica New Jersey, and Jessie Lee (aka OMGitsJessieLee) was seriously injured.  She's now awake and eating, but she's got a lot of work (and expenses) ahead of her.  I don't know Jessie, but I do know that for sex workers, an injury means not only medical bills, but also not being able to work and earn a living while recovering.

One thing I'm a big believer in is taking care of your own, and I'm happy to see how many other pervs and pornographers are working on fundraising for Jessie.  I'm also offering a freebie, and I hope that it will help sweeten the deal and encourage you to donate to Jessie's recovery.

FREE PORNO/STUFF FOR DONATIONS:

* Joanna Angel is offering lots of goodies.  For $50 and above, you get a free autographed copy of Burning Angel Magazine.  For $100 and above, you get the magazine, a month subscription to BurningAngel.com, and a DVD.  For $250 and above, you get all those things plus a blow-up sex doll of Joanna Angel.  To receive your thank you gifts, please send an email to helpjessielee AT burningangel.com with "PAYPAL DONATION" in the Subject Line. Include your PayPal Transaction ID # and the ADDRESS where you'd like the gifts mailed, and we'll confirm it's been done. Also, all proceeds from Jessie Lee's DVDs in the Burning Angel store will go to Jessie, just put "HELP JESSIE LEE!" in the comments section when checking out.

* Annaliese, owner of altporn site GodsGirls.com, is offering a free membership to the site for donations of $20 or more.  On her cam site, OnHerCam.com, Annaliese is offering to match donations made by members.  See her offers here.

* Jasper Trash is offering a free set of never-before-seen photos for donations $15 and above.  See info and previews here.

* Get a free 30-day membership to Cocksexual.com for you donation of $20 or more.  This offer is open until the end of the year.  Email your donation receipt to ilovethecock AT cocksexual.com with "JESSIE LEE" as the subject line, as well as your preferred username and password combination.

Please go to Jessie's official support site, www.helpomgitsjessielee.com, and send a donation.  Then email your Paypal donation receipt/confirmation to the various porn sites listed above, and get your kick-ass prizes.  Even if you don't care about giving money to someone you don't know, you're getting an excellent cut-rate deal on independent porn in exchange for your donation.

OTHER FUNDRAISING:

* Photographer Ellen Stagg is selling a lovely glossy 8x10 of Jessie for $25, all of which will be donated to Jessie.

* Since Jessie is apparently a vegetarian/vegan, I'll be donating 5% of membership sales from VegPorn.com until the end of the year.

* BombshellBrats.com is currently donation half of all sales to Jessie.

* GeekGirlsOnline.com is donating 15% of sales during the month of November.

* There will be a comedy night in NYC for Jessie on November 24th.  See event details and buy tickets here.

Check out these other lists of free stuff (which might be updated more often with things I've missed) by Missy Star, Driven By Boredom, and Jasper Trash.

In one week, I can now make as much money camming as I'll make in an entire month of operating my small porn sites.  This makes me quite sad in many ways, and I feel like I'm staring down a precipice and deciding which way forward and how to channel my energy into the most productive outlets.  A theme I noticed during this summer's Desiree Alliance conference in both casual discussion and formal talks was that a lot of sex workers are looking to branch out and diversify right now.  We're all asking where the good money is these days, and there is no one-size-fits-all answer.  Here's my piece of the puzzle when it comes to the indie porn and camming worlds.

First, for those unfamiliar, camming is like being an online peepshow performer.  I log in whenever I like, and on the network I use - iFriends - I set my own per-minute rate.  I get half of the $4-a-minute that I charge, so a 10-minute cam show nets me $20 in profit.  I don't make $120 per hour, though - more than half of my time is spent just waiting around for customers.  I have the option to either a) engage in free chat and beg illiterate, pushy cheapskates to buy private shows from me, or b) only let people see me who are already paying customers.  That latter option is the way to go.  So, I sit there, logged in, looking cute, waiting for someone to decide they like my profile image and description, ready to spring to life when someone picks me.  I've been using the in-between time to keep up on sex worker's rights blogs as I wait around for customers, which strikes me as an excellent system of double-dipping.

As someone who started into porn in 2002, camming has never been a huge thing for me until these last few months.  I began occasionally working on iFriends back in 2005, but found that my time was better spent (in the profit-per-hour sense) maintaining my subscription porn sites.  This summer, I've had a lot of expenses, which made me give iFriends a try again.  I wasn't expecting much, but figured, "What the hell?  I'll log in while I'm sitting here reading my RSS feeds anyway."  With the recession in full swing, and the porn industry practically circling the drain, I was surprised to discover that private, pay-per-minute cam shows are selling well.  I'm making as much or more (per hour logged in) as I was before the recession.

What's the explanation for this?  I emailed five other cam performers who also have experience in the porn side of the adult industry.

Isobel Wren (on CamWorld.com) - new to doing cam shows, but involved in nude/alt modeling since 2005 - said that camming is now 60% of her income. "Honestly I wish I'd discovered it earlier, I enjoy the heck out of camming and I really enjoy that I can make a comparable amount of money without traveling across the country, hell, without traveling from my HOUSE!"  She had used to travel for modeling gigs, but "the majority of the people who booked traveling models were hobbiest photographers.  When the recession hit these guys couldn't afford to pay $100 an hour for a model any more."

Mistress Roxxie (on CamModels.com) said, "I previously made more than enough with my websites, but business hasn't been so good and I need to make up that extra income somewhere.  Modeling isn't worth the time and energy I would need to put into it.  I tried doing more pro-domme work, but that industry is saturated."  A sex worker since 2001, she told me that camming is "100% crucial" to making ends meet now.

Adorable Audrey (on NiteFlirt.com) has been involved in amateur porn sites for around ten years.  "Camming was a little less than half my income before the recession, and about 65% of it since the beginning of this year," when she went back to working a straight full-time job on top of operating her porn sites.

Tasty Trixie (on CamModels.com) got her start with camming in 2000 before going onto starting her first porn site.  She observed that camming might be good because rather than in spite of the economy.  "During a recession or when news in the world is bad, people crave a personal, service-oriented touch to everything, especially something as intimate as sexual pleasure. We saw that with 9/11 - there was never a better time to cam that whole year than in the aftermath of of the towers falling."

Delia DeLions (on CamModels.com) has been in the industry since the early 2000s with her partner Trixie.  "It has been really nice to have the extra income coming in at a time when things have been pretty tight.  With the slumping revenue from our websites it does end up being a larger portion of our overall income."

Everyone was in solid agreement on the growing importance of interactivity with online erotic entertainment.  As Delia said, "With the massive amounts of free porn that are out there on illegal tube sites, bit torrents, forums, etc., I think the value of live entertainment with potential for interaction like cam shows does increase."  Trixie noted, "Once you've established your customer account on a camsite, paying for shows becomes far less intrusive than having to put on a condom for meatworld sex.  You don't even feel or see the money coming out of your pocket; there's no physical exchange of money, you just grab your dick and start jerking."

Trixie suggests an important angle I hadn't thought of: "There might also be less competition from camgirls who aren't serious about making money because of the visibility of naughty-cams all over; it might be more obvious to them that you aren't going to be able to retain any privacy or keep your webwhoring a secret...  In the old days of camming there was more of an illusion of safety/freedom from discovery - maybe people don't have that anymore."  (Although, Audrey suspects the opposite.  "The sites are definitely more competitive these days... and more camgirls than ever, possibly a result of more unemployment overall.")

Keep in mind, the people I spoke with have experience in amateur, niche, fetish, and independent porn, so if they are finding that customers are in search of more personal connections, I can't imagine how the mainstream cookie-cutter porn industry must be feeling.

I understand the strong appeal of interactive entertainment, but I've wondered why clients pick cam shows over other forms of erotic fun.  If you're looking for conversation and personal interaction, why spend $200-400 for an hour for private cam shows when you can find a dominatrix or escort to see you in the flesh?  For my tastes and comfort level, if I had $20 to spend, I'd buy porn, and if I had hundreds to spend, I'd buy an in-person session with a sex worker.  Maybe for most of our cam show customers, though, the first option is too impersonal, and the latter is too personal -  potentially crossing some kind of arbitrary line into "seediness" or "cheating".  I suspect that camming is the ideal neutral zone for clients not yet ready (or who will never be ready) to take the plunge and see sex workers in person, but who still crave individualized experiences.

So, what should small-time pornographers like me do?  What are the pros and cons that I'm looking at right now?  It comes down to both money and my personal satisfaction.

Porn has become an unreliable source of full-time income for me, even though it's still great to have that recurring revenue stream, however much it dwindles.  I'm not going to close my sites and declare failure or anything, but I need to seriously think about how my time and energies are best spent, and make decisive cutbacks to the porn site part of my work.  (I can't help but notice the perfect harmony in the fact that my time spent porning versus camming is now about 1:4 on the profit-per-hour-spent-working ratio, and 1:4 weeks of the month I'm bleeding and can't be on cam anyway.)

Despite its mishmash of incongruous 1997/2010-looking interfaces, animated sparkling GIFs, and truly embrassing insistence on always referring to us chat hosts as "stars" ("I am a star!  A big bright shining star!"), iFriends has never been late paying me.  CCBill, the renowned "most stable" porn site billing processor, has flat-out not sent my checks three times this year.  They claim these checks must have gotten lost in the mail, but in this economy, I'm simply not swallowing it.  CCBill has paid like clockwork for years and never once has a check ever been "lost in the mail" before, nor am I missing any other pieces of mail from other senders.  (And, of course, when these checks mysteriously go "missing in the mail", I have to pay  a $30 fee to re-issue the "lost" check.)

There's also the issue of my enjoyment with what I'm doing.  The vast majority of the work associated with running porn sites is boring.  95% of the job is staring at a computer, not all that different on the surface from what the rest of my white collar friends do.  I love that other 5%, though.  I love the creative process, even if I'm not the most creative person in the world.  I love still photography, and challenging myself to get better at shooting other people as well as myself.

But, I also love interaction with clients on cam - especially submissives and the ones with interesting kinks.  I love getting into a good session with someone who clicks with me, I love the immediate feedback, I love the variety of human sexuality, I love how glowingly happy people often look (when they have their own cam I can watch) when they have a great experience with me.  At the end of 8 hours of camming, I tend to come away feeling more accomplished than I do after 8 hours of resizing photos or trying to explain to technophobic site members to how watch my videos on their WebTV.  (Of course, the price I pay for the ease of camming is giving 50% of my income to iFriends.  In comparison, with my adult sites, between credit card processing, hosting, and affiliates, I'm losing at least 25%, maybe as much as 35%, of my sales price.)

I don't have any grand solutions or "take home point", I'm mostly scheming out loud and hoping to see what other people have to say on the subject.  I like being a pornographer and I like being a cam whore - they each have their ups and downs.  I'm working on finding my own balance in the current financial climate.

In the comments, I'd love to hear from other sex workers who do camming and porn.  I'd also love to see more sex workers in any sector writing on their own blogs about how the recession has changed their business so we can have a conversation about how we're adapting to the economy.  It feels like the elephant in the room, and I'd love to see if we can all help each other by sharing ideas and experiences.  (Let me know if this prompts you to write something, I'll link to it from here.)

It's been a while, but I've added a new site to my small collection of places where I appear naked online: I Shot Myself.  I shot the photos in June while I was in Mexico, and I'm very happy with how the they turned out.

I Shot Myself is definitely one of the adult companies I'd suggest to other people- whether you're an experienced sex worker or totally new to the idea.  They're polite, professional, feature genuinely artistic erotic content, don't pitch their content in degrading or irritating ways, and I'm happy with the $200 I promptly received in return for my efforts.  So far as my personal tastes go, I like that the site has a good number of unshaved women, and they generally aren't wearing much, if any, makeup.  I'm a very fussy creature, and I have to feel confident about a company if I'm going to give them not only the rights to use my images, but all my personal information, too.

My only criticism is that the site is almost entirely cisgender women, with a few butches and FTM-looking models, and some couples shoots.  I don't know if they're only looking for more feminine/cis women, or if they just don't get applications from butch women, genderqueer, and trans models- but if you are one of the above, why not email/apply and see?

My photos just went live, and you can catch some freebies for the next 24 hours.  Here's a taste of what you'll see if you join:

As always, I appreciate joins via my links, because not only do I get a kickback, but you get a discount, too- so everyone wins.  And, if you'd like to shoot photos for them, I also get a kickback if you list me as your referrer.

I sometimes worry that I come across online as a mean and spiteful person.  This is an inaccurate picture of me, but it's my own fault for not creating enough filler content about myself.  The thing is, I simply don't feel moved to write an impassioned treatise about a great marinara sauce I made, or a funny video I saw on YouTube, or even a hot fantasy that popped into my head while masturbating.  (I'm simply awful at trying to translate sexual experiences into arousing and readable text.)  I'm someone who writes about things that really upset and engage me.  My mental subtitle of my blog is a quote from one of my heroes' standup routines: "This is just a series of things that are pissing me off."

To balance that out a bit and make me seem less like an insane bag lady always yelling at buildings and statues, here's a more harmonious post on my life as a pornographer.

The time: 6 months ago.  The setting: a Russian boat doing a cruise of the Antarctic peninsula.  The goal: editing a lot of porn and seeing a lot of cute animals.  (The resulting non-pornographic photos?  Here.)  The following are a few thoughts I wrote during my voyage and have had hidden away in my drafts folder.  Now that it's oppressively hot outside, it's time to remember getting cold.

To start, here's a snapshot of me in my small top bunk, editing a scene for Cocksexual.com with Bella Vendetta, Jiz Lee, and Syd Blakovich:

On our first day of sailing in open seas, passengers didn't have much to do besides attend lectures on things like different types of seabirds and why global warming is bad, which I mostly skipped so I could do some work.  I was in the middle of editing some photos of Calico when an announcement came on that a group of three female humpback whales was off the side of the boat.  I closed my computer, put on my fuzzy boots, and joining dozens of other people racing up the stairs to get a quick glimpse at the whales as they moved into the distance.  It's a strange and wonderful thing to be interrupted from editing pornography by whale sightings.

It had been my intention from long before my cruise was booked that I make strapon porn in Antarctica.  I had wanted to do it actually out on the ice, but during our off-ship excursions, we ended up being much more supervised than I thought we would.  (Which is a good thing- I'm glad staff told people to not try to harass penguins or scramble around on delicate areas.  Though, it was amusing to watch the Japanese couple repeatedly pretend they didn't understand English only when they were told to not try and pet the penguins.)  As the days went on, I also couldn't sniff out any real perverts or oddballs on the ship to help me out behind the camera with shooting some naked or strapon photos.  I asked the cute Australian guy I'd been chatting up and he got all blushy and said that would be too "awkward" for him - despite my repeatedly asking him.  Poor normal boys - scared of my cock.

With a number of people around all the time, I accepted that getting naked off the ship would mean exposing myself to them.  Not a worry - I'm not shy.  So, on a "warm" day, I asked the nicest guy on the cruise, "Can I borrow you for a minute?"  We tourists were always doing this - flagging someone down to take our pictures in front of something.  He knew the drill and trudged over as I handed him my camera, asking, "You're not offended by nudity, are you?"  He was not.  I quickly stripped off my many layers , including my boots and two layers of socks, and ran out into the snow.  He quickly shot some photos of me as a staff member looked amused but slightly uncomfortable, and then I raced to put my clothing back on.  My feet hurt for the rest of the day - not officially frostbite or anything, but I felt like I was walking on pins.  But look at the glory that resulted:

I think I became the gossip of the trip after this.  I even had one woman pull me aside excitedly a few days later and ask ,"Is it true what they're saying - that you got naked?!"

So, my first pornographic mission was accomplished, but I was running out of time and desperate to make use of my pretty new white Joque harness.  While it's one thing to ask a person to shoot some nudes of you, it's another to ask him to shoot photos of you jerking off a big strapon.  I ended up taking those photos myself, aboard the ship.  These were shot off the coast of Deception Island, which is off the northern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.  I returned on an early boat from that morning's outing so I could make use of the side decks while people wouldn't be milling around on them.  I don't know if anyone saw me, but it would have amused me greatly if one of the elderly couples decided to go for a stroll on the deck at that moment.

Success!

(See more of the nudes by joining FurryGirl.com, and the rest of the strapon set by joining Cocksexual.com)

During the last week, I decided to spend a good chunk of time camming again.  It's something I don't do a lot, but figured I'd give it an honest go for a week and see how the market is doing right now.  I spent 28 hours working, and made more money than I expected.  I was, in fact, earning what I used to make on cam before the recession, which delighted me.

I enjoy interactive aspects of my work.  I like meeting people with strange fetishes, or who I find engaging in some way.  Getting paid to talk about things that interest me or turn me on is awesome.  I'm also a curious person by nature, and I like knowing intimate and "strange" secrets about people.  I like the trust of being informed about things a client hasn't told many other people, or maybe even no one.  It's that kind of intimacy many people can only share with strangers.  I take derive a sense of conspiratorial excitement in knowing things about a man that even his wife doesn't know, even though I wish people had kink-friendly relationships where they could freely share their fantasies with their partners.

Most people are polite, though that anonymity that brings stark honesty also brings about some inevitable rudeness and assholery.  Worse than that, however, are the viewers who don't give me any idea what they want me to do.  These are the guys who sit there quietly waiting for me to - I don't know - put on a Vegas-style stage show for them.  Or finger my ass.  Or recite the periodic table of the elements.  Or something.  These guys are the extreme version of the ones who merely type "do something sexy" or "do whatever you want."  Maybe I'm just a shitty entertainer, but I need something to work with.

I had a perfect example of this type tonight.  He paid $111 for a 37-minute cam show, which is much longer than these types usually stay.  (I keep half of that money, by the way - the cam network gets the other half.)  I don't know if he enjoyed himself.  I don't even know if he spoke English, although his IP address placed him on the east coast of the United States.  I spent most of the cam show fully clothed, smiling at the computer because I thought maybe not getting naked would force him to tell me to do something.  I'm not one of those sex workers who engages in client-bashing often, but I just have to share this example of what not to do if you're paying for a sex worker's time.

Keep in mind, this entire chat log represents 37 minutes of time, as shown by the time stamps:

[23:18] MRQUIETMAN Entered Room
FURRY-GIRL [23:18]: Hello there. How are you doing?
MRQUIETMAN [23:18]: h9
FURRY-GIRL [23:19]: So, what brought you to my chat room?
MRQUIETMAN [23:20]: cut
FURRY-GIRL [23:20]: I need a little bit of help from you so I know what you're into.  :)
FURRY-GIRL [23:21]: Can you tell me something that turns you on?
MRQUIETMAN [23:21]: age
FURRY-GIRL [23:21]: I'm 26. Or, is "age" your turn-on?
MRQUIETMAN [23:21]: usa
FURRY-GIRL [23:21]: I live in Seattle.
FURRY-GIRL [23:23]: I don't know if you're new to cam shows, but you need to give me some kind of hint about what you like, so we can go from there.
MRQUIETMAN [23:23]: ru pretty
FURRY-GIRL [23:23]: Yes, I think so.  :)
FURRY-GIRL [23:24]: What would you like to watch me do?  Or, what would you like to talk about?
FURRY-GIRL [23:26]: Don't be shy, I won't bite.
FURRY-GIRL [23:27]: Do you like hairy girls?
MRQUIETMAN [23:28]: me nietgher\
FURRY-GIRL [23:28]: What sorts of things turn you on? Name your pleasure.
FURRY-GIRL [23:30]: You're paying by the minute, and I'm happy to just sit here and smile, but is there anything you'd like me to do?
MRQUIETMAN [23:32]: hot
FURRY-GIRL [23:32]: Okay, I'll sit here in smile if that's what you'd like to see.
FURRY-GIRL [23:34]: Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you, or show you, or talk to you about?
MRQUIETMAN [23:34]: nice beeties
FURRY-GIRL [23:35]: Thank you. By chance, is English not your native language?  Habla Espanol?
MRQUIETMAN [23:36]: nowwwwwwwwww mew ur pussy
FURRY-GIRL [23:36]: Yes, that, I can do.
MRQUIETMAN [23:37]: nice
FURRY-GIRL [23:37]: Thank you.
MRQUIETMAN [23:39]: can talk
FURRY-GIRL [23:40]: I can't hear you speak aloud, if that's what you're asking. And I don't broadcast audio. We type things into the text box at the top of the chat window.
FURRY-GIRL [23:43]: Anything I can show you in particular?
MRQUIETMAN [23:45]: ur face
FURRY-GIRL [23:46]: Got any fantasies or dirty thoughts you want to chat about?
MRQUIETMAN [23:46]: ur sexy
FURRY-GIRL [23:46]: Thank you.
MRQUIETMAN [23:48]: yes
FURRY-GIRL [23:48]: Are you a boob man?
MRQUIETMAN [23:50]: and a coch nan
FURRY-GIRL [23:50]: "Coch"?  Cock, or cooch?
MRQUIETMAN [23:50]: cock
FURRY-GIRL [23:51]: What kinds of cock do you like?
[23:52] MRQUIETMAN Has left

I did eventually end up naked, but who knows if my client had a nice evening.  I wonder why he picked my chat room - was he a fan of hairy pussy, a fan of strapons, or simply a fan of clicking randomly on things on the internet until a naked girl appeared?

Sex work is filled with mysteries.

« Go to newer posts — Go back to older posts »