The conflicted life of a female porn writer

[Bill]

Kiinda funny article about a woman who started out hoping to be a successful fiction writer but who ended up being a porn writer.

I'm sure we can all relate.

I guess the article won an award or something, which just goes to show, it's all about the fucking sex. Would the author have won an award if the story wasn't about porn? I bet not.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/pornwriter/column1.html

Let me be clear about something: I never set out to become a porn writer. I set out to be a writer. Ever since I was seven, I've wanted to write novels and children's books and illustrate my own work. But, as it turns out, writing fiction isn't such an easy thing to make a living at, and along the way I stumbled off the path and wound up here, amidst the plastic-wrapped, two-for-one skin magazines. I still work on my own creative endeavors, and I've even had a few stories published here and there, but the only lucrative gigs I've ever had as a writer have been for bottom-shelf wank rags.

How did this happen? Well, I followed a pretty typical trajectory after college, casting about in a general fugue of post-B.A.-in-English angst for a few years, and then settled in New York, where writers have been losing their souls for centuries. When a friend mentioned that she knew the editor-in-chief of a sleazy porno magazine who was looking for a DVD reviewer, I figured I'd give it a try. I'd spent some time working as, among other things, a go-go dancer, a nude art model, and an amateur Sex and the City expert, and hell, I'd seen my fair share of internet porn. It was something I had never felt particularly proud of watching, but I saw nothing wrong with pornography; I'd read it was as old as the cave paintings. Part of the human condition. As a practical, if not exactly radical, feminist, I did have a moment's hesitation about becoming part of an industry notorious for its exploitation of women. But then again, as a feminist, I should be willing to support the right of women to do whatever they wanted with their lives, minds, and bodies, right? If they decided to have sex on camera, I would support their decisions, and make a buck out of reviewing their work. And, hell, I was broke. So why not?
Shortly thereafter, I found myself in a maze of dimly lit hallways called an office in flip-flops and shorts ("Doesn't matter how you're dressed," he'd said on the phone, "this is a porn office. Just stop by."). Within a half hour, having met a few of the tattooed and jaded individuals running the operation, I was handed a box packed with some of the filthiest magazines I had ever seen and a double-disc set of a XXX film called Something-or-Other "ASSault." Within a week I'd written my first porn review, had it approved for publication, and was hired as a freelance reviewer. I was officially "in" the skin biz.