About once a month, my ma and I end up having a deep conversation about my job. I am very lucky that she still loves me, talks to me, and generally supports me considering that she doesn’t like what I do for a living. She questions why I do it, why I think it’s ok, where she went wrong in raising me, when I’ll quit, when I’ll get a “real” job, when I’ll get married and raise a family… and it’s exhausting. It’s emotionally exhausting explaining my life to someone who’s heart I’m breaking with every socially unacceptable choice that I make. I find myself trying to convince her that she’s not to blame for anything “wrong” with me because I don’t think that there is anything wrong with me. I try to explain to her that I think porn is okay like some people think Vegemite is okay. That I think that we live in a transitionary culture in which sex work is still stigmatized but it’s (very) slowly on it’s way out of that. I try to remind her that people didn’t use to think that being gay was okay, that being transgender was okay, that women in the workforce wasn’t okay, that men staying home with the kids wasn’t okay. I try to remind her that people should have the right to do whatever they want if it makes them happy and they aren’t genuinely hurting anyone. I’ve told her over and over again that I love what I do. Porn allows me a freedom and an expression of myself that I couldn’t get from anything else, and I’ve managed to make a living with it. I’ve managed to support myself doing the thing that I love most. Isn’t that the dream? Isn’t that what every parent wants for their children? I just happened to choose something that is (weirdly) disdainful to most of society.
My favorite part of our conversation is always when she brings up some friend who’s found me out. It’s always a situation where they’ve seen me and they wanted to let my mom know, in case she didn’t already. It’s always with a tone of disapproval and concern. But hey, how’d they find me? What site were they jerking off to that I came up on? What search terms did they put into PornHub or RedTube or whatever other free porn site they were looking at that I came up in? Were they jerking off because they needed a stress relief because they worked a 12 hour shift to support their family? Were they jerking off because they were trying to not go out and cheat on their wife? Were they watching it with their wife, trying to spice up a 30 year old marriage? It’s okay for them to look and use but it’s not okay for me to provide it? That’s backwards. And it’s bullshit.
The best advice I ever received came from a friend’s mom, who is a stripper: She told me that no matter what you do, be the best that you can at it. It’s simple, and I’ve heard tons of people say it but her telling me when I was just 16, will stick with me forever. She was the best goddamn stripper in her time, won tons of awards and travelled the world. As far as I know, she had the best fucking time. And she was “just a stripper”. Someday, I hope that my mom will feel comfortable enough to tell her friends about me. I hope that she’ll want to brag about me, like parents to do with other parents, and her friends will be impressed that even though I’m “just a pornstar”, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve won awards, I’ve been on the covers of magazines, been featured in “mainstream” media, and basically had the best fucking time. But mostly that she raised someone who was comfortable enough with who she is to do something that she loved, even though it was an unpopular and highly stigmatized choice and that I was willing to do something that I believed was okay to do, regardless of the social consequences. Myself, and the majority of my generation were raised to believe that we could do or be anything that we wanted but as soon as we do, and it’s different from what they wanted or what their idea of what’s acceptable is, it’s not okay. And that’s not okay.
My ma will hate that I say this but, with every conversation we have in which she tries to convince me to live differently, it only cements my conviction even more and fuels the flame that is my love for sex work.
/end teenager-esque “parents just don’t understand” rant
Definitely not just a teenage angsty rant. Really smart social criticism. People need to stop shitting in one hand and throwing it at the people whom they are jerking off to with the other hand.
