8/13/23
Fitting into the Industry
This is number twenty-three in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
“PRIMARY RESEARCH,” I said to the beautiful and naked young woman stretched out on top of me as I caressed her breasts.
“You’d better see if they feel like what you remember when you suck on them,” she husked back. “We only have a few minutes.”
Three-and-a-half minutes, exactly. The music cuts in this club were precisely timed and a ‘dance’ in the private room was just one song long. I’d only paid for one.
Large signs posted in each room of the club said, “Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas.” The club rules forbade inserting any part of the customer into any part of the dancer. Aside from that, everything was negotiable. When we were talking in the main room, attempting to adjust my hearing aids so I could hear her over the loud music, I’d told Brandi that I was an author of erotic novels. I came to the club to remind myself of what a wonderful variety of women looked like naked. She’d convinced me to conduct some research in a private booth.
My investigation had begun in 2016. I’d completed my trip around the world in June, stopping for the summer solstice in Iceland. I spent the summer in intense self-analysis at a nudist camp in Idaho, and then went to a nudist resort in California for the winter. I was trying to figure out whether there was a difference between what I do as an author of erotica and basic pornography.
In December, I went to LA for their “Sex Expo.” When registering, I indicated I was part of ‘the industry’ and got a huge discount on my VIP ticket over the price of a ‘fan’ ticket. I spent two afternoons exploring what was really a very small show. I didn’t know that. It was like being a kid in a candy store with so many things (women) to look at!
On one side of the show floor, a burlesque show was performed three times daily with different performers. I found out later that my ex-wife’s first boyfriend’s daughter performed with the burlesque show. Wow! The performances, like about all burlesque shows, were not fully nude. Their own rules and those of the show required pasties and a g-string. Some also wore a mask or used fans to hide behind.
At the opposite end, a local chain of strip clubs had several stages with poles set up and between ten and twenty exotic dancers rotating in minimal wear. Along the sides were sofas for ‘private’ dances. I stopped in the crowd and watched. I’d been there a minute when a majestic stripper marched across the floor, parting the crowd in front of her until she stood directly in front of me.
“You look like you need a massage,” she said, taking me by the hand. “It’s only ten dollars because we can’t do what we’d do in the club.”
I figured ten dollars was a bargain even if all she did was sit beside me for a song. She did much much more. By the time the song finished, I’d pulled another ten from my pocket and she kept right on dancing on my pole.
“It’s too bad we aren’t at the club. The dances are much more intimate. I work Tuesday through Saturday. Won’t you come to see me there?”
She handed me a business card for a free admission. I promised to see her there. Having dances from Mia was my first experience of really doing primary research. I found out where she was tattooed, that her clit was pierced, and the heft of her breasts in my hands.
And I realized that a great deal of what I do is exactly the same as what Mia did. As Rachel Kramer Bussel defined erotica in her book How to Write Erotica, “Erotica is writing intended to arouse… Using that definition, erotica is expansive enough to cover a huge range of scenarios, from a person who’s turned on by watching another person eat a particular food in just the right way, or putting on just the right style of shoe, to descriptions of anything-goes orgies.”
Mia’s dances were intended to arouse. And did a damn good job of it.
So, I concluded, I was a sex worker.
I really had to laugh that this sixty-six year old man was a sex worker. But in essence, I did with words what Mia did with her body. I fictionalized my encounter with Mia in a short story continuation of US Highways. The short story is “Good Vibrations.”
Of course, that story is a concatenation of several different encounters, some of which actually occurred. After all, the ‘Wonders of My World’ series is the memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of the author. You can only believe what you will.
The purpose of this recitation is to describe how I fell into the realization that I worked on the edges of the sex work industry. No, I didn’t produce porn. I created stories that could arouse people. They are a long way from being ‘stroke’ stories.
It also began my discovery of and association with other sex workers in strip clubs, movies, and chat rooms. I found them to be genuine human beings who (obviously) had nothing to hide. They were mostly open and honest about what they did.
At another booth at the Los Angeles Sex Expo, I saw fifteen or twenty young women wearing very little, chatting online with their laptops in front of them, and lighting themselves as they entertained fans at MyFreeCams. I chose the one at the end of the table and introduced myself to Miss Molly. This woman absolutely conforms to my weakness. She is tall (over 6’), thin (muscular), redheaded, and stacked. I asked her how this chat room thing worked.
She was very personable, posed for a photo, and explained all about tokens, what happened online, and what the girls generally wanted. I’ve since run into Molly a few times at shows and she always remembers me, calls me by name, knows I’m a writer, and poses for a picture with me. Since she is over six feet tall and wears those platform high heels performers often do, my five-ten is dwarfed by her—which puts my eyes about chest height, so I don’t need to pretend I’m not looking.
After that, I started tuning in to chatrooms and checking the videos that performers sent me. Before long I had a nice collection of performers, many of whom are still performing and still on my friends list. They gave me a whole range of content to use for “primary research.”
Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg, so I’ll continue the adventure in next week’s post, “Porn Stars Save the Universe.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
