I enjoy reading about other people’s experiences, and the more honest the writer is, the better I like it. Marin uses gallows humor in the best way possible. She says:

“Ok, let’s cut the shit here. Working in the ’sex industry’ fucking blows. Suicide Girls get to have hairy armpits, and it’s fun to put your picture up on onlyundiesclub.com, but that’s playacting. Real sex work is about showing up at a millionaire crackhead’s house with a big box of Wet Ones, letting him bang the shit out of you for three days (even though he pulled a gun on you for sitting on the left-hand side of his bed), and then leaving with $1,900. No matter what the empowered academics in San Francisco pretend to believe, whoring—in any form—is hell, and the only reason women do it is to get money for coke NOW! If you want to try it out, be prepared to have nothing to show for years of suffering but a blown-out septum and some lumpy fake tits. It’s like extreme waitressing. You make hundreds of dollars a night licking ass and then you immediately spend it on drugs just to feel normal again.

“If you’re really, truly still interested, please at least do us a kindness and read this A–Z before your first day on the job.”

Yeah. I’m sorry she’s had a lousy time of it. But man! can she write.

For the record, I am not “anti-porn.” Neither am I full-on “pro-porn” — although many activists would have you believe you have to either love porn or hate it, I find the truth about anything is never that simple.

I feel like there’s a lot of pressure these days to be “sex-positive.” And at its roots, that’s a class issue. To say that no one who does sex work has a choice, that we are all trafficked and pimped and owned, well, that’s both ignorant and condescending.

On the other hand, to claim that Belle de Jour / Dr. Brooke Magnanti (an amazing woman, by the way) is the sex worker norm is naïve, and in its way, equally condescending.

The truth is somewhere in between, and everyone’s truth is slightly different.

Hope you all enjoy the essay.

Please, Google. I’m begging you. You and I were having such a healthy relationship. Don’t turn into Facebook.

2. People who’ve subscribed to laurishaw.com via RSS or email may have noticed that they haven’t received any updates in close to forever.

I need to apologize for that. Feedburner for this site went on the fritz several months ago, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve tried to get tech support several times on the issue. They’ve failed me spectacularly so far. My hunt for solutions is ongoing. I’ll let you all know as soon as this is resolved.

3. For anyone who is interested, I’ve kept my word — I’ve been posting the unfinished chick lit manuscript I worked on last year. It’s by far not my best work, and was never meant to be. I wrote it by formula. Nevertheless, some of it’s fun. I’m going to leave it up for awhile so that anyone who feels like it can compare my more polished stuff (Servicing the Pole) with the unpolished stuff (Nudity For Fun and Profit).

Lately, I’ve been branching away from full-length works altogether. In 2009 I sold three short stories. I’m encouraged by this, and think I’ll try writing some more of them in 2010.

4. Happy Holidays!

I’m not a huge fan of social networking. If you are my friend, I’d rather see you in real life, or failing that, hear your voice on the phone. I used to be on MySpace. I could feel it sucking out little pieces of my brain, a few cells at a time. I’m glad it’s mostly gone bye-bye. I haven’t signed on there in ages.

I have a Twitter account. A couple months ago, I lost my password. Twitter never sent it to me despite repeated password recovery requests. I finally located it and signed back in. But you know what? I don’t much LIKE Twitter. I’m almost positive someone else has already said this, but… Twitter for me resembles Quentin Crisp’s fabulous party at the end of the world where everyone is talking and no one is listening. I’m holding onto the account, but I can not promise to ever use it.

Finally, I will never (ever, ever, EVER) join Facebook. Please for the love of God stop asking me. I’ve followed all their snafus with privacy, and I don’t like what I’ve seen. Aside from that, it’s a giant time sink. Aside from that, it creates — at least, in my opinion — a homogenized sort of environment that I don’t feel is conducive to my creativity. (For the people who tell me they can’t promise to stay in touch with me any other way, er, then don’t.)