A lot of people are obsessed with the notion that working in porn, prostitution, or anywhere else in the sex industry “degrades” women. Mostly, I think, this is because they deeply believe that women oughtn’t to be slutty, but that’s not what I want to talk about today. I want to look at the flip side - how sex work empowers women.

Most folks (like here at the WebWhore Manifesto) who would dare to suggest that working in the sex industry can be empowering for women look at it in an economic sense - sex work is one of the few fields where a woman can really be in control of her work, and make decent money, doing something that isn’t exactly a chore for those who choose it.

(Please note that I said for those who CHOOSE it - women who are forced into sex work deserve the same protections and right to redress that ANYONE forced into ANY kind of slavery deserve.)

The economic argument is a good one, but I want to make a more personal one. I am coming to this field as a 35 year old mother of two - that’s a pretty long way from our society’s stereotype of a sex goddess, and when you add the fact that I weigh close to 250lbs, don’t exactly have perfect skin or features, and have more than my share of scars and wonky bits, the distance between me and desirable, in mainstream terms, widens to something like the Grand Canyon.

I could (and have) fall into the trap of thinking of myself as unsexy, as ugly even. I still get nervous about every little flaw before I go on cam, and I consider the touch-up tool to be the most vital element of my photo-editing program, but once I get in front of an audience of a hundred…two hundred…even three or four hundred men (and women!) who are continuously telling me how hot I am, how excited watching me makes them, all that falls away. I feel powerful, exalted, filled with a confidence that carries over into everything I do. Now that’s empowerment.

Even if my endeavor never turns a profit I will consider it to have been valuable for that reason. Becoming comfortable with and confident in one’s own body is a treasure not to be lightly dismissed, and I can think of few better ways to accomplish that feat than to masturbate for an audience. Beats the pants off joining a health club.

One final thought:
In every show there’s always one dipshit who thinks it’s funny to make the same lame-ass fat jokes, and to that person I always have the same thing to say:

I’m turning a lot more people on here than you are.