luz

I'll definitely never shoot another set for SG. And I probably won't hang around much longer, either.

Not because of any internal SG politics, and not because I "dont like the way the site is changing"--

(although I don't like the way the site is changing)--

And while I've met some fucking awesome people on here--especially other SG's
(lyxzen, flux, anarchie, wendy, lauren, geraldine, and of course my girl jaime come to mind),

I'm really starting to question my willingness to sell myself, and I'm starting to question the pro-porn rhetoric. This proves a difficult ideological transition for me, because both personally and professionally I have long advocated porn, sex work, and general sexual subversiveness to hold great potential as pro-female. But the deeper I get into this doctorate, the less pro-female sexual commodification seems--even when enacted willingly by the female. Selling your image no longer seems progressive, but regressive. It no longer seems to challenge the patriarchy, but rather to enforce an ideology which locates woman as thing.

As a younger woman, I sent a lot of time giving myself away. My image has appeared upon the screens of many strangers. Those who consume my image are necessarily unaware of my value, distanced by the digital. I'm working on my third degree. I have two dogs. I write fiction. And I'm not the only one. But unlike a lot of these amazing and beautiful women,I'm no longer comfortable utilizing my sexuality, physicality, and image as social currency.

It's a valuable currency, the female sexuality. I know I've made a lot of money--and various other social gains--by utilizing my "hotness." The way I looked at it was: my sexuality is a commodity; someone will spend my sexuality; that someone might as well be me. I felt as if I'd figured out some game, as I swung from poles and traveled the world on strange men's money. Selling my sexuality certainly opened some positive doors for me. My sexuality remains a more valuable commodity than any intellectual properties I may possess, and those girls out there hustling (and hustling comes in many forms) have figured out the game: they've located their commodity and capitalized on it. I can't blame them for that. An old friend used to tell me, "Just because you know the rules doesn't mean you don't have to play the game." That old friend was me.

I thought I'd figured out the game, swindling men out of thousands of dollars at the titty bar, collecting those SG checks that seemed just to easy to make, getting free drinks all night because I smile once every fifteen minutes at some old dude across the bar. I thought I was tricking people into paying me loads of easy cash. But I wasn't tricking anyone. They want to pay you. They want you to think it's easy so they can keep paying you. No one was being tricked but me.

The system that sells sex locates the woman as commodity. No personal economical or social gain is worth the collective damage that this does to both genders. The "anti-establishment" stance of "female-empowered" porn unfortunately (and often blindly) contributes to a patriarchal hegemony in which "establishment" gender roles are further cemented: woman as commodity to be consumed. Regardless or whether I take my own nudie pics, or my punk rock best friends takes them; regardless of how empowered I feel when strangers tell me my "anti-establishment" tattooed naked body looks beautiful; regardless of the alterna-style of naked lady that this site sells--

the bottom line is that we're still selling naked ladies. And that shit ain't cool.