Yesterday brought a tale of joblessness with a somewhat happy, and also somewhat unusual, ending. While I cull all the notes from unemployed people who might want to chronicle their job search here on Slog (if you fit the Jobless in Seattle description, let me know) here comes another tale with an unusual ending. This one is from a woman who wants to go by the pseudonym "Chastity," and who offers the following story and silhouette of herself:

My last contract ended in early November—I was working as a technical editor in software—and I haven't been able to find anything since. Around the same time, I went on a few dates with a nice enough software geek. We had good personal chemistry, but I wasn't interested in sleeping with him. He had told me that he had a "side project" but I had never asked too many questions, assuming that it was a start-up still getting its funding in order. The day I tried to break it off with him, he got huffy that I never really grilled him on his side project. (Honestly, I just didn't care that much.)

Turns out, the guy had been making porn.

I was intrigued. I still had no interest in sleeping with him, nor did I have any interest in taking my clothes off on camera, but I was curious to see what a porn shoot was actually like. For some people, porn is the machine that drives their idea of what perfect sexual expression is, and I was fascinated to see it being produced. I was even more curious to speak with his "models"—what kind of a girl decides that she wants to show all that on camera?

He invited me to his next shoot to watch: it was a girl-girl thing, very tame (most of his stuff is), in a Residential Suites room somewhere in a Seattle suburb. I was surprised that the shoot didn't bother me at all, and the girls were totally normal (though I did have to have one explain to me what "femdom" was). One was a student, the other had flown in to see friends and had worked for my friend before. From a production standpoint, it was totally disorganized. Dildos, restraints, and vibrators here and there, a huge cardboard box that he schlepped all his filming gear in, and general chaos.

I saw that there was a need for my services.

I made it clear—again—that I still wouldn't sleep with him, but that I'd work as a PA for him if he wanted. I'd come to shoots, ensure that there was food, that props were clean, that we had a schedule for the day's shooting. Most of the time, I also end up doing the handheld camera work, too. (Surreal. Who knew you could feel nothing but mild boredom while zooming in on a girl's pussy?)

Outside of filming, I've found us a lawyer with experience representing those in the adult industry, and I've gotten us business insurance. My project this afternoon is to track down all of the details on getting our models full STD screens with an organization who provides testing for those in the adult industry. Later this week, I'm going to check out some "studio" space over at a local sex club for a shoot coming up.

It has all become weirdly mundane. I don't get involved with any of the models, nor with my friend/boss—I show up and do what I need to, and get paid better than I did while working as an editor. I've never appeared on camera, and don't plan on doing so. Some of my friends know, some don't. My family doesn't know, and won't. God help me, I hope the Google search engine does not make the connections between my real name and this work, because then I really wouldn't ever get a real job again. This is not work that I would choose to be doing in any other circumstance. I don't feel forced into it, but it also seems dumb to walk away from increasing my net monthly takehome by 25 or 30 percent, for working roughly 20 hours a month. There really isn't enough work for me to make a full living out of it, but it makes it possible for me to go out from time to time, buy a new pair of shoes if I need to. I can't do that on what I'm getting on unemployment. So, I'll continue to do this until I find a normal job, and when I do, I'll quit.

Cheers,
Chastity