I’m a pioneer in City of Brotherly Love. (Yeah I said my city. Don’t give a fuck) Most pioneers who need extra money, get a part gig working as a security guard, barista, or making sandwiches for a few bucks an hour. Well, I found myself in need of some extra cash and was damned if I was going to some fucking sandwich shop, or sling overpriced coffee. I mean I’ve got a degree in English lit, with a concentration in creative writing, so I should be able to use the skills that I developed at the overpriced Ivy League University that I secretly attended.(Shh, don’t tell anyone) Right? Here’s the thing, I get bored very easy, so a job blogging, or aggregating the news, or doing some kind of journalistic writing wasn’t really for either. Quit a dilemma. Anyway, long story short, I started dabbling in erotica, to blow off steam, and got pretty good at it, so one day I trolled Craigslist and came across the ad; Can you write porn? I’m like, maybe. So I sent in a few samples of my past writing and a week later I got an e-mail saying that my erotic writing was exceptional. Never in a million years did I think I’d get a complement on my creatively using the words, fuck, suck, cunt, cock and pussy. So I was like hell yeah. I signed a contract and was told that I’d get .01 a word up to 5k words. Ok, so that’s thirty to fifty bucks a day. Cool, so how to start creatively writing sex?
Well one thing that helped me was my overbearing, religious upbringing as Jehovah’s Witness. I mean, in this fucking religion just thinking about tits and ass gets you in trouble. However, I had a large stash pornographic memories from my young adulthood due to my sinning. I mean according to the current Watchtower teachings I sinned greatly. The sin? I was addicted to porn. Scratch that. Addicted is such a strong word. I loved and love women. So if that’s a sin, fuck it. I’m going to hell. I mean hades. I mean, Gahanna. I mean, I’m erased from the book of life. Whatever!
Now these were the days that were way before internet, so in order to get my fix of tits and ass I had to visit bookstores and if I dared to, god forbid—buy a magazine, sneak it into my house and try to keep it in my room hidden from my parents. Most of the time, after a few jerk offs I was done and ended up throwing the magazine away a few days later. Did I feel guilty? Not really. Early on, I felt that sex and the attraction between men and women and boys and girls was something natural. I remember my father spazzing out because I stayed over a friend’s house and his sister had her friends over at the same time. What the fuck? I was always confused why sex was such a dirty word and thing. Where was I? Oh yeah writing porn, so my background and upbringing played a major part in my writing exceptional porn. Go figure.
I sent in a few stock stories that I had in my portfolio and quickly realized that if I wanted to keep the cash flow, I needed to quickly think of ways to continually create great sexualized characters and sexual situations. Now since I’m not that really that experienced in the romance department, (see second paragraph for explanation) I had to find inspiration. I needed enlightening as it were. Hmm. Well fortunately there is a plethora of free porn on the internet. And not just ordinary porn. Porn that I grew up on. Vintage porn. I belong to a site were members have lovingly scanned all the porn magazines that I used to sneak a peek at Tower Books, B. Dalton, Borders Barnes and Noble etc.
Looking back now with 20\20 hindsight I understand why magazines like Hustler, Penthouse and few other European mags were so groundbreaking. The pictorials were, of course sexually charged, but when looking at them through a different lens a storyline emerges. And they’re damn good stories as well. I mean really good. This was my lightbulb moment. Ding! So every day before I write, I scroll through my cache of hardcore pictorial and look for great stories. And you know what? It works. My client loves my writing and I make extra money doing a sinful thing that I love. Now, I just need to explain to my self-righteous girlfriend that looking at porn is part of my job.