Only Human

I always thought I was a pretty liberal guy before I started working on the magazines. I went to art school. I was in for a shock.

The beautiful thing about working on a magazine that focuses on human behaviour, shall we say, is being allowed to see what it is humans do behind closed doors. I say that like I have some magical power, that I get to see behind the curtain. To an extent that is true. But let me rephrase that first sentence: porn is good because it enlightens us as a species to our desires. In that sense, it’s a privilege to have a back stage pass to the gig.

A lot of the content in the magazines comes straight from the readership. In that sense, it should be a very easy job. The pictures have been taken. The sexy stories have been written. It basically writes itself, right? Nope. I’ve just been reminded of this fact by sending a message to a friend online. My message was full of typos and grammatical errors. Oh how the mighty pedant falls upon his sword (because his pen is a sword, but it’s not because it’s a computer, we need to do some updates for the old proverbs). Why am I writing about words? Fucking hell.

So yeah, normal people like you or the person sat next to you, or the person in the building across the street from you (yeah, that really nice couple who look like they’d sell their kidneys to free Tibet or organic eggs or whatever)… we are all a bunch of sick pervos. Who’d have thought?

But why is my field of work considered sick? I’ll put my hands up and admit I still get uncomfortable talking about it. But I don’t know why. Is it a British thing? I doubt it. From what I gather, America is even worse at being “reserved”. Yet their adult industry is considerably larger than Britain’s. Plus I can’t remember the last time I walked down a street in continental Europe and was propositioned. (Which is a shame. It’s good for the self-confidence so they say.) Even now, a year into working on the magazines I find it quite a weird thing to talk about openly. Here’s the stupid part: I’m sat in front of my laptop in my room by myself. What have I got to hide? Nothing. I’m not going to die from writing a few words. So, why all the egg shells? Maybe it’s something I’ve got to get used to. I can happily tell my friends that I spent a day editing stories about sex in public places and gang-bangs (I’m great at parties). In the office I’m in work mode and it’s business. So maybe I just need to loosen up and do some more homework. And focus on business a bit more.