On a tip, we checked out The Stranger, which bills itself as "Seattle's Only Newspaper," and in particular a regular column by Mistress Matisse, a local dominatrix who also has her own blog, Mistress Matisse's Journal (http://mistressmatisse.blogspot.com/).
Mistress Matisse's May 18 entry was titled "Eighteen Things Sex Workers Should Know," and we noticed that a few of these words of wisdom also apply to adult performers:
"2. Greed and not thinking clearly is how most women get into trouble. Don't work stoned or drunk, and don't get so hungry for money that you ignore warning signals."
"3. Not many people do sex work for a short while and then quit. It is very hard to give up the money and the free time..."
"5. You will not get a pension, and if you don't pay your taxes, you won't even be eligible for social security. You are going to get old, so either provide for yourself or plan on having a shopping cart as your retirement home..."
"7. If your doctor or your dentist or your cleaning lady or your auto mechanic gives you any shit about how you earned the cash you're paying them, take your oh-so-dirty money somewhere else..."
"12. E-mail is a boon to unhappy losers who bolster their egos by sending snarky anonymous notes. Amusingly, they often make their place on the evolutionary scale quite clear in doing so. "Yuor a whoore and yu'll birn in hell for all eternitee!" However tempting it is to deliver an electronic riposte, such people are unworthy of your attention. Don't respond, just delete..."
"16. Yes, buying your own health insurance is expensive. But unless you're disciplined enough to put money away every month in case you get sick, you better get it..."
"18. It's possible to sustain a long-term lie to friends or family about your job, provided they aren't too inquisitive. But try to have at least one friend in whom you can confide all the charming, the annoying, and the absurd encounters that you will definitely have."
The entire column can be found here.
