aroslav: Blog

This is number twenty-seven in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH (NaNoWriMo) is nearly upon us. This event started in 1999 when Chris Baty challenged twenty friends to create a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. Six of the twenty-one writers succeeded. Since that time, the event has grown to more than 400,000 participants worldwide each year.

It’s a simple challenge. Write at least 50,000 words of a new novel during the month of November. It was so successful that Baty wrote an “instruction book” in 2003 titled No Plot, No Problem. Baty offers the following advice for would-be novelists.

1. Just write. You can edit a bad book into a good book, but you can’t edit a blank page.
2. Tell people. It’s about accountability. It’s hard to quit if your family, friends, and the local barista all know what you are doing.
3. Do 40-20s. Write for forty minutes and take a break to caffeinate for twenty minutes.
4. Work through the wall, like a marathon runner. It comes in week two or three, but if you push through, there is nothing like the exhilaration of week four.
5. Seek out other writers for camaraderie and support. Write where others are writing.

I found out about NaNoWriMo in 2004 and have ‘won’ every year since. This will be my twentieth year.

It took me a couple of years before I came up with a volume that I felt I could publish. I wrote the first draft of Nathan Everett’s For Blood or Money in November of 2006. It was published in a paperback anthology the fall of 2007 and as a stand-alone paperback in 2008. It’s now (finally) available on Bookapy (and is also included in the Seattle Noir collection on Bookapy).

But when November approaches each year, I’m once again faced with the dilemma of what to write this year. I’m a little beyond “No plot.” I keep seeing the big “Problem.”

The big problem I have this year is that I have no idea what I’m going to write. This could be as simple as my April 2017 project. I’d just finished the last volume of the Erotic Paranormal Romance Western Adventures and was feeling like I needed to get back to my roots, which included stories about artists. “I don’t know what I’ll write, but it will be art something.” That became the title.

The problem isn’t in having an idea, it’s about having an idea that will spark the level of interest that some of my current works have. I even sent some ideas to my editors and they were somewhat cooly received. So, why not open it up to you, my readers?

Strongman: A weak and not particularly clever kid decides to build his body in an attempt to stop the bullying. As a result, he becomes a gymnast with a strong body that he finds intimidates girls as much as it attracts them.

Take My Wife, Please: A kind of do-over, but before he accepts the deal, our hero insists that his wife be brought along with him, only to discover that in their teens they don’t get along that well.

Time Traveler: Guy walks out of class on the last day of college, finally free and is sucked into a time vortex of some sort, plopped down in a different time near the same location. He survives and manages to progress in his new time—possibly even finding love—only to be sucked back into the vortex and plopped down in another era. Over the course of several such adventures, he starts seeing a pattern of where he’s been, what he’s accomplished, and who he has loved.

Switching Places: Girl in 1969 bemoans having been born fifty years too soon and not being one of The Jetsons. Girl in 2019 bemoans having been born fifty years too late to be part of the revolutionary generation of the hippies. Somehow, they switch places and discover the era they wanted to be part of isn’t as great as they thought it would be.

Means, Motive, and Opportunity: Not a mystery like it sounds, but a MILF story. Writer in his forties meets and falls in love with a woman in her sixties. It’s a slow-blossoming romance as both are cautious, having been burned before.

Immortal Eternal: People suddenly stop dying. They don’t become miraculously young and healthy; they just don’t die. They try lots of ways to kill themselves, to no avail.

From Birth: Child grows up believing he is unloved and a bad child because no one will answer him when he speaks in their head, like he hears them. When he finally speaks out loud for the first time, his mother faints and cuts herself on a broken glass, dying. He vows never to speak aloud again.

And then there are stories that “I should write.” I’ve even started some of them. But I ran out of steam with most of them. These include the long-awaited sequel to A Place at the Table, the sequel to Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain, the fourth book in "The Props Master" series, Child of Earth, the original story I started writing when I was writing The Art and Science of Love, called Double Down, Pussy Pirates 2, continuing the SWARM Cycle saga of porn stars defending the earth. And one just suggested to me this week by a reader, a continuation of the "Model Student" series with the next level of Tony’s art and his family.

Have I run out of ideas yet?

Let’s not forget the number of requests I’ve had for a continuation of the “Team Manager” saga, for another sequel to City Limits and Wild Woods, another “Deb Riley Cyber Mystery,” the fourth volume of “The Hero Lincoln Trilogy,” the fourth volume of “Strange Art,” a continuation of “The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins,” or a novel length continuation of “The Burgundy Chamber.”

Or, perhaps it is the second generation of “Living Next Door to Heaven,” narrated by Brian and Danielle’s empathic daughter Xan.

Or maybe you have the perfect idea that I simply have never thought about! What I know is that I’ll be spending a lot more time working on an idea for November’s NaNoWriMo than I will be drinking pumpkin spice anythings. (I just love the fact there a fruit with an entire season devoted to hating it.)

Let me know what you think of these ideas!

I’ll be returning to the idea of NaNoWriMo in the coming weeks as November approaches. Next week, I think we’ll discuss “Writer’s Block.”

This is number twenty-six in the blog series, “My Life in Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

This entry of My Life in Erotica marks the completion of six months of weekly posts! When I started, you couldn’t have convinced me that it would go on more than a few weeks. And who knows how long it may yet go. I’m just glad you are along for the ride.

As most people who follow me know, I am an avid participant in National Novel Writing Month, or as it is popularly known, NaNoWriMo. I have been participating since 2004! Yes, this November, I’ll be participating in my twentieth NaNoWriMo with a record of “wins” (meaning I wrote over 50,000 words in each) every year.

But that doesn’t really indicate the scope of my participation. On two different occasions, I wrote more than one book during the month. I have participated in ten ‘off-season’ Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July. I wrote a play during NaNoWriMo’s Script Frenzy. And I’ve never missed finishing the goal, often many times over. The NaNoWriMo statistics page says that I’ve written 2,538,717 words during those events.

My own stats show that from January 2019 to today, I’ve written 4,624,445 words. My currently running “Photo Finish” series of six novels is more than 1.3 million. And more are coming.

Since it is September, that means it’s almost October and that’s NaNoWriMo planning month! Yes, for some of us, NaNoWriMo is the pumpkin spice of the writing year.

What does that have to do with smut? Over the past twenty years, I’ve taken part in many ‘write-ins’ and have joined several writing groups. One of the most common things I hear when I’m in a group is that when someone is stuck, they start writing smut. So, I asked a few what that means.

To me, smut is like… steamy? If that makes sense? It’s something written to get you hot and bothered maybe? The presence of actual sex is usually there but not necessarily. And I can’t remember what my original answer was gonna be but I write it cuz it’s fun. haha

Writers are pretty forthcoming that they write smut (even non-erotica writers), but this response shows that they aren’t that sure what it actually is. What’s more, I find a remarkable degree of innocence and naïveté among the writers of smut. It more closely approaches being defined as “naughty.” As you can tell by the quote above, there’s a hint of blushing when talking about it.

“The Hero Lincoln Trilogy” is now available as a collected set on Bookapy.com

I think when I started the Hero Lincoln Trilogy in Lazlo Zalezac’s Damsel’s in Distress universe, I was thinking of exactly that kind of smut. Lincoln was inexperienced in the ways of love, but had intense feelings for his sister-in-law and niece. They were the kind of things that were embarrassing because he couldn’t do anything about them. Getting him to the point where he could actually make love to one of them was filled with naughty acts and blushing. Making love in the first book is something that is a long time coming—so to speak.

A favorite convention in smut is to interrupt the process as much as possible. Each time the couple are about to get carried away, little brother interrupts, the phone rings, a man with a gun enters, or they suddenly realize what they were about to do and make excuses for it: "I didn’t mean to kiss you like that." "I just got a little carried away." "It didn’t mean anything."

In fact, one of the most fun aspects of writing a sexual relationship is building tension and frustration between the characters. By the time they actually get together, they are bursting. It requires very little actual description of sex to accomplish the arousal of the characters or of the reader.

A ‘friend’ many years ago was talking to my fiancée and me a few weeks before our planned wedding. She (being single) said that she knew of a couple who denied themselves all forms of sexual contact with each other for thirty days before their wedding. They were so hot for each other you could see it in their eyes as they said their vows. My fiancée thought that would be a great way to start our marriage: frustrated. I mean, so hot for each other we couldn’t wait to get alone.

I never did forgive that ‘friend.’

Another reason writers who don’t consider themselves erotica authors write smut is because it is easy. During NaNoWriMo, writers are driven by daily word count goals. It takes 1,667 words per day in November to make the 50,000-word goal for the month. I have often been with writers when one snarls in frustration, “I’m 300 words short! What am I going to do?”

The answer is inevitably, smut. Write a sex scene. It’s a middle grade fantasy story? No problem. You can cut it when you rewrite and edit. Sex is an easy 300 words.

I admit that I have used sex as an extender in a story on occasion. I know that readers build an expectation for their stories. With some stories on SOL, there is an expectation of a certain amount of sex. Why else would you be releasing the story on a sex stories platform? But the other two major expectations on that platform are frequency and length of postings. I can establish whatever frequency I want to, as long as it is regular. If readers expect a chapter to be posted every Sunday morning at 8:30, they will become upset if it isn’t there when they sit down with their coffee and Post Toasties Sunday morning.

I speak from experience. A chapter of mine got held up in the posting queue a few weeks ago. I don’t know why. It was in line and the status indicator said ‘Processing,’ but it didn’t clear the queue until half past noon instead of half past eight (Eastern Time). I received half a dozen messages before it posted asking me if I’d forgotten to post the chapter.

In fairness, the site does not guarantee a posting time. In scheduling posts, the choice is “Not before x time on y date.” It is not ‘at’ a specific time. It happened that day there was a hiccup and the posting was delayed. No big deal. Unless you were a reader expecting it promptly at 8:30 Sunday morning!

Readers also expect a consistent length for chapters. I will receive email from readers if a chapter of 6,500 words posts in a story that usually has chapters over 7,000 words. Yes. Really. What is the time-honored extender for a story? Smut! I can get those extra 500 words with a quickie in the backseat of the car if I need them.

So, according to my informal polling, writers write smut because it’s fun, it’s easy, and it’s quick. None of those things make it good, erotic, or an integral part of the story. For many young authors—and some older authors—however, it’s also a little embarrassing.

With NaNoWriMo synonymous with pumpkin spice season beginning, many authors are trying desperately to come up with an idea for their 50,000-word stories. Me too. So next week, I’ll talk about a credo of NaNoWriMo: “No Plot, No Problem.”

This is number twenty-five in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT to accomplish at these shows?” my daughter asked me. She is also a writer and posts her stories on that other erotica site. We don’t share our author names with each other, but we often discuss what is happening in our writing.

“Well, most of the emphasis at the show is on video and porn,” I said. “But it strikes me that there should be a market for video that has more story to it than the pizza guy showing up to find a naked customer who has no money but offers to give him a blow job. The extent of that dialog is about three lines and they spend half an hour screwing with no other sound than oh-oh-oh fu-u-u-ck! I think I could contribute to the industry by working on some scripts. Maybe something for Bree Mills.”

If you are unfamiliar, Bree Mills is one of the top producers of women’s porn movies at Girlsway and Adult Time.

“Dad! Bree Mills only works with women!” my daughter informed me. How did she know that?

Well, it wasn’t quite accurate. Bree had been producing a series of retold fairy tales that included male actors and I thought they were right up the line with an adaptation of something like my Wayzgoose/Nathan Everett story Jackie the Beanstalk. Besides, I’d already met with Bree.

We talked about the problems with scripts and I attended a panel discussion with her and four of her actors (including men). One of the things the actors mentioned was that they enjoyed letting their dark side out in the movies. The guy playing a parody of the Big Bad Wolf, especially liked that, since he is generally very soft spoken and kind of shy.

But Bree acknowledged that once the sex starts, dialog goes to hell. It’s very difficult to remember lines while screwing. And so often, there seems to be something in one character or another’s mouth. She did invite me to submit some ideas if I’d like, and she awarded me my prized T-shirt that has emblazoned across the front “Honorary Lesbian.”

Well, lesbians and I do like the same things.

I wrote a short story continuation of my series Wonders of My World called “Whatever NOLA Wants.” It’s published on my website short story collection and revolves around the invitation I got to New Orleans as a result of wearing that shirt.

The next time we met, I told Bree about the conversation with my daughter. She sent a T-shirt with me to my daughter that says, “I like girls who like girls.”

I decided that I needed to jump into the industry with both feet, so to speak. I rented a booth at the Exxxotica Expo. It was costly at $600 for a ‘talent booth.’ The booth was 8x8 and I could sell books in it. I had a banner and some posters created to hang in the booth, and I bought some inventory. (I still have some of it left if you’d like to buy a paperback!) I was also approved to present a seminar titled, “Talk Dirty to Me, Baby.” I included some bits from that seminar in a blog post by that name back in June.

There was one small catch. The show rules required that your booth be manned all the time and you could only have one talent per booth. Back to advertising for an assistant who was willing to dress sexily and act as a shill to bring people in to look at my books. The answer was a cute girl who worked in a sex shop in Vegas, was high all the time, and would run around in her sexy clothes in front of my booth.
Interestingly, her name was Devinne. It sounded exactly the same as my Devon, so people thought we were putting them on.

When I talked to her, she said she’d checked me out before she contacted me about working the show. (We were going to have to share a room because I just couldn’t afford any more. Two beds.) She said I was obviously a legit author with stuff to sell at that show and she was reading one of my books already.

Good.

This venture was going to cost me close to a thousand dollars by the time I paid for the booth, airfare, stock, and promotional materials. I was pretty tense about making it successful.

Devinne and I arrived when the show packet said to and set up the booth the day before the show opened. I wasn’t sure this was going to even be a show with the condition of the space when we got there. The carpet hadn’t been laid yet and the stage area was still being constructed. Nonetheless, my booth looked great and I was confident the show would be profitable. We set everything up and took pictures of the pristine booth.

Then we went to the vendor reception at the hotel bar. I ordered drinks for the two of us at a very crowded bar. Imagine my surprise (and how impressed Devinne was) when a guy next to me said, “Hey, aren’t you Devon Layne, the author?”

Well, yes. As a matter of fact, that was me! He said he’d read about me on the internet and in the show bios. It turned out that he had a booth just across the floor from mine. He’s a photographer who specialized in photos of adult performers. Nice work!

It was the first time I’d simply been recognized in public!

The show was fun, but a financial bust. First, my seminar was scheduled for exactly the time the show opened, so there was no one there when I started. People trickled in for nearly half an hour and I entertained them for another twenty minutes with my discussion of how to talk like an erotic author. The seminar got high marks, but no one showed up at the booth to buy books.

It was ladies’ night and all women got in free. But they weren’t really in a buying mood unless you were selling cute pasties or unusual vibrators. And my location didn’t help much. I was located right across from ‘the dungeon’ with Msl8eluck and her crew of femdoms. You’d think that would be a high-traffic area, which it was. But everyone who passed by had their backs turned to me. I mean, actual attendees were volunteering to be locked to the X-frame and whipped. Why would you look at a book?

All in all, the sales from the show were a bust, but I’m still in touch with many of the starlets I met there.

In fact, the cover of my J-Hop story—SWARM cycle fan fiction—My Sex Slave features a photo of Maren Hill, whom I first met at that show.

The designation of “Honorary Lesbian” still sticks with me, but sadly, I haven’t found another lesbian who wanted to hook up with an old bald man. I try to tell them I’m bearded for her pleasure. Nonetheless, next week I’ll continue the adventure with “Writing Smut.”

This is number twenty-three in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

I’ve mentioned Mia and Miss Molly in my previous post. Were they unique? No. They were special, but not unique. I’ve met many wonderful sex workers over the years.

Not so many as Angus Vieira, author of Murder & Witches, the latest of his personal detective stories. Angus has nearly 5,000 friends on Facebook, most of whom are women in the industry. Many of those women have given him photos of their butts to display on their birthdays. Sadly, his books are available only in paperback, but I can highly recommend Murder on a Two-Lane Road and Murder on a Small Island, as well as his most recent.

Well, Angus has had a couple more years to accumulate his friends than I have, and spends two or three evenings a week ‘polishing a tip rail,’ in his words. And in his company, I’ve met a couple of stellar beauties who call him a friend in real life—not just online.

His works include sexual scenes, but nothing too explicit. He still holds the dream of walking into a mainstream bookstore and seeing his title on display. I wish him the best of luck.

After I got my feet wet at the LA Sex Expo, I decided to test my theory that I was actually a part, however small, of the industry. I registered for the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo of 2017. They accepted my registration as a member of the industry without hesitation. That meant I got VIP access to both the AEE and the Adult Novelty Expo, all seminars, and the official nightclub parties for $200. The cost of a similar ticket for VIP fans was over $1,500!

I recognized that a partially deaf old man was vulnerable in this kind of environment, so I advertised for an escort. She wasn’t a sex escort, but Dee agreed to accompany me to the show and the parties. She wore costumes like my character Alice in US Highways, American Backroads, and Border Crossings. I had a promotional excerpt of the first book to give away to the artists I met.

And I met some of my favorite online talents, like Miss Molly, Casey, Miah Callix, Ginger Potter, Kendra Cole, Braislee Adams, plus the incomparable Alex Coal and Inked Angel Lydia Black. A hug and a picture with each of them.

I don’t show those pictures around because I look like someone’s grandpa visiting his granddaughter’s college roommate. But they were fun to take.

About that time, I decided to write my first contribution to the SWARM Cycle universe. Of course, I wasn’t satisfied with the typical pickup and go to the stars to battle the Sa’arm. I focused on a fat computer hacker and a bunch of porn stars who refused to leave earth. The result was Pussy Pirates. Every porn star in that volume was based on someone I’d met IRL or communicated with online.

Of course, I couldn’t use my initial title, “Porn Stars Save the Universe” because that would end the cycle and we can’t have that, but collecting the stats on the girls, assigning them names for the story, and copying significant parts of their characteristics brought the story to life.

I returned to the AEE in 2019 accompanied by six friends who adopted roles as my staff. M1 was my security, D my story consultant, M2 my producer. S was my secretary, C my editor, and R a talent (was she ever!). We all had a blast and the number of close encounters multiplied.

I met Amazing Allie at one of the booths just before the show closed for the evening and there was no crowd standing around waiting. We got to talking and I told her I was an author. She professed to love to read, so I pulled out one of my sample copies and handed it to her.

“For me? Really? You can so touch my tits!” she exclaimed. I took advantage of that offer and enjoyed her very much.

Perhaps the best part of that year’s outing was the annual white party. My friends and I all dressed in bright white clothes. Mine included white shoes, slacks, shirt, and a white vest. I topped it with a white Panama hat. I was glad I didn’t need to color my beard. It was already white.

We had a drink at the party and once there were a lot of people there, I stood up to circulate and see who I knew. I’d walked most of the way around the nightclub when a guy came up to me and asked if he could get a picture with me. I agreed and kind of laughed that he thought I was a recognizable part of the industry.

But he wasn’t the last one.

M1 and I walked out on the patio to smoke a cigar. I was no sooner out there than three cute girls rushed to me and asked if they could have a picture with me—cuddled up on a sofa in their cabana. Sure.

We were enjoying our cigars when another girl asked to have her picture with me. She was a little drunk, but I said sure. She wanted to be looking over her shoulder as she leaned against me, ‘to show her best assets.’ Then she leaned into my hand with her midsection and made sure I was in solid contact before the picture was taken.

An online performer named Amee the Heaure, cuddled up to me next. She was in the most revealing outfit I’d seen that night with pasties made of crystals and a skirt made of panels that were always parting to show her g-string. She knelt on the bench facing the fire to get warm and asked me to just cuddle up and keep her backside warm. That was a pleasant task.

But I had no idea why so many of these starlets and fans were wanting to cuddle up and have a picture. I joined my friends after the party for a drink at the center bar in the casino. A complete stranger gave me a thumbs up and nodded. WTF?

As we sat for a drink another guy came up to me. Said he was here for a law convention of some sort that would start over the weekend. Then he said, “I just want to tell you that you wear that outfit so much better than the guy in Jurassic Park.”

They thought I looked like Richard Attenborough! Who had died five years earlier at age 90!

Oh well.

I guess, in one way or another, I was part of the industry.

Even though COVID19 was lurking on the horizon, that wasn’t the last show I attended and I’ve been gratified to be recognized for who I really am. I’ll talk about a couple more close encounters next week in “Honorary Lesbian.”
Enjoy!

This is number twenty-three in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.

“PRIMARY RESEARCH,” I said to the beautiful and naked young woman stretched out on top of me as I caressed her breasts.

“You’d better see if they feel like what you remember when you suck on them,” she husked back. “We only have a few minutes.”

Three-and-a-half minutes, exactly. The music cuts in this club were precisely timed and a ‘dance’ in the private room was just one song long. I’d only paid for one.

Large signs posted in each room of the club said, “Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas.” The club rules forbade inserting any part of the customer into any part of the dancer. Aside from that, everything was negotiable. When we were talking in the main room, attempting to adjust my hearing aids so I could hear her over the loud music, I’d told Brandi that I was an author of erotic novels. I came to the club to remind myself of what a wonderful variety of women looked like naked. She’d convinced me to conduct some research in a private booth.

My investigation had begun in 2016. I’d completed my trip around the world in June, stopping for the summer solstice in Iceland. I spent the summer in intense self-analysis at a nudist camp in Idaho, and then went to a nudist resort in California for the winter. I was trying to figure out whether there was a difference between what I do as an author of erotica and basic pornography.

In December, I went to LA for their “Sex Expo.” When registering, I indicated I was part of ‘the industry’ and got a huge discount on my VIP ticket over the price of a ‘fan’ ticket. I spent two afternoons exploring what was really a very small show. I didn’t know that. It was like being a kid in a candy store with so many things (women) to look at!

On one side of the show floor, a burlesque show was performed three times daily with different performers. I found out later that my ex-wife’s first boyfriend’s daughter performed with the burlesque show. Wow! The performances, like about all burlesque shows, were not fully nude. Their own rules and those of the show required pasties and a g-string. Some also wore a mask or used fans to hide behind.

At the opposite end, a local chain of strip clubs had several stages with poles set up and between ten and twenty exotic dancers rotating in minimal wear. Along the sides were sofas for ‘private’ dances. I stopped in the crowd and watched. I’d been there a minute when a majestic stripper marched across the floor, parting the crowd in front of her until she stood directly in front of me.

“You look like you need a massage,” she said, taking me by the hand. “It’s only ten dollars because we can’t do what we’d do in the club.”

I figured ten dollars was a bargain even if all she did was sit beside me for a song. She did much much more. By the time the song finished, I’d pulled another ten from my pocket and she kept right on dancing on my pole.

“It’s too bad we aren’t at the club. The dances are much more intimate. I work Tuesday through Saturday. Won’t you come to see me there?”

She handed me a business card for a free admission. I promised to see her there. Having dances from Mia was my first experience of really doing primary research. I found out where she was tattooed, that her clit was pierced, and the heft of her breasts in my hands.

And I realized that a great deal of what I do is exactly the same as what Mia did. As Rachel Kramer Bussel defined erotica in her book How to Write Erotica, “Erotica is writing intended to arouse… Using that definition, erotica is expansive enough to cover a huge range of scenarios, from a person who’s turned on by watching another person eat a particular food in just the right way, or putting on just the right style of shoe, to descriptions of anything-goes orgies.”

Mia’s dances were intended to arouse. And did a damn good job of it.

So, I concluded, I was a sex worker.

I really had to laugh that this sixty-six year old man was a sex worker. But in essence, I did with words what Mia did with her body. I fictionalized my encounter with Mia in a short story continuation of US Highways. The short story is “Good Vibrations.”

Of course, that story is a concatenation of several different encounters, some of which actually occurred. After all, the ‘Wonders of My World’ series is the memoir of the avatar of the pseudonym of the alter ego of the author. You can only believe what you will.

The purpose of this recitation is to describe how I fell into the realization that I worked on the edges of the sex work industry. No, I didn’t produce porn. I created stories that could arouse people. They are a long way from being ‘stroke’ stories.

It also began my discovery of and association with other sex workers in strip clubs, movies, and chat rooms. I found them to be genuine human beings who (obviously) had nothing to hide. They were mostly open and honest about what they did.

At another booth at the Los Angeles Sex Expo, I saw fifteen or twenty young women wearing very little, chatting online with their laptops in front of them, and lighting themselves as they entertained fans at MyFreeCams. I chose the one at the end of the table and introduced myself to Miss Molly. This woman absolutely conforms to my weakness. She is tall (over 6’), thin (muscular), redheaded, and stacked. I asked her how this chat room thing worked.

She was very personable, posed for a photo, and explained all about tokens, what happened online, and what the girls generally wanted. I’ve since run into Molly a few times at shows and she always remembers me, calls me by name, knows I’m a writer, and poses for a picture with me. Since she is over six feet tall and wears those platform high heels performers often do, my five-ten is dwarfed by her—which puts my eyes about chest height, so I don’t need to pretend I’m not looking.

After that, I started tuning in to chatrooms and checking the videos that performers sent me. Before long I had a nice collection of performers, many of whom are still performing and still on my friends list. They gave me a whole range of content to use for “primary research.”

Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg, so I’ll continue the adventure in next week’s post, “Porn Stars Save the Universe.”