diaryofaprodigaldaughter

[diaryofaprodigaldaughter]

I'm Katie (not my real name) and I used to be a pornstar. Well, I wasn't just a pornstar. I was an OnlyFans content creator, I was a cam girl, I did phone chat and escorting. I've done a lot.

Now let's just answer a few questions first. Before I got into sex work I was a church going good-girl. I was a prefect at school. I came from a good home where both my parents are still together. I'm twice university educated. I've never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, I've never been trafficked and I've never done anything unwillingly when it comes to my former career. I'm a 30 year old woman, I'm a big girl and I take ownership of decisions I made (even if those decisions were bad ones for me).

Until fairly February I thought I was happy, that working in porn was the best thing I've ever done. Actually? I wasn't happy and it wasn't the best thing I've ever done. The lie I continuously had to tell myself that I loved my job was a survival thing. I mean, I *obviously* enjoyed drinking urine from a guy's penis, or spending days shoving anusol up my bum after taking a rather large penis (or trying to take a rather large penis), right?

I stopped because I found myself. Re found myself. It took being hospitalised amidst a pandemic where I had to face days of just sitting with myself. A perfect opportunity to rediscover oneself. Or face oneself. The thing is that it didn't last. I started OnlyFans again to raise money to help my dad and found myself slipping back again. It was like as soon as I gave it an opening the industry tried dragging me back at full force. It was only thanks to two brothers in faith and God that I stopped completely.

I never intended to get into porn. I started OnlyFans content creation in my bedroom like a lot of other girls, just wanting extra money. I had medical bills to pay, a student loan to clear and my job as a trainee psychology practitioner just wasn't paying enough. Obviously potentially earning 20k a month was a lot more appealing to me than taking a part time job. Especially recently when trying to pay for my dad to have private cancer treatment.

The thing is that it very quickly slid when I was signed off of work with severe depression. It wasn't enough to just take some pics and some cheeky videos in my bedroom at home. I was having to work (or "collab") with other people. I found myself fast falling down the rabbit hole of sex work and doing much more. The things I was then expected to do became more extreme to get ahead of demand. I went from telling myself I'd never do escorting to escorting, from telling myself I'd never do porn to doing porn.

The porn industry isn't what most people think it is. Its not "glamorous", its not fast money and its not a monolithic machine. Its fake, its hard work and it takes a toll on both your body as well as your mind. I've had to do things on camera that outside of work I would never agree to do, get my body to do things on a set that I can't physically do without having to ingest certain chemicals (nothing illegal) or it being painful. You get tested, you shoot, you get paid, you go home and you deal with whatever fresh hell your body has gone through. That's pretty much it. I look back at pictures and films I was in...it breaks me. I look dead behind my eyes. Why? Because I was dead. Spiritually dead. I was in pain.

I was very lucky though. Everyone I worked with was lovely. From cameramen to producers and other performers. Others I know personally haven't always been; Co performers assaulting them (physically and sexually), directors getting handsy on set. The job itself is hard. Taking and commodifying for sale such an intimate act took its toll on me. It left me physically broken, I'd have to take time off because of the toll it played on my mental health. I know it does to everyone else too.

In my mind porn was what I was "made" for. I was great to work with on camera, I was great at my job. I was excellent at making men cum buckets and I was good at keeping them coming back for more. I had fans from the UK, the US, Brazil, Holland, Hong Kong and other countries. But porn wasn't what I was "made" for. That sentiment of being made for porn, being made to be an object to give men sexual pleasure came from a place of trauma. That's why a lot of us girls who get into the porn industry find ourselves there in the first place; we've been through trauma. That girl/woman you're getting yourself off to has been led to this situation from trauma.

I didn't have sex until I was 24 years old. But my first sexual experience was being sexually assaulted by the guy I was seeing at the time, so you could say I have a complex history with sex and ownership of my body. Then at 27 I was raped. That moment changed the entire trajectory of my life. It made me become hypersexual and left me with the feeling that a man would only ever want me for my body. Further experiences with some men I then dated just seemed to cement that false notion in my mind.

Doing porn, as I told myself, was "taking back control of my body". That I was "empowering" myself. But it's all bullshit. If anything I was still not the one controlling my body. I was renting it out for the sexual pleasure of others. Some that I could see (when escorting) but many across the world who I'd never even know existed. I wasn't empowering myself. I was exacerbating the emotional and psychological trauma that being raped had inflicted on me. Day in. Day out. Whenever a man got off to me, he was getting himself off to me reliving that trauma over and over. The most genuine feeling of empowerment I've felt was walking away from the industry. This feeling of freedom and empowerment continued when I walked away from it again recently.

To this day I still don't think I've met anyone in the industry who hasn't gone through an emotional or psychological trauma at some point in their lives. I don't think I know of anyone in the industry that hasn't got a battle with mental illness or addiction. The industry seems to attract us like little, beautiful moths to a flame. It then uses you up and let's you fall.

I just want people to know that the porn industry and sex work isn't all its made out to be. Its all illusion, its viciously competitive at times too and its soul crushing. Whilst I've met some lovely people, believe me the sweetest people I've ever met are all in the industry. All people I pray one day leave it too. It's selling a fantasy to people. Not a reality. It's making money off of exploitation, pain and trauma. When you watch porn or pay for an OnlyFans that is what you're doing...exacerbating trauma.

I'm going to finish this post here. The same way I ended my porn career. Abruptly. I'll post again soon.