I was at a bar, standing at the end of a long table with eighteen men staring at me.
Eighteen.
Makeup and spray tans, tattoos and muscles. Everyone here was more attractive than me.
There’s no clean way to say it.
I hosted a session to teach porn stars how to blog.
Well, not just blog, but tweet and optimize and target.
And not just porn stars, but strippers and dominatrixes and smut writers.
There were eighteen of them, more than I ever imagined would show up. Some were sent by their employers, others were recommended to come by friends. I’ve been freelance consulting for a porn studio for a few months now, a way to earn some additional income and have a fun story to tell friends. I never thought it would lead to this.
I talked to them about how to manipulate Facebook Timeline and run a Brand page. I showed them how to tweet without being annoying. We talked about WordPress and Tumblr and Blogspot. They were eager to learn, and I was surprised to discover that nobody had ever taken the time to teach them.
- How to use Tumblr and Facebook and Twitter without losing your personal brand (and yes, porn stars DO have a personal brand).
- Using Grindr to lead people to your Twitter and using Twitter to lead people to your website.
- How to use Google Keyword Tool to come up with new blog posts or films, and how to write those blog posts and films to attract viewers.
- Setting up and claiming a WordPress domain.
- So, so much more.
The two hours scheduled was not nearly enough time to cover everything. At the end we decided we would need to have at least one more event.
When we were finished we drank, and drank, and drank. The studs and strippers bought me beers and cocktails and shots.
They were flirty, a fleshy sea of pinched butt-cheeks and rubbed shoulders.
This is the kind of thing people fantasize about, isn’t it?
By 1 AM I was drunk on a couch in the bar, lying in the arms of one of the porn stars and showing him how to use Buffer to schedule all of his social posts in the morning so he wouldn’t have to worry about it throughout his day. We scheduled several tweets for the next day that were probably drunken rambling. My legs were curled over the leg of another porn actor to my left.
That’s when The Stranger arrived to pick me up. He was wearing a blue tank-top. I was so used to suits and ties that anything else looked strange on him.
“Someone looks cozy,” he said. He scooped my legs up and made room for himself on the couch. I introduced him to the porn actors. One of them recognized him from the news and admitted to fantasizing about him.
What would normally arrive as a pang of jealousy came in as indifference.
We made our rounds to say goodbye to everyone in a flurry of hugs and kisses and pinches.
…
I sat in his passenger seat, watching the street lights blur as we passed them. Something had been on my mind and I was nervous to ask him.
“Can I ask you a serious question, something that’s been bothering me for awhile?”
“Of course,” he said. He rubbed my palm with his thumb to reassure me.
I took a deep breath, “Do you… do you think Anchorman was as stupid of a movie as I do?”
“Absolutely.”
