And the more you think about it, the more it hurts your brain..

Posted by Jaki in The Opposite of Advice.

I was offered an interview for a position as an high school English teacher.  I interview extremely well.  I’ve never interviewed for a job without getting an offer.  I could see myself getting into this job a lot.  Working with teenagers, grading papers, even discipline isn’t something that I would be a problem for me.  I dared to get excited about the possibility until I was reminded, “Um, don’t you have naked pictures on the internet?”

Damnit.

I do.  I’ve been pretty public about my kink.  I tell people when they ask.  I use my name at events.  I have pride stickers on my car.  I still respect people’s right not to know but I have been trying to find a way to balance that and my right to not hide.   It feels like a betrayal to then run around taking all those things down.  When I came out as queer, I had rainbows and shit everywhere and then I got older and realized that I wasn’t less queer if I didn’t scream about it.  Maybe this is the same thing?  If that’s the case, I want to take those things down in my own time when it’s my own idea, not because it makes people at work uncomfortable.  It feels like too much of a compromise when I’ve reached a point where I felt happy about my life. Then I think about the parents, the students and how big a hoopla it would be if it ever came out and the idea of that makes me want to avoid the whole mess.  I mean, you have a queer woman who actively promotes kink and BDSM to people 18 years old and over working in a high school.  All I need is a t-shirt that says, “I LIKE TO RAPE YOUR CHILDREN.” to really top off the reactions of the angry mob.

It just makes me think about what I really want in a job.  I either want to work some place that honestly doesn’t care or I want to work some place that understands and appreciate me for who I am.  Working at the bank was great because as long as you wore your business suit, no one cared what you did when you clock out.  I had other problems where I had to compromise my morals to work in an industry that preys on the financially uneducated.  That’s pretty much any corporate environment out there.  Maybe I’m living a a magical fairy land.  Maybe.  That’s why I keep considering work in the adult industry.  Not to say that the adult industry won’t have issues that I’ll have to reconcile but at least then, I won’t have to hide.  However once you have sex on camera, you don’t just jump back to getting an office job.   I considered (and are still considering) working as a Pro Dom but there is so much to running that type of business that I don’t feel qualified to start.  I need a place to work.  I need security.  I need equipment.  It’s a lot of start up.  Plus, I want to feel better about my technique before I charge people for it.  Then there is behind the scene jobs.  Someone writes the plots for those porns, after all.  That’s not the type of position you tend to find on Careerbuilder.com.  Unless you’re already in the know, it’s hard to break in.

You got non-profit and activist jobs out there that wouldn’t be a concern but seems all the go-getter college kids are snatching those up to pad their resumes. Not to mention you have to know someone who knows someone just to get in the door.  Then they pay so little that you have to already have money to work for them.  Mommy pays for your apartment while you work with the inner city youth for a year.  Obama’s campaign advertised jobs for 15,000 a year where you fly to swing states.  Um… I got bills.  Who can afford to live off that?  That probably sounds like an awful lot of beer money to someone who doesn’t have any expenses.  I don’t want a job that’s a step ladder to a Fortune 500 company.  I’d love to work full-time at a soup kitchen or organize a clothing drive.  Something where at the end of the day, I can look back and see what I did and how it helped someone.  Some place where I don’t have to feel claustrophobic all the time.

Am I too idealistic?  I recognize that I am not the only kinky person who had to make this choice. The choice being, how much of yourself are you willing to share with the world?  Better yet, how much are you willing to remain silent about every day.  Since the world doesn’t accept everything I am, I need to find a way to work and live while maintaining my sense of self.  I get that I don’t have to tell anyone anything about myself.  I do find that I enjoy it enough that I don’t see my life without it.  Where do I do from here?  There isn’t an easy answer.  I’ll have to consider this more.

The Opposite of Advice |