Fear of white panties
by Lost Clown
reprinted courtesy of http://angryforareason.blogspot.com

As I sit here watching television I can't help but think about just how many people out there have seen the evidence of my desperation (hunger). Desperate for money (for food) and sold down the river by women I trusted. Now I'm not saying that I am a moron and do whatever someone tells me to do, what I am saying is that women who I respected, who were older then me, more experienced then me, and who seemed like amazing feminists sold me on the idea that it was an okay thing to do for money. Sure, a regular job could be better, but I needed money and quick, and they had all done it. It would be over in no time. Easiest $400 you ever made.

Yes, you read that last figure right. That price alone is degrading especially given the amount of money that the pornographers made off of my humiliation. I traumatized myself for $400, but then again I had no money and no food and I couldn't find work in Austin (I was living out of my van and didn't have a phone number at the time). I shoved it into a box in the darkest corner of my mind. I almost didn't finish the shoot - he offered to give me all the film back because it was so hard, but I was hungry. Looking back I know what I would have done, but desperation makes you do desperate things.

So I got triggered in the oddest of circumstances. Even though I recognized immediately why I was getting the panic-attack feeling that sometimes accompanies my PTSD, I didn't want to believe it. That, and I was in the middle of a store, which is not the ideal place to have a panic attack. It was the fact that I needed knickers and here I was face to face with white ones for the first time since that day.

Breathe. Just breathe.

It was horribly uncomfortable at the time. As I sit here it all comes rushing back to me, in fragments. When the photographer asshole with the gorgeously huge house thought that discussing what kind of labia he and his friend liked was appropriate. He apparently liked mine. He also told me that his friend likes labia that looks like a little girl’s. I'm nauseous just thinking about it, but I need you to know how horrible it is to actually be there. It's not sexy, it's not fun and I'm not being prudish for saying that. Not only are you selling your body, but you can't (as I tried to do) pretend that it's just like any other work situation. I couldn’t pretend that I was not the one being exploited, that I was somehow weaseling easy money out of them, though I know that they made 20 times that at least.

The Schoolgirl

The shoot was, of course, horrific and cliched. I had to dress in white panties. He let me keep them afterwards. How nice. I think I threw them out the window in his nice suburban neighborhood, but I know I got rid of them right away. I also wore a plaid skirt and a white button-down shirt. It bugged me because of how cliched it was, but also the way it was “styled.” For the removal of clothes, I was supposed to look elsewhere, be distracted. Act like this is what I do alone in my room, perform for men who aren't supposed to be there.

Apart from the whole sexualization of underage girls, the shoot was voyeuristic in a way that really disturbed me. Not only was I supposed to be pretending to be the innocent-schoolgirl-gone-naughty, because obviously deep down we're all sluts who just can't get enough of male attention and approval. But I was supposed to do it in such a way that showed complete detachment, not even a facade of connection. When the pictures were developed I was to be a totally detached object.

The guy doing it and every person thereafter sees you as a thing, and object that is there for their pleasure. I was not a person to him. I am not a person to whoever has seen those pictures. I am a dirty slut/whore/schoolgirl that wants it. I want to be degraded and used. Even with that distant look in my eye, I want it. I am a thing to be used and discarded. Part of selling of a person as an object is selling that I want to be treated that way, that I want them to dehumanize me. Because we have to make the woman-hating freaks feel special.

That's where my fear of white knickers comes from. I needed this out there so that another young woman who is unsure can get a look at what it's really like, what they really want you to do. You are an object to them, one that they can exploit for money. There's no positive way to spin this. There is a lot of corroborating evidence to support me, but I have learned you have to tell the personal in order for someone to believe the political.

Although I can imagine the porn apologists trying to spin this into something other then it is, but how about for once we call a spade a spade? Because I'm right here and I'll keep screaming until porn goes away. You can't spin me. This is my experience in all its horribleness. You can't spin it.