The Porn Mines

Friend S writes to respond to my sentiment that “even if your job is to eat chocolates or watch sexy films, forty hours a week for forty years of your life is a breathtaking commitment.”

She says:

Checking in as someone whose job essentially is to watch sexy films: CORRECT! The bloom goes off the rose rather quickly when you have a boss checking up to make sure you’re watching enough sexy films every week. (Also, in my considered opinion, nobody should be watching sexy films seven hours a day, five days a week.) There’s a reason I call my job “the Porn Mines” and not “The Dream”.

I’d forgotten that S’s job is in fact to watch sexy videos. She’s an office-based copywriter and some sort of content screener in what you might call the erotic industrial complex. I don’t think I was thinking of her when I wrote that; I was probably just looking for something that would be universally seen as privately enjoyable and not very work-like. But here we are. Everything is jobbable and therefore contains the potential to be a grind. See also: just because you like cakes doesn’t mean you’d enjoy running a bakery.

Not employed in the porn mines? Treat yourself to a copy of The Good Life for Wage Slaves.