I didn't plan on making this book, not on bundling up all my blog posts about my life-long fascination with pornography and sex work.
And yet now that it's done it makes so much sense, and I would not have wanted it any other way.
Of course this is a book that deserves to be in print!
Very few women like me, speak up about liking pornography in pretty much the same way men like it.
This book gives us, and that includes myself, a voice.
But there is something bigger at stake here.
Because sex work is still not treated equally to other work.
Sex work is never treated as the rest of the service industry, and in film and show business it is not treated like the rest of the entertainment industry.
Even though sex work and porn pay significantly better than average, offer autonomy, a flexible work schedule, and they are a great equalizer since no diplomas are required to start and if all legal barriers were taken away, there would be ample opportunities for entrepreneurship.
It is also the only line of work where women have a competitive advantage and are generally paid more than men.
It would be vanity to think that this book can change the marginalized position of working in the sex industry or as a sex worker.
These are merely my own diary entries and stories related to the moments I enjoyed pornography, or was inspired by sex workers. I was merely a consumer, a bystander, someone on Twitter.
But now that I am writing the parting words for this book, I can see that the least I can do, is not not talk about it.
And share the stories I have written and identify myself as sex-work positive, as one sex worker called it.
And as porn-positive.
And so it is.
Lauren Harteveld
12 September 2021