I was talking to a friend of mine who I met doing a porn job. Whilst at Xpanded we don’t do porn really, in my other jobs I have worked as a porn performer, so I do know a lot of people in the industry. It’s a different pace of life, more intense and more demanding than something like Xpanded TV might be!
My friend had decided to leave the adult industry and go into beauty therapy, a more “normal job.” The more we spoke, the more interested I became with her experience, so I thought I might share it with some of our Xpanded fam.
For the purposes of anonymity let’s call my friend Katja (let’s see if anyone guesses who this is!)
How many years did you work in the adult industry?
17 years
What made you leave the adult industry?
I wanted to have a normal life and find a nice boyfriend and just like with anything in life, if you’ve done it for a long time you get tired and bored of doing the same thing over and over again. In the long run it became stressful and the stress outweighed the pleasure.
What made you decided to go into beauty?
I always enjoyed beauty and I’d had some experience working in beauty in the past and I enjoyed it a lot! It was also an easy transition, the beauty industry is all over the place and very present in the adult industry and I knew lots of people alread. It was also something I could set up by myself which was important – as a performer I’ve always worked for myself.
How long has it taken to completely transition out of the adult industry?
About 2 and a half years.
How are you finding it so far?
At the beginning it was challenging, the temptation was easy to revert back to what I knew, also because I was missing the money, that was a big factor. Now it’s much easier and I’m getting used to it. Some days I feel like I had more fun working in the adult industry, it gave me more freedom, and every day was something different!
Is dating different now that you’re out of porn? Even though I’m out of the industry, I still feel the need to tell men that I have that in my past and to be honest with people. Because of the experiences I’ve personally had with men I know that this can make dating difficult. I can see right through them at times. A lot of men are more insecure than they make out to be, especially when they find out what I’ve done in the past. When they find out it can make things difficult, they become even more insecure and can feel inadequate or nervous dating me.
It’s been a real eye opener for me to hear these things from a fellow porn girl, I have a lot of respect for her as I don’t think I could leave the adult industry. I’m very used to it and the money that comes with it, as well as the simple fact that I don’t have to work every day or night of the week!
With every job, the secret is probably to find balance and what works for you. And this, for now, is what works for me.
