Still Thinking

My friend shoots porn sometimes, and he keeps asking if I want in. Says I’d be good at it. Says it’s just a job. It probably is, for him.

But then I’m scrolling at two in the morning and I start thinking about it differently. Who I’d do it with. Whether I could ever go to a coffee shop again without wondering if the person in line recognized me. Whether the money would feel worth it or whether it would feel like blood money, like I’d fundamentally sold something that can’t be bought back.

I know a woman named Jade who studied fashion in England. Then she started making porn. That’s the whole story, basically. At some point she decided the thing she actually wanted to do was different from the thing she was supposed to do, and she just did it. No tragedy, no redemption arc. She made money. Now her body is on the internet forever.

What sticks with me is how small the decision probably felt in the moment, how big it became after. Not the sex part—that’s fine, that’s just sex. It’s the permanent record that fucks with you. It’s knowing you’re not anonymous anymore, even if you’re still unknown. It’s the split second where you realize you’ve closed a door you can’t reopen.

I tell my friend I’ll think about it. And I do, way more than I probably should. But thinking about it and doing it are different things, and I haven’t figured out which side of that difference I’m actually afraid of.