RISE, A Modern Guide for the Purpose Driven Woman Summer 2014 | Page 30

bothered by the idea that women are
for sale.” Eaves chronicles her experience working as a stripper in “Bare:
The Naked Truth about Stripping.” She
reflects upon the regulars who came
to watch her strip and argues that they
have “an addiction.” These men returned
week after week “paying—and paying
and paying and paying—for the girls to
dance and talk to them. It seems a sad
substitute to forming an actual connection with someone.”
It is this lack of connection, and the jarring awareness that he had an addiction
to masturbating to sexual imagery, that
inspired blogger Dan Mahle to document what his life would be like if he
gave up porn for a year. In his article,
“My Year Without Porn,” Mahle writes,
“I am often able to stay more present
with women now, rather than projecting fantasies onto them.” Most tellingly,
he describes an important change in his
sexuality. His year without porn allowed him to “shift (his) sexuality from
physical detachment to true intimacy,
presence, and embodiment.” Such an
integrated vision of sexuality provides a
needed counter narrative to those that
drive the sex industry.
At any given time in history, dominant
narratives of the body exist. For example,
Jamake Highwater, author of “Myth and
Sexuality,” argues the “body as machine”
metaphor dominated cultural understandings, even impacting medical
practices, during the industrial age. Once
western capitalism was in full swing, the
“body as commodity” narrative took
hold. Scantly clad figures were used, and
continue to be used, to sell everything.
Highwater ends his book by warning that
the “body as weapon” narrative is beginning to dominate our culture’s vision of
sexuality. He points to the normalization
of violence present in the sex industry to
make his point.
Money, Sex, and Violence
During my last year in college, I worked
at a busy, German strudel house restaurant. One of my fellow waitresses was a
single mom in her mid-twenties. We

became friends and she confided in me
that she worked as a stripper at nights to
pay the bills.
“I don’t know what to do,” she sighed.
“My son just turned 7 and he’s beginning
to understand what I do at night. I don’t
want him to remember me this way.” But
it was hard to find another job that paid
as well. She was a single mother with a
high school degree. “Where else can I
make this kind of money? Waitressing
alone won’t cut it.”
Our conversation unfolded before stripping in front of a computer camera was
an option. Today, the Internet and adult
webcam industries are transforming sex
work. Women and men who never have
stepped foot into a strip club can purchase -- and sell -- sexual imagery from
the privacy of their own home. For sex
workers, choosing to become a “CamGirl” entails many advantages.
An important element of control is present with the use of webcam technology.
If a dancer finds a customer offensive,
she doesn’t have to navigate walking off
stage or finding a helpful bouncer to toss
the offender off of the premises. Now, at
the touch of a computer button, she can
simply change screens.
Before proclaiming the Internet as a
boon equalizing the power disparit H