SEXIS WRONG

The Daily Schedule of
a Porno Copywriter
Libby Lynn
6:00 a m : Welcome, Libby!
I wake up in a mortal panic. I’m 31 years old, and if I died
today there’d be no proper documentation of my life, except
for all the porn I’ve written. In the dazed layer between dream
and wake, I weigh the meaning of my career. What if I died
in a car crash? Or from an overdose of Lamictal, which I take
to keep my bipolar noise at a low hum? Or from a seizure
brought on by too much masturbation?
“Jesus,” they’d say, gathered around my half-naked corpse.
“What a way to go,” they’d say, staring at the panties tangled
in my jeans. They’d gape at the bottle of lube in my stiff right
hand, and the copy of Ass Fucking Whores #2 in my left.
Where in the world had my life come to?
Welcome, lovers, to my small adult world, where I have one
singular and specialized duty: to write product descriptions
for porn videos, sex toys, and all manner of erotic products.
Welcome to the company I’ll call Sex World.
My job is a mix of the ennui of marketing and the anomaly
of pornography. I relate equally to wealthy mainstream art
directors and their grossly underpaid staff, and to filthy-rich
pornographers and their grossly overpriced pornstars. It’s the
greatest and weirdest job I’ve ever had.
Before this, I’d been writing copy at mainstream media companies
for eight years. It was skull-numbing. Between bouts
of actual work, I’d browse porn sites, masturbate in bathroom
stalls, and search for other copywriting-job ads.
“FULLTIME ON-SITE COPYWRITER POSITION; MUST BE
COMFORTABLE WITH THE ADULT ENTERTAINMENT IN-
DUSTRY” was the ad that called me to Sex World. I started
when I was 27 and didn’t question entering the world of porn.
Four years later, I question whether I’ll ever leave.
—
9:00 a m : Your daily schedule is as follows:
I unlock my office door at 9:08. I’m usually late two days
a week. My boss, just outside my office, gives her Look. I
turn on my computer and check my email: 247 spams and
fourteen work-related emergencies, which I respond to immediately.
Next, I check my dreaded Outlook calendar, and
another meeting-jammed day at Sex World begins.
—
9:30 – 10:00 a m : Write copy for three porn videos that
don’t have screeners yet. It’s doubtful that you’ll ever
get the actual videos, but at least you have the DVD
cases.
After four years, I’ve learned to write video copy just from
looking at its packaging. I used to thrill at coming up with
synonyms for body parts and sexual acts. But I’m automated
now. If a video merchandiser blindfolded me and yelled,
“White Chicks & Black Dicks—GO!” I could finish an accurate
seventy-five-word paragraph in five minutes.
—
10:00 – 11:30 a m : Attend meeting and bitch about the incompetence
of the latest Team Scapegoat. Complaints
include spending three days completing one 8x5-½” video
ad flyer, flubbing deadlines, and badly managing time
management. Remind those present that scapegoats
are a necessary variable for the daily grind to function
smoothly.
It would take 300 pages to explain the business structure of
Sex World. I work with a team of graphic designers, product
merchandisers, copywriters, and print buyers that sells every
imaginable adult product to our appropriate demographics.
THE DAILY SCHEDULE OF A PORNO COPYWRITER 177