"I'm going to retire when I turn thirty".
- Quote from every big dreamer I've ever known.
About a year ago or so, I began to receive horrible pieces of mail in my postbox. The first one came from the Social Security Department. Then shortly after, one came from the AARP. These nasty missives cloaked in the guise of "vital information" told me of personal details like I had qualified for Social Security retirement benefits and that I would soon be qualified for membership to the American Association of Retired Perseons.
No junk mail, email Spam or even attachment viruses have annoyed and confounded me as much as these "harmless" letters from those who have my "best interests" at heart. I hate these people. I'm on forty-one (soon to be 42) years old!
I've never been much of a planner in my life. I've had dreams and have pursued them, but I was never one to state -I'll get my degree when I'm 22 and be married by 25. The thought of retirement has always been a vague actuality but has never been at the forefront of my mind until those damned letters.
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"Those who walk the wild side and
in the smut trade don't often stay long. Porn is a self-weaning occupation." |
It's comforting to know that I'll have a meager bit of monthly income arriving monthly in my mailbox if I hold out retirement until I'm 64, but damn, did I have to know this so early? I am so glad that I can be a respected member of the senior citizen community when I get to my fifties but did the fuckers have to bum me out with this news in my early forties? Retirement is for old people. Forty is the new thirty.
One main reason I can't imagine or plan for retirement is because I'm not really sure I want to (or will be able to) retire. I understand retirement. I understand the need for those of a certain age to be able to relax and finish their life in peace and security. I understand the merits of the Social Security system that puts money in a trust for working citizens. I hope to the heavens there will be a Social Security system in place if and when I do retire.
I guess I don't entertain the idea of retirement because the vocations I desire don't really have a retirement age. Writer's write until their last black-lunged, pickled-liver breath. Actors act until they're carried off the stage. Artists create art until their final moments. Matisse defied his aged arthritic hands by composing gorgeous mosaics made from paper cutouts. The kinds of professions I like aren't the retiring kind. I've never grasped the concept of early retirement because I have always looked for a way to make money doing what I love. Why would I want to retire from something I love?
When I got involved with online porn I began to hear the "retire by thirty" mantra more often than I'd ever heard it before. I am sure a lot of it has to do with the age range of the average adult webmaster. So many Internet smutmeisters are mere pups in their early-to-mid-twenties. Wrapping their brains around the concept of living till thirty is still foreign to them. One's twenties are such a mess it's impossible to imagine a day will come when one gets a better grip on life, usually around the time one turns thirty.
Then again, I look at the profession of porn itself. Regardless of the porn-chic hoopla in today's media, the actual members of the sex industry still live with incredible societal scorn and hostility. It's the kind of profession that's easier to blame on youthful naiveté or past financial desperation. Jenna Jameson has claimed she'll retire when she has children. Many porn starlets are forced to retire because of the ageism inherent in the industry. Hugh Hefner should have retired years ago when he stopped looking cool. Now he just looks like a dirty old man with store-bought arm candy. Those who walk the wild side and dally in the smut trade don't often stay long. Porn is a self-weaning occupation.
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There's also the future of Internet porn to consider when one is pondering a prospective severance from it. This industry exploded along with the technology and has saturated popular culture with an unbridled fervor due primarily to lack of regulation. Regulation is coming.
Will this regulation stifle the trade completely? Will it curtail small entrepreneurs by requiring huge licensing fees, leaving only large corporations able to afford to operate online porn? Will those who peddle illegal trash be the reason for future oppressive and unfair standards against sex on the web? Will scammers, spammers and thieves give rise to disallowance of Internet porn commerce? Will the cyber world of sexual marketing become mired in red tape and repression the way it's real world counterpart has? If it did, would you have to retire?
Other life elements factor in when contemplating whether or not you will stay in net porn. Spouses, children and families can be reasons you want out. Burnout is another cause for bailing out of cyber smut peddling. Some become desensitized to sex altogether while others tire of the stresses of business. Somewhere along the line, it stopped being fun or stopped adding to the quality of life. Then there are those who decide to branch out or are presented with non-adult opportunities. Non-adult is not dead, it's prosperity is just more slow coming than online porn's was.
People will eventually do a great deal of buying and selling on the net and the veterans of online porn will be able to apply their advanced knowledge into non-adult easily. So many of us got into online porn because we loved computers and the Internet and porn was just a way to make a reliable living from our machines.
Will you retire from online porn someday? Probably. I'm sure I will someday. Even though the AARP and the kids from the Social Security Administration were premature to inform me of my impending decrepitude, I know the day will come when I can write no more. I look around for the opportunity to write about things other than porn every day. I keep my eye on the possibilities but I do it from a happy perspective.
Right now, I love what I am doing. I make a living performing work I am proud of and enjoy the moment. The future will come. Retirement may come. And those banshee mailers from the old people's brigade can kiss my middle-aged ass.