Let's Talk About Marketing Text
  Written By Raven

I am sitting at my desk. It is day 1825, or thereabouts, in the life of this webmistress. At the moment, my coffee mug is filled. Black coffee. Strong. Besides water, coffee provides the gas for my fuel tank. On average, our two coffee pots are running all day long. We stop after dinner, but not before.

It's an interesting life I lead. I haven't reached that point in time where I cannot look at body parts anymore. The human form is pretty fascinating. I am intrigued when I see the various interpretations of sexuality. I'm pretty much immune to the naked human form. I no longer get squeamish about seeing a woman's tonsils by way of her pussy. I never did find vaginas particularly attractive and the male penis is, at best, a valuable tool, not a thing of beauty. What I do find appealing is the money to be earned, creating sites and writing text for those who do get turned on by someone's fist three quarters of the way inside a girl's anal cavity. Seeing edible items inside a woman's vagina no longer surprises me. I've become quite cavalier about seeing two strangers having sex in public, while the cameras roll.

Every morning, I awaken to a routine. I open my eyes, blink a few times and make my way to the bathroom. I am grateful that I can still navigate on my own without assistance, so it's already a pretty good beginning to my day. Lately, I've been getting up fairly early because I have clients on the east coast, who don't recognise the three hour time difference as a legitimate reason for me being away from my office. My bathroom routine takes little time. After all, who is going to see me? Padding down the steps in my jammies, sweats and slippers, I grab my first cup of coffee and I'm ready to go. Email always comes first, unless there is a crisis. There is usually a crisis. I have learned to take my waking quickly, so as not to sound moronic, even though I've only had two sips of coffee.

Still, I sit here, pondering burnout. What are the symptoms?
I can't imagine doing anything other than what I'm doing. I'm not bored. There's always something happening on the Internet, within my community. Today's crisis is PayPal, who is no longer accepting adult products or materials. Yesterday, it was VISA, requiring us to register and pay for the privilege of using them. Tomorrow, someone will claim the patent for something vital to my interests, annoying and possibly harmful to my business. There are days when I don't want to read news about something that may ruin my good time. I don't want to visit my favourite boards and hear about a crisis.

This Internet is changing rapidly. There are some days when I feel the world is closing in on us pornographers, like it's us against them and we're losing the battle and the war. In the Old West, there was a place called 'Hole in the Wall', where outlaws found sanctuary from the posse. Is it burnout when I feel like there is no sanctuary? Porn is more often in the news. Five years ago, I didn't see so much attention being paid to us. Perhaps I wasn't looking or listening. I didn't visit boards. I went to no conferences. I was locked away in my own little world, learning how to run an adult business. Is it burnout that I want to play ostrich again?

I sometimes find it difficult to be under so much scrutiny from the public eye. What I do does not exclude morality or ethics. I make money. Period.

Maybe I'm just tired of those who don't know me but want me shut down. Maybe I'm weary of a man who is supposed to uphold the law, yet breaks the Constitution every morning with prayer meetings on government grounds.

It is very possible, that, I've been on this trip before and I'm recognising the song being sung. I left a country where people just disappeared, where the straight and narrow was like walking a tightrope, with piranhas waiting to gobble those who stepped wrong. And, the definition of wrong belonged to someone whose definitions were skewed and filled with personal agendas. I live in a country that promised my loved ones wouldn't be taken away in the middle of the night. Am I burned out because I can smell fear on the skins of webmasters, where, before there was delightful arrogance?

What will happen to us? We are told, if we were smart, we'd be out of this industry, whose walls are being reshaped by morality police. But, we are smart. This is what I don't understand. Adult webmasters have capitalised on human sexual need. We are providing a service, filling a fantasy. Who is harmed?

Is it burnout to feel overburdened by the nameless faces who pray for my hell bound soul? I want them to go away. I don't need prayers. My morals and ethics are intact. I believe in the Universe, the Golden Rule. I take care of my family who takes care of me. Pray for someone else's soul. Mine is intact at the end of 1825 plus days of being a webmistress.