Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Might as well do porn

Today on Salon Cary Tennis fields a question from a 25-year old woman looking for the advice columnist's blessing to make a few fetish videos in order to pay for her Ph.D.:
Part-time jobs just aren't cutting it and I have been looking for a full-time job for over two years. I already tried car sales -- I suck. I got a useless degree for the job market, and don't have the cash to go on to a Ph.D. so I can teach (my personal goal) and have a career.

So I contacted a guy about doing a fetish shoot/video. It would involve no nudity on my part. It pays quite well and could be a repeat gig. Am I nuts? I already sold my underwear to some skeevy dude. It felt great not to dip into my savings account just to pay for gas, but also, I was shaking for an hour after he left. Scared. I feel like the fetish video would be more professional (ha-ha) so I would feel safer. I'm not eating ramen yet, but I can see that day in my future and I want to avoid it.

I guess to his credit, Cary responds with nothing close to approval of such a course of action (though he does suggest a "do it three times and get out" compromise which makes me wonder what other forms of work he might condone along similar lines -- professional hitman, perhaps?), but what the letter writer really needed was a good old fashioned dopeslap. So here it is...

1. You have savings and you're contemplating going into the sex industry?

2. It's called a FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Chances are that even after having gotten an undergraduate degree, you have several years of Federal loan eligibility left to help finance your education.

3. State schools offer Ph.D.'s as well, and cost much less than private universities if you have established residency.

4. Many colleges and universities will at least partially finance a graduate degree obtained while working there.

5. One more time -- you have savings and you're contemplating going into the sex industry?

That is all.

2 comments:

a boring person said...

She said she had a savings account, but that was most likely less than what she owes on her car. It might even be less than her credit card debt, which is why she still has credit card debt.

The author did not think it was a good idea, but of course knows that many other women are reading the same article and gives advice if the girl decides to do it anyway.

Other than just saying no for moral reasons, I don't know what else he should have written. Also, he is writing for Salon.com, which is promotes a slutty lifestyle. He would get fired from his job if he gave born again Christian advice.

Your advice is go into more debt so you can teach and be in debt for the rest of her life isn't that great either. She could always default on her student loan after she graduates and stick the taxpayer with the money.

State schools don't offer the snobbish degree needed to be able to teach in the school of her choice. It limits her options.

Tom said...

You raise good points, but let me try to offer some rebuttal if you don't mind:

1. The fact that a person with enough money in the bank to maintain a savings account would consider doing something like this makes me wonder what her definition of "desperate" is. Can't sell your house? Do some fetish videos! Yikes.

2. I don't think "I don't think you should do it, but if you do, do it three times" is terribly good advice. Cary needn't have taken a moral stand -- I know people who *did* put themselves through college stripping -- but this is the sort of question to which the answer should always be "Hell, no!" if you're the sort of person who has to ask it in the first place.

3. Student loan debt need not be a death sentence. The Federal government really wants their money back, so they're willing to bend over backwards to get you not to default on your loans. There are forbearances, income-contingent repayment plans, even loan forgiveness under certain circumstances.

4. Pedigree means much less than it used to in the academic world. The key is publishing early and publishing often. If you can produce monographs and peer-reviewed journal articles, potential employers aren't going to care if you went to an Ivy League or not.

Anyway, thanks for dropping in.