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Key points
- She had $16,000 in the bank, and her pimp made off with it.
- The financial and psychological abuse left her not wanting to live.
- Today she wants to protect others from the brutality she endured.
Bevy Lane (not her real name) is an exotic dancer, sex worker, and porn star. The experiences she’s been through are horrific, and yet she sill wants sex work to be legal.
She is in favor of sex work, but she’d like real protection for sex workers. Many of the practices that caused her harm are illegal, but the laws were never enforced.
Lane Becomes an Exotic Dancer
When Lane was 19 and recently divorced, she was having trouble paying her bills. She confided her problem to one of her father’s friends, and he suggested, “Let’s get you set up at a club. You can make a lot of money as an exotic dancer.”
To Lane’s delight, she found she could easily earn at least $500 a night. She also enjoyed that men found her attractive and sought her company.
On one of her better nights, she could make $3500 from tips, although that didn’t mean she took home that much. For one thing, the strip clubs didn’t pay her to work. It was the other way around; she had to pay the club $100 for access to the stage for eight hours.
Other expense included “tipping out” the floor guy, the club manager, the DJ, the house mom, and others. “If it were a really good night and I made $3500,” she says, “I’m probably tipping out $500 to the manager no less than $200 to the floor guy, maybe $100 to the DJ, and if I didn’t have time to get ready, I’d also pay $70 for hair and makeup. When you put all the costs together, for that $3500 night, I might have almost $1000 in expenses.”
As an exotic dancer, her job also included talking with customers. “Many of the men who come in just want companionship. They want someone to listen.”
She Had a Pimp and Didn’t Know It
During this time, her father’s friend became her boyfriend. She was in love with him and trusted him with a joint bank account.
It wasn’t until the guy suddenly left for Colombia that Lane realized he was a pimp. He stole $16,000 that she had earned and that was in their bank account. Worse, he had taken out a life insurance policy on her, and she discovered that she was worth more to him dead than alive.
As she has personally seen over the years, “Almost every girl who’s worked in the sex industry, has had a relationship with a pimp, but as in my case, they may not know it at the time.”
Lane Becomes a Porn Star
One of Lane’s friends (now an ex-friend) knew of her bad experience with stripping and suggested that she could do well as a porn actress. “I’m making $20,000 a month,” the friend told her.
Initially, the work seemed great. She was soon making $2500 a shoot. Her niche was “Hot MILF.”
Initially, the money seemed good, but it didn't stay that way. In her experience, the industry conspires to deplete the porn actresses’ savings, so they become ever-more dependent. It’s debt bondage.
Examples of the kinds of expenses the industry can impose on an actress:
· The booking agency gets 10% of her earnings.
· The actress is required to pay for her wardrobe.
· She needs to pay for makeup, hair styling, manicures, hair extensions, and she needs to be ready camera-ready at all times for last minute bookings.
· She is required to pay the STD tests every two weeks, and typically these cost $250.
· She will often be required to travel to different states, and must pay her own airfare, hotel bills, and a rental car.
· If she’s uncooperative, her agent won’t get bookings for her, and while her expenses continue, her income stops, destroying her financial independence.
There’s also the emotional costs and the drugs. “They keep you sleep-deprived, and there’s cocaine available on set so you’re still lively and can work. You’re constantly yelled at for being too fat or too thin. When you’ve been through several days of sleep deprivation, they tell you you’re losing your mind and you’re schizophrenic. They’ll demand that you perform acts on camera such as being penetrated by three men simultaneously.
Lane Decides on a Change
The abuse finally got to her. In October of 2021, Lane realized, “I’ve lost my will to live.” She couldn’t go to the tapings anymore and she would have crying jags that lasted 24 hours.
An attitude change caused her to reframe everything. She realized that as a victim of force, fraud, and coercion, she was the victim of highly illegal activities. She discovered in herself a fierce desire to stop the illegal part.
She went back to work and began “acting chill” with the people who were exploiting her, pretending that nothing had changed. Secretly she was getting their getting names, locations, and photographs of illegal activities.
Today, although she’s in hiding, with her carefully acquired documentation, she now can help law enforcement go after gangs and trafficking rings.
Lane has suffered from sex work, yet still sees a place for sex work and wants it to be legal. However, she’d like to see the pimps and traffickers and gangs feel the full force of the law in every case where they become involved in breaking the law.
