In hetero porn, tons of the models or performers or whatever are said to be involved because they were sexually abused when younger. Doing porn requires a certain numbness and if the performer doesn't have that when she starts, she will. It's just a very sad situation. A lot of people, including me, would never get involved with it, and consider money made there to be tainted.

(I know nothing about whether the same is true for gay porn.)

A hookup site isn't like that. Although there might be "numb" people participating, they aren't being exploited / selling themselves so there's just a different feel. But you never know where your life might take you. Sometimes very uptight people are gatekeepers to something you really want. You shouldn't let that possibility control your life, but on the other hand you shouldn't give up those unknown future opportunities for nothing. This job would at least have to pay more to make up for that.

I upvoted you because your comment is interesting, but how do you justify the above statement other than "it's what some prejudiced people, including myself, think"?

Have you validated this by talking to people who work in the porn industry? Have you read some research that validated this?

I'm questioning it because it seems like a stereotypical and potentially bigoted belief and is very possibly wrong. People are different. Some people get off on having sex with their life partner. Some people get off on being surrounded by a bunch of guys jacking off. Som people get off on having sex with animals. Some people don't get off and they're ok with that. It's fairly plausible that some people get off on doing porn, and it makes sense that many of those would work in the porn industry.

I suspect this idea of 'porn stars were all raped' is a way to claim that porn isn't normal, it's a way to claim that only people with stunted and retarted sexualities do porn. That 'normal' people don't do porn cause it's 'unnatural' ("Look only mentally damaged people do it!"). I suspect that people propagate this idea because otherwise they'd have to look at themselves and say "I actually wouldn't like to work in the porn industry", much easier to claim that you're normal and healthy.

My experience (via a friend who works for one of the soft-core porn channels) is that this is generally not true.

How much? Can you be more, uh, quantitative here?

If you're on the business side rather than IT, the equation changes dramatically upwards. I have a friend who's 5 years into a front office, commodities sales job, starting from the lowest possible rank, and who's now earning £150k per year plus bonus. She started on £30k because she really wanted the job - so her salary has gone up 500% in 5 years. That's not counting the bonus either.

That's not fuck-you money. Few people earn that even at banks. But it is a very comfortable salary.

It's cheap to get that salary, too. All you have to give up is your dreams. My friend who earns £150k hates her job, and used to tell me that every time I saw her.

Don't forget the effect of compound interest: they want your soul as well, and you burn out more every year for as long as you stay.

In my early career, a headhunter came after me to interview with his London bank client. I did a few quick sums at that point, and it's not nearly as attractive a package as it looks.

I'm in Cambridge, UK, so we have quite a few guys around here who get approached by the big London banks or who choose to interview there; a few of my friends did. Without exception, the ones who took the jobs get up early, commute down on overcrowded trains, work long hours during the day itself, and then commute home on overcrowded trains. By the time they've done that, they are so tired that they often don't want to do much on weekday evenings any more. The only thing that might improve the situation is moving to London, but that pushes your cost of living way up.

I don't earn as much money on my decent IT contracts as your £150k+bonus friend, and I've been working a bit longer. On the other hand, by the time you figure out an hourly rate including things like commuting time, I bet I'm not that far off. By the time you factor in the costs of commuting or getting London accommodation, I'm even closer. Oh, and I still have a life Monday-Friday.

I can understand people who go straight into that kind of environment for a couple of years after university, when you're young enough to take it and you're basically making an investment of 2-3 years of having no life in exchange for more comfort for the rest of your life. But I can't understand why anyone would want to stay there for much longer, even with all the financial reward: money is only worth anything if you have time to enjoy spending it.

As for hourly rate, that can be computed easily. My friend works about 12 hours a day, 5 days a week (no weekends, since her work is linked to the markets being opened). She gets 4 weeks of holiday a year, and there's about a week's worth of bank holidays. So that's 47 weeks * 60 hours = 2820 hours a year, on the upper end (assuming no sick days or other unplanned absences).

That works just above £53 an hour.

You could drive that down by counting her (30 minute or so) commute in, but you won't make much difference. The fact is, she earns very good money no matter which way you cut it. And that's not even counting the (very significant) bonus.

I'll grant you that living in Cambridge and working in London is daft, but that's why they have, ya'know, houses and stuff in London. So you can move there rather than spend hours on the train every day.

Cost of living wise london isn't that expensive once you take into account cost of commuting. I'm paying £1300/month for a large two bedroom flat within walking distance of the city.

For base I think your figures are pretty accurate, although bases tend to max out at around £100k (in pure developer roles; developer management can go higher). A lot of senior devs become contractors, with day rates typically being in the £550-£750 range.

Almost half of the people I met in university are now working for banks, and you'll find them either preparing for CFA exams over the weekend or thinking about their MBA applications for next year. These include people with PhDs in Physics and who worked on cutting-edge stuff like quantum cryptography.

Here's what to do if you're caught in that: decide to declare bankruptcy, then figure out a way to establish a six month period with your income below your state's average. Quit your job, stop paying yourself a salary from your company, whatever. If you've got to feed a family, make a mortgage, pay for your kids college tuition and otherwise support an above state average lifestyle for people you love... I don't know. Consult a good bankruptcy lawyer, and if they don't have a solution for you, ask them directly for a recommendation of a lawyer who will help you to beat this system.

The title, for example, shouldn't be "Why I gave away my company to charity". You didn't do that. (Which is good! That would be crazy.) How about, "Why I willed my estate to charity."

Definitely newsworthy and interesting, however.

If it's impolite, presumably the magical social filter will take care of it by downvoting or ignoring. Calling in the heavy artillery for something trivial like that is still ham-handed and unwarranted. You can't have said something like that unaware that it will end up all over the place anyway, as it did.

Much worse, though, was the ad for some damn NBC crime drama which showed some pretty young girl falling into the hands of a serial killer, then showed him burying her in a shallow grave down by the river or something. Yet another show about fear, pain and misery.