I feel compelled to say this, as someone who worked as an exotic dancer for close to 4 years, still dances occasionally, and is close friends with a number of women in the sex/adult industry (including some escorts):
Dancer/entertainer/escort does NOT = history of molestation, rape or sexual exploitation.
It is an offensive stereotype, and many women in adult entertainment (myself included) do not appreciate people assuming we were molested/raped, or otherwise sexually victimized. The vast majority of us are perfectly happy, healthy individuals who enter into adult entertainment, because it can be lucrative, we can act as our own bosses, and are in control of our own schedules/work lives. Most of us work for a time, as needed, then move on into other careers, when we are ready to do so.
Not meaning to derail your thread, but please be conscious of this when addressing adult industry workers.
THIS! Seriously, how is Lisaliz the first person here (that I saw) to ask this?
Women like her don't *do* anything to themselves, someone did something to them. She obviously wouldn't have decided to do a shoot like that if she thought that something like this would resurface in this manner.
So many people are sexually assaulted. Are they supposed to avoid all sexual activity because of it, just because they might freak out and remember what happened to them?
Your post sounds super weird. Next time, don't wait for a safe word. Any sign of distress in a shoot IS a safe word. People are people.
First I feel bad for the model. I really do. Im sure she thought she would be OK with the situation, and as it turned out she had flashbacks and freaked.
We all try to do things that scare us, and sometimes they get the better of us. As it was with this model. Im sure she feels worse about this situation/shoot than you do.
the thing about childhood abuse is that even though we may walk around seeming normal, and may even have forgotten about it, eventually it all comes rushing back to haunt us. there are other parts of lingering abuse rememberances where we tend to put ourselves in similar instances to where we may have control over it, yet sometimes it may still freak us out!
just this week i had totally remembered suddenly how i used to be hit across the face constantly by my mother as a child. i had blocked it out for years! all it took was being around a mom and her son, then suddenly i wasnt feeling so good
Lisa Praznak
Posts: 16
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
2020 Photography wrote: If I was a woman and I had been abused or sexually assaulted the last thing I would ever do is become an Escort. If I was a woman and someone had tied me down and assaulted me I would not likely as a model put myself in positions where I would find myself tied down and powerless again.
Wow. I've not heard such ignorance... ever. You don't know how you're going to act/react after a rape situation until it's actually happened to you. It's very easy for you to sit there and say "oh I would never do that.." but that's not how it works. Bad things happen. People lose their shit. Don't try and pretend like you wouldn't be the same (or worse) because you just don't know. I'm just going to put this out there, I've been raped and did some crazy fucked up shit afterwards as a way to gain some control back. A friend of mine who has also been raped started escorting (in no way am I suggesting that there is any correlation between the two outside of her) to deal with it. Her words were she had total control over these situations whereas when she was raped she did not.
I can't believe you hide behind the excuse that you were just a back up photographer and would no way interfere with the photographers shoot. This might make you a lovely studios photographer to have around, but it still shows what kind of person you are when you didn't step in and stop it. Whether it's your shoot or not you should have been a decent person and stopped it immediately when she (or anyone involved whether it be you, or the MUA) was noticeably uncomfortable. I'm sure you would appreciate the same.
I don't know what must be going through your head, but if I were in your shoes, at the slightest sign of agitation from the model I would have at least asked her if she was okay to continue... not just continue regardless.
I could go on forever about how badly you acted. Yeah the model probably shouldn't have done it, but like someone else said, humans don't know how they're going to react.
Lisa Praznak
Posts: 16
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Poses wrote:
THIS! Seriously, how is Lisaliz the first person here (that I saw) to ask this?
Women like her don't *do* anything to themselves, someone did something to them. She obviously wouldn't have decided to do a shoot like that if she thought that something like this would resurface in this manner.
So many people are sexually assaulted. Are they supposed to avoid all sexual activity because of it, just because they might freak out and remember what happened to them?
Your post sounds super weird. Next time, don't wait for a safe word. Any sign of distress in a shoot IS a safe word. People are people.
As someone who suffered from PTSD from an attempted rape in childhood.
A lot of people who suffer don't know every trigger, or repress the memories of the trigger. For example, outside of certain trigger incidents for me, I never had much of a memory of it. Then BAM, it'd all come flooding back. Like I always knew it happened, but often times it just was foggy. She may have had a foggyness to her memory about the abuse that flooded back. Or she may have been trying to face her triggers. Or she may have thought she had beat it already. It's really very difficult to tell.
It sucks that you guys had to see that, but I still have to say all of you and the make up artist handled the situation very well after she stormed from the room. Hopefully the poor thing can find a way to beat hers or manage it.
There is more sexual abuse out there than you might imagine, especially if you grew up in a "Ozzie and Harriet" world. And according to most professionals in the field, it happens a lot in the home. Most victims choose to move on and try to "forget" the past. Children are often very resilient.
One reason that these abused girls might put themselves in "exploitative" situations of their own free will often has to do with low self-esteem as a result of their experiences. Essentially they think of themselves as "damaged" and not entitled to a normal life. So they think this is about all they are good for (sexual playthings, nude models, fetish subjects). Studies of prostitutes who have been "rescued" and then voluntarily choose to return to "the life" suggest that these experiences sometimes are all these women know and they may have no other choices. (see the pbs special on Ukrainian prostitutes).
There are probably other aspects of their experiences that compel them to revisit, repeat or dwell on them, but those are deep and twisted motives that should be worked on with a professional in the field.
Most of the models I have worked with came from sheltered worlds and risque modeling is an exploration of a side of their femininity which they have a healthy curiosity about. Such women make the best models because they are so excited with this adventure.
Emily Hayworth wrote: It's possible that it was part of a repetition compulsion, as some others have mentioned -- or it's possible that it didn't even occur to the model that she might be bothered by the bondage, aside from some of the obvious physical discomfort.
Many victims of trauma aren't aware of all the things that can trigger them. The idea of bondage is to put the submissive in a very vulnerable situation, and that particular model may not have realized how vulnerable she would actually feel.
You may not have done anything explicitly wrong, but I would think that if it's a photo shoot and not a video shoot, there would be no reason for the model to be actively struggling and that be accepted as inconsequential -- safe word or not. Someone should have put the situation to a stop as soon as she started struggling and appearing uncomfortable. If she was really that terrified, I wouldn't be surprised if the safe word slipped completely out of her mind.
This, but especially the bolded. I have stuff in my past that was suppressed for years. I didn't realize certain things would affect me, or the intensity of the feelings. The safe word may have slipped her mind completely because of her panic attack/breakdown.
I forgot whether she had or not, but if she has shot bondage before, then something or someone on the set probably set her off. The bed, rope used, the way the rigger tied her down, something.
If she hasn't, then she probably wouldn't have known it would affect her this way and should not be accused of "why do people do this to themselves"?
There is a huge difference between being a bit uncomfortable and showings signs of a breakdown/panic attack. Everyone on set, who were supposed to be professionals, ignored the signs in favor of "getting the shot". And that's sad. Poor girl.
edited to add: Also, if the rigger/photographer/etc had asked her BEFORE she started freaking out, or even as she was getting worse, you may have had a chance to not "waste a whole day". You think you did nothing wrong? Yeah, have fun with putting ALL the blame on the model.
| 
| 
| edu