Geez, the PhD colleagues I have said to me over and over that no scholar-student worth their salt actually PAYS for their PhD study. That's what grants and research fellowships are for! I can't find a one who actually had to have ANY kind of outside "job" other than actually teaching-related duties for which he or she was paid. And boy, what a life and universe this degree has opened up for them. Some teach, some do research, in a typical 5-year block spending any given percentage doing, oh... research in Australia or Egypt, teaching excited future-thinkers at any given university, etc. Most important, they contribute actively to the national and global discourses on a whole host of themes. Money's not always great, but hey... pretty hard to beat it for prestige, access to the highest millieu of social/economic/artistic/political thought and action. Without that final 'piece of paper' they'd never have qualified for those magical fully-funded years in Thailand or Geneva or Tierra del Fuego while the rest of us trudge thru the ole 9-to-5 grind. That's why I'm going back to school to grab the ole Doctorate soon.

What I'm getting out of this is that the LW is seeing herself in roles, like an actress: she eventually wants to be The Teaching PhD, but for now she's willing to be The Sex Worker. (Someone else said this and it's right: if you want to do the edgy thing and do sex work, okay, but own that. Don't act like it's your only option.) Nowhere do I see anything about wanting to teach, just about getting a PhD so she can teach. As many have pointed out, the connection between teaching and PhD is tenuous at best.

The LW needs to think about what she wants to do, as opposed to what role she wants to play in her own life.

Something else: either the letter's badly edited or there's something left out, but it's not adding up. If the LW is lucky to be making 20K in a year, then how in the hell can she afford a mortgage, credit card bills, and partial support of a family member? If she means that she's got 20K in a year after all expenses are covered, then she's doing fine and wouldn't need sex work.

If you want to teach at a private religious school, the video jobs will get in your way. That type of school will never hire you, and you have to write a statement of faith as part of your job application. If you got hired and then someone found out about your previous work, you would most likely be fired. And most universities don't want to hire someone who has been fired from another position, especially since there are too many others out there who are desperate for work.

I have no advice about whether or not to run from a Phd...but in response to your post:

You were listing all the horrible job conditions associated with PhD studenthood. Since you refer to your "pre-career," it sounds like you haven't worked (other than as a grad student). So I have some Big News for you: welcome to the world of work.

All the stuff you're complaining about happens to many people in many jobs. Believe it or not, you're not laboring under horrible sub-human conditions that no other person would ever have to endure.

Brace yourself -- many, many people in the US:

- commute long distances without mileage reimbursement

- don't have offices and have to work in loaner cubicles or at Starbucks

- have low pay, no job security, and are treated poorly by the higher-ups

- put effort into something only to be told at the last minute that things have changed, and their work product is now not needed

- have to deal with customers' poor handwriting

- have their job / office / department funding cut without warning

- work long hours without extra pay

- get ogled by rude customers

It's amusing that you're actually listing students ogling and bad handwriting as evidence of how horrible your job is. You do sound like a wilting flower. You probably get nasty paper cuts from handling all those papers, too.

You've got a job -- a reasonably prestigious job, with a certain amount of mental stimulation, on a nice college campus -- sounds like a job with some desirable aspects that a lot of people would appreciate. Yeah, parts of your job suck. Welcome to life.

But if you were trying to warn off the LW and the rest of us, based on how horrendous your working conditions are -- well, frankly, your working conditions just doesn't sound all that unusual.

Put aside any moralizing, scolding opinions. Don't do the videos if they're not of personal interest for you and won't be fun. Period. (Yes. I said fun. That means free of any hand-wringing guilt and doubt.)

I work for a pornographer (will be doing the 2257 paperwork at one of our video shoots this weekend, in fact). We do not need people seeking our industry out who are motivated solely by money and financial deperation. It's a mess to deal with those who aren't emotionally equipped for sexual performance because it's contrary to their sense of sexual expression. Like any other hiring situation we want people who enjoy what they're doing. It makes what you produce better. It makes the working relationships and environment better.

We simply do not live in a culture where financial hardship means that people have no choice but to turn to the supposed heel-snapping jaws of the porn industry. Someone bright enough to have a post-graduate degree unable to find work that pays more than bit work in porn? I find that hard to believe. I don't even have my bachelor's and for years found plenty of work outside the adult industry that paid me well enough to manage an apartment on my own, my bills and student loans. (I'm basically doing the same thing in the industry that I did elsewhere: paperwork, accounting, etc.) Have you tried a temp agency? Job placement agents are the laziest people in the world and think you need a masters to man a phone bank sometimes but even still I was always able to find work through them without a degree that paid reasonably well.

That you would allow someone to come to your house to buy your underwear is unsettling to me too. It's poor judgement because it is so very obviously risky in terms of safety (use the mail like everyone else who sells their undies to some fetishist!). Despite the myth, the adult industry isn't brimming with users and bad people but like any industry we've got our share. And how you chose to handle selling your underwear and how it made you feel leads me to think you are not the sort of person capable of looking out for themselves adequately in this particular environment -- how people feel, react and deal with sex is very subjective but for most people it is highly charged emotionally in some way so the chances are that someone who's shrewd as can be in an office or the classroom isn't going to be the same in our industry. It's not for everyone and it sure doesn't sound like it's for you.