I found myself encountering a “first” recently. After 6 years as a model, I don’t really have a whole lot of firsts anymore. I’m so used to people and kinks that it takes a good deal to shock me or even make me feel uncomfortable. So you’ll imagine my surprise when I was at a photo shoot the other day and I had a “first”.
The photographer and I had spoken via text for a week or two leading up to our shoot. I don’t like talking on the phone; I have SO much going on that I need details in writing or else I get details mixed up, but also it is a way for me to make sure people are held accountable (myself included!). We discussed having a photo shoot, and he offered to shoot video but I wasn’t really in the market for videos. Ok, cool, no big deal there. Get to the shoot and we get one photo set done. Ok, cool, I tend to prefer to be more productive, but I also wasn’t feeling great. He asked me to shoot video. Ok, I guess. Not really what I wanted to do, but ehhhhh. I guess I can always use more videos. We kind of lay out the way the video is going to start and we get going. Ok, cool.
He cut between each take to explain the next part of the video. And then…it happened. He asked me to do something that had not at all been discussed either via text or during the shoot itself (give him a blowjob). Wait. What?! You want me to give someone who basically equates to a complete stranger a blowjob? For free? Without testing? Oh, and he’s going to “sacrifice getting off” so that he can essentially pimp me out to his producer pals similar to the way a big XXX production company out of LA does? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. I’ll get right on that… NOT!
I don’t even know this guy outside of him being a photographer. He assumed that because I have shot XXX content before that I would do it with him…Based off what, I don’t even know. I don’t shoot XXX content for myself, and I honestly don’t go out of my way to seek out XXX work, aside from posting on whatever modeling profiles that I do shoot it (for pay). Thankfully, he didn’t force himself onto me (I have friends who have had photographers do that…I’ve been lucky to never have had that experience), but he did make me feel extremely uncomfortable.
Blah blah blah, long story short…
Always discuss details with photographers (and videographers) in advance and in as much detail as possible. I didn’t straight up ask him, but I’m fairly certain that had he asked me to shoot that in advance and I said “no”, our shoot wouldn’t have even happened. Which would have saved me an entire day of getting ready, driving, waiting for him (he was also running late…), listening to him name drop and talk about his previous experiences as a photographer & videographer, etc.