Porn Camp

Every October a trivia night to benefit JDRF rolls around and I sign up with a regular group of friends. It is my favorite social event of the year; it also happens to be my only social event of the year.

Along with the trivia, they always have a silent auction. For me, this is extremely dangerous territory. I’m not an auction fan. Sitting around people making loud noises or raising their arms to outbid each other is not my idea of a good time. A silent auction, however, allows you to write your bid and walk away. No personal interaction whatsoever is involved. Every so often, one can mosey back to see if someone’s outbid them and attack their audacity to cross the bid with a follow-up bid. Defeating the opposition is quite satisfying. As I said, it’s dangerous. There was, however, one moron who countered my bid with the exact same amount. How stupid are you if you can’t figure out how a silent auction works? There were a couple bids ahead of mine so even from that small sample it shouldn’t have been hard.

Among the array of silent auction items, baskets with themes such as smelly lotions, movie nights and party down, sat an overnight bag. Being a sucker for southwest motifs, the bag appealed to me with its red leather look and silver buckle. I bid on it, taking no notice of the other items with the bag. I bid then walked back to my table of friends. Eventually everyone made it over to the auction tables and someone returned and asked, “Linda, you bid on the naughty pictures?” Stunned, I denied any such thing, but walked back to the overnight bag at my first opportunity.

Tucked inside the bag were fliers about a photography session for boudoir photos. Everyone knows what those are. Scantily clad women and, much less frequently, men photographed in supposedly seductive poses to entice their, well, their whatevers. Not my style, at all, but this photo shoot came with a $100 gift card to any local hotel in Nashville. I do love my Nashville weekends. At the table people kept track of my “porn” photo shoot almost as anxiously as I did. I bid on nothing else. It surprised no one that I won; we all enjoyed the chase and I looked forward to a weekend in Nashville.

A couple of months later I finally found the time to contact the owner of the studio. Through email she graciously extended the date due for me as the weather became wintry fierce. Instead of the March 31 deadline she gave me till May. She seemed someone willing to work with me and I asked if I had to do boudoir photos. I shuddered to think of someday finding one plastered on the internet, something I wish everyone would think through before moving ahead. She said, no, they could do some nice business photos for me if I preferred. Only one thing I have less use for than boudoir photos are business photos. We agreed casual wear of jeans and anything else I wanted was acceptable. My good friend, Beulah, name changed to protect, well, me from lawsuits, volunteered to come along. We travel well together and had been to Nashville before. She’d seen me through some pretty dark cancer days and this would be my victory photo shoot. I now had an overnight bag, a photo shoot and hair. It was time for my victory lap.

I told everyone about the trip. Word had spread of my auction win and people were most inquisitive about the whole thing. Another dear friend, Lucille, again the lawsuit thing, began referring to the weekend as “Porn Camp”. The tag stuck. Instead of inquiring about my weekend away, the questions became about Porn Camp.

We left on Friday and on the way down decided we would go to the Grand Ole Opry. We are not country music fans. I don’t know about Beulah, but I can’t stand it. But after my cancer dance with destiny I thought I would experience what I’m able, if only to say I’d tried it. Before you ask, I do not consider boudoir photos to be an experience. After checking in at the Hampton Inn, we went through the Grand Ole Opry Hotel. The flooding last year didn’t leave much of a lasting mark. Our opportunity to stay there passed when the waters receded. I’m sure rates were more affordable with 10 feet of water in the lobby.

Saturday morning Beulah and I drove downtown to find the photo shoot building. She used the Garmin to navigate our way from the hotel. Nashville is not a city that lends itself to easy navigation. We found the valet parking hotel and, according to the instructions I had, the photo shoot building was just next to the Starbucks. Wait. What? I didn’t see a Starbucks. Beulah had. She can spot a Starbucks with nothing but a glint off the logo. The instructions said to look for a building with 3 red flags. Following the map I’d printed, I deduced that the building was a couple doors down from Starbucks. It displayed 3 small red flags. However, it was a lawyer’s office and the wrong numerical address. We crossed the street. Now we found the right building, but the doors are locked and look like they haven’t been opened in years. Refusing to give up my map, I am an excellent navigator, I continued giving Beulah directions per the map. She insisted on steering her own course eventually, much to my chagrin, and tried another door around the corner on the same building, a door with three rather large red flags overhead. Behold! A door with the right address. We lucked out with a couple of residents leaving and we were able to get into the secure building.

According to the address the studio was on the second floor. We got on an elevator and I pressed ‘2’. The door closed and nothing happened. We waited. Still nothing happened. We pressed the button to open the door. Getting out, we waited until it was called elsewhere and tried another elevator. We got on, the door closed, I pressed ‘2’ and nothing happened. My appointment time was on us and we’re struggling to get to the second floor! We found no staircase, no one on site, and when the elevator doors opened and people spilled out, okay, two walked out, we asked them about getting to the second floor. “Oh”, they said, “that floor is locked on weekends because it’s the only floor with businesses.” This would have been nice to know. I called up to the studio and they confirmed the locking of the second floor. They came down and picked us up.

Having someone else put on your makeup is fun, particularly when they know what they’re doing. I think I looked good, except I’d have gone with a bolder lip shade. We talked and laughed. Nanushka, the makeup artist (her real name escapes me), hails from Florida. She’d never been to St. Louis and let us know she only knows one thing about it. I’ll bet you went to “arch”, didn’t you. Nope, exorcist boy. That’s right, all the fancy material and hype put out on our “famous arch” and this gal only knows about the exorcist boy. That was funny and led us down many other conversation paths. We spent well over an hour on the makeup and hair. Hair wasn’t much of a challenge, I thought. But it looked goofy when she finished.

After makeup, it was time for the shoot. I followed the master photographer through a small bathroom to a very large studio with a bed used as a prop. I used it as a closet, laying out all my tops and the jewelry appropriate for each one. I wear jeans with everything and that look can’t be improved. She said I could change in the bathroom. I got 3 changes of clothing here and I asked if I could just change there. Okay, here’s the porn part. She said no problem. In her line of work she sees more boobs than Hef. Even better, I only change shirts, so the girls stay garbed through all three changes. End of porn! She told me of the women that come to her, some to please their husbands, some to please their boyfriends, some to please their husbands and their boyfriends. That last one just made me ill. I’ll bet we finished the shoot in under half an hour. Once finished we left the studio.

I kept that goop on my face all day, even to the Opry that night. I figured why should I use my makeup when this junk would probably stay on for days if I wanted to go that long? I doubt I’d look as good by day 3, but it might have been somewhat correctable. I didn’t push it, though. Before bed I washed it all off. My eyes were looking coony by then and the whole thing was giving me a headache. Beauty isn’t worth losing sleep over.