The One where I nearly got a job writing snuff.

It all started out so innocently.  I'd just graduated and was ready to get re-involved with the world of work.  


I'd become familiar with The Mechanical Turk.  This is Amazon's online job-posting site.  Submit a review on my Youtube video and I'll give you $0.02, that kind of thing.  

Being a Westerner, this obviously wasn't worth my time but I liked the idea.  Real life work is inconvenient.  I have to cycle in the rain, people eat with their mouths open or don't blow their noses, are casually racist and just generally ornery.  I'm fussy.  I like a quiet life.


Months passed and I learnt about another couple of sites where the pay was slightly better.  Still in the $2-3 per hour range but perhaps just about worth it, if only for the experience. 


I graduated and started applying for conventional jobs but meanwhile thought I'd see if I could get a bit of online work.  I was initially looking for virtual PA or admin. work but would stray into the Writing categories now and then, hoping someone would realise I was terribly witty and observant.  I knew this wasn't going to actually happen though so I set up my account as an administrator and PA and left it at that.


Shortly after this, I received an invitation to interview for a listing called "Fictional Web Story Writer 'NOC' ala Bourne Trilogy".  Obviously, I was flattered to have been chosen out the thousands and thousands of workers.  'Finally!' I thought, 'Someone who recognises my innate talent. Ha, I knew it would happen all along!'. 


The invitation included a little about the story; 

"A single female character in the sense of a Goverment sanctioned Assasin, with an emphasis on Stealth apose to Action" that "Tends to trap her victim and slowly suffocate the life out of them". She "Does not use any weapons hence able to perform hits in secure or tightly populated venues such as Airplanes, Buses, Trains, Librarys, Embassys etc".   

The goal was to "build Dossiers for the operatives including backgrounds, training, academic profiling and skill sets in regard to close combat abilities. The agents are British, American and Russian."


"I can write that shit!" I thought.  You want Xenia Onatopp, I can give you Xenia Onatopp! I wear knee-high black boots, I stare at my wet-look legging'd thighs, glistening like two baby seals - I've got it all in mind! I could write this.


The man, R, sent me a sample to give me a feel for the job.  It was on a boat with guards at night and all very covert, lots of staring into the man's eyes or whispering in his ear as he was slowly crushed by the protagonist's limbs and generally thrown over the edge.  

I wrote back "Its quite porny in a way what with all the pelvis-sitting and thigh-entwining and thrusting and whatnot - is the porniness a goal or just meant to give a little frisson to the kills?"


R didn't respond to this question immediately, just invited me to chat on MSN. We moved there and got down to business.


It became apparent that it was in fact a porny job.  He never called it that but it all centred on men being helplessly crushed by cruel women, generally between their thighs.  

He was very enthusiastic about the cruelness of it all.  The men should know but be helpless and any psychological torture was a massive bonus.


I wrote an airport based scene - I forget the details exactly but I was sure to get some bloke crushed by thighs.  I seem to remember doing something vaguely psychological or clever and tricksy with the kill and he lapped it up.


He sent me another example to spur me on.  This time, the agent killed an ambassador in his home in front of his teenage boy.  She didn't just kill him in front of the teen though.  She slowly killed him and had a good chat with the lad as it went.  The kid even got an hard-on from the frisson of it all!  Nothing quite as erotic as a thigh-muffling of your old dad whilst you powerlessly and helplessly watch.  Dad died, the teen was helpless with thigh-inspired lust and the agent escaped, free to thighbeast her way to power and covert fame.


This story was weirder.  But I hung in there.  I like sex, I like porn.  I think it's generally healthy and that just about everyone needs an outlet of some variety.  It wasn't my thing but it was still only fantasy and it would be paid fantasy and it was alright really.


He got even more into the deal and sent me another scenario.  This time, it was on a plane. The agent (Hannah, she was called) had her mark on this flight.  He was travelling with his two boys who were around 6 and 8.  She squashed the first kid whilst in her seat somehow.  His dad got up to go to the toilet and she sexually thighmuffled the kid like there was no tomorrow, getting him down on the floor in front of her. 

How she did this in her seat with no-one seeing is beyond my ken. The kid got bundled under the seat. The dad returned from the toilet and didn't notice his missing son.  So far, so good for Hannah. 


Next, Hannah went to the toilet and somehow inveigled the other child in with here.  This scenario came with a handy picture for me to really understand precisely how the child was suffocated with Hannah's powerful thighs, replete with bloated face and attention drawn to precisely how they were aligned in the small space that was the airplane toilet.  

This one too was somehow returned to their seat where she tenderly put him under a blanket and told the hostess he was asleep.  Again, Father didn't notice.  


The flight landed and Hannah left, magnificently, sleekly and cunningly murderous without anyone the wiser.


At this point, I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable.  I raised my discomfort and R was confused.  Didn't I understand that this was more psychological?! The agent had cunning tortured the father in a much more cleverly orchestrated hit.  She killed his children and left him to suffer for ever.  Surely, this was a much more subtle, adept and psychological mission?


'Yes, but she erotically squeezed primary-school age children to death with her thighs in small spaces' I protested. 


No, no, it was psychological and clever.


The liberal sex-positivist in me was all akimbo.  What did I think?  Was this a right-on, all's-fine-by-me, sex fantasy or was it sexy child snuff?  After all, it was only writing.  It wasn't real.  It's just a bit of harmless writing...right?


The bloated face of Mohammed (the targets were usually Middle Eastern)  swam before my eyes.


I swallowed it down.  I was sex-positive.  This was fantasy.  It was fine.  It was fine.  It's mostly about the older guys.  The kids were just a clever plot device.


R and I wrote another story together.  This time, at an embassy party, where Hannah mesmerised a very old gentleman ambassador with her sexuality, right in front of his family!  She lured him into a toilet and squashed him.  

This time, she rang the man's son on his mobile and got him to find him in the toilet, all dead.  Then, she sprang out of the cubicle, got him from behind and thighsquashed him round the neck, making sure he bloody well knew it.  And then escaped again. 


I didn't write in a child as this ambassador's son but it was becoming rapidly clear that the focus wasn't on naughty blokes getting squashed but a bit more on their sons, some of which were outright children.  


I was starting to lose the faith.  


By this point, I'd been talking with R and writing for a few hours and called it a day.  I tried not to think about it too much and went to sleep.


The next day, I woke and thought about the previous day's activities.  The word 'snuff' hove into my mind's view.  

I couldn't unthink it.  

Oh God, he wants me to write snuff.  Snuff that sometimes involves children.  

It's not sexy, sexy, ooh-helpless-man, let-me-squeeze-your-face-with-my-thighs erotica.  It was sexy, sexy, helpless-man, know-that-I-am-killing-you-with-my-thighs erotica.


Sex + death = snuff.  Oh God, I wrote snuff.  Oh God, he wants to employ me to write snuff. 

Xenia Onatopp's thigh-squeezing was ITV-friendly cheese-cake.  

This is torture-sex-killing with some vaguely racial overtones thrown in for good measure.  This isn't covered in the liberal sex-positivity handbook!


I wrote back to R and respectfully declined the job, politely stating that I didn't think that "in good faith, I can write snuff or, indeed, erotica that involves children, even when only contingently."


R was sad and asked me to reconsider, citing our "excellent connection" and my "sensual experience".  He said  the kiddy stuff was a one-off and that he "really didnt want to lose me lol",  "confident," I could "build Hannah into something we haven't seen before.".


He followed this with a plaintive "I thought we were talking about the Embassy mission with the old man target now?"


And there my employment relationship ended with R.  Not with a bang, but a whimper.   I only inadvertently wrote a little bit of snuff so my reputation is more or less intact.


Also, if anyone can tell me what 'NOC' means, I'd love to know.  A nosetap to those in the biz?  No Oxygen Content?  Non-Overt Crushing?  Who knows, maybe that should have tipped me off right there and then.




TL;DR? Thighmuffle.

The Grapes (and grains) of Regret.

If we can't remember enjoyable evenings e.g. because of intoxication, does that make it less valuable?  If I wake up happy but can't remember specifically why, does that matter, should it matter and in what way would this matter?

As I've gotten a little older, I've started to forget things. I can't really remember senior school.  I have snapshot memories, I know the events that took place, I know I found it al reasonably unpleasant in a banal kind of way but I can't really remember it.

I worry about this.  I worry that I will start to forget the good times I've had.  I worry that I make this worse by getting slaughtered nearly every time I do.  The first couple of hours are memorable, the second couple less so and goodness knows what happens at the end (although the last occasion left the clues of a well-broken wine glass, discarded cherry-flavoured cigarillos and a picture of my workmate wearing my most fun outdoor wear).

Generally this kind of night instils a warm fuzzy feeling of knowing that I Hung Out and that we Did Stuff.

It seems to be enough.  I do it over and over.  I sometimes have this niggling feeling that I'm missing out though.  Time spent with my boyfriend generally ends when my body decides, rather than my mind chooses.  This leads to a sub-question of control and choice as relates to value and enjoyment.  Well, it's not a question, it's more a fact (yep, that's right, I'm pulling out the certainty - go on, challenge me) - we don't enjoy things we haven't chosen to do.

Perhaps it's a question of happiness vs. contentment.  Getting trousered may make me happy in the short-term but doesn't lead to long-term contentment because it removes my higher goals of having lived a good life (which requires one to remember it to know it) by approaching the lower goals of having had a good week via the easiest method of getting trousered with some people I trust.

On the other hand, most of my memories are fuzzy, regardless of intoxicant use.  Unless I'm doing something outstanding and therefore memorable, it all rather blends into the same kind of thing.  So perhaps my concerns about getting hamstered are more to do with morality - I feel that I didn't do the best thing with my evening, I did something Bad.  I let go of my rationality, risked my health, wasted my money.  And to return to the start, risked my memories that I imagine will sustain me when I am an old, alone lady.

New tack:  If memories aren't important, why do we put so many of them on Facebook?  Or conversely, has Facebook risen to fill the void left by our refusal to abstain from getting totally bucketed despite memories being central to our social functioning?  Is it just about social display; Look I Have Friends And We Do Stuff?  Actually, it probably is more that because you can just keep your photos to yourself or email them between you.  Never mind....

So which is it?  Why is getting utterly spannered to the point of memory loss becoming a questionable activity?  Value, nostalgia, choice, health, guilt, sin?  Shaking off the 90s mandate of being Mad For It at all times?  I can just about deal with the hangover and the financial imposition (only just). It's something else. Thoughts on a virtual post-card below, lovies.

TL;DR?  Just about any noun in English can be used as a euphemism for getting very drunk as long as you put -ed on the end.

I don't think there's really an answer to this one...

At my hospital, our computer records system requires that we ask the patient their ethnic category.  This is a point of contention and embarassment for all concerned.  Mostly, it passes without any significant event.  You can make this process run smoothly in two ways.

If  you're a square-peg-jammed-in-a-round-hole of a receptionist, you can circumvent this by putting 'Patient Declined' or making the executive decision that they are White-British ( which is generally a fair assumption).  I think this is naughty for two reasons.

A) it impacts on patient care which is our primary concern - different ethnic groups have differing possibilities of suffering from different conditions and b) its bloody weak of you.  Come on.  I know it's embarrassing and I know people get a shirty look in their eye but it's your job, it's not YOU asking it, it is your clerical persona asking it.

Another way is to just be socially intelligent and ask in a chilled-out way.  I've worked with  another person who just managed to do this really well, I can't quite pinpoint how she did it but I suspect it came from her being alright with the concept of ethnic category in general.  She didn't have any underlying anxiety vibe of 'Oh God the FORRINERS' and she understood and agreed it was for patient care, not because of NuLieBORE.

But anyway....

What I am more interested in is why the question of asking someone's ethnic background is so embarrassing.  There's definitely fear and there's definitely embarrassment.  I don't look forward to doing it but just hide behind a bright and breezy asking that brings about compliance through a 'this-is-totally-normal-and-we're-all-fine-with-it-aren't-we?-I-mean-I-am-aren't-you?' attitude.

There's so much here to unpick.  Perhaps you are scared of seeming vaguely, somehow, racist.  Racism is such a central subject now that to even partly approach the question of race must mean that you judge people by the colour of their skin.  Of course, in this scenario, you are judging someone on the basis of their skin colour for the purposes of patient care and with a good end in mind so you know what option to choose in the little box rather than taking it as an opportunity to put someone to the bottom of the appointment list, refuse to shut the drafty window and not aid them in finding the toilet and cafe due to their ethnicity.

Maybe you're scared of appearing like some kind of government lackey who has abandoned all common sense and that the Daily Mail types will scoff at you.

Maybe you dislike living in a world where this kind of thing is even a concern.

Maybe you're scared that the people you ask will give you hassle for asking.  Fortunately, the height of aggro I have received so far has been 'I'm ENGLISH, not British' to which one laughs politely through gritted teeth, waves them off, checks on Wikipedia and in true esprit d'escalier/wage slave form, wishes you could yell after them' Yes, well, technically Madam, you're BOTH'.

Maybe..... Oh God, I don't know.  Maybe this is too big and varied a question, especially for a blog post.

I think, on the face of it, it's a desire to avoid hassle and being obliquely intrusive.

What do you think? Is asking ethnicity all that embarrassing? Is it embarrassing when someone asks you your ethnicity?

Stupidity as Protest

or 'This is what you get when you employ a cultural studies/philosophy graduate to help public sector employees get used to new computer systems'  or 'Look, I'm sorry, there was so much Marxism in my degree, alright?'


Before we start, some definition: Stupidity is not intellectual disability.  Stupidity is not (directly) a lack of education.  Stupidity is a reluctance to accurately observe situations and attempt to sensibly engage with them.  We shall also keep in mind Cipolla's Third Law of Human Stupidity "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

I'm starting to wonder if incompetency is less a reflection of a lack of education or general lack of skill but in face an attempt to claw back some autonomy, regain some creativity and make social protest in enacting one's 'inability' to succeed.  One can emote in all kinds of ways, when one cannot succeed, even flail and cry.  You get to have a good gossip about it and it is socially reinforced by the sympathy, buzz created and the attention drawn by training given and disciplinaries attended.

If the above is sufficiently true, it strikes me as unfortunate and as quite the stumbling block for a progressive society.  I don't mean to insinuate that we'd all be better off as cobblers and seamstresses and simple country folk and the like.  But if our attempts to progress to a less complex and more stable society that performs as expected in turn induces a sort of glazed-eye hysteria where inability is insisted to be inevitable, that don't seem too good. 

So let me break down my argument.  We have pretty much collectively decided to strive for efficiency and value for money in our services.  Sometimes workers make mistakes so we streamline the processes. How to do A, the way we want B to be done, C needs this method.  There are also lots and lots and lots of us competing to do similar things in aesthetically different ways so we also strive for recognisability.  D must always happen this way, E must always look and taste that way and F is always easy to pick out in a sea of logos.  So again, we streamline the way that the image of the thing we are working with is done and standardize it.  We also like to be able to communicate easily and transfer information easily.  So we tend to do things in similar ways and make sure our technology can interface relatively easily.  I don't mean to spark some kind of 'Oh-ho, well, you should have seen the trouble I had getting that PDF file you emailed me to open on my outdated system' thought process.  By doing things in similar ways I mean that we generally go to work at similar times, we've agreed to all sit in big rooms together, each with telephones, and we digitise our information storage so its super-transferable.

Broadly, within the world of work, F follows E follows D follows C follows B follows A.  And, in theory, thats fine because ABCDEF makes sense, is usable, looks nice and everything should go smoothly and we should all get home in time for tea.

The problem in practice is that doing ABCDEF over and over and over is very boring.

ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF ABCDEF.

Stupidity and incompetence, on the other hand.... My goodness.  The sheer number of ways you can do it too!  We are all capable of being stupid, it's a level-playing field and there isn't a single thing that can't be failed at.  You can be socially inappropriate, refuse to engage with computers or perhaps you prefer to get confused by maps.  Maybe you're apathetic, maybe you're histrionic or maybe you're just so incredibly jaded.  Stupidity has a massive catchment area with a high possibility for creativity.

When I started writing this I was leery of falling into a wide-eyed existential speculation on educative possibility.  It's sort of happened anyway.  I  do think that most people aren't incurably stupid and I do think most people choose the way their lives pan out mostly.  But if the frustrations of limited options, starkly banded by cultural expectations of achieving the being who you want to be - splinteringly refracted by a hyper-real awareness of the thingness of things, the potentiality of potential and the catalogue of entity that makes up a post-modern world - leads to an acting-out of incompetence and refusal to engage with possibility¹, we aren't going to get too far.

In a nominally-socially-mobile meritocracy, the performance of stupidity has a certain elegance to it.  It displays an attendance to the fundamental discrepancies between the theory and practice of  the dominant cultural enactment of 'The world is your oyster if you just try hard enough'.  You might come round here with your improved technology and your better ways of doing things, your assumptions that I both am part of and want to belong to your beautiful world of possibility and opportunity, your god-damned efficiency and your  god-damned ideas but do you know what? I don't even understand it, I can't do it and I probably never will, so try that on for size.

¹ (I was going to make a vague joke here about willingly engaging with broken photocopiers and the fixing possibility of their manuals but let's face it, those things are fucking impossible.)