People...I’d like to welcome you to a new segment.

As you may have gathered, Miss Smut Buttons has enjoyed a rather varied career trajectory, including working in brothels, a sex toy store, at an adult magazine and for the Australian Sex Party. Throughout the duration of all of this, I have accumulated a number of stories. Stories that generally only see the light of day when I am inebriated enough to believe that I’m actually entertaining.

But for you dear readers, I’m gonna do this shit sober(ish). So sit down, pull up a blankie and get cosy because IT’S STORYTIME MOTHERFUCKERS!

Before I became the sexually depraved miscreant I am today, I was once a politely spoken young lady, just starting out in the brothel industry. I was naïve and shy, staring with wide-eyed wonder at the amazing world I was now a part of.

When I got the call to come in and interview for a position as a brothel hostess I told myself in my privileged WASP-y way, to abandon all the things I thought I knew. I would erase from my mind all stereotypes of pimps in fuzzy hats, sex workers clad in neon lycra and brothels decked out in colourful fluorescent lights with flashing XXXs out the front. For I knew, in my white upper-middle class heart, that stereotypes were damaging to people and that I should keep an open mind.

 Funny thing about stereotypes…

Upon arrival at the parlour I was greeted by about a mile of bright blue flashing neon lights and gaudy grotesques decorated the carpark entry in some attempt at thematic integrity. When I arrived at the front desk I was greeted by a woman who both looked and sounded like she thought “a pack a day” was a dietary recommendation. 

I was subsequently ushered into the “greeting room” which was a small room with a chesterfield couch and a big mirror on one wall. Being nervous about the interview I took this moment to adjust my appearance. In the mirror I checked my teeth, inspected the inside of my nostrils, picked some sleep out of my eyes and finally, spent approximately three minutes adjusting my cleavage. When I decided I was as good as I was ever going to look, I sat down to wait.

A short time later I was summoned into the “manager’s office”. It was here that my noble intentions of banishing all stereotypes from my mind took a swift kick to the crotch and never quite recovered. Sitting behind a big ass mahogany desk in a high back leather chair was the pimpiest pimptastic pimp I’d ever laid eyes on. His shirt was unbuttoned down to his navel, exposing his glistening oiled chest, which was only partially obscured by a collection of gold chains that would leave Mr T feeling intimidated.

It was only when I sat down that I realised where the other side of that mirror faced. I had just spent close to ten minutes adjusting my Wit & Charm (yes, I named my boobs, so sue me) in front of my prospective employer.

The interview proceeded with a kind of surreal normality, with Mr Pimp (yes, that’s what we’re calling him) asking me banal questions about my work history and what my interest was in working at a brothel. In my spectacularly suburban, middle class way, I told him that I thought it was an interesting industry and I was fascinated by it and the people who worked in it. He repressed the urge to laugh at me and offered me the job. It was all cash in hand, no benefits, no loading, etc and I would be working my way up from the bottom as a house-keeper and barista (it’s not legal to serve alcohol in brothels, so they do a roaring trade in coffee).

I was delighted! Clearly my Wit & Charm had won him over and he was bestowing on me the job I’d wanted ever since I was in primary school (I was a unique child).

I eagerly started my new job that week. I revelled in the fact that my workplace looked like Fran Drescher’s acid dreams. I regarded each of the service providers that I worked with as celebrities. Sure I still hadn’t memorised their names, but these women were amazing. They were all so glamorous and aloof and all I wanted was for them to find me worthy of a short conversation.

I tried to kindle friendships with all of these interesting people! I got reprimanded for not dressing sluttily enough. I went shopping for sluttier clothes, FOR WORK! I got to clean up tiny little bags of love juice and bed linen soiled in a variety of bio-hazardous materials. Clearly I was hooked and I was never going back to the nine to five grind again. 

I guess the point of this story is, if you have enough Wit and Charm, dreams really can come true. 

That is all.

You may go now.