Pornography, peep shows, and the decline of morality

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), March, 1994 by Wes Goodman

"The girls that do peeps are not hookers. They do not sell their bodies. This is a way for them to be in the industry without prostituting themselves. There is never contact in my operation. I will not knowingly hire anybody that is involved with drugs."

Ginger sees thing differently. "There are plenty of drug users and there are plenty of vegetarians. I guess you have more drug users in that industry than you would find in an equal number of paralegals. Some are prostitutes. But generally speaking, the girls in the peep shows do that because they're not prostitutes."

Babs and Ginger indicate that their coworkers appeared to have come from stable backgrounds, but the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography found that women in pornography are normally young, previously abused, and financially strapped. It concluded that they work under extremely poor conditions and are exposed to serious health hazards and strong temptations to use drugs. The commission also found that their personal lives suffer substantial injury to relationships, reputation, and self-image.

However, the report points out that the findings are not concrete. "We acknowledge that exceptions exist to all these findings, and we conclude, as well, that extremely thorough investigation might prove one or more of them untrue."

Peep show performers paint a mixed picture of their profession. "It's a job just like any other job," maintains Eve, a professional body builder who worked at Show World Center. "You're going to make money. You're going to do things that are going to give you nightmares, but you deal with it. You count your money and you don't think about it."

Many performers say their job is not very good, but the money is great. Ginger was so popular that she decided to start a home peep service, performing for $125 per hour, and she is making more money than she did working the booths. She also posed for the March, 1991, issue of Genesis magazine, earning $2,500.

At the booths, Ginger received minimum wage plus tips. When she first started, she made $50 to $100 per day in tips and later could earn a few hundred dollars in one night. The $5 needed to open the curtain went to the house. The customer usually tipped $10 or $15, which she kept. Ginger would see 40 to 50 men on a busy night. She won't give her yearly income. "I don't really pay taxes so let's just leave it out."

The customers are mostly white men, according to a City University of New York study. The report says 97% of the sex shop patrons are men and 56% are white. Nearly 50% are white-collar workers; 40% blue-collar workers. Forty-one percent are 25-34 years old, 29% 16-25, and the rest are 35 and over.

Barbara, a transvestite who worked at Show World Center, serviced a wide variety of customers. "I had guys who work on Wall Street and wore very expensive clothes. I had kids who wore T-shirts and jeans. I had kids who looked like they were 21 and I had men who were quite elderly. I had definitely a lot of three-piece suits in there and a lot of them had wedding rings."