What Sucks…Being A Fluffer

In part two of our continuing series on jobs that suck, today, we bring you “the fluffer”. Sorry about the image above, but google image search “Fluffer” at work and you get weird looks.

Over the course of my life I have had a number of crappy jobs. I’ve worked as a dishwasher at a Sizzler, and a camp counselor at a rich kids day camp in Scarsdale, NY. I temped for years, was a page, and a receptionist for 18 months at a place where being a receptionist was the worst job you could imagine, and where if I went public with what they paid me, Amnesty International would get involved. I even wrote for Craig Ferguson for a few months, but all those job experiences (except maybe Ferguson) pale in comparison to that of a “fluffer”*.

I’m being delicate here but…

“Preparing”, and by using that word, yes, I’m romanticizing it, dicks for sex scenes in porn, has to be a job one takes when the “Objective” line on their resumes says “to use the skills I have developed in hating myself to start a career.” I think it says something about a job when the only “worst job” you can think of, is a different version of that job. I.E…

…Being a “fluffer’ in animal porn.
…Being a “fluffer” on the set of “Rest Home: Fat & Mature Volume XVI”. (That’s 16!)
…Being a “fluffer” in live sex-show performance, “just outside of Tijuana”.

Some questions come to mind:
How do you reconcile a job like that? And nowadays with Viagra, is it even necessary? Shouldn’t there be a line drawn in the sand where “being old school” is not in the best interest of everyone? Is there a union? Is there a Local 4183 “Fluffers”? Does the AFLCIO recognize it? If there WAS a fluffer’s union, wouldn’t the 1st motion be to try abolish their own jobs?

INT. FLUFFER’S LOCAL 4183. UNION SHOP REP IS ADDRESSING THE CROWD.

UNION SHOP REP (his name is, I don’t know, Julius):
Brothers, the news remains grim. The major studios continue to refuse to honor our request to outsource our jobs…

THERE IS A LARGE MURMUR THAT GRUMBLES THROUGH THE ASSEMBLY

UNION SHOP REP (JULIUS):
…sitting across the bargaining table, I have pleaded with them- on how they can get workers in India and Pakistan to “prepare” dicks for a FRACTION of what it costs here!

A MURMUR SWEEPS THROUGH THE HALL AGAIN

JULIUS:
…problem, as we all know, is that it’s difficult to get a client to “maintain” in between takes on a set, so there’s no way its gonna work during a trans-Atlantic flight!

THE CROWD REACTS, AGREES.

JULIUS:
Unlike autoworkers, we are together in our wish for a machine that could replace us. Scientists in Sweden and Japan are working tirelessly on this as we speak- but until they deliver, I pledge that we will not give up this fight to wipe this horrible gig from the face of the earth! I ask again you consider a work stoppage, but I know how much you need the money for your meth, so it’s pointless.

FIN.

How does the fluffer deal? What does he tell him/ herself? “Well, at least this isn’t a “furry’”!

Maybe you have a “glass half-full” type of outlook. “Well, if I work hard and learn my craft, maybe some day I’ll be on CAMERA sucking off some stranger!”

Maybe you’re a fatalist…“Hey, perhaps this film will turn out to be snuff.”

*Disclaimer: “Not that I would know personally. The following is based on what I’ve read. Sartre. The early stuff. I’ll talk about that in another posting. “What-Sucks Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Fluffer Stage’” look for it.