Page 2
These girls put up with a lot. For nearly three days straight they have sweaty guys all over them, a good chunk of whom have questionable hygiene habits, are socially inept and are basically dudes who could never muster up enough cajones to even think about talking to most of these girls outside of the event. I spoke with a petite brunette and asked her why she put up with it and she said that it paid better than working at McDonald's and that at least she could use the many photographs that get taken of her in her portfolio. Makes sense to me.
Being a female myself in this ocean of pseudo-testosterone is hard enough just as a journalist, but seeing how these men fawn and paw at these girls, I started feeling really bad for most of them. One day, as I happened into the ladies' room, I came across five booth babes in complete regalia eating the complimentary media lunches, squatting on the floor. They looked up at me and one said with a half smile, "This is the only safe place we have." Heartbreaking, isn't it? I asked them why they couldn't simply eat in the media lounge, completely understanding their want to not be hassled downstairs in the cafeteria.
A pretty Clairol-phile looked up through her glittering lashes and said, "Media are the worst! When they aren't groping you, they're saying that if you go back to their hotel with them they'll put you on the cover of the magazine they work for, but you'll only get a spread if you do." Harsh words, but nothing shocking. Everyone's heard casting couch stories; I guess print and online media aren't too different.
I asked these girls why they put up with it since certainly there were better gigs out there and the resounding response was because of what these men give them. I had a chance to speak with one girl in particular, who I had seen around the show in a bright red wig looking much better in the dimly lit booth than under the fluorescent lights of the girls' bathroom. She brushed the crumbs off her comparatively haggard face and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand to tell me that earlier in the day, a journalist had given her a diamond ring and asked her to go back to New York with him. She told him she'd have to think about it and that she'd let him know when E3 was all over.
She laughed, "As if I'd ever be with that (expletive deleted) reject. Sure, I want diamonds and (expletive deleted), but I'm not a whore. (expletive deleted) rejects, playing games the entire (expletive deleted) time and then expecting me to hop on their (expletive deleted). So I make them give me (expletive deleted) first. These losers want to hand over their wives' jewelry or their credit cards, (expletive deleted), let them. They're total fools if they think any of us would want to (expletive deleted) them. If a guy wants a piece of me, he's gonna have to pony up." The rest of the girls laughed and nodded in agreement.
Wow. I went from not really caring that these girls were around, to feeling horrible that they had to put up with so much, to realizing that a lot of them do deserve the degradation that some complained about. Some of the girls I spoke with were some of the nicest and while they could've been putting on airs simply because they didn't want to have a bad story written about them, they opened up and were flat-out honest. The ones not looking to get anything from men seemed genuine, but more naïve than anything. The rest, they had that sort of coarseness that one sees in someone who is not only jaded by the world, but completely and totally cynical and really only interested in one thing: themselves. Their willingness to sell themselves for easy profit is what makes it so much harder on those who want to be treated according to their personal value, rather than their physical attributes.
So take note, male attendees of any sort of convention: your gifts aren't always taken to heart. Don't be made a fool, especially by people who have nothing but scorn for you. Of course, any man who has so little respect for women that he'd try to pawn their affections with diamonds and gold has the subsequent swindling coming to him. But that's another article for another time. For now, respect the booth babes and treat them with the same courtesy as you would any other representative of the E3 show, or any other woman for that matter. And if you do, they just might have sex with you.
1 | 2
