A Woman Tried To Publicly Slut-Shame Me. She Wasn't Prepared For My Response

<div><img src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/613b7b9f3b000085e1ee960b.png?cache=QcKHKRZcaM&ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" alt="The author wearing a T-shirt from her Networthy clothing line." data-caption="The author wearing a T-shirt from her Networthy clothing line." data-credit-link-back="" data-credit="Courtesy of MelRose Michaels" />The author wearing a T-shirt from her Networthy clothing line.</div><div class="content-list-component text"><p>As a cam model, I’ve learned how to manage other people’s expectations pretty successfully. Online, you have to deal with fans, colleagues, trolls, anti-porn evangelicals and haters. I’ve survived the negative attention thanks to a strong support network from my husband, family, friends and fellow sex workers.</p><p>More difficult are the public interactions. Most are innocuous – someone coming up to you in the grocery store, telling you that you look familiar. “I’m a porn star,” I tell them. Most of the time, it embarrasses them more than me. Other times, it’s just a flicker of recognition, to which I just nod and smile.</p><p>I live in a small conservative town outside Nashville, so I stay pretty anonymous. But not always. One night, out at a bar with friends, I found that out the hard way.</p><p>I had left my friends to go to the bar and buy a round of drinks, when I noticed a table with their eyes darting toward me. I didn’t think much of it. A lot of people you find in Nashville on Lower Broadway are wide-eyed tourists. <em>Locals showing visitors a good time</em>, I thought.</p><p>But it didn’t take long to realise someone in that group “knew me from somewhere” and had alerted the others. When one person spots you, you can quietly acknowledge it. When several people are looking your way – exchanging looks, laughing and glancing at phones – you pretty much know th