Red Bluff, California – It’s the same-old, same-old. A former porn star tries to move on with his or her life, and isn’t allowed to.
Frank Towers, at 6’4” and 240 pounds of rock solid muscle is the gentlest of giants. Yet you’d think Towers was the Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk by the way people in Red Bluff, California are carrying on.
Unfortunately, Powers, too, has discovered that the adult industry is one giant Venus Flytrap from which there’s no escape.
Towers left the adult business two years ago and moved to this quiet town which is located about two hours drive above Sacramento. Towers, who moved there to accommodate his father who was sick, had ideas of becoming a surgical RN and so he entered a training program just recently at Mercy Hospital which is located in Reading, California.
All was well and good. Powers was taking courses in radiology and minding his own business. That is, until some woman in the dept. recognized him as a former porn star and, like the town gossip, began spreading the word in the hospital. Owning up to his past, as if he had to, Powers volunteered information that this was true, expecting nothing to come of it. At least he thought so by the nonchalant way his immediate supervisor was treating the incident.
Next thing, Towers is having a meeting with the dept. of Human Resources also assuring him that there wasn’t a problem. But there was. Towers was being told one thing while another was going on. In fact, he was assured by one supervisor that with the holiday season coming up, he’d be on call with a lot of supplemental work as a fill-in guy on staff.
That is, until Towers got a completely story from someone else in Human Resources which was now playing good cop, bad cop with him. With the porn star story out of the bag, Towers was now being informed that there wasn’t any work for him and that things “weren’t working out”. Powers was also told that it was at the hospital’s discretion to let him go within the 90-day probation period.
“Basically they told me have a nice day,” says Powers, a sensitive guy who’s being eaten alive by this horrible incident.
“They want me to go away. First they lied to me now they want to get rid of me.”
Powers says his nerves are frazzled and that he feels powerless by the way this whole charade played out.
“I have a right to a life after porn,” argues Towers who, I’m sure, is speaking on behalf of the many other adult industry performers in other occupations who’ve been outed in similar circumstances.
“It’s the same old crud,” Powers continues.
“People are always telling you that you can do other things besides porn. Then once you try, you have something like this happen. It leaves a foul taste in your mouth, and you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
The irony of this incident occurring at a place called “Mercy” Hospital isn’t lost on Powers.
“This is absolutely unfair,” he goes on to say.
“Especially with the fact that this is a Catholic hospital. Didn’t Jesus hang out with riff-raff?”
“Society has this big hang-up about sex. And now I’m being treated like some pervert lurking in a small town. It’s just ridiculous. At some point you want to move on, but society won’t let you.”