I had a chance to discuss many things with a number of women in Vegas at the AEE last week, business women working in the gaming industry, porn stars and strippers. There is a lot of stress in those occupations and I found myself asking all of them "How do you do what you do?" It seems like a ridiculously broad, pointless question...but apparently, there is a "Zone" that many women are able to enter, whereby in their mind they are able to put themselves on another level of performance, or another state of awareness, and thus better able to deal with the actual reality of their situation at hand to achieve a desired result.

Consider a stripper performing at Vegas' Club Paradise. She is on stage with several hundred (mostly) men looking on, and the woman is required to undress and dance suggestively to excite the audience sexually and induce them to part with dollar bills. It is an intimidating scenario to deal with several times a week for hours at a time, and several of the strippers I commiserated with said to me they get themselves in this "zone" and tune out the audience and all the eyes, or in contrast they get in a "zone" where they focus UPON the eyes of the audience...the point is they are in this "zone".

Consider also a young physically slight but attractive porn starlet, who must perform a variety of sex acts with 5 male co-stars, running through the gamut of penetration combinations culminating in the 5 males ejaculating upon her face (or perhaps in her mouth), all the while she must convincingly portray sincere desire and pleasure during the carnal exercise. I had several young ladies describe to me the same phenomenon of a "zone" they get in to allow themselves to ignore the anxieties of the situation and achieve the desired goal, a hot, stimulating performance...in the case of porn one would assume the zone encompasses some type of sexual bliss or pleasure.

The recent Kara Bare/Mynor story, where the young girl attempted suicide after running out of Xanax, has made me, all at once, a little more insightful regarding the nature of this nebulous "Zone" people refer to and are able to find. I myself have used Xanax, perhaps not as much as Kara, but still enough to speak intelligently about it and what it does....Xanax is the "Zone" in pill form. It shuts up the big mouth that is your conscience, and squelches the anxiety that springs from the natural concern about what others think of you. What I found compelling, and interesting, is that nearly all my women friends and associates, casino managers/execs, strippers and porn stars used Xanax to some degree. One of my friends who oversee's Marketing for a large Vegas Strip Hotel tells me she takes a .5 Xanax before each Board Meeting on Wednesday....The most extreme case was my friend whom I spent Thursday Night 'socializing' with at Club Paradise, when she literally dozed off in my arms during "Moneytalks" by AC/DC.

I myself recall back in 1998, when a business disaster forced me to have to decide to lay off 2 brilliant, hardworking people from a department of 7...I procrastinated and dreaded the event like it was capital punishment, not thinking I'd be able to do it when the time came, that I would falter and make the individuals feel even worse. Just before calling them into my office, I popped a couple Xanax....20 minutes later I said "I'm sorry but we are going to have to let you go..." and I felt no pain, no rush of blood to my face, my voice didn't falter and I didnt cry. I felt no anxiety...I knew I should be feeling those things, but I wasn't...I was in a "Zone". I have been in Zones before, but typically is not because of Xanax...I have other zones I visit.

Now it makes complete sense to me, how young, fairly attractive and even BRIGHT girls (like perhaps, Kara) can pursue the monetary rewards of pornography without exhibiting the compunction or shame or guilt that is inherent (whether we admit it or not) in the sexual actions and depictions on film in today's porn. True, once a person becomes "used to" doing it (or tolerant), the relevance of the "Xanax induced Zone" is lessened. But it is clear from all the anecdotal evidence I have been reading on boards like XPT, and hearing from a number of people I trust and believe and consider very good friends, and from sharing my own personal experiences, that Xanax is an integral part of the Gaming, Gentlemen's Club, and Pornographic Film Industries. Xanax is the "Business Zone"... and as I recall, Roxy utilized its commerce facilitatiing qualities as well....