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Published in “The New Erotic Photography 2″ (Taschen Books).
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You can watch the scene here: RAW 18
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I guess I got put through the ringer. 
I get asked about my sexuality a lot. Sometimes I answer, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the answer is serious, sometimes the answer is simply to annoy the querent. People are quite obsessed with my sexual preferences these days. I always sense that the real question they’re asking is, “What is your relationship to penises? Penises kind of define you, so I need to know.”
I have sex with men and women, I do scenes with men and women, but then I say that I’m a lesbian.
The question is really just a prelude, an opening gambit, so that they may tell me what my sexual preference is. That I’m bisexual, or straight, or gay for pay, or whatever else.
The real answer is: I don’t care.
But let me point some shit out to you…
1. You can’t say, “You’re gay because you say or do x,y and z.” (Well you can say it, but it isn’t true.) The reality is, you’re not in the position to give or take away someone else’s sexuality. You’re not that powerful, though you may want to be. A person’s sexuality is determined in their own mind and can shift from moment to moment.
2. The only thing you can really say is, “If I said or did x,y, and z, I wouldn’t consider myself gay because I’ve decided to confine my sexuality in specific ways.” Now that would be honest.
3. Asking someone about their sexual preferences is actually about you, not the other person, what you’re really asking them is “How do I relate to you because I only know how to relate to people based on my sexual relationship to them.”
Kind of makes you sound like a dick.
And that’s what I think you are when you ask me this question, or makes statements like “Oh, so you’re bisexual.”
No. That’s not what I said. That’s what you said. Why are you even bothering to talk to me at all if you only want to hear something that is going to reaffirm what you’ve already decided?
Why not grow a fucking backbone and own your own asshole behavior and continue shoving people into your neat little boxes without apology or posturing?
That I could actually kind of respect. I’ve always been the girl who wanted to fuck the villain of the film.
So really, and I mean this in the politest way possible my questioning friend; why don’t you go fuck yourself?
Maybe you’ll learn something.
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Sexual compulsion is not a strange theme for von Trier. It was there in Antichrist (2009) as a way to alleviate anguish, but the genre in Nymph()maniac’s narrative resembles more the 18th Century novels – from Sade to Marivaux – with a single story line, a narrator and a semi-passive interlocutor, where the focus is on sex and in the monotony in the repetition of experiences. Curiously, the sexual compulsion that eases emptiness in Antichrist does not echo in Nymph()maniac: Joe has no anguish, even though she tries to forge it inside a guilt that does not exist. Especially in Volume 2, Joe looks for limits which would bring her the guilt she believes she should feel as a result of her behavior, but not as a compulsion or a vice. Aesthetically speaking, Trier created a panoramic view of the pornographic film industry in its last 30 years, being more visual in Volume 2 than in the first one, and focusing on the dichotomy love vs. sex (which is ultimately the base of any discussion on pornography).
Seligman has as primary role to unveil to the audience (as well as to Joe) that she does not feel truly guilty or tormented by her compulsion. Opposite to Haneke’s piano teacher, Joe is unable to feel embarrassed by her behavior and tries, pathetically, to fabricate a distress that is not truly felt – something immediately pointed out by Seligman, the “blessed man”, coauthor in Joe’s story, and who refuses to be shocked or to judge the woman’s sexual postures. His analogies of fishing techniques, Fibonacci numbers and other things are, at least, curious, and mirrors Joe’s narrative structure by proving to be the marks which will guide her story.
By exposing sex in such banal manner, without a hint of embarrassment and narrating it as matter-of-factly as he does, Trier transforms sex into that what Joe questions: her doubts, her anxieties, herself. The sexual objetification is removed from her, who is then at the same time subjectified and subjectifier. In her extreme search for whatever she is looking for, sex plays a secondary role, obliterated by her (more) mundane problems and modern anxieties. Her issues, however, have little to do with sex and more to do with the eternal compulsion for breaking limits. Just one more limit. Just one more broken limit. Even in her childhood, sex is turned into a playful act void of guilt. Her virginity is lost in a mechanical, mathematical intercourse with Jerôme.
To be pornography the sex has to be meaningless, and even the meaningless sex in Nymph()maniac is full of significance. As spectators we search for the interpretation of scenes trying to make sense of what we are watching. Trier lays the answer before we can blink: it is a film about the art of narrative and the manipulation of reason by two characters who are so detached from judgment they can weigh in even their own flaws – or lack of them – in unison polyphony.
After Melancolia (2011), Trier said he was embarrassed for having directed a film which was too pretty. Nymph()maniac is ugly. Joe says she hates sentimentality because it is not real. Trier has made a false terror (Antichrist), a false sci-fi (Melancolia) and now has created a false porn that drags hordes to the movies looking for sex and leaves questioning themselves. It does not get more real than that.
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But what makes sexual tourism so bad, and why are Brazilians so adamant in advocating that their women are not prostitutes? To which extent is the limit of representability (Zizek, 1989) of the Brazilian female exuding nothing but sexuality, and who is to blame for this? Why does the country refuse to be recognized as a market example of sexual trade, and how does it impact its true economy?
Sex as commodity bothers humanity since the capitalistic criminalization of sex (Foucault, 1976). In an economical transaction where the object is the service and the labor at the same time, and in which seller and commodity are one, nothing is left for the latent exploitation of the economic value of the transaction and/or object. It is important to remember that sex as a mode of production leaves no traces of ownership: what is traded is the service, not the possession of the body – which eliminates the basics of capitalist models of exchange and profit. Brazilian female sexuality as something possible to be purchased may not be perceived as similar to the several other ongoing marketing transactions that happen around the country on a daily basis – with foreigners or locals similarly – but in nothing differs, technically speaking, from other business negotiations. But sex is to be performed for procreation only, within the sanctified realms of marriage. Once it can be traded for money, it threatens not only the institution of marriage but also the entire economical system which is based on the triad producer – object – seller.
The fact that prostitution blurs the realms of market and intimacy still determines the impossible end of obscenity proposed by Rembar in 1969: it remains embedded with pre-capitalistic notions of ownership, lineage and heteronormative monogamy as a means of control and propagation of capitalist ideas. This agenda is hidden under false assumptions that prostitution equals slavery, trafficking, and violence against women – this way totally eliminating any possibility of recognition of sex workers as agents and in control of their own economic operations. By equating prostitution to the sexual exploitation of women, we are denied the concept that it is a viable commercial avenue to women who – and some may find this surprising – choose to embark in this endeavor instead of being coached or forced into it.
The stereotypicalization of Brazilian female sexuality as a commodity should not offend the country since it is, without a doubt, a potential means for economic improvement. If removed from the obscurity and stripped from the label of obscenity, it might even guarantee better and safer working conditions to all sex workers in the country. If only we let it.
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]]>Dear boy,
I read the letter your mother sent you regarding porn, and I am using the fact she made it public to write to you just to give you a broader perspective on the porn industry. I don’t know how old you are, but I’ll assume you have left the single digit but has not yet reached your 20s – or, in other words, you are around the same age I was when I watched porn for the first time. And I want to start by telling you that it is A-okay to watch porn. I have been watching it for almost 30 years and I turned out as a responsible, sane, intelligent and productive member of society.
I am a porn scholar. This means I study porn. It is like writing book reports, but instead of reading books I watch porn. And, because of my profession, I have come in contact with a lot of the porn industry. I have even visited a couple of porn sets myself, while the movies were being shot. Some of my best friends are porn stars, just like some others teach English as a foreign language. I met my husband in this environment, and even though none of us has ever performed we are equally personally and professionally interested in pornography, and this is just another characteristic of our relationship. (By the way, there is no indicative that men who watch a lot of porn have trouble enjoying sex with real women. Most men watch porn. Some women do. And yet people are still out there really enjoying sex, so that idea is kind of strange, don’t you think?)
But back to porn: it is okay to watch it, but just like everything else in life, there is good porn and bad porn out there. Most people think porn is degrading to women, forces women into doing things they would not normally want to do, raises the bar into impossible-to-meet expectations, and that porn is not real sex. Some porn out there might be all this, for sure. Just like not all marriages are for love, some work relationships board slavery and not everything is the way it is supposed to be. But there is some porn out there which strongly refutes all these harmful things, so I want to go over your mother’s list to make sure you get some facts straight.
1. Porn can be real sex, just like Mc Donald’s can be real food. You just have to know how to reach for the good ingredients: lay off the Big Macs and have a salad once in a while, and there will be no bad-side effect in your body. But don’t watch ONLY porn (and don’t eat ONLY junk food).
2. Do not compare yourself to the man you see in porn, just like I should not compare myself to magazine models. I believe you have already been exposed to the discussion of how unrealistic media portrays people: porn is just like any other movie. I will never look like Angelina Jolie, no matter how hard I try. Just like your penis might not ever be as big as Manuel Ferrara’s. It is okay. That does not make me less beautiful, just like it does not make you less of a man for having a normal-sized dick.
3. That also applies to your partner. Maybe she WILL look like Stoya. Maybe she won’t. I know for a fact Stoya has never had a boob job, and a friend of mine who is a porn star commented that the only operated vaginas she has ever seen are from transgendered women. The idea that some porn stars have their coochies done to look prettier is silly: pussies come in all forms and shapes and sizes and colors, and I am yet to meet a porn star who has had it done by a doctor to look a certain way.
4. Not all women in porn are faking it. In fact, most of my friends say they do orgasm during scenes. Ironically, I have more non-porn friends who fake orgasms than porn-friends who do, but this is a long discussion I will save for an academic article later. Just keep in mind some women do get off when performing in front of a camera. They might exaggerate the reactions so it can be captured by camera, which is the same as Jennifer Lawrence sobbing uncontrollably when her sister got picked for the Hunger Games, but making a spectacle of it does not mean she was not truly sad inside, does it? The point is, you don’t want your partner to fake her orgasm, just like you should never fake your own pleasure.
5. Oh, and there is no such thing as getting paid more money if a scene is “violent” or “degrading”. Everything is pre-discussed and agreed on, and I have seen many times two performers discussing what they like and do not like before the camera starts rolling, just to make sure everyone is comfortable and enjoying their job. Because getting paid to have sex on camera is a job like any other. That does not mean those women who are there don’t want to be there. As some of them say, it is actually the best way to explore their own sexuality, because it all happens in a controlled environment, with people watching over them (pun intended).
6. Nothing ever created will be an indicative of mainstream female taste in sex because there is no such thing as “mainstream female”. Women are all different, and they like different things, and want different things. Some like to have the guy come on their faces; some don’t. Some like the light on; others prefer the lights off. Some like sex in the morning, some in the evening, some in the middle of the night. Some women like it rough, some like to be spanked, have their hair pulled, and it is all quite normal. There is no such thing as “what women want” in sex because all human beings feel sex in a very personal manner and want their own thing (which is fine, and actually makes sex less mechanical).
7. While on the subject, contrary to what people believe, porn stars do not get paid double for anal scenes. There is a surplus charge, yes, but just because anal scenes require preparation, like dieting and enemas and stuff… but it is not because anal is worse than vaginal sex. It is just more complex to film it, so there is a bonus on how much they get paid for it.
8. Porn used to be made by men and for men, but things have changed. There is a long list of female porn directors and producers who are now making excellent porn for both men and women, because some women also like porn. Funnily enough porn is taking a turn and more and more women are producing and directing it each passing day, so the idea it is a man-made product directed at men only is totally last year!
I LOVED the fact your momma included a video from Cindy Gallop in the end of her letter to you, because I have personally met Cindy and she is one of the greatest porn advocates I have ever met. We think a lot alike: porn can be extremely positive if done right, and thank God it has been done really right by some companies. Not all of them are nice, I have to confess. But you just have to know how to look for the right type, just like I am sure you don’t play just any computer game that comes your way.
PS: As I was writing this letter, I wondered: do you have a sister? Because if you do, I’d like you to share this letter with her. She needs to know it is okay for a girl to explore her sexuality, and that nothing that she does is ever, EVER bad – as long as she feels like doing it. I am worried now that she will grow up thinking that some of the things she feels and wants are wrong just because they are portrayed in porn movies. Have her drop me a line: I need to talk to that girl about porn, maybe more than I needed to talk to you.
(a response to this letter)
SHAY LAREN: MY BLUE VALENTINE by JM Darling
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Sov and I had a meeting today. The meeting was at our favourite gluten (it’s evil I read that) free pizza place. So naturally we took photos for 15 minutes before we did paperwork because we’re both procrastinators and like making shit. She’s looking good, no?
Joking aside, it’s quite obvious that Ela Darling possesses some sort of other worldly quality (that is a single ingredient in the many qualities that make up her beauty) than inspire references to characters like Galadriel or Venus or faeries. But what’s especially magical is that it isn’t an affect. When you’re with her you do definitely feel special.
On my own time I meditate on the nature of leadership, charisma/attractiness and what makes up that intangible quality. One of those gifts is, I think, to effortlessly take the emotional temperature of those around you and, when you want to, meet them where they are. So being in someone’s presence who does this feels like a little gift. Ela possesses this, I feel. She’s really special.
Here are a few photographs of her we took the other day.
I don’t know if I always liked to be dominated and just never knew it because I was so repressed, or if the love of it is a product of the person that I have become over time. Nothing is more satisfying or comforting than being in the hands of a masterful Dom. Being rigged into rope bondage is as relaxing to me as getting a massage. I can’t explain it.
These photos are amazing. They’re a little different. I’m not wearing makeup and I’m vulnerable. I enjoy that from time to time as a model and as a performer, I like to experience things and I want to be depicted feeling those experiences, not experiencing them perfectly.
Enjoy.
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Un Bisous Americain from The Darlings on Vimeo.
UPDATE: This film just won “Best Honorable Mention” at the CineKink Film Festival
]]>Steven St. Croix kind of sees everything, and it can be disconcerting to be in the presence of someone who is paying attention.
I haven’t been photographed off of a set or outside the context of selling myself sexually since I started shooting porn two years ago.
It was nice to spend an afternoon with a stranger, being photographed as we became acquainted.
It’s study in something, from beginning to end, but I’m smiling by the time we’re done.
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Here are some of my favorite photos…which are more about my ass I think.
In times of literary pseudo-erotic nonsense, when the concepts of bondage, SM and discipline are being sold to be lightly consumed as the newest sexual fad, one could be easily tempted into believing that the romantic essence of a BDSM relationship equals the profundity of a popcorn and soda movie. For the majority of the literature being commercially produced on this topic, this might indeed be the case. But just like real jazz will only be found away from the market-driven popular semi-lit bar lounges, good erotica produced under the slant of BDSM must have true, honest, and heartfelt origins. This is how Mich Masoch’s “Lina & Nate Series” can be perceived: as the black resistance organic foundations of jazz, only in written smut style.
Writing erotica is not an easy task. Catering to different styles and sexual preferences must transcend the writer’s own expectations and reach for an audience who might not fully comprehend the universe which is being unveiled throughout the pages. When the eroticism gravitates around BDSM issues, the relationship between a reader’s own erotic elements and those present on the text proves to be even more complex, since BDSM is a very personal experience, something that exists exclusively between specific partners and that suffers alterations as relationships develop.
The four short stories in Lina’s Submission: Four Complete Quick & Dirty BDSM Short Stories – Lina & Nate Series 1-4 (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EK8LCQ4) disclose the intimacy of a 10-year-married couple and their gradual entrance into the BDSM universe. It would be simple for a writer to resort to extensive descriptions of bondage acts, apparel, toys and physical reactions. Masoch, however, is able to intertwine very graphic sexual descriptions – that leads the reader into a heavy-breath trance – and psychoanalytical first person narratives that elucidate the journey Lina is making towards an understanding of this new façade of hers. This way, Masoch is able to work through an elicitation of intimate feelings of mutual trust, hope, vulnerability, strength of purpose, desire, and love even from a reader who, at first, is not part of the relationship she narrates, nor shares personal identification with the BDSM environment.
This is not, however, a book for beginners, or for people who expect to find a romanticized and unreal sexualized relationship. To fully perceive the complexities of Lina and Nate’s relationship one must be ready and open to an infinite number of colors – not only shades, and not only fifty.
Good for you, babe. Enjoy the sunshine.
Joshua Darling
I flipped through a fashion magazine the other day. Every other page was an advertisement for products that “reverse the signs of aging.” There were more and more ads and articles explaining “how to turn back the clock.” Growing older is gross, the magazine seemed to indicate. Your value, as a woman, is directly proportionate to how young you are, or how young you look.
Someone asked me recently if, I could forever be a certain age–which age would I want to be. I thought about it and realized I love my 40s. Fuck my 20s–I was arrogant and took everything for granted. My 30s were tricky–a lot of life lessons, stumbling to get my footing, a failed marriage, but the joy of motherhood. Now I am 41, and I wouldn’t trade the wisdom and independence I have now for my 20 year old body.
JM Darling and I did a photo shoot to celebrate 41. Here I am without makeup and retouching. My stomach has stretch marks, I have bags under my eyes, and I have a c section scar. This is my body, and I am proud of it. I refuse to lie about my age, or feel ashamed about how my body responds to the passage of time. I accept it. I honor it. I celebrate it. I hope more women decide to do the same.–Dana Vespoli
Photographers note: These photographs were taken without makeup or retouching as suggested by Dana. When I think of Dana I think of someone who feels complete. She embodies artistry, compassion, wit, style, humor, beauty with ease and grace. She is one of them most embodied people I know. I’m proud to be her friend. Happy Birthday, Dana.
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–Joshua Darling
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For my friends who read this, you may know I’ve had a colourful past (growing up in 60 countries on a sailboat, multicultural family) and a complicated father (pirate, one legged Brit) so this little gem may come as no surprise:
When I was about 13 my family and I (myself, my parents and 3 of my sisters) essentially camped in a Danish forest and later bayside for a couple years while my father and I built a boat from scratch. We chopped down trees. Built planks. Created a hull, masts. Caulked seems, pitched tar, sanded and varnished what seems like endless hours of wood. It snowed alot. There were tents and canopies to stay dry in. There was no lavatory, we used the woods or a bucket. In the winter it was dark by 3:00pm. But in the summer I’d steal apples and lentils by the sack for us to eat and the local Danish girls werent afraid of skinny dipping in the local lake at night. My sisters went to the local school during the day while Dad and I would work. Think little House on the Prairie meets Mosquito Coast.
Some people would say this was a pretty sweet existence: Huck Finn/Swiss Family Robinsonesque and to some degree that’s true. Other people who know this story don’t quite agree as the man who lead this expedition, my father, was complicated.
In trying to explain him to people I invoke a few things: a) he was raised by disciplinarian alcholhic Australian circus folk who kept a swatch (for beatings) above the door. b) He was forced to work by age 6 tap dancing for the allied forces in Europe. He never went to school a day in his life, couldn’t spell but spoke 8 languages (of which he taught me 4). He was dashing and good looking in an Errol Flyn sort of way (his hero) but regularly took to beating my mother and myself. He wouldn’t beat the girls, using me instead since he wouldn’t beat a woman (excpet mum). This was tempered by long bouts of melancholia in which he regretted his actions ( the violence, chronic philandering) and cried about his lack of a relationship with his Father. Much later in life he was dual diagnosed as bipolar schizo effective, but no one knew what the fuck that was then. People just called it “old school”. He loved saying he want to the “University of Life” and that he was taking me with.
As a kid though, I worshipped him. He taught me to sail, build, hustle and charm gals. When he wasn’t in a rage he could be genuinely warm and loving. One time on a dare we drove from Holland to Spain nonstop (2 days) and rewarded ourselves with sangria and a swim in the Mediterranean. I digress.
It had been his birthday approaching and I saved all my money one summer to buy him a gift-one of those beautiful multi tooled shiny red Swiss Army knives. He loved this knife and announced, repeatedly, that no one was to ever touch his beloved new possession. He was to say this often. I assumed that it was because it was a gift from me. But I was mistaken.
In the middle of a hot Danish summer while he and I were caulking planks, he announced he was starving. So eager was I to keep him happy, without a moments notice I dashed over to the small spread of bread and liver pate to make him a sandwich. The whole thing was done speedily as the tar I had set was setting and needed attending to. There was nothing to spread the pate with and I saw his army knife laying nearyby and used that. This whole event happened in a matter of seconds. While spreading the pate he saw me with the knife in hand and yelled: “Joshua!”-I knew instantly that this was because he didn’t want his knife touched. Startled, I dropped the knife and it fell, sunken into plate of liver pate. I knew this would be bad.
Without missing a cue he was striding over for what I assumed was a smack so I shouted in defense: “I was making you a sandwhich!” to which he replied “I said NEVER touch my knife!”. I shouted back: “but -I- bought it for you!” He said: “doesn’t matter, lad”.
Then he picked up the knife and, drove it into my hand.
It stood there, standing straight, almost comically between my thumb and index finger. I’m looking at the scar now. There was no doctor for miles.
Now, it may be that I’m plain stupid and forgot (as I often do) to not heed a warning. The truth is, it was a genuinely impulsive moment to try to make someone happy.
Alot of you may react in horror about the psychosis and this man, and yes, he was truly no saint. How I later came to kick him out and deal with those years is another story.
In all this Dickensian drama you’d think there was some large life lesson to be gleaned, but the most practical application, for -me-, something I need to keep reminding myself: is that no matter who much you love someone or they you, or how noble your impulse, if someone say’s ‘don’t touch my stuff’, just don’t fucking touch it.
And that’s why I’m a pornographer.
The end.
Love,
Josh
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Coda
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Example: I wanted to do a shoot where I was dressed up as Madame Sans-Culotte being DP’d by two Francois Sagat dildos. I imagined calling it “The Storming of the Bastille.”
Josh was dubious, he wonders why I always have to have something in my ass. I was insistent that this wasn’t gratuitous anal, but rather a symbolic representation of Franco-American relations.
The French went bankrupt helping the Americans gain independence from the British. This was on the understanding that once the Americans were free, we would only trade with the French. Instead what happened was that, we got our freedom from taxation without representation and then went on to trade almost exclusively with the British. Eventually France lost all of its money and in the midst of two very harsh winters found itself starving at the foot of the table of a decaying aristocracy. Then they beheaded everyone and Napoleon legalized incest and sodomy…something like that.
Josh wanted to do something with more scale, something more artistic. So here is our humble compromise. A tribute to Bastille Day as well as a moment to commemorate my two years in the adult industry.
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Back in the day
My first time stripping in 2005 was really a long time coming, according to my mother at least. She had told me my whole life that stripping might be something I’d have to rely on to make it through college and that, given my natural affinity for what is now known as twerking, I would probably be pretty damn good at it. My Mom had no idea that after moving to New York at 17 to attend an acting conservatory, I would turn to the art form known as the “Strip Tease” not to pay for school but to save my artistic soul.
After suffocating in rooms with other aspiring actors, doing place work, learning how to be in the moment and studying the method, I simply wanted to have fun. My school spoiled its students with the opportunity to go to innumerable free plays and musicals. The only hitch was they were performed by the conservatory’s company (to which I would later graduate). I saw many “things” performed, but there was only one show that truly moved me: a grotesque German piece from the Weimar era about a young gay man whose dalliances with his male and female friends eventually eroded all their friendships. It ended in a spectacular scene of gore with his female lover begging him to fuck her as she lay on the ground center stage, rapidly opening and closing a pair of large scissors after cutting a hole in the crotch of her pants. The final image was the two of them tangled on the floor rutting as she begged for a grander climax (death) and he ripped the scissors from her hands and plunged them into the side of her neck, spraying viscera across the back wall of the stage.
I went to every possible showing of that play. Sometimes I was one of only a handful of people in the audience. It moved me. The longing, the fluidity of the sex on display, the jaded vibe of that particularly decadent era. I saw that and I thought, “That’s me! That’s me, Mom!” One of my favorite films, Velvet Goldmine, has a similar moment: Christian Bale looks at the David Bowie doppelganger on the telly all camped up in glitter eye makeup and screams to his bewildered parents, “That’s me Da!!!” I found a lot of similarities between these two eras, the glitter rock age and the Weimar republic, both drenched in dilapidated glamour, androgyny, and theatrics. The feeling that compelled me to keep going back to that Weimar piece was the same feeling that compelled me to make my first Burlesque act.
Drawing on the Weimar era as my theme, I chose to make a tribute act to the infamous dancer Anita Berber, a woman whose fearlessness and vanity I envy to this day. Women like her are rare. Our modern day equivalent might be Tilda Swinton, but even that makes Berber sound tame. Anita waltzed into restaurants wearing a monocle, a fur coat, a live monkey… and nothing else. She routinely held press conferences in her private apartments fully nude. She performed new, never-before-seen movements that bewitched and shocked audiences. Her brazenness and eccentricity is the stuff of legend. Even now, looking at stills of her dancing I feel the electric hunger of seeing something raw and new.
Gorgeous Anita
I chose to perform, with total fidelity to all available documentation, a recreation of her famous Morphine Act, in which she confronted audiences by actually shooting up on stage. I prepared an all-black ensemble that updated her original look, I cropped my platinum hair into a graphic bob in reference to the period, and I bleached my eyebrows to give my eyes a hollow look. I found a lovely song (also entitled Morphine by Jollie Holland) that evoked the mood I wanted, not overtly sexy but languid and sensual. And then I rehearsed every day. For a month.
At that time in New York there was one show every Burlesque beginner wanted to be in, and that was The World Famous BOB’s New Girl Review. To this day, I love BOB and feel as though I owe a her great debt for giving me the opportunity she did. I was nobody. And she remains one of the most incredible stage presences I have ever met. Nobody loves you like BOB loves you. It’s just the facts. And as I stood backstage, looking very different from all the other girls and feeling very out of place, she held me to her giant bosom and told me, “Poodle you’ll be great!”
Look at her!
At that time, a lot of the burlesque I saw around the city was neo and much more uptempo than the currently in-vogue classic style. My all black, moody, slow narrative was a bit out of step with the rest of the show, but it was the story I wanted to tell… and down to my electrical tape x’s on my nipples, I was proud to be different. I was also totally about to pee myself. I wasn’t nervous about being almost naked in front of a sold-out house (I had already performed nude as Queen Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). I wasn’t nervous about the fact that I performed the first half of the act completely blind because I wore a black sash over my eyes. I wasn’t nervous about disgracing my parents or ruining my acting career.
I was nervous that the audience wouldn’t be transported. I was worried they wouldn’t feel like they were right there with me in my macabre world. I wanted to do to them what the play had done to me. I wanted to take them away from this place.
But before I could work myself up into too much of a panic, the lights came up. There I sat, heaped atop a folding chair with a blindfold on and a syringe in my hand. The melody started (“give me that ol’ fashioned morphine….”) and away I went, just as I’d rehearsed. My mind echoed with the whispered advice of my old dance teacher while I attempted to project being high on a drug I’d never taken. For those few minutes, I was a beautiful strung out sloppy mess, one who took her clothes off because she just felt that good. Each clumsy move had been rehearsed over and over, and the effect was perfect. I ended where I began, sprawled in my chair, only naked in drug induced coma… to radio silence. Because I couldn’t hear the applause, which I have been told was deafening. But I do remember BOB saying, “Well, I just brought you some Broadway shit up in here!”
With that, I knew I would never be an actor. I was always meant to be an old fashioned stripper.
XO
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right below the left hipbone silk fabric sits between teeth and with clasped hands behind back slowly drags it down until pubic hair partly exposed then moves to the other side working back and forth down the left down the right wet panties gliding inches at a time until they are at the ankles slide them over the left foot allowing them dangle from the right following the visualization from across an ocean from days earlier to a T and fantasy becomes reality and ice cream spreads and legs melt.
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There is nothing better to me than a last minute, improvised photoshoot. Late at night. In LA.
I had been talking with Ash about maybe setting up a planned shoot. Both our schedules had been really heavy. But I called on whim to see if she had a couple hours free to pop by by a motel I was crashing at on an overnight trip. She zoomed over, brought some great clothing choices, none of which we used, some Jack Daniels and her magic. She’s fearless and charismatic in performance mode, I feel and that really comes across.
Hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed making them with her.
Love,
JMD
clicking on those photos in the gallery makes them larger.
Here is a practical guide for porn girls/escorts/strippers/cam girls about what you should and should not spend your money on. It is very simple. If any of these ideas intrigue you, people have written tons of books and web guides and everything else to get your ass wherever you want to be.
Dick
Drugs
Designer Shit
The problem with sugar daddies is that you are living in a gilded cage. You are forcing yourself to tolerate men that for the most part you don’t love and don’t really like in order to maintain your lifestyle. It’s not good for you emotionally to fake the kind of intimacy this requires. You will permanently damage your heart and its ability to form and maintain quality relationships in your personal life. It is like losing the ability to orgasm or taste food. You really don’t want to risk this kind of psychological injury.
Drugs:
Drugs are bad. I used to be addicted to crystal meth. Ask a friend whose been on drugs about The Darkness. They will explain this further. Read Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross and listen to the Nine Inch Nails Fragile recordings and you might get an idea of the abyss that you will find yourself residing in.
And I was a lucky one. I didn’t lose any teeth, prostitute myself, or go to jail.
Designer Shit:
Here today, gone tomorrow. By the time you know that something is fashionable or a status symbol of the wealthy, it is already passe to those very people you are trying to be like. They’re all laughing at you. No, really, they are laughing so hard at your basic ass. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Disdain what you cannot have. We can’t all be trust fund children. Trust me, you don’t want to be like most of them anyway. They tend to be insufferable, desperately unhappy, and pathologically unable to love or feel pleasure.
Education
Experiences
Entrepreneurship
Education:
I’m a little biased. I was an overachiever. I grew up in poverty and was led to believe that the only thing that could lift me out of it was an education. I graduated early from highschool. By the time I was 21, I was in my second year of graduate school. I don’t regret a second of it.
One, it is something that you can’t lose when the “housing bubble” bursts or assets go toxic. It is with you for life. Two, and more importantly I think, it enriches your experience of life. When you have an understanding of politics, history, society, and the arts, the world you encounter will be more enjoyable to you. You can actually appreciate what’s going on around you. It’s like the difference between keeping your foreskin or getting a circumcision.
Being an autodidact is fine (but for the love of God don’t become a dilettante), it’s great if you love to read or educate yourself, but there is something about going to school and encountering structured study, about being made to study things that you don’t care about, that gives breadth to your understanding, not just depth of your particular areas of interest. More than that, you learn to discern shit form shinola, and you are going to need that skill for the rest of your life if you want to survive.
Experiences:
You’ll never regret spending your money to travel to different countries, to go see your favorite band, to go to Burning Man. You’re creating memories that will sustain you through the hard times.
Entrepreneurship:
Listen, you are going to have to start thinking about how to make your money work for you. I used to hang with a drug dealer (whatever, I came from some rough neighborhoods). He was quizzing a runner about how much he should charge for a certain amount of product. The runner said “I don’t know. I’m not good at math.” The dealer said, “If you’re going to have a habit like this, you better get good at math.”
If you’re going to be a sex worker, you are not going to have a retirement plan and health insurance (unless you work for Kink.com. They do provide workers comp if you’re injured on the job at The Armory). You need to accept responsibility for these things. You don’t need a business degree. Most of your questions can be answered by spending a few hours on the internet. Every successful business person I’ve talked to has told me the best policy is to just sort of jump into starting your business, and the pertinent questions will present themselves.
My grandfather used to always say to me: “You’re a beautiful girl, but someday a man is going to want to talk with you. Will you have something to say?”
The point being, someday the scenes will become sparse, the clients will dwindle…gravity will take hold. You have to accept the reality that you will not do this forever and that if you want to have an empire, you have to fucking build it. I know most of you think you’ll just marry an Emperor, but keep in mind you could wast half your lifetime trying to figure out which ones aren’t wearing any clothes.
Remember ladies: To love the King is not bad, but a King that loves you is far better.
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I figured I would at least shoot Stoya getting ready for her hoop performance here at the house. Ever wondered what an international star looks like at home?
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also a little more:
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Sometimes I get really weird mail. Sometimes I get really offensive mail. Sometimes I get really uplifting mail. And sometimes I get this:
MADAME X
I just watched some of ur movies and they r really great I LOVE ur eyes. I just noticed that u fake it alot, and was wondering do u find it hard to get there or do u just not let urself? I apologize if thats somethung u would rather not say I was just curious.
MADAME X
MADAME X
MADAME X
Sorry
MADAME X
You should try a support group. It would probably be helpful for you to connect with people in your real life.
MADAME X
MADAME X
I dont know why it matters so much but I need u to know that I really am sorry for being so forward im not like and dont know why I did but i felt lonely i guess. I truly am sorry.
A few things in looking at this. One I come off like an asshole. I battle with this. With the amount of shit that gets hurled at you as an adult performer, it is difficult to always know at the beginning of a conversation when compassion is called for. Moreover, these aren’t that uncommon for me. What disturbs me is that there are probably countless people out there, interacting this way, seeking help from those of us that are completely unqualified to give it.
It’s the paradox of my position.
The strangest part of being in porn is the way people just ham-handedly try to hand off their sexuality to you, like its your job, like its your job to care, etc.
I also have come to realize what a sexual wasteland most people find themselves in. I’ve come to feel like a character in an H.P. Lovecraft novel anymore, and civilians are these weird alien beings and I’m wandering in the borderlands of their psychosexual landscape.
Next time you get mad at me for not tweeting back or being curt…please refer to the above exchange and realize that its nothing personal, but this is the kind of thing I get handed on a weekly basis.
I did debate with myself about posting this exchange, as it might be exploiting this person, who for as much as I can tell from her FB profile etc, is indeed real…but I figured I expose myself for the asshole I can be as much as she is exposed, so it was kind of fair game.
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Tiffany Tyler by JM Darling May 3, 2013 Los Angeles.
The only right reason to enter any profession is because you want to. There is suffering, consequence, and struggle in life no matter what choices you make. Be a samurai, expect to be destroyed in battle, and then enter action with boldness.
I of course realize that every hotel and motel room has a history, but I strongly believe that that history should not be written, as it were, on the walls. We have all read or seen news stories about drug-induced murder/homicides in seedy motel rooms and have heard the tales of depravity and excess that take place inside the gilded chambers of five-star hotels, but all remnants of those sordid affairs should be (and in most cases, are) erased from the premises, leaving every new occupant of a room with the feeling that, at the very least, no forcible entry ever took place in it. I really don’t think that is too much to ask.
And yet, this is apparently not the opinion of the management of a certain lodging facility in Coral Springs, Florida. I will refer to this establishment as CSI, an acronym which you may interpret any way you like. You may take it to stand for either Coral Springs Inn, or Crime Scene Innvestigations, the latter being my preferred moniker for the place.
I submit into evidence, People’s Exhibit A:
This is a photograph taken of the door to my motel room from the inside. Notice that what might be referred to as the “male” half of the lock, the half that is attached to the door itself and is inserted into the “female” half, which is attached to the door jamb, has been broken off, as if by some terrific force exerted from the other side of the door. Maybe a police officer kicked the door in, or maybe it was the work of a drug-addled and jealous boyfriend, or maybe it was something else entirely, but what is unmistakable is that it is the tell-tale sign of a violent struggle that I would prefer not to be reminded of as I’m settling in for the night.
Though the photo below doesn’t indicate criminal activity per se, it was such a perfectly ridiculous sight that I simply had to share it.
It seems that the management of CSI could contrive no better place to situate a no smoking sign than the bottom of an ashtray. I would love to have been present for the conversation that lead to that ingenious decision. It must have been decided that table tents were either too expensive or too unwieldy and that the best possible way to discourage guests from smoking on the premises would be to furnish every room with an ashtray, but to place it upside down and put a sticker on the bottom of it, thereby disguising its original and intended purpose.
And now back to our forensic analysis. The People present Exhibit B:
This is a close-up photo, taken from the main room, of the door-knob to the bathroom. Notice that a hole has been drilled into it, which was obviously undertaken in order to break the lock. Someone had very likely been locked in the bathroom and was either unwilling or unable to turn the handle and escape to the balmy solace of the main room. Was this person unconscious? Injured? Perhaps dead? I do not know what scenario might have unfolded in the confines of this bathroom or why it required the use of a drill to help resolve it, but I do wish that I had been spared the sight of the tell-tale signs of the episode, which compelled me to imagine what horrors might have transpired in or near the very shower in which I hastily washed myself after an evening on-stage.
Even under the best circumstances, it’s disquieting to consider what unpleasantness might have taken place in bathrooms used by others, but the added suggestion of a forced entry brings to mind things far more unsettling than mere stomach viruses. So if you happen to be in the business of hotel/motel management and there’s a double homicide in one of your rooms, the job of restoring the room to a state of habitability is not complete simply because the folks in housekeeping cleaned the blood off the walls and flipped the mattress. Why not go the extra mile and replace the locks that have broken and door-knobs that have been drilled through? Your guests may not notice that all the relevant hardware is intact, but they will often notice when it isn’t.
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]]>In this movie I play the kinds of characters I don’t typically get to play in a series of vignettes that I wrote. I have a fetish for the overwrought perfectionist, the repressed Christian woman, the Stepford Wife…In these scenarios I explore themes of surrender to forbidden lesbian impulses. I basically took the chance to play out the fantasies and sex acts that excite me….so yes, this is a selfish proposition, but I think it’s going to be one where the audience wins.
I cast gorgeous girls that I love working with and I had Dana Vespoli there to shoot camera and stills. Dana and I get each other on “a cellular level” as she puts it, and she’s one of the only people I can think of that I trust absolutely. She was really able to capture what I wanted on the first go.
I really feel that this project is something unique.
Well I KNOW it does, because Ela Darling performs her first anal scene in the movie. I was very honored to have her give me something so special and I think the scene really earned it.
Here are some preview pictures from the movie. I should have a street date and a trailer for you soon.
A birthday present from me on my birthday, a little peek at the birthday suit fun I had with the inimitable Steve Prue at Shangri-la Studios BK on Valentines Day of this year <3
Wall paper designs by the smokin hot Cliffton Creque- Please take and spank!
XO
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Sovereign Syre by JM Darling.
Sovereign
Please understand that I will NEVER attempt to persuade you, or try to “talk you” into doing anything. Philosophically I just don’t agree with that approach. My art is VERY Sexual, but the sexuality must come naturally from my girls, and that only happens after they relax, and they realize I have no “hidden agenda” for them, and then I can comfortably start teaching them to have very advanced orgasms.
My girls have lots of real orgasms when we shoot, usually 30 to 40 a day (this is for real) – and I make sure of that by using Hitachi Magic Wands, Eroscillators, Sybian Sex Machines, PES Electro Sex, and Phallix Glass, etc. to teach my models how to have advanced orgasms – that is why they glow in my pictures!
I am the antithesis of “gonzo” porn! I am always telling girls to stay away from the Bang Bus, Captain Stabbin, and all that usual FL based gonzo crap. Those guys just want to use girls up and spit them out.
I want classy erotic girls who I can teach and train to become long term stars, and I already know that when I teach a new model to expand her sexual horizons and her sexual possibilities by teaching her to have advanced orgasms, she will keep coming back to me to shoot over and over.
Once again, I create Sexual Art.
Yes, the orgasms are real. So is the art.
I really like the photo you sent. You are beautiful.
The more you do your research on “porn people” and compare them to what I do, you will see that I’m not just a rarity. I am alone.
This is NOT a hard line to tow. You just have to be VERY selective who you shoot with. That’s all.
The first naked photos of me on the internet. From 2009, when I started “modeling.”
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I met Ryan Driller on a set in New Hampshire. I had just left My husband not that long before and was in a “I hate men and I never want to have sex with one again” mode. It was a long, really long day. I didn’t have a sex scene, I was actually just acting in a porno. But because I wasn’t having sex I got an insultingly low rate for the day. This coupled with the fact that I was starving and somehow kept getting called to do things (mostly sit there while people fucked with lights) when the food was out put Me into sort of a rotten mood. Ryan Driller came up and handed Me an orange…..which he had peeled. I remember thinking “I don’t remember the last time a man did anything that nice for Me…I would totally suck his dick.” I mean he peeled a fucking orange for Me. Who DOES that?
My fantasies surrounding Ryan Driller these days has morphed into a scenario wherein he would do sit-ups while I ate bonbons and sprayed him with water. THAT is what I think about when I get Myself off. Do I wonder what he tastes like? Yes, but that’s something I contemplate in line at the grocery store. The sweaty in bed when no one is around fantasy is all about rippling muscles, sweat and bon bons.
I’ve never met James Darling, which is maybe what makes the fantasy even hotter. And when I say hot fantasy, what I mean is listening to mix tapes and passing a bottle back and forth. Yah yah, I’ve spent Friday night making a mixtape for James Darling that I plan on sending for Valentine’s day, hopefully My appreciation for jazz, country and crooney female vocalists can win Me some points. Do I want to shoot a porn scene with James Darling? Yes, very much so, hopefully our sex scene involves listening to a mixtape on cassette and passing a bottle back and forth. I mean, I’m jerking Myself off thinking about extended makeout sessions with Nina Simone playing in the backround. Orgasms secondary. Anyway, I have been known to have an orgasm from a well-placed finger on My lower back and a really hard bite on My lower lip. I imagine James darling to be the kind of man who can do both simultaneously, in My fantasy he is anyway.
I think I read Jasmine St Clair’s writing before I ever saw one of her scenes. I sort of fell in love with her brain and personality before I fell in love with her ability to take a cock. Fellow female metal head? Swooooon! When I first saw her fucking on film My immediate thought was to clone Myself a few times over so that I could gangbang her. Over the years (yes, years) My fantasy has changed quite a bit. Jasmine, is the type of woman you want to run into a circle pit with holding her hands, the kind of woman you want to headbang with, the kind of woman you want to makeout with in a very crowded room somewhere in a dark corner where no one will notice. Like at a show. A really loud show so that even if she’s trying to talk to you, you just smile and pretend to hear what she’s saying, because it’s probably something beautiful anyway. Maybe she’s the kind of woman you want to finger bang in a mosh pit too…but if I could do the hand holding headbanging part I’d have a lot of masturbation fodder for many more years to come.
]]>Bella Vendetta is a professional and lifestyle Domina hailing from Western MA. She has almost 12 years training and experience in the BDSM lifestyle and the adult industry. As well as working as a Pro Domme and internationally published fetish model Bella is an award winning adult film star. Bella Vendetta is also a B movie starlet, runs her own niche fetish site, and hosts a monthly naked cooking webcam show. Colleges and Universities around the northeast frequently ask Bella to speak and lecture about Her experiences in the sex industry. In addition to her work in the adult industry she also moonlights as a journalist writing about and interviewing tattoo artists, MMA fighters, rock and metal musicians. To learn more visit www.BellaVendetta.com . Zinester erotica was originally published in “Screamer issue #2″ from MyOwnBrain Productions; the zine can be purchased for $5 by emailing BellaVendetta666@gmail.com
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While the story is true I’m speaking it through the character of “Rex” and this is an extract from a short experimental film I shot.
This moment I talk about is one of my first memories -ever- and it just so happened to involve female intimacy, sensuality and homosexuality. Being 4 in that room with two before adoring women made it’s mark in my mind and I genuinely believe is 100% related to both -why- I do what I do and, I think, -how- I do it. That is working (generally) in tones of openness, romanticism, vulnerability and love. Or maybe I just a genuine creeper who likes to get ladies naked for photos! But in either event, this moment, this memory was one of the most formative moments in my life. Enjoy the nailpolish and the story:
JMD
(Subtitle): Distracted afterthought on the physical tropes of Dennis Cooper and Octavio Paz
In this arrangement of photographs of Keira, are the very first pictures I ever took of her. When one is composing a narrative, a linear chronology isn’t necessarily creative; and our minds juggle the past and present with no distinction between time intervals. Since Proust, the concept of Time has been recognized for its elliptical properties, and I think we’re all better for it.
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Minutes later my fangs were covered in blood…
There’s always just too much to do, and not enough time to do it in. I have to get a time organizer or something…though I feel like you have to be a philosopher or a number theorist to be qualified to actually use on of those things correctly.
Only a poet would really have the credentials to prioritize activities….so I guess I have no excuse.
I’m the March J-Grrl at Juliland.com. Go join the site and watch me play!
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I know what you’re thinking: “Another vegan atheist activist magician? Really?”
Well, forget what you think you know about every other vegan atheist activist magician you’ve ever seen, because I, Eric Walton, am not your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician! Sure, I eat an entirely plant-based diet; don’t believe in any gods; regularly attend rallies and organize for environmental causes; and, perform card tricks for money, just like a lot of other vegan atheist activist magicians in the past, but that is where the similarities end.
You see, my veganism, atheism, activism, and magicianism are all completely modern and free of the antiquated and arcane trappings of those vegan atheist activist magicians of generations past. What did your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician eat for lunch? Probably a carrot sandwich and cup of tap water. You know what? Fuck him and his sorry ass carrot sandwich. I don’t care if it was the Great Depression. Do you know what Eric Walton eats for lunch? Chipotle, bitches. And if there’s too much blood in his caffeine system, he orders an almond milk latte from the gorgeous baristas at Kahve. And as they punch another hole in his loyalty card, Eric Walton punches your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician in his old and dirty face.
And whereas your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician might have quoted such atheist luminaries as Democritus or Bertrand Russel when opining on the evils of religion, Eric Walton rocks it 21st century style with copious references to the late and brilliant Christopher Hitchens and the indomitable Richard Dawkins. Suck it, Democritus.
And unlike your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician, Eric Walton will not clutter the airwaves with talk of the environmental pioneer Rachel Carson, but will instead keep things up-to-the-minute with references to the likes of Bill McKibben and Sandra Steingraber. (Keep up the good work, you two!)
I suppose your grandfather’s vegan atheist activist magician was fond of pulling quarters from behind your grandfather’s ear. Wow. I’m really blown away that. (He says with great sarcasm!) Theirs was certainly not the Greatest Generation for magic, now was it? Hell no, it wasn’t. And what kind of magic does vegan atheist activist magician Eric Walton perform? The kind that will blow your fucking mind, that’s what kind.
So the next time you hear the words vegan atheist activist magician crammed together in a sentence, you would be wise not to jump to any unwarranted conclusions.
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If, on the other hand, you wish to fall in love, movies have you covered. On this particularly lovely Valentine’s Day, I’d like to share three of the screen romances I find most resonant.
The first woman I ever fell in love with was Sherry, a character in 1987′s Real Men. Ostensibly a spy comedy/road movie starring Jim Belushi and John Ritter, Real Men is really just an excuse for loopy schtick and wayward plotting. But about an hour into this snarky, harmless romp (which played on HBO what felt like every day of my youth) Jim Belushi meets a woman who, though sporting the look and mien of a mousey little librarian, is in fact a whip-cracking, order-barking, leather-clad dominatrix. You know those feelings you can’t quite explain at the age of 11 or 12? I began to feel those around 1:04:38 in the clip below (though for context, which is everything to a respectable pervert, watch from 1:01:38).
Sherry was played by Gail Barle, whose only other significant credit was another waitress role, this one working in the diner in Spaceballs. She may never have set Hollywood on fire, but she awakened the nascent pervert in me. Suddenly, after years of wondering why Playboy didn’t really do it for me, here was the ideal feminine creature: seductive, controlling, cajoling, punishing, and, finally, romantic. Belushi can’t help but fall in love with her. He needs her. He’s always needed her, before he even knew she existed. That’s how I felt the moment the penny dropped, and I began chasing the path that has led me to happiness and fulfillment as a grown man. Barle can’t possibly know how weirdly meaningful her performance in Real Men was to me (and probably wouldn’t want to know the ways in which I expressed my gratitude), but I’d like to thank her here. Had I never encountered this silly, flimsy little comedy, I might never have been able to decode my desires. Imagine that. (Side note: after this film, I would never again empathize with a character played by Jim Belushi)
The next romance is, perhaps, an odd choice to follow what you just saw. Even divorced from this context, one might choose almost any other duet between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. But I choose this exquisite tap routine from 1936′s Swing Time because of its offhanded elegance, and because of its demonstration of two bodies working in perfect symphony. These are two souls who may be dashing and beautiful on their own, but put them together and every single move is pure magic. The fondness they share is palpable in every feathery little nuance. It is romance at its most urbane.
There’s little else to say. It’s extraordinary, and it’s how we all wish to feel with our partners. Perfectly in step.
The final romance is a resonant, eloquent portrait of the young man who still lives snugly within me, hopelessly in love with women, movies and love. It is a scene from the 2006 Hindi blockbuster Om Shanti Om. In it, Om, a hopelessly unsuccessful actor, has a surprise brush with Shantipriya, the superstar actress who has been the object of Om’s anguished yearning.
There’s a meta-joke playing out here; the loser is played by Hindi cinema’s most enduring star, Shahrukh Khan, and the superstar is played by then-debutante Deepika Padukone. The core of the scene, though, is nothing but sincere. In this one sequence, less than two minutes, we see the purest possible dramatization of a love affair with the movies: anticipation, wonderment, a brush with the sublime, and then a bittersweet deliverance back to reality. The look on Om’s face as he’s dragged away is one that’s been on mine as the lights came up in a theater after a life-changing piece of cinema, and as I watched a woman I was about to marry approach me dressed in stunning white.
The romance between the two begins as one-sided; Om is an audience member, Shantipriya his unknowing obsession. Isn’t all romance, though, one-sided at the start? Is it ever possible to truly share the feelings that overtake us in our greatest raptures?
Movies, unlike people, never change. They remain as beautiful, as perfect or as flawed as they ever were. If the relationship changes, it’s because you changed. But if you can preserve that part of yourself that fell in love way back at your first encounter, the romance will never die. It should never have to.
And on that note, I’ll leave you with this:
]]>This pornscholar left her computer – and her country – and immersed herself into pornography (this time in 3D and real time and within a hand’s reach). The result of this adventure will be slowly and gradually unveiled in these pages.
To start, here is a first-timer eye-witness account of the Adult Video Network Award and Expo, which took place in Las Vegas in January. It was originally published at AIP Daily but with different photographs.
Enjoy!
Breakfast can be caramel vodka and Bloody Mary shots, and you run into stars who want to eat your pussy for business and photographers who want to see your breasts and they say that out loud, and perverts are everywhere and we love it, and the fan line is huge but when we sit for coffee we talk about diets and make up and power struggle, and we never eat but we sit at Mr. Lucky’s and watch people and ourselves, and that is what you do in Vegas, you sit down and you watch yourself while all those lights kind of blind you a bit. I sit back and observe the people I study, already thinking about this article, and in my mind I can classify them into categories, but suddenly they are talking about five hundred dollars dresses and alcohol and paleo and psychology, and I loose myself into my ridiculous classification and decide just to watch.
During the day the exp floor becomes packed with people, and press is all around covering every single move, but not many people pay attention to the seconds between flashes, when faces are tired of smiling and drop for a second, while the frenzy of fans waiting 25 minutes in line for an eight seconds interaction pays for the trip. I watch, and wonder how many stories fit inside those eight seconds, and how ego boosting all that can be if you are a performer. For the studios, the never-ending line of consumers make it all worth their while: this is how they measure how much they are making, regardless of numbers. The hoard of porn fans – old, young, men, women, singles, couples – flocking around a booth makes you stop and wonder who is signing. If you are lucky, Skin Diamond is on display that hour, and for 25 minutes of your time you can talk to her for eight seconds and walk away with an autographed photo. Trust me, it is worth the wait.
You walk between the two rooms which host the expo, and in the hallway you meet Stoya and Dani Daniels, and they are happy to see you even though they don’t know your name. But you are a fan, and the reason why they are there, and they are nice and kind. You step away from them feeling special because you just spoke to the most popular girls in school and they like you, they really do like you! You are one of them right there, at this second, and all the intimacy you have shared while watching their videos translate into this milimetric encounters. You go for a bite and the table next to you has Arabelle Raphael and Kimberly Kane sharing a sandwich, while in a bedroom somewhere, with dimmer lights and less fantasy, two performers are debating Foucault.
Vegas smells of cigarettes and people. Lights are never off. You sit across the table from strangers you know, and suddenly you are stranger than they are. Everyone seems to be high on lights and expectations, like the air is made of these tiny particles of energy. It is easy to want to be illegal here. It is easy to be anyone. And in this intersection between on and off cameras, when asked what you do, you answer “I eat pussy for money”. I write about porn. I do porn. I am porn. Because in Vegas, under all those lights, you are nothing. Until you meet a girl with no make-up and heavy eyes, you are nothing. And after that, every time she catches you looking at her, you become utterly aware that you are nobody under those lights, although your tattoos and your scars prove different. But in Vegas, under all that spectacle and all that make up, your body does not mean much – unless you are a performer. For them, vanity is a requirement to grasp the dynamics of this business and be able to play. Vanity and emotional bond with each other, which is manifested outside the screen in semi-romantic relationships based on mutual understanding and support. You might love them. You might even be loved back. But that kind of friendship you can only experience if, one day, you might perform together.
Male performers get less attention because there are less female fans – and I did miss a gayer crowd around, to tell you the truth. But while you shake hands with Xander Corvus your knees melt, and you understand why he is so good on camera. But you just spoke to Manuel Ferrara and lent three dollars to Dane Cross, so by the time you run into Mick Blue you are not sure who you are anymore, and you just stand there and watch him in silence for the entire night. Do not worry: later you will gather the courage to walk to Woolf Hudson and get a delicious hug and a compliment that will keep you high on self-esteem for the rest of the week.
Nights host people around both Circle bars, and if you sit quietly you can eavesdrop into discourse, identity, boy/girl or girl/girl, and the perfect dick size, and an eventual shout announces someone just made some serious money in the casino. Porn stars talk to each other and make a spectacle of it, forging sexual attractiveness and intensity before the eyes of fans. Mostly men. This is their own private time with their favorite performer, and the level of hope and expectation is unbearable. Eventually, one will come up to a girl and say something to get her attention, but she is already focused on someone else who just entered the circle. This time, it is all about them: not the fans. Fans are allowed to participate only by watching, and the roles are once again back to the familiar place we are used to. Life is back to normalcy. You stand and you watch while the girls make out, sipping on your drink and wondering what it tastes like to be part of the gang. All around you are fans who are sharing that exact same moment in the exact same way, and unless someone pulls you aside to tell you this is real life you can swear you are watching a film.
Until some guy decides to take up the leading role and insists on finding out what your limits are. In his mind, you cannot get mad, though. “It is a porn convention, what did you expect?” The threat of the question echoes in your mind for hours after that, and you debate the social and sexual implications of the porn industry to the level of exhaustion when deep down all you want to say is “I am scared”. But you hold your head up because you are among your peers and they are there for you, and the casino has cameras and security guards all over the place, and that creep cannot get his hands on you – but you do think of other women and how maybe they are not as ironically protected by this same stigma which haunts you, and you fear for them. And that makes you mad, and you wipe your tears and say “The benefit of the doubt is not something someone should have over my body”. Later, you will find your shoes hidden under the blankets and look gorgeous again.
Then the day after it is the awards and the hotel takes longer to wake up and the booths
are slowly attracting people as the performers take their places behind the tables with their minds on the prize later at night. Afternoon comes and suddenly Vegas is a desert while hair and makeup is being done. The frantic clicks of flashes is what wakes you up while the red carpet is happening, and for a second you are sure that the aim is you, because nothing escape lenses in that space. Performers and directors and studios all say hello to each other, and it is like an office’s Christmas party, only that it happens in a very, very public manner, and you are socializing with coworkers that you only see once a year, although you do business over the phone the entire time. When the awards actually begin, businesses tend to take a faster pace because the weekend is coming to an end and everybody is talking in hushed, loud voices, sometimes even muffling the winner’s acceptance speech. Later, however, you will see them around the hotel and congratulate them on their award while they are getting a milk shake. You exchange phone numbers and talk about hanging in Los Angeles. The weekend is over.
Of course there are secret parties and millionaire dinners and sex happening everywhere, but unless you step back you cannot see them. In Vegas, you cannot see much because you are inside of it. It was a struggle. It was learning. And I will be back next year, for sure.
Bob wanted to show off her new Decepticon-lious Grimlock sweatshirt while we were in SF for the Rockstar Roadtrip.
“Me Grimlock not kisser! Me Grimlock king!” indeed.
See more of Bob here:
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I once had an agent tell me that there was “no market” for my “average, ordinary, girl-off-the street look.”
You should try as much as possible to avoid the unimaginative.
Also, it helps to be a versatile bitch.
Oh, and always be the-one-who-got-away. I cannot stress the importance of being awesome in getting ahead socially…and having a short-term memory when it comes to insults.
I’m the J-Grrl for March over at Juliland.com. You should go join and see all the photos! I love Richard Avery, and I think he really got some good stuff out of me.
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