XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography (21 page)

"I was jealous," I admitted. "K. was older than me, prettier, and much better with men. I figured she knew something I didn't."

The relief on the other end of the phone line was palpable. I had passed the test. I was a "straight" woman who didn't make moral judgments. Being puzzled, jealous, threatened, and intrigued-all of these reactions were acceptable, because they were honest and not insulting.

The woman warmed to my questions and the quality of the interview improved dramatically.

Upon hanging up, I started to realize how deeply women in porn have been hurt by the condemnation they have received from women outside the industry. Even those few feminists who are supposed to "champion" the rights of sex workers tend to treat them as somehow 84

pathetic. As a class apart. Not as women with husbands and children, unpaid phone bills, and sick pets. Not like all the rest of us.

Few feminists seem willing to grant them the simple courtesy of respecting their choices. Few of them believe women in porn have anything of value to say about sex or politics or human relationships. Certainly, this was true of me before I actually met the women and found so many of them to be articulate.

Part of the schism that separates women in porn from the women on the outside is simply culture shock. Pornography is a dramatically different world and it is easy to misinterpret it. For example, in the corporate world, commenting on a woman's body or calling her "honey" might lead to a lawsuit. In porn, it is standard practice. In fact, an actress might become insecure or insulted if her flaunted assets were ignored. Bernie Oakley of Adam and Eve, the major distributor of adult videos in America, told me that-as a southerner-he had referred to women as "girls" for years. He went to great pains to break this habit only to find himself working in an industry in which the women are always called "the girls."

Take another example. While I was speaking to "Jane" at the CES, a well-developed porn actress walked by us. "Jane" stopped talking, ran her tongue over her upper lip, and smiled at me, saying, "Isn't she a walking wet dream?" I was speechless. I wouldn't have known how to respond to a man who'd made such a comment. But a woman? I was at a loss.

Do these differences make pornography a bastion of sexism? Maybe. But compared to what? To corporate boardrooms or government corridors, where men mouth the proper attitudes while maintaining the sexist status quo? Perhaps pornography is just more open about its attitudes.

Moreover, in pornography, women are starting to make a real impact; there are women directors like Veronica Hart and Candida Royalle, whose work was described in
Time
magazine as "the best example of porn in the feminist style." Women like Betty Dodson and Fanny Fatale are empowering women through videos that teach masturbation. And, recently, Femme Distribution, Inc. announced a new series of adult videos by women directors, which-among other things-eroticize safe sex. This is the cutting edge of women's sexuality; feminists ignore it at their own peril.

But entering this world-even as a tourist-can be disorienting and disturbing. The women are not always friendly. I have had my share of curt dismissals, unreturned phone calls, and outright suspicion. It would be a miracle if women who have been stigmatized by feminists reacted less defensively. I learned to begin every conversation with the name of a mutual acquaintance that served as a reference. I made a point of knowing something about the woman, so I could open with a knowledgeable compliment.

"I'll have to check you out" was a common response to my requests for an interview. And even when I supplied referrals and copies of my articles, some women declined to discuss their work with me. Some may have thought I wanted intrusive details about their personal lives, which they wanted to jealously guard. Others may have suspected I would put an unflattering slant on the interview. Even women on the fringe of the industry were often suspicious of me. The business manager of Vivid Video was cautious for no other reason than that I wanted to interview
her
and not the actresses working for the company. For her, this made alarm bells ring.

At first, I thought it odd that the women seemed more suspicious of me than the men did, until I realized the explanation. I was a woman. A short, petite, youngish woman who was asking the men for information-in short, for help. I kick-started the "macho" response that typifies much of the porn industry.

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Rereading the last line makes me uncomfortable. Next to nothing really "typifies" the porn industry, which is in transition. It is moving from the old school of pornographers to the Young Turks. From cinema verite to home porn. From a male bastion to feminist videos. The entire industry is in flux.

In the same sense, nothing seemed to really typify the women involved in porn. Not one of them was interchangeable with any other. Not one actress had the same story. Some performed sex scenes only with their boyfriends or with other women. One actress had her mother baby-sit her four-year-old child on the set of her videos. There were four actresses living with a male manager whose real given name was "Lucky." One women lamented leaving prostitution for the less profitable and more impersonal world of pornography but -- after two arrests for soliciting-what else could she do?

In trying to paint a collective portrait of "women in porn," I run the risk of losing the sense of their rebellious individualism. To prevent this, I wish to present a few of the flesh-and-blood women who breathe life into pornography.

BOBBY LILLY

During my weekend at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show, I heard a common refrain: "You
must
meet Bobby Lilly." The woman wasn't difficult to find. Her flouncy black-and-white polka-dotted dress might have been flashy at most events, but Bobby looked downright conservative as she politicked her way through the aisles of scantily clad actresses. She and I connected at a meeting of the Free Speech Coalition, just after I had badly mangled my first attempt at an interview. Because she spoke, and eloquently, on the same political issues as I did, I immediately relaxed and regained some of the confidence I had lost moments before.

Hopefully, Bobby Lilly can act as a bridge for readers, as well. A political activist, Bobby is the moving force behind the Californians Act Against Censorship Together (Cal-Act), which defends "our right to free expression, especially sexual expression." She is also a partner in a three-way marriage between porn superstar Nina Hartley and a man who seems to prefer standing in the background. Bobby is not an actress, but she has appeared in a porn video. She explained why:

"To defend it [graphic sexual expression] without being willing to partake and play a role in it ...

only taking the position Ì'll defend it, but it's not right for me' . . . I just couldn't do it. I had to have the experience. I had to see what it would feel like. And, for me, it was very enjoyable. I found an exhibitionist streak in me that I did not realize was there."

Was she coerced into the industry?

"Oh, absolutely not. It came out of my relationship with Nina. I had been offered a role in an adult video, which had significant redeeming social value because it dealt with people over forty who still had sex lives. And it was done in conjunction with a sex therapist and a book the therapist had written. So I really felt very good about the final product and how it would be used."

Bobby's first experience is probably not typical. She was already familiar with many of the people on the set and had personal values that made her comfortable with nudity and nonmonogamous sex. I asked whether anything about the experience disturbed her. "There were things I did not totally appreciate. I mean, every time you go in to a job you can't do everything the way you want to, but that's the right and the role of the director: to decide the order, and that's fine."

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Did she know any women who had been coerced into porn? "I do not personally know of anyone, however I know it does exist and I have heard an apocryphal story here and there. But that's not the norm. The level of coercion is very subtle, a very peer-pressure kind of thing."

This is the answer I heard again and again. No one seemed to personally know anyone who had been physically coerced into a pornographic act. But some women spoke of psychological or economic coercion. By "psychological coercion," they usually meant that inexperienced actresses found themselves on a set where they were asked to perform unexpected sex acts. The women could have walked off, but peer pressure is difficult to resist, especially for newcomers who are eager to please.

By "economic coercion" they meant that many women are into porn only to make the money they need to give themselves and their children a decent standard of living. In this, pornography is similar to any other highly paid industry that attracts people who want the money.

I sensed a paradox. Women said there was a lot of money in porn, yet most actresses earned appallingly little for appearing in videos. The standard flat fee for a full day's work is a few hundred dollars; royalties and residuals are unknown. Even superstars rarely make over a thousand dollars a day. Since the cheaper videos are shot in one day and the high quality ones only take a few days more, even hardworking actresses find it difficult to make a fortune.

Bobby explained that the real money to be made from porn was in the dance circuit. What was the dance circuit? "There are many different agencies and clubs around the country, to which adult actresses or
Playboy
centerfolds and what they call `the big tit girls' travel in a circuit. It's not a circuit in that you go to one place first and then to another. But women book various club dates and go from town to town, dancing. Sometimes they are on the road for weeks or months.

"Many women go into pornography, particularly into videos, to become part of the dance circuit, because porn gives them status and increases their pay for dancing. So the payoff for a video is that, when that box cover gets out into the market and people see it, the actress can get big weekly paychecks on the circuit."

I remembered reading a newspaper article about a woman named Amy Lynn Baxter, a
Penthouse
centerfold who had been lucky enough to be promoted by Howard Stern on a national television program. A high school graduate, Amy had been earning close to $250,000 annually by working about two months a year as an erotic dancer on the dance circuit. With the new publicity, she was hoping to boost that to $500,000 this year, putting her in the same financial bracket as prominent women doctors and lawyers. Whenever Amy travels, she takes both her baby and a nanny.

(And since it is a question that comes up-I should mention that I saw no indication of prostitution being part of the dancers' arrangements.)

I made a mental note to ask dancers I interviewed about "the circuit," then I pushed further on the idea of economic coercion. Specifically, did Bobby know of any producers who refused to pay women who said no?

"On one occasion and it was very unusual.

"One thing people have to understand about this industry is that it has only been legal for about twenty years and it is becoming more . . . `bureaucratized' isn't the right word . . . `proper procedures' are now being followed. Ten years ago, when videos started, a lot of people never even thought about paying taxes. Now taxes are being withheld ahead of time. Relationships in the industry are conforming to the regime of society."

What about women who become disillusioned by pornography and want to move on to legitimate film or theater? Bobby acknowledged that "crossovers" happen for technical or support workers, like make-up people. But for actresses? ...

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"Rarely. Porn work does not give you any credentials; in fact, it stigmatizes you. There is no real stigma attached to technical work. I've been on porn sets where the make-up people talk about the legitimate actresses they've made up just days before. But with porn actresses, your biggest example of crossover is Traci Lords, who thoroughly denounces the industry and on that basis has managed to get some roles. A major actor or actress has never become a major Hollywood star."

With this intro into how society stigmatizes porn, I ventured into my main area of disagreement with Bobby: namely, she still believes that the Radical Right ("porn is sin") and not the Radical Left ("porn is violence against women") is the greatest threat to sexual expression today. It is an honest disagreement that comes from our differing experiences. Bobby lives in the San Francisco area where COYOTE has been very effective, largely due to the efforts of sex workers such as Priscilla Alexander and Margo St. James. These women have generated genuine respect within the San Francisco chapter of NOW, which remains sexually liberal.

For better or worse, however, NOW is a decentralized organization in which regions display independence in forging policy and strategy. Liberal chapters like San Francisco and New York have come down with some consistency for the rights of sex workers. But in Texas, for example, the antiporn membership of NOW did a hostile takeover of the chapter; sexual liberals fled the organization. NOW is clearly in crisis over this issue.

The polarization within feminism has led to the sad spectacle of feminists violently opposing each other on vital issues. For example, the 1992 McConnell Bill-the Victims of Pornography Compensation Act-was supported by radical feminists, yet denounced by the New York chapter of NOW and the Feminists for Free Expression. When a Los Angeles fireman was recently accused of sexual harassment because he read a Playboy magazine in his own living quarters while off-duty, NOW supported the sexual harassment charge. Feminists for Free Expression opposed it.

An even sadder spectacle has been that of radical feminists joining with the Religious Right to support legislation, such as the antipornography ordinances popular in the eighties. Bobby, who is a child of the Left, lamented, "I'm appalled and frightened by the united front in backing certain legislation, not only against pornography but on the issue of violence in general. What I see happening is that some legitimate concerns within the feminist movement about the abuse of women have been pushed to an extreme by those who say `we're going to fix it by this process.'