The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure (50 page)

Hedges continues his assault on the industry by describing the racist depictions of ethnic minorities in many porn films, the outrageous circuslike acts performed, the misogynistic language plastered on DVD box covers and websites, and the seemingly atrocious exploitation of unwilling participants. He concludes, “the violence, cruelty, and degradation of porn are expressions of a society that has lost the capacity for empathy.”
⁵

After setting down my copy of
Empire of Illusion,
I half-believe that
porn is a malicious force, worthy of scorn by any ethical standard. But I am a porn performer and producer, and I am capable of love, empathy, and remorse. I am armed with a conscience, and I feel responsible for my actions. Despite Hedges’s allegations, I feel a significant lack of guilt. While my own experience as a performer is duly subjective I am entirely comfortable making this statement:
I am a pornographic performer and I do not participate in the exploitation or degradation of fellow performers.
And I say this acknowledging the privilege I hold as a white, heterosexual male performer. That said, I do not necessarily dispute Hedges’s findings. In fact, I have experiences of exploitation that may actually validate them.

During a live cam session, a fan wrote to me about a scene I had performed with an older gay man. I did not remember doing the scene, and asked the fan to provide more information. He sent me a link to a website where I saw a frightened-looking, nineteen-year-old version of myself receiving oral sex from a man in his midfifties.

Seeing the video, I easily recalled the experience. The man had lured me to his apartment through an ad on Craigslist. I was under the impression that I would be auditioning on video for a role in a future porn production. Halfway through the encounter, I discovered that the man wanted me there for his personal pleasure. He offered me extra money in exchange for sucking my cock. I was poor, so I took the cash. Five years later, I learned that the man not only lied about it being just an audition, but continued to profit from that encounter by hosting a video of it on his paid subscription-based website. His actions were exploitative, and I felt taken advantage of. He had claimed one agenda, then waited until I was naked and vulnerable to reveal another. Had it been my first porn experience, I may have never ventured back. But I had already worked for people in the industry who were honest about their intentions, paid me well, and treated me with respect. I knew that porn could be a legitimate business.

During my first porn shoot, I was tied up, whipped, electrocuted, and fucked in the ass. It was a BDSM scene for
Kink.com
(called Cybernet at the time). Sure, some aspects of this shoot were physically painful, but I was informed of every act before it took place, given options and safe words, and surrounded by professionals whose job it was to safeguard my physical and emotional well-being.

On the surface, I may have appeared to be in a better scenario with the man from Craigslist than in the BDSM scene. But the man from Craigslist had taken advantage of me, and later exploited me, selling
the video in which I appeared without my knowledge. Even though the BDSM scene may have appeared violent to some, I chose to participate and knew exactly what was going to take place.

Some porn may represent sexual inequality at its most demeaning, but we may not be able to confirm that the performers were
actually
dehumanized, or if they were engaging in consensual role-play. Other porn can represent a sexual power dynamic but also emphasize the informed and enthusiastic consent of its performers. Companies such as
Kink.com
employ before-and-after interviews with performers to establish consent. The use of elements designed to convey consent, such as interviews, help facilitate discussions around rough and violent sexual fantasies, and position the people who make porn as not only responsible to each other, but also to their consumers. In fact, all of the self-identified feminist pornographers I’ve worked with explicitly emphasize consent and ethics in their work. Likewise, there are plenty of other porn makers—from
Kink.com
to players in the mainstream adult industry—who do as well. I have conducted extensive interviews with mainstream industry producers, directors, and performers who are committed to making “ethical porn.” I’ve posted the interviews in full on my blog. Performers have told me what differentiates a safe work environment from one that is degrading or disempowering: open negotiations and communication between performers, a good working relationship with the director, and knowing everyone’s expectations and limits up front. They cite the critical difference between domination and degradation: consent.

So a great level of responsibility lies with directors, agents, and everyone else engaged in the production of porn. They are tasked with making sure performers are willing to participate, and then ensuring their health and safety on set. All producers should commit to providing a level of transparency so that consent not only exists, but is explicitly conveyed to viewers.

Hedges fails to acknowledge that some porn companies establish parameters of respect and consent which performers must abide by. For example, I am regularly employed by Naughty America, one of the largest providers of Internet pornography. Naughty America has a company policy that male performers do not spit on, choke, or slap female performers. A female performer may be spanked on the ass, but she must ask for it first. A male performer cannot call a female performer a “bitch,” “cunt,” “whore,” or any other derogatory term. In fact, it is preferred that he say as little as possible throughout the scene.

I have been hired by directors for Vivid, Heartcore Films, Madison
Bound Productions, Sweet Sinner, and others who facilitate discussions around sexual desires, turn-ons, attraction to fellow performers, limits, and so on. Some of these companies will gladly film acts of rough sex, but only if those involved express a sincere desire to participate. My experiences suggest that porn does not have to be a process of human degradation. It can be quite the opposite.

There may, however, be a gray area for porn viewers who have aggressive sexual fantasies, and yet view themselves as ethical consumers. The purchase of a commercial product includes the choice to financially support its mode of production. If consumers buy more of a certain kind of porn, then more of that kind of porn will be produced. The issue is that, unlike food or clothing, porn lacks the support of consumer advocates who might designate which studio, director, or line of films is essentially safe to purchase from an ethical standpoint.

In the midst of this dilemma, I think it is important to point out that porn is still a form of entertainment. It should be held accountable to the same standards placed on other forms of capitalized entertainment, not subject to more of them. If standards are to be implemented, I believe they should be self-enforced. The history of censorship is too awash with personal subjectivity and bias to delegate something as intricate as sexual fantasy/practice to any single person or organization. It is the ethical pornographer’s responsibility to operate with transparency. It is the performer’s responsibility to voice consent or a lack thereof. If consumers want to see more movies that will get them off and leave them with a clear conscience, it is their responsibility to seek those films out. It’s time for consumers who want more ethical porn to educate themselves about who’s producing it, and to use their dollars to support it. At every level of the process, people have some control over the kind of porn they create and support. This is our pornography.

Notes

1
. Chris Hedges,
Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle
(New York: Nation Books, 2010), 57.

2
. Ibid., 60.

3
. Ibid., 62.

4
. Ibid., 78.

5
. Ibid., 74.

IV

NOW PLAYING: FEMINIST PORN

Uncategorized: Genderqueer Identity and Performance in Independent and Mainstream Porn

JIZ LEE

Jiz Lee
is a genderqueer porn star known for their androgynous look, female ejaculation, vaginal fisting, strap-on performances, and fun, sex-positive attitude. The award-winning performer prefers the pronouns “they/them,” and advocates for ethical pornography that creatively and authentically reflects queer sexuality. Ever fascinated by the radical potential of sex, love, and art, Jiz runs a personal blog and philanthropic “Karma Pervs” pay site at
JizLee.com
. They are editor of the upcoming anthology
How to Come Out Like a Porn Star: Essays from the Porn Industry on Family Matters.

I
’
m wearing a bright pastel blue suit I hand-dyed myself to match the suit worn by David Bowie in his music video for “Life on Mars.” I’m a dapper version of Bowie, standing for photos with a golden glammed-up Adrianna Nicole in one of the biggest and most outlandishly decorated homes I’ve ever seen. Adrianna has handpicked her co-stars, creating scenes from her personal fantasies. She reclines on a white chaise lounge, gold lamé legs wrapped around me, wide eyes hungry. My large, flesh-colored strap-on cock juts out from the fly of my David Bowie blue pants and my hand pushes forcefully into her mouth. It all feels so good. Warm, wet, incredibly intimate. My fingers probe her wide mouth. I could do this for hours. At some point, I see a trace amount of blood in her saliva, tinted spit against the white of her teeth. I hesitate for a second, but she lets me know she’s fine. We fuck in different positions, ending as Adrianna cums hard with a Hitachi Magic Wand against her clit and my thumb pressed far up her pink ass.

Pause. Rewind. Let’s watch the scene from the beginning. Where does this porn really start? Maybe in 2005, on a bright San Francisco day, where I met an erotic photographer named Syd, and I hit on her. My desire was twofold: I wanted her and I wanted to create sexual art.

I was curating a queer Asian Pacific Islander (API) dance performance and the theater I rented had a large lobby with empty wall space that would be perfect for visual art to complement the show. Syd’s work was part of a queer Asian women’s art show titled “SLIT,” and her large prints of androgynous Hapa (mixed-heritage) queers in BDSM scenarios portrayed an element of sexuality that I could relate to. It’s not often I see artists I could identify with, other queers like me. I felt a magnetic familiarity with Syd and the models in her photographs. An attractive, brainy art student with a muscular build, Syd’s freckled cheeks held a blend of American-European and Japanese ancestry; her slightly butch demeanor was contrasted by curly light brown hair in pigtails. It was genderqueer Hapa love at first sight.

Weeks later, I found myself in her bedroom talking about her work, which decorated the walls of her small apartment in the Mission. After agreeing on which of her prints we’d hang, I casually mentioned that I would be interested in modeling for her if she was doing any new projects, to which she responded positively; she added that if I were interested in being filmed, a friend of hers was starting a queer porn company and was casting. She pulled out a Post-it note and wrote a phone number and the name “Shine Louise Houston.”

Six months later, Syd and I were lustfully dating . . . and preparing for our first scene together in what would become a smash dyke porn hit,
The Crash Pad.
I say our dating was lustful, but I’m not sure if that’s the right word. Libidinous? We would
plow
over each other at sweaty queer dance parties, making out like ravenous, rabid dogs in heat. We were in love, in the most limerence-is-a-drug state imaginable, our orifices and sexy parts engorged extensions of the braingasms we had for one another. I don’t think our connection can be put into words; it was best expressed through art and on several occasions, as we made love on film.
¹

People often ask me, “What made you decide you wanted to do porn?” and I tell them the truth: I want to share my sexual expression with others. I like it, it feels liberating, and I know that it helps others feel free too. I want to show more representations of people like me. I use words like hegemonic, homonormative, and marginalized. These are words I learned as I put myself through college, but I knew the meanings before I earned my degree. I share stories about people who have written to me, thanking me for putting my sexuality out there, for helping them become proud and stronger in their own battles. All of this is true and it’s a part of why I did it. But what I don’t say is: I did it for love.