I often hear how porn degrades women, and my response to that is that I felt MUCH MORE degraded working in an office as a receptionist than I have ever felt in porn. As a matter of fact, I’ve never felt degraded in porn. I have also read ignorant rants such as this one from a blogger: “It’s a great job for someone who is dumb, unambitious, and devoid of sexuality. In fact, the only way you can do “sex work” (as naïve feminists like to call it) is to have no sex left in you.” WRONG!!!
Opinions like the one above, are the main reason that for the past year I have been interviewing my friends for a documentary I am directing called The Women I Know. I have wanted to create this documentary for years, and have (finally) been gathering interviews. I have had the honor and pleasure of interviewing my friends and peers: Syd Blakovich, Kelly Shibari, Dylan Ryan, Jiz Lee, Courtney Trouble, and Oriana aka Ashley Blue.
I am doing this documentary because some of the most interesting, genuine, sincere, driven women I have met have also been adult performers and/or working in the sex industry. I am so tired of people recycling old ideas and projecting their opinions on why they think we choose sex work. I have read countless opinions about our lives and what people think our motivations are. They often create these false views on us which are judgmental and entirely inaccurate.
We are not victims; we are doing this by choice and having a whole lot of fun while doing it. We are not damaged or unambitious or destroying our lives. We are defining and in control of our sexuality in our own terms.
I hope to interview more because there are so many inspiring women I have met, worked with, admire, and learned from. I plan on interviewing performers, sex educators, and directors who are all female and creating sex positive work. I strongly believe in this project and know that it will be powerful because the women featured are powerful!
This sounds pretty awesome. I’ll look forward to hearing more about it. (and I know what you mean about receptionists being degraded in the office; my mom was one for years and was on the receiving of this treatment more than once; it sucked)
I think this is wonderful! Perhaps this will open the door for society to understand more about the industry, and the people who work in it. I think that some stars from the past or stars that leave the business are responsible for a lot of the negative information that is put out there. Sex should not be secretive, nor should it be something to be ashamed of, and too many people are…..Let’s hope for positive change.