by Jiz Lee
Shortly after coming out as a trans girl, I worked to make my home with other queer women, in the kink community, and wanted to express myself through sex work that I loved to consume: queer porn. I took several trips to New York, San Francisco, and Oakland to do porn while I was living in the Midwest. I was working in a restaurant and would occasionally moonlight doing dominatrix work afterwards. I kept these things from everyone except for close friends and some of my partners. Even though I felt that I had just reasons for what I was doing, I was never out to the restaurant, and later, youth center workers, about my new path of work. In terms of what I really desired to be a part of, I needed to move, as I had several times before in my life, to open myself to more like-minded queers and trans people who were more enveloped in sex work.
Moving to Oakland, California, I came into a community of queer folks who were intensely comfortable about having done or being currently engaged in sex work. It seemed like every other dyke or fag or genderqueer homo I met had been in some kind of porn and was also willing to chat about it with me. My day job as a coordinator at the United States’ only holistic clinic for sex workers, St. James Infirmary, has given me an intensely fulfilling and comfortable space to inhabit my multiple sides: sex worker, dominatrix, porn performer, harm reduction advocate, queer radical. Suffice it to say, I am completely out as a sex worker and porn performer to my community of friends, lovers, and even strangers who I share space with. These are some who I can identify as chosen family, and working and being identified with my magical sex worker clinic has also given me some of the foundation of how I move about in the world with my identities.
My job at St. James has tacitly outed me as a sex worker because of its peer-based model; however, it hasn’t seemed to catch on with my blood family. While it’s true that some workers at the clinic are not current or former sex workers, most of us are, and certainly one would hope the person training peer counselors, which is part of my job, would be a peer themselves. My conversations with family have been solidly around my work as an advocate, a kind of social worker that is firmly rooted in harm reduction, and someone who works with the dispossessed—those pushed to the margins of society. Because I haven’t come out as a sex worker and can show my family members some source of sustainable income, I have operated under this unspoken assumption as a social-worker type, which can be unduly clinical in its approach and, at worst, a gatekeeper to resources for those who are marginalized.
My desire to come out as a sex worker to my family is superseded by celebrating me as a trans woman and as a dyke. Nearly four years after coming out as a woman, despite the occasional awkwardness of using the wrong pronouns, they have finally done the work of not just accepting, but starting to celebrate me. I would be lying to myself if I didn’t fear that coming out as a porn performer and sex worker to my blood family would undo all of these years of relationship building. I heard, “We will love you no matter what” when I came out as a woman, which kind of sounded like I did something wrong rather than, “I have unconditional love for you and celebrate you.” I’ve been lucky to start these conversations around sex work because of my job at the clinic and have carefully toed the line of “out” and “closeted.” My criticisms to my blood family have waned and tolerance has increased over the past few years, and I think it has also for them toward me.
Sex work, and porn in particular, is continuously derided by many in our society as shallow and unfeminist, and it comes loaded with character judgments about those engaged in that work. My ideas around queer porn and transsexual porn have developed into something different. I integrate what works for me in my work and have developed my own website where all trans women work behind the scenes to create trans-women-on-women porn. The creation of TransLesbians.com is an extension of my sex work, where I’m trying to create something financially sustainable and safe for trans women sex workers. I imagine that new work and the possibility of more recognition will put me more in danger, where blood family will find some hardcore sex scene and not understand me. Yet my coming-out process has been my own, straddling a fine line of pushing boundaries and also protecting myself.
COMING HOME
Harley Hex
Harley Hex is a witchy, queer, full-time webcam model and occasional porn performer. They have been working in the adult industry for two years, primarily in the hairy/unshaven niche. When they are not working, they enjoy hiking, consuming all the queer sci-fi they can get their hands on, and cuddling their two cats, Freya and Artemis.
“I think I’m going to quit my job.” Matt pulled his girlfriend into his arms, the two of them leaning in close to the fire. Cracking a smile, he glanced over the fire pit at me. “Maybe I can get into what you’ve been doing. It seems to be working out well for you.”
“Yeah, it’s been great so far but it’s still work, ya know.” He playfully shrugged his shoulders and we both laughed. It was a lovely night. I was sitting in the backyard I more or less grew up in with my friend Jessa and her brother, Matt. The only unfamiliar face was Matt’s new girlfriend, whom I was eager to get to know. This visit had been a long time coming and I was ecstatic to find that it still felt like home.
“So what do you do?” There it was. I was so comfortable that I forgot this stranger had no idea what my job was. Whenever I get asked the work question, I pause to assess the situation. A few checks I go through before making my decision to either answer, avoid the question, or stretch the truth are: (1) Does this person feel safe enough to disclose to without there being excessive discomfort or conflict? (2) Am I emotionally prepared to handle discomfort or conflict if they happen? And (3) Do I have an escape route if things end up not going well?
On this particular night, my anxiety about coming out was low. I was around friends who both knew what I do for work, and I had been getting along fairly well with the new girlfriend up to this point. Without much hesitation, I smiled and said, “I’m a full-time webcam model and I sometimes fly out to California to perform in porn. So basically, I’m a professional naked person.” In the time it took me to close my mouth she had already slid out from under Matt’s arm and pushed her chair about as far back as it could go. I sat there for a minute. Something I learned about coming out is that sometimes if you give people a minute, they realize they’ve completely overreacted, and if anything, social norms will keep them from turning an already awkward situation into an actively confrontational one.
Unfortunately, this was not the case. I sat for a few more minutes while she rattled off everything everyone had ever told her about how sex work is degrading, dangerous, and just plain not nice. Her reaction wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before so I took a deep breath and said something to the effect of, “It’s really more complicated than that. How I make my money is my business—and doesn’t have much of an effect on you—so let’s go back to not talking about this.” I had decided early on in her rant that we were never going to be friends, but for the sake of enjoying the rest of the night I chose not to take it to heart. Simple: You don’t like this, so let’s change the subject. Except navigating negative reactions to personal disclosure isn’t always simple. As I turned to my friend Jessa in hopes that we could change the subject, the barrage of questions began. I swear it’s times like these that I wish I had a sex worker bingo card handy.
“You said you’re a feminist. Aren’t they supposed to hate porn?”
I rolled my eyes. “Like I said before, it’s more complicated than that.” I was determined to stay calm and not get into a heated argument about feminism and the adult entertainment industry.
“How can you allow yourself to be degraded like that? I’m just curious.”
I felt my body language shift as I sifted through past experiences, searching for something to say to diffuse the situation. Past experience had told me that she wasn’t looking to ease her curiosity; she was looking for a fight. The muscles in my shoulder tensed. I was sitting up straight in my chair. I guess my friends must ha
ve noticed. Matt inched back over to her, putting his hand on her shoulder. She pushed him away. “No. I really want to know.” Against my better judgment, I decided to answer her question. “I don’t feel degraded by what I do. I chose a job that meets my needs and I’ve had a lot of great experiences. Sure, there are shitty clients and photographers out there, but overall, I love my job.” I have a hard time with conflict. For someone who takes their clothes off for a living, I’m honestly quite shy. I was hoping that giving her an answer would end this interaction so I could move on to ignoring her and chatting with the people I had actually come to hang out with.
“What does your family think about what you do? I mean, I was raised better than that so I know my family wouldn’t be okay with me being a whore.”
Before I knew what was happening I was on my feet. I have a hard time with angry feelings. Aggression scares me. As much as I hate being on the receiving end, feeling like I’m about to be aggressive toward another person scares me even more. I had no idea what I was going to say.
Luckily, my friend had my back. “How about you stop being an asshole? I think we were all raised better than judging someone for something that is none of your business anyway.” I turned to look at her and mouthed a “thank you” before kicking the chair I had been sitting on out of my way and storming inside the house.
My friends’ mom was sitting on the couch, watching TV. After coming out to my family about gender and sexuality stuff went badly when I was a teenager, she become like a second mom to me. I curled up next to her and told her what happened. She wrapped her arms around me and told me I didn’t deserve to be treated badly in my own home. Jessa came inside and sat with us, leaving her brother and his girlfriend outside. She told me they were arguing about how she handled the situation and that everyone here had my back, that we’re family and we take care of each other. I still felt the anger swirling around inside my chest, but I knew that I was surrounded by love. Something I’ve learned about coming out is that it isn’t always easy—but if you are able to fill your life with people who love you, even the bad times somehow end up okay.
Later that night, the girlfriend approached me, attempting to apologize. “I’m sorry I offended you. I was mostly talking about those other girls who do what you do.” I didn’t say anything. Maybe I should have stepped up in defense of other sex workers instead of simply giving her the cold shoulder. Maybe I should have never engaged with her in the first place. Either way, I know she was wrong. My friends knew she was wrong. Her opinion didn’t matter. I let her go. As she slipped out the door, I went back to the couch and enjoyed the rest of the night with my family. It was nice being home.
CONCEALMENT
Hayley Fingersmith
Hayley Fingersmith is a queer porn performer. She likes strawberries and elevated trains, and was irrationally excited to find her very first grey hair. She came out in San Francisco and recently gave up her hedonistic West Coast lifestyle to live amongst the grunge and unrelenting energy of New York.
I used to wear a mask every day. I wouldn’t step out the front door without it. I wore it to get the mail. I wore it to do laundry. I wore it to go to the gym. It is difficult to sweat under a mask—the bands come loose and flop around—so I did not go to the gym very often. I never swam.
I wore the mask to work. I wore it to see my family. I put it on before dates, carefully gluing down the edges so they wouldn’t show. I worried what would happen if I slept over and the mask fell off in my sleep.
I worried that people would notice the mask. Not that they would see it—they were supposed to see it, after all, that’s what masks are for—but that they would see the fact of it, that it was a mask. I tried not to speak too much, fearing it would slip. I avoided eye contact on the street. People still looked sometimes. Sometimes I knew they could tell. Sometimes I thought they couldn’t. Sometimes people smiled. Perhaps they thought the mask was beautiful.
I think now that I did not have to wear the mask as frequently as I did, or as fervently as I did. I wore it so protectively because I knew I would die without it, and knowledge is a powerful thing.
Under the mask, my face slowly changed. I do not want to understate the importance of this, for as my face changed, I found the mask less and less tolerable. But neither do I want to overstate its importance because the mask is about concealment as much as appearance, and I still felt I would die if anyone saw me.
They say that doing porn turns you into an object. In the lens, you are not a person with love and sadness and needs and mortality. Instead, you become a doll, something to be looked at and lusted over, masturbated to, and eventually forgotten. And I do think this is something cameras do. This, in fact, is what allowed me to perform in my first porn. I would not have to wear the mask. The lens would suffice.
By that time, I had begun to tire of the thing, the isolation, the ritual of putting it on, the time it burned every morning and night. I had just moved to a new city. I wanted to smile and talk and flirt with people I met. Occasionally, I had failed to wear it, and I had not died. I began to question my assumptions. I downgraded certainty to probability: I would probably die.
Still, once you’ve worn a mask for five years, it becomes as comforting as it is stifling. I wore it to my first shoot, and I wore it back. During the shoot, I wore only my makeup.
People have asked me why I decided to perform in porn. I’ve said it was for the money, and that’s true. I’ve said it’s because I like having sex with pretty people—also true. I’ve said it was a political statement, to be a visibly out trans woman, a model for other trans women who, like I once did, feel like they have to hide.
What I haven’t said, and what I had not realized until I sat down to write this, was how queer porn gave me the space to come out. The hours I spent on set were some of the very first hours I spent in public, as my whole self, without fear. The sets of the queer porn producers I’ve worked with have been, without fail, safe and affirming spaces, and it was on those sets and in seeing myself through their lenses that I began to discover that I could be seen and safe. It was there that I experienced the profound healing of being invited to exist.
I am in another new city these days. I still have the mask, but these days, it mostly collects dust.
WHAT IS BEST FOR THEM TODAY
Jaffe Ryder
Jaffe Ryder is a pen name.
Anyone who knows me personally knows what business I’m in. It’s just a normal fact of my life. For acquaintances, I go with my instincts and the instinct is usually just to say I do corporate video, and that sounds dry enough to people that they usually don’t follow up with any more questions. And I never bring up what I do at my kid’s school.
That is, with one exception.
I had recently gotten some press in a mainstream paper, and the next day a parent came over to me as I was picking up my kid and said something like, she saw me in the paper, wink-wink. I think all the blood drained from my face at that moment, but she went on joking that she was going to tell everyone what I did. I burst out an oddly sharp-toned, “No,” then quickly back-pedaled and said it was really nothing, something a long time ago. It was all very awkward. I’d been outed in an unexpected way. If we had this same situation in my neighborhood, I would have had more composure, but being at my kid’s school within earshot of other parents, I freaked. Not because I’m ashamed of what I do, but because I don’t trust outsider opinions of the industry and what actions they might take based on that opinion. I also want to give my kids the opportunity to choose whether or not they want to take on this challenge for themselves.
So far, my kids know I make movies, and as they get older I’ll give them what information is appropriate for their age. It’s my hope that one of them will carry on the family business. I want to leave it up to them whether or not they want to come out about having a parent in the industry. Being a part of the adult industry was a big decision for me and I went into it with my eyes open. My kids sho
uld get the same opportunity. Some might say that having more visibility as a parent in the industry would normalize things and make it less of a stigma. I get that, and the way I see it for my family is that my kids already have other challenges, and I don’t need to add one more right now. My life is all about their lives, so I do what I think is best for them today.
I negotiate whether or not to come out on a pretty regular basis. It’s not a one-time thing where I say, “I’m in the adult industry,” and there, it’s done. It’s an almost daily negotiation based on how I’m doing that day, where I’m at, and if my kids are involved.
COMING OUT ABOUT PORN FROM INSIDE OPPRESSION
Ignacio G. Rivera, a.k.a. Papí Coxxx
Ignacio Rivera, a.k.a. Papí Coxxx, who prefers the gender-neutral pronoun “they,” is a trans, genderqueer, two-spirit, Black-Boricua-Taíno. Ignacio is an activist, filmmaker, kinky-sex-positive sex educator, sex worker, mother, and performance artist. They blog about, among other things, sex and gender on WhatTheySaidBlog.com and is the founder of Poly Patao Productions (P3).
There are similarities that continue to occur for me when I think of the multiple identities I carry and how I balance them. Specifically, how sex work shifts the positioning of what is being juggled. What does it mean to be queer and a person of color (POC) in porn? What are the implications of being a parent who works in the porn industry? What does it look like to be a trans-identified person in porn? All of these questions help inform who I come out to, how, and why.
Coming out is a lifelong process, and so is dealing with the overall oppression and opponents of porn. Porn has been viewed as offensive, degrading, and as an oppressive tool against women. I don’t disagree with this, and yet there are other sides to porn. This outdated, one-sided view continues to construct the porn performer as victim and desire-less. Whether we come out or are outed, whether the experience is negative or positive, those who work against porn help shape the indignity that many must navigate through.
