by Jiz Lee
I said these words in a serious, low tone, looking intensely into my wife’s eyes. She knew I was serious and that I was capable and that she could trust me, and I knew I could trust her. We were outlaws, and we were afraid of our children being taken from us, so we were planning for the worst while hoping for the best.
As a matter of fact, we were not outlaws. We weren’t breaking any laws. We had made explicit movies, mostly educational in tone but explicitly sexual nonetheless, and had put ourselves on screen. To some, we were porn stars; we called ourselves revolutionaries and feminist pornographers.
We wanted to be parents but because we were queer, poor, and porno people, we didn’t dare dream that the state would allow us to have a child. We were foster parents and got certified at exactly the same time we decided to stop doing current production and work from home. We had taken down our website and left San Francisco for the redwoods of Boulder Creek to lead a quiet life by the river. I found us a rental with a hot tub and sweet neighbors. We were the lesbians next door; the spirits of the two gay men who had built the cabin we lived in kept us company as we prepared our little Shangri-La for a baby.
I had been performing, touring, and recording for a decade with my rock band. My wife is a performer and writer who’d gone on spoken-word tours and published books. Together we’d produced events, parties, and productions, and raised money for the community with benefits and galas, while running our digital video production and distribution business. We had received awards and critical acclaim, but we wanted to be parents most of all.
We’d always known we wanted to adopt, and were excited when we signed up at the local fost-adopt agency. Wanting to give and share love was stronger than our fears. We were at a street fair/gay pride event when we visited a booth run by friendly feminist social workers, and we mentioned that we were interested but thought that being in the sex industry precluded our eligibility with the county or an agency. We knew of people who had lost their kids to the court system; we were fearful, yet knew we were going to be great parents.
Several months later, after getting fingerprinted, taking classes, getting a home inspection and CPR certified, and prepping the house, we waited. We were only “pregnant” a few months and had an empty crib waiting in our room when we got that phone call saying we were certified. We weren’t supposed to get a phone call so soon; other people had been waiting longer—but we didn’t care about gender, race, or circumstance, we just wanted a baby. We were blessed with a beautiful two-week-old baby straight from the hospital. Our social worker loved us, knew we wanted more children, and was supportive. We felt like we were in the witness protection program with our new life and new address and new routines, yet we were so blissed out being in the woods with our baby, listening to the sound of the river flowing outside.
We were featured in an HBO documentary, and the phone rang. Our social worker wanted to know how to best defend us in case a nosy social worker or judge or lawyer came around. We never broke any laws. Nothing we did was illegal. We paid taxes like any other citizen, but because we were involved in the sex industry, we knew that the social welfare system could turn against us and make an example of us. Even though we hadn’t been involved in any production since we’d become parents, and we were nothing but kind and loving and completely devoted to our child, they had to remind us that because we were currently just foster parents, we had no protection, that the baby was legally a ward of the state, and we were basically just glorified babysitters. I was ready to fight, to lawyer up and take on the system, but in my heart I knew the first step would be to not let anyone enter my home and forcibly take my child from me. We were all he’d ever known and he was my entire reason for being, and he was helpless against all of this. I would protect him and never let him get lost.
Until the day that the judge stamped our adoption decree and legally declared us a family, I held my breath. I finally fully exhaled on that day and was grateful I’d never had to put my plan into place. Now I work in executive management on the retail side of the business, but it’s still a bit of a dance when I tell someone what I do for a living. I feel relieved when they tell me they have heard of Good Vibrations or that they are a customer and they love the business. I mostly keep it under wraps until I think I can trust someone because, now that our kids are older, I don’t want other parents to judge or think twice about having our kids over to play, especially if their child has become fond of our children and vice versa. My wife and I have always been out and proud about what we do, but we don’t expect our children to come out and to have to explain every time they make a new friend or someone inquires, “What do your parents do?”
So I just say I’m in management and e-commerce until I get a sense that the person won’t start asking goofy questions when it’s not appropriate. Most often, I find myself giving parents advice on products and personal topics like intimacy, and am more than happy to keep it simple for my kids’ sake. My wife is usually more forthcoming and at ease about giving information, as she is a writer and works at home.
I am proud of the work I do. I know that I have personally helped people have healthier lives and helped them accept their authentic sexual selves. I know this because people have told me this. I have reached people through the movies we have made and with the retail business I have helped run. I am proud of standing for safe, nonjudgmental access to sex information and quality products, and I am not in the closet about my sexuality or gender identity. I work hard and I have made my own way in life with no trust fund to help me along. I am fiercely protective of our children and would do anything for them. I do not suffer fools gladly and do not care about the opinions of hypocrites and fear mongers. Our children are a true blessing and a gift from the Greater Spirit, and although I have been called a lot of names in this life, I love being called Mama most of all.
BLOOD AND BUTTER
James Darling
James Darling is a Bay Area–based, multiple award-winning adult performer, educator, and director from the Dirty South. He won the Feminist Porn Awards Heartthrob of the Year 2012 and most recently was nominated for 2015 AVN Awards Transsexual Performer of the Year and Cybersocket’s Best Sex Scene. Darling’s rise in porn began with his performance debut on CrashPadSeries.com, and continued with queer and trans porn studios including T-Wood Pictures, TROUBLEfilms, Alternadudes, and Buck Angel Entertainment. In 2012, he launched FTMFucker.com, one of the first all-FTM porn membership sites. His work has been featured internationally at film festivals, universities, and conferences on topics related to trans issues, sex worker rights, and privacy. You can find more of James Darling’s adventures on Twitter @JamesDarlingxxx and Tumblr at JamesDarlingxxx.
“Have you ever had a butter burger?” My dad and I are driving from the Indianapolis airport through the endless miles of Midwestern farmland to where my grandmother is in an assisted living facility. We pull into a Culver’s; he is so relieved that I’m no longer a vegetarian. Honestly, being a vegetarian was so much worse than me being gay, and almost as bad as not being a Christian in my conservative Midwestern family.
My dad was the black sheep of his generation. Growing up in the clean-cut suburbs of Indiana, he and his father didn’t speak for many years when he decided to drop out of the Air Force and move out to California to ride motorcycles and be free. I’m a queer transsexual man, and my father and I rarely spoke for years when I moved out of the house, transitioned, and took a Greyhound bus across the country to make my own life in California. I see so much of him reflected in myself the older I get, it kind of scares me. Despite our same grey-blue eyes, jawlines, and sordid histories, I sincerely doubt that my father ever did porn.
For the past half decade, I’ve been carving out a spot, piece by piece, scene by scene, for myself and other transsexual men in the adult industry. I launched the first all-FTM hardcore porn site, have directed several feature-length films, performed in countless porn scenes, and have been nominated at most major adult industr
y award shows. I love porn, and I always have. I used to sneak into my friend’s parents’ closet and read their books about sex and took every chance I got to see scrambled porn on the Spice channel or on Internet forums. As I came into performing, I found that I had a captive audience who appreciated my boyish brand of nontraditional masculinity and commitment to ethically produced porn. Each scene challenged me to push myself further, and what started as the occasional indie queer porn gig grew into a career. I love that I get to meet all kinds of people, and that I have complete creative control and can breathe life into fantasies in a physical and visual medium most people only dream about. I imagine that I will be making porn and performing in it for quite some time, and it is work I’m very proud to do. However, my family has no idea what I actually do for a living. The more time goes by, the more I know that I need to say something. I keep imagining one day dying and my family finding out about my double life after I’m gone, a parade of sex workers showing up to the funeral with nothing but gang bangs and filthy transsexual porn to fill them in.
At this point in my life, I’ve come out as different identities countless times—as a lesbian, as a trans man, as someone with multiple partners of multiple genders. My family no longer asks me any questions about my personal or romantic life when we talk on the phone with a safe several thousand miles between us. My life is too much and too confusing for them to understand, but at least we are able to be a part of each other’s lives again. I love my family, and I want so badly to be able to be honest with them about my life and to openly share the joys and struggles of this path I’ve found myself on. If I had been in any other field, I imagine my parents would be very proud of me for forging my own path against the odds, running my own business, winning awards, and being interviewed in magazines and podcasts and academic papers. Unfortunately, I don’t feel safe telling my family about this because working in porn has a huge stigma for most people, and I know that my family would not understand why it is a good or important thing for me.
I entertain the thought of practicing my story to come out as a porn star with my grandma with advanced Alzheimer’s. She is one of my last surviving extended relatives. She is a fierce eighty-year-old lady who raised three sons and was married to the same man for over fifty years. I can’t imagine what it must be like to see all of the things she has experienced during her lifetime and to be so strong. Even though my grandfather stopped speaking to me when I transitioned, my grandmother was the first extended family member to use my chosen name. Her memory is gone and she can’t remember how old her grandchildren are anymore, or even whom she saw a week ago, but she still remembers who I am, even though I am a man now. We watch TV, and she asks me if I’m happy. I tell her yes, but decide to keep the porn to myself.
My dad and I were at the airport bar, awaiting our departing flights. He was harassing me for the millionth time about how I need to go to college so I don’t end up self-employed and always looking for the next gig like him. How if I got a degree, he might be able to help me find a better job. I tuned him out, and as my mind glazed over I thought about my business, my struggles as a transsexual man trying to make it in the adult industry, and the awards—and snapped out of it. I started to talk without really knowing what I was saying and just emotionally vomited all over my father: “Dad, I can’t go to school. I don’t have time. I already have a career and have for some time. I didn’t know how else to tell you this, but I make porn.”
I expected my dad to freak out, or walk away, or do . . . something. Instead, he just got really quiet, and after a pause he said, “Thank you for telling me. I love you.”
Our flights were leaving, so we headed to our respective gates and parted ways with a hug. I tried to stop shaking on the plane, relieved and secure in the knowledge that my father still loves me, his complicated transsexual pornographer son.
JOB SECURITY
Jesse Jackman
Jesse Jackman is a writer, senior software engineer, and logorrheic dork savant who moonlights as a porn star—although he prefers the term “erotic illusionist.” He blogs about his experiences as a forty-something gay pornographic actor at JesseJackman.xxx, and is also a regular Huffington Post contributor (huffingtonpost.com/jesse-jackman). Jesse lives with his fiancé Dirk Caber, a classical musician (and fellow industry performer), in Boston, Massachusetts.
It’s Monday as I write this, and as most of us—myself included—head back to work, I thought it would be fitting to write about some adversity I once faced on the job. No, not at the studio, at my day job. Yes, I have one, and yes, they know about my other career as a porn actor. Well, they do now.
Porn is not my full-time job. I hold a bachelor’s degree in computer science and have worked as a software engineer at the same large Boston-based company for the last twenty-two years. Porn is more like a hobby for me; it’s an opportunity to do something new and exciting and fun, to give me a little extra spending money, and to have sex with some of the hottest guys on the planet.
I filmed my first scene with TitanMen in August of 2011. The scene—with Hunter Marx in Surveillance—wasn’t released until January of the following year, so for a few months I was able to keep my newfound sideline a secret. Finally, on a chilly Saturday night in December, I made my first official hometown appearance at one of Boston’s largest gay clubs to promote my upcoming debut. It was an amazing experience. Friends and strangers alike were really supportive, and I had a fantastic time.
On Monday morning I arrived at work to find the following email in my inbox (I’ve changed the names and removed any specific references to my employer):
Hi Jesse,
My name is Steve Richardson and I work in the customer service department. My office received a message that I wanted to share with you. Would it be possible to stop by my office so we can talk briefly? Let me know what a good time might be for you.
Steve
Oh shit, I thought nervously. I work in internal support and don’t have any direct contact with customers. Why would someone from customer service want to see me?
I met with Mr. Richardson that afternoon. “Call me Steve,” he said amicably. Steve was an upbeat gentleman with a brightly-colored shirt and a firm, friendly handshake. I had a seat in his office, swallowed hard, and asked him what was going on. “I think the easiest thing to do is just show you,” he said. Then he handed me a printout of an email. It read:
To: Stephen Richardson, Customer Service Department
From: Concerned Customer
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2011 3:01 PM
Subject: Unacceptable Staff Behaviour
To Whom It May Concern:
It is absolutely appalling that your organisation would hire and employee [sic] an individual who openly participates and promotes such a despicable act as adult pornography. Tolerance of diversity and non-discrimination of an individual’s race, sex, religion, political affiliations, and sexual orientations [sic] are to be expected but to knowingly employee [sic] such a perverse individual [sic] that engages in obscene and lewd behavior is reprehensible.
In recent times, individuals have been castigated for sexual misconduct and or behaviour that is not to be associated with an organisation’s philosophy. You should be more diligent in knowing what behaviours could be potentially damaging to its credibility and overall image. Patrons would be hesitant, philanthropists would be reluctant, media would be unforgiving, and staff would be stigmatized through association.
Jesse Jackman (performing with TitanMen) may have his own reasons for participating in such salacious activities, but we hold you to a much higher standard and hope that a resolution can be achieved that does not adversely affect the organisation. Although Mr. Jackman does not have direct customer contact, the morals and ethics should be held consistent for all of your employees.
—Concerned Customer
As I read the email, I got that terrible sinking feeling that comes with the anticipation of really, really bad news. What would
my company’s response be? I’d read the code of employee conduct thoroughly, and I was almost certain that I was well within my rights as long as working in porn didn’t interfere with my day-to-day responsibilities. But I was not absolutely certain. Had I overlooked something? Was I about to be fired?
Steve had been direct with me about the email, so I figured it was best to be direct in return. After I’d finished reading the letter but before he got a chance to say anything, I told him that the message’s statements about working with TitanMen were true. However, I explained, I’d researched my decision to work with TitanMen very carefully and believed that I wasn’t in violation of any corporate policies. I also commented that whoever wrote the complaint certainly seemed to have very strong opinions, then reiterated my belief that I hadn’t done anything wrong.
Steve listened attentively. I finished making my case, then gripped the arms of the chair with dread. It was the moment of truth . . . and Steve’s words took me completely by surprise.
“I just want you to know that this email is absolute bullshit.”
I love my company, but at that moment, I’d never been more proud to work there.
Steve reassured me that I’d done nothing wrong and that the organization was behind me 100 percent. Anticipating that I might want to keep my side job and day job separate, he explained that he hadn’t followed the standard practice of notifying my supervisor. He’d already discussed the email with legal counsel, but other than that, the matter would be kept sealed. He was more concerned for my safety than anything else. He wondered if the complainant might hold some grudge against me (I told him that I don’t know anyone who would) or attempt to slander me in other ways. He even offered my company’s support should this type of harassment recur. Clearly, they were on my side.
