Interview With a Porn Star

by Jason Luke

  I feigned a look of crest-fallen hurt. “Arrogant? Are you calling me arrogant?” My eyes became sad and injured.

  “Yes,” the woman flared.

  I shook my head. “Well I’m not,” I insisted. “I’m not arrogant at all.”

  And then I smiled. It was my best smile – the one I reserved for special occasions. It started at the corners of my mouth and spread across my face until it glinted mischievously in my eyes. “I’m cocky.”

  Connie almost smiled despite herself.

  Almost…

  I turned away, and as I did I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was well into the afternoon. Time for me to start drinking.

  There was alcohol in the kitchen – a witch’s pantry of potions that could be mixed to induce anything from euphoria to a coma. I decided on euphoria and started splashing spirits randomly into a glass and then stopped suddenly and tilted my head quizzically to the side. “Connie, I just don’t get you,” I said suddenly. “I don’t understand where you’re coming from. Are you deeply religious?”

  The woman twisted on the sofa so that she could watch me. She shook her head. “No, I’m not religious at all.”

  I frowned as if the mystery had deepened. “Well, did you have a bad experience with a guy at some point in your life?”

  The woman shook her head. “No.”

  I dropped a handful of ice cubes into the hideous mixture before me and then swallowed the contents of the glass in a single gulp. I winced as the fumes scorched the back of my throat, and I felt my eyes water. I hunched over the counter for a moment and waited until my senses stopped reeling and I felt the first soft glow of a buzz beginning to spread through my body.

  “Well what the hell do you have against sex?”

  Connie stared blankly for a few moments, like maybe she was trying to decide what she had against sex, or maybe like she was trying to decide if she should tell me. I watched her with bright eyes, my interest detached with a clinical kind of fascination. Curiosity made me want to know what made this woman tick.

  “I just happen to think that sex is not something that needs to be – or should be – captured on film and shown to millions of leering men for their seedy pleasure,” she said. “Sex to me can only come through a feeling of love, and a deep emotional need to share your body with another. But for you, Rick Cassidy, for you sex is nothing more than a cheap thrill. You treat the act like it’s a disposable item. You don’t value it,” and then her voice trailed away so that I barely heard her whisper, “and you don’t cherish it.”

  I felt a bemused laugh leap into my throat. I choked it down and shook my head sadly.

  “It’s sex!” I said. “Don’t complicate it. Don’t analyze it. And don’t tarnish it.”

  “Tarnish it?”

  “That’s right,” I pointed an accusing finger. “Sex is pure – it’s an instinctive urge. It’s as old as time itself – the coming together of a man and a woman to fulfill a basic and essential need. At least that’s what it was before society burdened it with words like ‘love’ and the fucking church made the world feel guilty,” I said.

  The woman stared at me, her face blank, but something moved behind her eyes, like a cloud shadowing over a deep green lake.

  “That’s an interesting way of looking at things,” she said cautiously, as if to concede the point somehow made her complicit.

  “That’s how I look at it,” I said. “Sex is raw. Sex is real. Lust is an emotion we all feel. It shouldn’t be demonized, it should be a celebrated part of life.”

  For a moment Connie’s expression became ferocious and her dazzling green eyes snapped with a spark of electricity. She pushed herself off the sofa so that she was standing, facing me. “What about God?” she asked. “What about love and marriage?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe in any of them.”

  She paused for a moment, as though shocked or surprised. She arched an eyebrow and propped one hand on her hip. “Well what do you believe in then? What’s left to believe in?”

  “I told you,” I said. “I believe in sex. It’s the purest expression of who we are as people. Strip away religion and love, and what you have left is the only thing that matters – the only thing that truly inspires the best – and the worst in all of us.”

  Connie smiled but there was no humor in her face. The smile was bleak and merciless. “And what do you represent?” she asked me, becoming intrigued, almost challenging. “The best… or the worst?”

  I hung a confident smile from the corner of my mouth. “Oh, I’m the best,” I assured her, “In the most wicked, erotic way you could ever imagine.”

  Chapter 3.

  Connie sat back down, the tension seeming to gradually seep away from her body. She settled herself on the sofa and when I looked next she had a notepad in her lap and a pen poised ready.

  “So how do you want to do this?” I asked.

  “This?”

  I nodded. “How do you intend on conducting this interview? I mean do you have a list of prepared questions? Is that how you normally get your information and write your stories?”

  Connie hesitated and then inclined her head just a fraction. “Normally…” her voice sounded almost self-conscious.

  “Normally? Are you saying that I’m not a normal interview subject?”

  She shook her head. There was the barest trace of a smile at the corner of her lips. “No,” she said. “What I’m actually trying to say is that in normal circumstances, I would have a list of prepared questions to work from – but as I mentioned earlier, these circumstances aren’t normal.”

  “Meaning you haven’t had time to prepare and do your research, right?”

  She nodded again as if to concede the point somehow diminished her. “That’s right.”

  There was a big leather recliner chair in a corner of the room. I sat down so that we were facing each other, with just an oriental rug on the floor between us. I waved one hand in the air in a casual gesture. “No problem,” I said. “Can’t you just ask me questions today based on what you already know of me, and maybe some of my films you’ve seen? You can always do some research tonight and prepare questions, can’t you?”

  Connie shifted on the sofa with a kind of awkward agitation. I sensed her eyes become restless and remote.

  “There’s a problem with that,” she said softly and I could tell by the tone of her voice that the words were an understatement.

  I leaned forward. “A problem with what, exactly?”

  Connie’s face flushed and she swallowed hard. “I… I wasn’t lying,” she confessed. “I honestly didn’t know who you were before yesterday when I was given this assignment… and I have never watched pornographic films.”

  I blinked in surprise, recoiled so that I slumped dramatically back into the chair.

  “You’ve never watched a porn movie?”

  The woman shook her head vehemently.

  “Not even a glimpse – a scene or two?”

  “No,” she said. “Never.”

  I felt a sudden rush of indignation, my ire rising as I stared across the room and the woman held my gaze with a mixture of defiance and uncertainty. I stood up slowly.

  “You arrive here with your puritanical standards about porn films and sex, and yet you’ve never sat down and tried to understand the thing you protest and complain about?”

  Connie’s eyes darkened. “I don’t need to watch pornography to understand the evil that it causes,” she said defensively. “I don’t need to sit in some seedy back alley theatre filled with depraved old men to know that the industry preys on young girls and manipulates them for nothing more than cheap thrills and sick pleasure.”

  I sensed some mist of rage creep across my eyes – a concoction of alcohol and my own sense of disbelief.

  “You know nothing about me, and you know nothing about the industry. Yet without any information to support you, you are prepared to tarnish the entire industry and paint it with the sam
e broad brush stroke.”

  Connie stood up, shaking her head so that the braid swished across her shoulders like the tail of a big cat. “What about the complaints?” Her voice became adversarial, rising in a challenge. “There are endless complaints leveled at the porn industry, claiming that films such as yours only serve to objectify women – that women are being used in the most demeaning of ways merely for a man’s pleasure?”

  I waved my hand in the air, swatting away the question with weary content.

  “Bullshit,” I said simply. Years ago I would have been more defensive, more impassioned. But after a decade in the industry, I had heard this objection so many times I no longer bothered with a sterner response.

  “The porn industry is diverse and massive,” I said with my jaw clenched. “Aspects of the porn industry appeal to every fetish and fascination men and women have. Some elements of the porn industry focus on graphic acts beyond your imagination, and yet others emphasize the more subtle, gentler sides of sex and intimacy. You cannot put everyone in this industry in one group and label us all as seedy and depraved and demeaning towards women.

  “In my films, I put women on a pedestal,” I said. “I glorify women, not objectify them. I show them at their most passionate and most beautiful. They are the center focus of every scene.”

  “… Performing all matter of sex acts,” Connie cut in.

  I smiled thinly and shook my head. “No. Showing themselves as real women,” I countered. “Showing them at their most vulnerable, their most powerful. Showing them as sexual and sensual – celebrating their femininity.”

  Connie huffed, seeming to bristle with antagonism. I saw words leap into her mouth, but I went on belligerently. “What sets my films apart, and what makes them the high-end is the budget,” I explained. “I spend a lot of money, and it shows on the film. It’s the opulent sets, the beautiful actresses I work with…”

  “But it’s still porn,” the journalist cut across me defiantly.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s still porn – but the films are done tastefully,” I defended myself. “We use two – sometimes three cameras – and everything is filmed in high definition.”

  “Yes,” the woman countered. “But it’s still pornography.”

  I wheeled around on her, suddenly irritated, and it took all of my restraint to keep my voice measured with reason.

  “And the ‘National Enquirer’ is a publication. So are all the glossy porn magazines. So is ‘Infinity’. It’s the quality of the journalism and photos that makes your magazine so successful. The same applies to my films.”

  She glared across the space at me. Electricity seemed to spark in the air between us. I could see her face filled with emotion and the hectic rise and fall of her breasts beneath the white blouse like she was trying to control her breathing and her temper.

  “Okay…” she conceded warily. “But even if I accept that your productions are ‘high end’ porn, what about the other side of the coin? The seedy side of porn? There must be one.”

  “There is,” I said grimly. “Back in the 80’s, every porn film was shot on a set. There were cameramen, make-up people… even fluffers. Each film was staged, and there was more formal dialogue. But then the handheld camera came along, and so did free porn sites on the Internet. Suddenly, everyone was an instant porn filmmaker – and a lot of young girls got seduced and taken advantage of. It has become a generation of almost instant pornography. A guy with a handheld camera can throw a little cash at a desperate, young girl and film her. An hour later he can upload that footage. It’s not tasteful, and the girls are forced to consider more desperate and outrageous acts if they want the work. If they hesitate, it’s always easy to find someone else who is more desperate, or more gullible.”

  “What happens to those desperate gullible girls?”

  I shrugged. “Invariably they get chewed up and spat out,” I said. “They get used, abused and discarded.”

  Connie looked strangely bleak and disturbed. There was a frown of concern on her face.

  “The girls get promised exposure,” I said. “They are told that they are being offered a big break. They get told they are doing an audition tape and that – if they perform well enough – the footage will lead to work within the industry. Often it’s a scam.”

  “I see…” Connie seemed to glance away and become distant, like her focus was elsewhere.

  “After a couple of times, the girls either realize they are being used, or they become even more desperate. And naturally there are plenty of drugs and booze on the scene. A lot of these young desperate girls turn to drinking and drugs in order to perform the outrageous acts the guy behind the camera demands. If they stay sober – or lucid – they would never consider some of the things these guys expect of them. Drugs and booze numb the reality – for a while. Until it’s over.”

  “That’s why your industry has such a vulgar reputation,” Connie said with her face screwed up into an expression of disgust. “Those sleazy opportunists preying on young girls – that’s how everyday people view the world of pornography.”

  “I don’t agree with you,” I said flatly. “While I have to concede that there are too many scam-artists operating in the porn industry, they are the bottom-feeders – that scum at the very lowest levels of the porn industry. But, the porn industry isn’t the only one to have its image blackened by opportunists with no morals.”

  “Is that so?” Connie’s tone was acid.

  “Look,” I said with conviction. “The most common scam these predators run is the one I have already told you about – they set themselves up as fake agents, and they run ads in newspapers seeking young female models for adult work. When these impressionable young girls who are either desperate for cash, or have stars in their eyes meet with the guy, he tells them he has connections with the big studios, and the girl needs to shoot an audition tape,” I said wearily. “Naturally, the girls think this is standard procedure. So the guy gets the girl to undress and puts a camera on her. Ten minutes later the guy makes it clear to the girl that he needs to know that she is capable of performing all manner of sex acts, because he wants to represent her and he needs to assure the studio that the girl knows how to suck and fuck.”

  I wandered around the room, frowning as I walked, gathering my thoughts. “Suddenly the girl is bent over the edge of this predator’s desk with her panties around her ankles and him getting himself off by using her for sex. It’s not nice,” I made the classic understatement, “but it’s what happens. After the girl has been used and humiliated, the guy wants nothing to do with her. He brushes her off with the old line about forwarding the tape to his contacts, and that he will be in touch with her. There might even be a promise of work… if the girl is naïve enough to subject herself to that kind of degradation for a longer audition tape.”

  I stood there for a moment in the middle of the room and then shrugged heavily. “That’s the way it happens,” I said and then my voice regained its bitter edge. “But this is not the only industry, Connie.”

  “You keep saying that,” she challenged.

  I gave her a wintry smile. “Maybe you should look at politics and the sleazy politicians who run this country,” my voice had bite. “Let’s start there, with all the double-dealing, and the corruption that takes place. Let’s look at how many politicians have been caught up in sex scandals. Hell, even presidents aren’t immune…” I let that remark hang in the air for a long moment. “And then you should turn your investigative journalist’s eye towards law enforcement,” my voice cut through the air. “How many cops have been dragged down and disgraced because they abused their power, or because they were corrupted by sex or drugs…?” I stood, like a defense lawyer pleading his case. “Do you really want me to go on?”

  Connie was watching me, compelled by the passion in my voice, and her expression softened just a fraction. “But you’re not one of those guys?”

  “One of the sleazy ones?” I shook my head.


  “You’re not preying on gullible girls who are desperate for exposure and strung out on alcohol or drugs?”

  I shook my head again. Connie sat down suddenly. “So what are you looking for when you’re performing a scene with a woman?” She snatched up her notebook, flicked to a blank page and then peered up at me, pen in hand, with an air of expectation.

  “Apart from a great pair of tits and a killer figure?” I taunted.

  “Yes,” she said dryly.

  I smiled, then became serious. “I’m looking for passion,” I said honestly. “I want a connection between me and the woman – a genuine attraction – and then I want that emotional chemistry to be captured on the screen for viewers to see.”

  “How?”

  “Through the sex… through the woman’s facial expressions. I want her to look hungry, aroused, even a little scared and unsure sometimes.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what emotions they show, so long as they’re real. So long as they’re genuine. The porn industry of the past was full of bad acting and stilted female performers,” I lamented. “The sex, the settings… everything about the porn of twenty years ago seemed fake and fabricated. It is the one benefit that has come about from the handheld camera. Because of it, we’re able to shoot in exciting new locations without the need for truck-loads of production equipment, and we’re able to move more freely around a scene, so that the viewer gets to see the action from angles that were impossible in times past.”

  The woman jotted notes as I talked, then looked up suddenly when I fell silent.

  “But none of that matters if the actresses are still faking, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed. “That’s the real key to my films. I take advantage of the new technology, and combine it with grand settings and actresses who aren’t expected to act – they’re expected to interact.”

  The journalist looked grudgingly impressed by my turn of phrase. She scribbled another note and then flipped the page of the pad resting in her lap.