Absolute Mayhem

by Monica Mayhem

  For any girl, huge cocks can really be a source of pain. Quite a few guys in the industry are hung like horses and some girls seem to love this – usually because they are loose enough to take it – but not me, since I'm very small down there. When I've done a scene that has been particularly painful, I like to use an ice pack between my legs and try not to have sex or touch that area until the next time I have to work or until it stops hurting, whichever comes first.

  Anal sex is a different matter. As you know, I've only ever done one anal scene on-camera. I could have made US$5000 for other anal sex scenes, which was what a lot of directors were offering me, but I thought I was being smart owning my own anal scene. Oh well. The main thing about preparing for anal sex is adjusting your headspace. It helps if you've done it in real life, so that you've tried it before doing it in front of a camera. And you must like it a little bit. Some girls love it (or say they love it) but I'm honest enough to admit that it was really uncomfortable for me.

  Before shooting an anal-sex scene, you need to do an enema beforehand to clean yourself out. Don't eat and definitely drink no coffee and use no laxatives before the shoot – you don't want any messy accidents! And just relax. (Ah, isn't that the hard part?) If the guy doesn't know how to do anal, you're in trouble. They need to ease it in, because there are three layers to penetrate, and once you get past that third layer, it's not so bad. For myself, however, I'd say give me plain and simple vaginal intercourse any time (although there have been a few occasions in my private life, I admit, where I'll have a mood swing while having sex and yell out, 'Put it in my ass!').

  So, while we're still in that area, let me share something with you that you might be wondering about: how do porn stars get their assholes so clean shaven and good looking? The comedian Sarah Silverman wrote an article for the December 1999 issue of Penthouse called 'Thank Heaven for Penthouse Pets' in which she said that the first and foremost reason why she admires them is because 'Penthouse Pets wax their assholes. Right there, you gotta respect that. For that, they deserve the Purple Heart. I don't have the guts to wax my asshole, and neither do you.'

  That's pretty funny, but I'll tell you for the record that I've never waxed my asshole. But I do have my own foolproof method. I do it only when I have to shoot, and it's the most pain-in-the-ass fucking procedure. First of all, you can do it in your bathtub or in the shower, but you must not have the water running on you. You have to squat down and get there from underneath – I'll put one leg up, spread a cheek, bend over and shave, and then do the other side, put the other leg up, bend over and shave. It's really, really difficult and you have to be a contortionist. I'm not into waxing – it's not a good idea to get that area waxed because you might tear something – and I don't know any other way. I think some girls do wax and some girls just don't get hair growing there, so they're just lucky. It's really, really irritating, trying to shave your own asshole – now there's another occupational hazard! It is very easy to nick yourself. That's happened to me, though nothing bad, and it occurred when I was rushing it.

  As for my vagina, I don't like being fully shaved. I like leaving a tiny strip of hair – which we call the 'landing strip'. (When I'm fully shaved, like I have to be on some shoots, I feel like I'm a baby or a 12-year-old.) As I've already confessed, when I first started I didn't really know what I needed to do. I didn't even know that you had to shave around your vaginal lips and everything. But I learned pretty fast that girls don't like it much when they have to work with other girls who are really bushy down there, because of getting all that hair in their mouths. It's unhygienic and doesn't do anything for anyone.

  I shave my vagina every day when I'm shooting, or as oft en as necessary when I'm not. Sometimes, you'll get an uncomfortable rash if you don't shave for a few days. I use a vibrating Gillette Venus. I never cut myself there, and when I shave in the shower it can be quite fun.

  In my line of work, whether you perform anal or not, there's the constant exposure to STDs. I get myself tested every 28 days, and I've always gone through Adult Industry Medical (AIM) Healthcare in Sherman Oaks, the excellent facility started by former porn star Sharon Mitchell and her friend Dr Stephen York. It was founded in 1998 to help sex workers get themselves tested regularly and has two locations in Southern California (in Sherman Oaks and Granada Hills). Sharon herself has a PhD in human sexuality and is very active, both in the medical community and as the industry's de facto spokesperson to the press whenever an AIDS or HIV scare occurs. I've asked my doctor how much it would cost to get my tests done through their clinic every month, and it would be US$350, as opposed to AIM, which charges US$120 per month.

  I readily give praise to AIM for how they handled things with the last big HIV scare, back in April 2004. They put up degrees-of-separation charts, listing the people who directly came into contact with the HIV source, then the people who were at one remove from it, two removes from it, etc., etc. This was the time when the owner of Cherry Boxxx Pictures had me doing only girl–girl scenes, of course, so my risks of getting it were greatly reduced. It was such a scary period, nevertheless. It was due to a guy named Darren James, then a performer for seven years, who had gone to Brazil to shoot and came back infected with the HIV virus. I remember that when I was married to Craven and he once told me he was going to Brazil to shoot, I begged him to use condoms. 'Whatever you do, whoever you fuck, please wear a condom,' I told him, and he just laughed at me. I'd heard that the porn stars over there could get a fake clean test for just US$10.

  Anyway, as the story goes, Darren James shot a bunch of scenes down there for two weeks and came back to LA with his test still current. He then shot a bunch of scenes without getting re-tested – after shooting in a foreign country, which is a big no-no. His test was still only two weeks old, not 28 days yet, and he went ahead and did a gang-bang and a bunch of anal-creampie scenes (when the guy ejaculates inside the girl's ass and the camera captures his sperm oozing out of her) – not knowing that he had already contracted HIV from some Brazilian porn chick.

  Twelve girls were involved with Darren and his circle, and that's how the virus began to spread. Jessica Dee and Lara Roxx were the first to be named among the infected. Jessica, from the Czech Republic, was then 25 years old and, luckily for her, Platinum X co-owner Jewel De'Nyle then hired her as a director so she could work behind the camera instead. Lara, from Montreal, Canada, was only 21 years old at the time and had been working in porn for just three months. She moved back to Montreal shortly after the outbreak and said in an interview on Entertainment Tonight that she had regrets about her short stay in porn. 'I was just pretending to be happy about it,' she reflected. 'I thought US$2000 a day sounded attractive. I expected that I could go sleep with whoever I wanted and I thought that the actresses ruled.' Now, she was afraid of 'dying too early, too soon, too young'.

  I remember feeling terrified – because a lot of my friends and some guys that I had always preferred to work with were on those long HIV-generation lists, which went on and on and made everyone paranoid. It felt so surreal, like the end of the world. There were so many obvious questions being asked, like 'How could this have happened?' and 'How can we prevent this from happening in the future?', and I really felt like quitting the business at that point.

  The mainstream press, of course, got great mileage out of it. The New York Times ran a piece on 17 April 2004 with the headline 'HIV Case Shuts Down Pornographic Film Industry', documenting how an entire industry that churned out 4000 films a year had to stop working for 60 days so that performers could be tested. Sharon Mitchell then wrote an op-ed piece in the same paper on 2 May 2004, noting that

  each month we give about 1200 actors a test that can identify HIV as early as 14 days after infection. We also test for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis . . . In 80,000 tests my organization has conducted since 1998, there have only been 14 diagnoses of HIV infection. We're doing an excellent job.

  Across the pond, Arena magazine in the UK did a p
iece about the whole fiasco in its August 2004 issue, quoting Jill Kelly as saying, 'Anyone who continues to shoot at this point is a complete idiot,' because while the entire American adult-film industry was shut down for a whole month, certain idiots were indeed still shooting porn. The piece, written by Justin Quirk, ended with a quote from Lara Roxx, sounding very bitter:

  We should think about these issues right now, to change stuff around to make this a safer fuckin' business. It isn't a safe business and I thought it was. I knew double anal [two penises together in the one anus] was dangerous, really, but I was putting it way back in my mind because I was down in California to make the maximum amount of money, to come back home wealthy. I had plans for the money.

  Lara had to borrow the money to return to Montreal. 'After I paid them back for my plane ticket,' she said, 'I spent all my remaining money from that scene. On doctors.'

  The poor girl. None of my actual friends ended up infected, though I did know Jessica Dee, but only briefly because we did one movie together – back in 2001, when Stoney Curtis directed both of us in Fast Times at Deep Crack High, Volume 3, in which we did a three-way with Mr Marcus, one of my very few interracial sex scenes. Jessica and I appeared together on the box-cover and we shared top billing in the credits. She was so sweet, and was terribly unfortunate to have been one of the girls who did anal cream-pie with Darren James.

  Things eventually went back to normal, and the quarantine on performers and the moratorium on production both ended in early May 2004 – a month earlier than expected – after all the suspended talent was repeatedly tested and then cleared to return to work. I broke up with my boyfriend and started shooting scenes with guys again. Still, it was a serious wake-up call.

  I have been afraid since then, so I like to see official test results before a scene. If I don't know the guy, I like to see his test and ID, so that I'm sure it's really him. If the test is not from AIM or I can't call for a result, then I won't work with the guy.

  Saying that, having a 'current test' sometimes doesn't mean shit, as I've caught things from people whose clean results were 'current' (as, indeed, Darren James's were). You could have fucked someone two days ago and caught something without knowing it. So, I've had sexually transmitted diseases and not recognised the symptoms, or not had any symptoms at all. We should get re-tested if we think anything is wrong at all (such as different smells, different-coloured discharges or abdominal pains).

  Every month now, I get stressed out when I go for a test. Although I am now aware of pretty much all the symptoms, having caught chlamydia and gonorrhoea in the past, you never know if you've been infected again or not. If you have shoots booked, then you're screwed, because it takes a week for the medication to work, which also fucks up your insides. I know that I may never be able to have children because of my past STDs (not that I've ever considered becoming a mother – and I've never had a pregnancy scare, thank God – but it's not nice to think you don't have the option), and I get panic attacks all the time, possibly due to some of the medications I've taken.

  What pisses me off the most is when I'll only have one or two shoots in a given month and I'll catch something from that one shoot. Off -camera, I use condoms, so I know it's from the shoot. It really sucks big-time when you're only working one or two days and you lose a week of work because of that. This has happened to me more than once, and the reality of what we girls do is that you never know when the next time will be. I mean, why do we do such crazy things, some people outside the industry must ask, to make a living?

  These days, most people tend to skip the opening disclaimer that runs just before an adult movie, which reads:

  The sexual situations in the following adult feature are shown for entertainment and informational purposes. We highly recommend that individuals follow the surgeon general's accepted guidelines for safe sex, which are monogamy and/or abstinence, or at a minimum the use of a condom combined with a selective choice of sexual partners. We hope that you find the following feature an enjoyable stimulation to your adult practice of safe sex. Thank you.

  I like the 'selective choice of sexual partners' bit – highly ironic, given that we performers seldom get to choose our on-screen partners. We usually work with whoever happens to be cast for that particular movie. There have been times where I deliberately haven't asked who I'm working with because I want to be surprised when I get there and also trust my agent's judgement.

  Now, when I do find out ahead of time and then decide not to have sex with that person, that's a different matter. All of us have a 'wish list' of preferred performers, and sometimes the director will indulge us, but it doesn't always happen. I used to always choose whom I worked with but, somewhere along the line, things changed. It became the directors who would exercise their choices in terms of guys they liked to use, and that was that. And as far as 'safe sex' goes, most people outside the business have no clue what we have to deal with. At present, every company refuses to shoot with condoms except for Wicked Pictures, and the general reasoning behind this is somewhat lame – they claim that it decreases sales.

  I think that's totally absurd. If these guys are right, it means that the fans are bitching about seeing condoms in our scenes, which would say to me that they don't give a fuck about our health – all they care about is their fantasy, which supposedly gets ruined when we're shown using condoms! Now, I know this can't be true of all porn fans, so I think the companies are using it as an excuse. I even know of one director who actually said, 'If you don't want to have sex without condoms, then you shouldn't be a porn star!' – the ultimate in selfishness, in my opinion. It's not even written in the law that we have to get tested every 28 days – that's just a porn insiders' rule. Things would be a whole lot more dangerous for us if not for Sharon Mitchell.

  If you ask me, the good folks in the United States government don't care either – they just want to make sure they earn their share in taxes and that we're not underage or illegal immigrants, hence the 18 USC 2257 Act, which requires the companies to declare on the DVD box-covers that 'all performers depicted in this work were 18 years or older at the time of production'. The whole Traci Lords incident got everyone running scared about using underaged performers, for sure, but there's a whole lot more than meets the eye here. (In case you don't know, back in 1986 porn star Traci Lords was busted for performing as an underaged teenager who'd lied about her age and used fake IDs.) The government basically lets the adult-entertainment industry regulate itself to a degree that isn't always healthy for the people employed, most of whom can barely regulate their own lives. So, it's a case of the blind leading the blind (or rather the blonde leading the blonde, so to speak, not that all of us blondes are stupid).

  There are also occupational hazards specifically for the guys in the industry. It can be frustrating for both of us when they have problems keeping it hard, but I understand and will do all I can to help. But some guys just get so intimidated that they can't do it at all! I've had that problem a few times in the past, usually with new guys who think they can make it in the business but get on set and totally lose it.

  On one shoot, I arrived to discover it was a boy–girl scene, with a guy I already knew – he was a director himself and used to book me for his own shoots. I knew he was a big fan of mine and was intimidated by me – so he was very nervous about having sex with me! It was hilarious. He had to keep leaving the room to get hard, because he said looking at me was already too much for him to handle! He smoked some weed, did a few shots of bourbon and tried to calm himself down, but nothing would work. Eventually, I gave him some Xanax and that kind of calmed his nerves. I also had to keep reassuring him he was okay – I kept telling him how big his cock was, how good it felt – which helped a little, except he kept wanting to cum after, like, every three strokes!

  So we had to cut every ten minutes, for him to pull himself together in the next room for another five minutes. Then he'd come back hard and we'd start fucking again. And then he
would get the shakes and he had to go and calm himself down again! We got it done, eventually, though that went on and on for a few hours, and all for a 35-minute scene. Poor guy, he may be permanently traumatised now, with performanceanxiety issues, all because of me!

  It's a huge mind-fuck for a guy, when everyone is counting on you, waiting for you to perform. Time is money! And here's where we come to the occupational hazard. The latest trend for those who prefer not to pop Viagra pills is caver-jacking (also called CAVR), which enables a guy to stay erect for long periods by injecting a liquid into the shaft of his penis. It's definitely not for the timid, jamming a hypodermic needle into your cock. Most of the guys don't like to admit to it, but everybody knows it goes on. A lot of guys won't admit to taking any sort of drug to help them get hard, but it's pretty obvious when they are rock-hard long before the scene. The guy will then usually stay hard for hours, even after cumming, which must get painful.

  Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of male performers who have no trouble getting it hard on their own; it's just that some guys need a little help. The thing that scares me, though, is that by inserting a needle into your cock you leave an open wound – which can be an easy way to contract HIV.

  My mantra for all the tricky dilemmas of acting in porn is therefore this: health before wealth.

  Chapter Nine

  BEYOND THE

  MONEY

  So why do some of us girls feel the need to have sex on camera with random guys – and it is a need for some of us, beyond the money, beyond the novelty, beyond the possible lack of alternatives? What's wrong with this picture? Why would you need sex so badly, or need to look good having on-camera sex so badly, that you're willing to be branded as a porn star for the rest of your life and have it colouring everything you do whether you like it or not?

  This relates to the 'lost girl' scenario that some writers have noted, the theory that all porn stars are looking for some kind of transcendence, in the same way that young girls who go with older men are seeking out potential father figures or the way nymphomaniacs crave sex as a substitute for love or warmth or shelter. If you ask me, being a porn star is a way of using sex to cauterise our emotional wounds. It is sexual expression as a form of self-actualisation, in order to elevate your own self-worth.