I played some weird games with girlfriends.
We were just...
and I didn't know that was sexual.
I didn't know what sex was, to be honest.
We had five weeks of sex education at private school,
and at the end of it,
I still didn't know I had a vagina.
He was in a punk rock band
and I had the biggest crush on him.
I was with him, like, off and on
for two or three years.
I thought he was the greatest thing in the world.
I kept asking him to marry me.
I look back and I go, what the heck, you know?
Like, I was 15 years old.
Like, what was I thinking about marriage already for?
I've been doing it since I was 13.
I didn't know how sex really happened.
I only saw, like, Blue Lagoon
and I saw them, like, get on top of each other.
So when I had my boyfriend
and he tried to have sex with me,
and I was, like, you're doing it wrong.
And he's, like, how do you think people have sex?
And I was, like,
you just get on top of me and rub like that.
He goes, no, it goes inside.
And I was like, no, it hurts.
And he said, okay, turn over
and we just did anal for, like, a year and a half.
d Are we under attack
d In this zone?
d Tell me your name
d Is it for fame?
d Are we under attack
d In this zone?
d Tell me your name
d Visual frame
d Are we under attack
d In this zone?
This is not a story about pornography.
This is a story about women,
their dreams, their desires, and their lives.
I had an idea for my third fine-art book
to take images of the most sexualized women on the planet
and portray them in a totally different light,
strip away the porn-star mask,
allowing for their true essence to shine through,
as the exaggerated image of a porn star
has stuck with us for so long.
As an artist, I felt the need
to change the way we view these women visually,
yet I was unaware
of the bigger picture that would unfold.
I called my friend Mike Moz,
a veteran in the adult entertainment world,
and asked him to put together
a group of some of the most successful names
in the business.
Yet I soon realized that many people around me
started to ask why would I immerse myself
in the world of pornography,
which is still perceived by so many
that know nothing about the business as taboo.
It was this reaction that opened my eyes,
taking this project to a whole new level,
raising many questions in my mind
as to why porn stars
are looked down upon in our society,
yet we watch their movies for our own sexual pleasure,
and the fact that we use sex
as our ultimate power tool in many areas of our lives.
So I took on a house in the Hollywood Hills
and brought my creative team together,
invited 16 women currently in the business
to pose for my art book
whilst filming the making of the process
for a documentary,
and from this Aroused was born.
During the three hours I was going to spend with each girl,
I planned to ask questions about their lives,
creating a platform for their voices to be heard.
So here we are preparing to meet
some of the most successful women
in the business of sex.
It's easy money, but is it easy being naked
and having sex with someone you don't know?
At first, no,
it wasn't. I'm sure.
It wasn't. I was very timid.
I didn't really move my body.
You could tell I was a little...
if you see some of my earlier scenes
and you do some research on Misty Stone...
Yeah, right? Can't wait.
Which I'll wait until after,
because I wanted to meet the person.
Oh, I dig it.
I don't want to meet the porn star.
And if I'd known and seen the work before,
I wouldn't... couldn't look at you in the same light as this.
I feel like this is a very innocent place
for me to be sitting.
No matter who I meet,
I feel like that blank canvas to me is...
because then it's a genuine I-want-to-get-to-know-you.
It's after that I can see your work
and then go, wow, so she said this and she's done this.
And I think that's when the story unfolds
in a different head space for me.
Oh, my goodness, she's so awesome.
Wow, I love that. But it's the truth.
Mike's bringing... sent me some Wikipedia
so I know who you are, of course.
I'm not used to this treatment
because, honestly, we get treated so differently
because of what we do, you know what I mean?
So you wanting to really get to know me?
Oh, my goodness, do you know how that makes me feel?
Amazing. Thank you.
Really? Yes.
My first tattoo is my mom's signature
of her first and middle name.
She is my best friend.
We both died in my childbirth and were revived.
I mean, we've been through everything together.
My mom and I talk about everything.
When I was 13 years old, to push her buttons,
I said, Mom, what would you do if I became a stripper?
She said, well, if you're gonna do it,
make sure that you dance in a city
where you'll make a lot of money
so that your time is worth it.
I looked a lot different in school.
I was very...
I was very Puerto Rican. Really?
I had long, burgundy, scrunched-up gelled hair,
glued-down bangs and big loop earrings
and big bubble jackets and, like, 18 pairs of Nikes
and Taylors and stuff.
And then I just changed, you know.
I left school very young to go to beauty school.
I was always, I would say,
growing up, I was a daddy's girl.
I always was with my dad, but as I got older,
I feel like... 'cause my parents got divorced,
so I lived with my mom,
so I felt like I was forced into a relationship with my mother
if I wanted to have a social life.
I come from a really big family.
There's eight kids.
And I do remember my dad was very...
You know, he was a bishop and he was in the Air Force,
and so he was always gone.
He had too much to do,
and so, like, there's always been
this huge desire for attention in me.
I moved, like, 55 times as a kid.
Shut up. Swear, yeah.
That's, like, when I stopped counting.
My parents divorced when I was young,
so I didn't grow up...
I had my stepdad, but...
Right, but not with your dad.
No, mm-mm.
Didn't see him or just...
No, mm-mm.
Out of the loop. Mm-hmm.
Still out of the loop?
Prefer not to see him.
I make a choice, a valiant choice
not to participate in seeing him.
My mom was taking care of my brothers and sisters,
but because my mom had me when she was 15 years old,
my grandparents had always raised me.
My grandpa was always my dad,
and so it was actually...
now that I look back on it as an adult,
I really... I cherish that they were there
to take care of me, you know,
because my mom was so young that, who knows, you know.
With young parents, you just never know.
I moved in with my dad for a couple of years.
It was a very turbulent situation.
When I turned 16,
he kicked me out and that was that.
And we didn't talk again until just a month ago.
23 years of my life, we didn't talk.
I would go to school with a full face of makeup
and, like, my hair, like, flat-ironed.
And the teachers are, like,
"Why don't you go wash it off?"
And I didn't get it, you know.
I thought it was embarrassing
to be seen without a full face of makeup.
Literally at, like, 10 years old,
I thought I was a little woman
because I was kind of, within our little family,
grasping to try to assume
this, like, adult, maternal role, you know,
because it just wasn't there.
My family was raised... half was reform
and half was Catholic.
And then personally I was raised nondenominational
and then I married a preacher when I was 18
who was missionary Baptist.
So that is how religious my background is.
I used to, like, teach vacation Bible school to the kids
and Sunday school and all those wonderful things
that I still truly totally believe in.
I haven't lost my religion. I still believe in God
and I still have the things that I, you know, relate to
as far as religion goes.
And for me, I still think that no matter who God is
or what God you believe in or what you want to think,
you should still be able to live your life
the way you think is best humanly possible.
I went to private Christian school.
I mean, I was no stranger to the Bible.
I've read it inside and out.
Like, I remember I had to memorize a new verse
every single day and recite it.
I was schooled in the religious way.
I was at that church six days a week.
There'd be two services.
There'd be Sunday school, then church on Sundays.
Monday through Friday, I'm in school
and then I'm in daycare till my mom gets off work,
which is Christian daycare.
Missionettes on Wednesday,
which is like Christian Girl Scouts.
And then Saturday occasionally I'd get drug in
'cause my mom had choir practice.
So I lived at that church.
And even then, I remember I would sit in class
and they would say something
and it just wouldn't make sense.
They would say something that defied logic
even to a third-grader.
And, um... so I just...
I didn't feel any guilt about sex
by the time it got down to that.
Church was, like, forced. You know what I mean?
When I was really, really young, I was all about it.
I loved going to Sunday school
and, you know, things like that.
I was, like, sort of the preacher's pet,
I guess you could say.
That sounds kind of sexual. It wasn't at all.
Just that I was, like, you know,
the shining little star in the bunch
and had all of Genesis memorized
by my fourth birthday, you know.
But then one day, I just woke up
and I realized that it's just a story,
at least in my opinion.
I respect any and all religions
as long as, you know, they're about, you know,
the greater good of all.
You know what I mean?
But for me, I just kind of came to look at religion
as, like, a placebo that people need
to get them through dark moments
and to sort of guide their ships.
But I just kind of went renegade
and decided I didn't want any of those things, you know.
You know who I love? Deepak Chopra.
First time I went to one of his seminars,
I hate to tell you, it changed my life.
Changed my life.
Just how he says, you know,
think about loading all these things into your suitcases
and how heavy it's gonna get
and all those little things that just...
Yeah, you know what? You're right.
Made a difference. Let it go.
Do you have a strong religious connection at all?
Mm-mm, no.
My mom's Catholic, you know.
I was baptized Catholic, but, no, we didn't really...
You know, we had a pretty...
I pretty much was able to do whatever I wanted,
which is probably why I'm here.
I just was very naive and didn't really, like...
I grew up being scared to say what I really felt.
You know, I think my mom's intentions were good,
but she really raised us kids
to kind of suppress that.
You know, like, don't speak up kinda.
And that kind of hurt me in a lot of ways.
Growing up, it was, like, man, you know...
Being 30 years old now,
I'm finally being able to go, okay,
I can say this and it's okay,
and I'm not gonna, like, get hurt
and these people aren't gonna be angry at me, you know.
It was a lot of work to be able to do that.
But I think one of the reasons
that's it's so common
for girls in adult not to have fathers in the home
is not really because they're damaged,
but because there's not someone there to disappoint.
I mean, it's one thing
to disappoint your mom like that.
It's another to disappoint your dad.
And if you don't have a dad to disappoint,
that barrier is not there.
And so lots of people, especially now,
are children of divorce
and one-parent homes and everything, but it's just...
I find with adult that it's always
just a matter of how many barriers were there,
because there are barriers.
It's a social no-no. It's taboo.
So if it's a child coming in from foster care,
they have no one to disappoint.
If it's a child coming in from one parent,
especially the mom,
they don't have a dad to disappoint.
If it's a child... you know... And they're not fucked up.
They don't have to worry about that responsibility.
If it's a child who moved around a lot,
they don't have the roots in the community
that they can disappoint.
And so the less grounded you are
into a community and a family,
the easier it is to go off and do things
that go against that.
Listening to these stories,
I also wanted a different perspective,
so I approached an agent
and veteran of the adult industry.
People who don't know our industry will say,
well, surely they wanted to be a Hollywood actress.
No, they didn't.
They're not failed actresses.
They've been promiscuous all their lives
and when they reach 18, you know what?
I'm giving it away for free.
I might as well do it on camera.
They don't think, well, in the future
it might hinder a normal relationship
or it will be difficult to raise children
knowing that one day that's gonna come up.
We want 18-year-olds because they're fresh,
because they have tight bodies,
and because that's what a lot of guys who jerk off
want to jerk off to.
They don't want to jerk off
to a woman that looks like their wife
even if their wife is beautiful.
So the first three years,
if they work from 18 to 21,
none of them are smart.
I don't care who they are.
They're gonna blow through $150,000, $250,000.
So for that, I would like them...
spend 18 to 21, get some education.
See if this is really what you want to do
because you will have a scarlet letter on you.
You will.
The more time I spent getting to know these women,
the more I kept thinking about
the changes in the world we live in
regarding our views on sex.
We frown upon these women in the sex industry
who are making films to fulfill the ever-growing demand.
Yet if there was no need for porn,
these women would be choosing
a completely different life path.
Sex is everywhere
and right in front of our noses on a daily basis,
somewhat distorting its sensuous roots.
One can see advertising up on giant billboards
trying to sell a product,
yet the subliminal message
depicts some sort of sexual innuendo
stating that sex holds the power and without it,
this product holds no value to you.
From the media with its mainstream publications
to the high-art intellectual magazines
that sell across the globe...
reality TV shows that stream uncensored
live on the Internet all day, every day...
to the pop icons we so love and adore
who use their sexuality
to pull you into their extraordinary world...
ultimately, sex sells.
Yet why are we so willing to let sex be the indicator
as to whether something tastes better,
runs faster,
or makes you look and smell more attractive?
The lines are blurring
between the messages we are sending out into the world.
Whether you think sex is the root of all evil
or the thing that connects you to God,
everyone is partaking in a sacred ritual.
So ultimately, how far are we willing to go
to forget the true power of who we really are
as we are letting go of our innate sensuality
for our obsession with sexuality?
When I first came into the business,
I couldn't say the word blowjob.
Forget throat fuck and fisting.
And after about three months of working...
I don't know if you know him...
Clive McLean is his name.
He shot for Hustler for 29 years before he died.
And they have a beautiful ranch in Sunland,
and, okay, I've become adjusted to the porn life,
and after three months, I went up there
and I said, put the kettle on.
I need to chat to you.
I said because, morally,
I don't think women should sell themselves for sex.
I said, so if I don't believe
what they're doing is moral, what sort of person am I?
I'm getting a paycheck off of their pussies.
It makes me worse.
Someone's gonna do your job, Fran,
and there's always gonna be people like you.
And they can either choose
to have someone that doesn't give a shit about them
or someone like you
who might actually care about them.
I never believed I would actually do it, you know.
It's one of those things
where I think the greatest reservation
lies in people discovering you
and treating you differently
because of what you do, you know.
And I was always petrified of that.
I knew that there was a lot of money to be made,
and so that was the motivation.
Anyone who tells you it isn't is full of shit.
An agent approached me
and said we'd like to bring you out to California.
We see that you do some... We see that you do nude work,
and all you would be doing is Playbolevel.
And so on my first shoot when they said, "Okay,
now we're gonna film," I go, "Film what?"
And they said, "Your solo scene."
And I said, "Of course it's solo, but what are we filming?"
They go, "Your masturbation scene."
I go, "I hate to admit this
"and you're not gonna believe me,
but I've never masturbated in my life."
And they go, "Well, how is that possible?"
I go, "I always had somebody to do it for me."
But I sat there just deer-in-the-headlights
and I said, "So how much am I getting paid for the day?"
And they told me and my jaw dropped
because not only was that the biggest paycheck
I'd ever gotten in one day,
that's the biggest check I'd ever gotten in my life.
I get paid to have sex.
Like, why doesn't everybody do that?
We do it for free all the time.
If you can make money, why not?
I remember going online to find an agent
because I wanted to do nude modeling.
And when I went there,
I went in, took my Polaroid, of course.
And when I walked out,
I guess I didn't really pay attention
to what was hanging on the walls.
And it was a hardcore adult company.
And I was, like,
well, that's not, you know, what I signed up for.
I was just trying to do, you know,
nude modeling like Penthouse style stuff.
And the owner of the company
and one of the directors loved me so much,
they were, like, please, please, please do this.
He was, like, we'll pay you a better amount...
you know, we'll pay you this amount of money,
which was better than any other girl
was getting at that moment.
And they said if I didn't feel comfortable,
if I didn't like it,
I didn't have to sign the model release
and they'll still pay me.
So giving me that freedom to choose
whether I like it or not during it,
not a lot of people
get that first experience in the business.
So elongate a female performer's career.
The idea is you come in,
you start off doing girl-girl and solos
until you're comfortable
being in front of the camera.
Then you'll introduce a boy.
Then after six months of that,
you'll be seen on camera with two boys.
Keep it stretched out.
Don't give your fans
and the public and the porn world
all of your body all at once
because if you're 18 and you do that,
you won't see past 24
because you would have done everything.
Smart women that you've met
that are in their later thirties,
they've done it the right way.
They've held off.
Sure, we'll give it to you,
but you're gonna have to wait for it.
And then the fans have got it.
I was in New York
and I was dancing at one of the clubs there.
And I just woke up one morning
and I was, like, I'm just sick of this lifestyle.
Like, I'm out till 5, 6 A.M.
I sleep until 5, 6 P.M.
I get up, I go blow some money,
and then I go to work and I do it again.
You know, it was just like this vicious cycle,
and I was drinking a lot.
And I didn't necessarily think that adult
would be, like, my saving grace, you know.
I just thought it was something else that I could do.
If I didn't experience this firsthand,
I wouldn't believe it.
But I am actually more together and stable
than I've ever been in my whole life, you know.
Financially,
you know, as far as having a little home
and just trying to just build a life.
And I know it sounds... again, it sounds insane, you know,
that I found my stability in porn.
It just doesn't sound like it makes sense,
but that's what I did.
Because in a sense they're becoming younger and younger,
I feel, in their interest in sex,
because it's all on the Internet.
You can download it, you can get to it quicker.
Do you find there's a lot of 18-year-olds coming to you?
Like, literally, you're, like, let me see your passport?
They walk in, that's all they know.
They don't know anything else.
They just know they can fuck,
they like the attention.
Do you think a lot of these girls are sex addicts?
Um...
No. I think they're more attention addicts.
When stripping and porn came into the picture,
it was, like, wow, like, a lot of attention.
And also the attention of feeling sexy,
because I didn't get that kind of attention
growing up either.
I was not that girl, you know.
Like, people wouldn't look at me
and, like, want to date me.
So it was, like, ooh, I felt sexy, too, you know?
But I don't know where that came from.
I really... I'd love to know.
Well, it turns on the switch.
When you know that you're having a gap.
My dad traveled at times. I get it.
That switch turns and you're, like, oh, wait,
but I can get it from here and this makes me feel good.
Because I think we all want to be loved
on a very, you know, profound level.
You have a child, so you know that.
You know you need to feed her
to make her feel that she is really cared about.
So kind of it's that.
When you moved into stripping,
was it with intention to go into porn or was it just...
Not at all. Like, not at all.
The same girlfriend
that got me hooked up in the bachelor parties,
we hadn't been hanging out all the time.
I randomly got a call from her.
She's in L.A. doing porn
and she's with an agent who will give her 100 bucks
if she would, you know, scout girls for him.
So she was, like, hey,
you want to come out and try this?
And that's how it happened.
I was on the plane the next day and...
I started stripping when I was 15 years old.
I think back then, 'cause I was really young,
I probably liked attention, you know.
I liked attention.
I really wasn't thinking about the money.
But I had won a dance contest in Hollywood.
I used to hang around Hollywood a lot
and I knew everybody back then,
so I would get in all the clubs.
And I met a guy there who was, like,
"I know how you can make a lot of money."
And I was, like, really? How?
He's, like, my friend owns a bachelor party company.
And I said, but I'm not of age, you know.
I'm only 15.
He's, like, oh, it's okay, they won't ask for ID.
And so I started stripping at bachelor parties
when I was young.
I like to have sex.
I mean, when I was younger, yeah, I was probably...
I'd look back now
and probably say silly girl, silly young girl.
I was never afraid of sex.
So it was just like, okay,
so people are gonna get to see me having sex
and people are gonna get to see me naked.
And I figured that,
after I'd done the first, like, time on the camera,
I was either gonna love it or hate it.
You know, and if I didn't like it,
I knew I could just walk away.
My family, they're very judgmental
and they kind of made it seem like, oh, really?
So this is what you're gonna do?
So what are you getting paid?
Who are you? I don't see you on TV.
You know, so it became, like, okay,
so if you're gonna do it,
then you need to be the best at it.
And I thrived on that and I became the best at it
and I just kept growing and growing and growing.
And I'm still not exactly
where I want to be in this industry,
but, yeah, family had a whole lot to do with that.
Mom has always been supportive.
I love you, baby.
But, you know,
my family made it kind of hard at first.
But now that I am where I am, oh, my goodness,
the support that I have from them is amazing.
My dad's in the Air Force
and then my mom just, you know,
she does different things, secretary,
she's worked at a bank.
And I lived in Oklahoma,
like I said, the only state you can't buy porn.
There's just no easy way to do it.
There's no way to tell them. You can't hide it.
Somebody's gonna see it.
And there's no softening the fact
that you tell your parents, "Hey, I'm doing porn." No.
They knew I was always in trouble, you know.
But I actually lost my virginity
with my first husband.
So I actually wasn't, like, messing around.
Like, I was always sexual...
But not promiscuous.
I didn't lose my virginity until I was 17.
I came home and I said, "Mom, Dad,
I'm moving to L.A."
And they're, like, what? Why?
Because it came out of nowhere.
It wasn't, like, oh, I was thinking about doing this.
They're, like, "Why are you moving to L.A.?"
I was, like, "To do porn."
My dad called me every name in the book.
"What the fuck? Oh, my God!"
My mom was just like a deer in the headlights.
The only porno that I ever saw
that I came across,
my parents made a home video,
which was quite disturbing.
Yeah, I know. I was being nosy
in my parents' closet with my stepsister
and we came across some videos
and we put it in not knowing what it was.
And, yeah, not sexy, so I turned it off
and screamed and was scarred for life.
My father still doesn't know I ever watched it
or ever saw it.
When I finally started getting recognized,
I was, like, okay, I'm a porn star.
Now let's do this.
Because, like, what I discussed with them earlier, it did...
It got to a point where it was, like, okay,
if I'm gonna do this,
I'm gonna be the best I can be
and maybe try and be the best there can be
or is or ever was.
I wanted, at that point,
knew, like, okay, now this is my career.
Now I'm not just gonna do it half-assed.
I'm gonna do it all the way.
So I want to rise to the top. Of course.
About three months in, I was gonna stay.
But when I really, actually started doing porn,
I didn't feel like I was doing porn.
And then again, I wasn't raised even watching porn
or knowing what porn is.
So my mind didn't wrap around,
like, this was porn, you know,
because my parents never hid me from it.
It was never in my house, it was never around.
It wasn't something we talked about.
I was raised very religious,
so my mind didn't think of it as something bad either.
I just didn't know what it was.
I wasn't forced to do anything I didn't want to.
Nobody ruined my life.
It was a decision that for the rest of my life
I'm gonna have to deal with someone questioning me
because I did do, you know, an adult film and whatnot.
But at the end of the day, I did it because I wanted to
and I feel confident enough to, you know,
take responsibility for my own actions.
Do you think you can have this career as an adult star
and be able to have an impact
beyond the sex?
You know, what happened was
the second that I started doing scenes...
like, when I went in,
because it was so easy for me
to take one look at the girls at the convention
before I signed and see it for what it was,
I assumed that anyone who was given a glimmer
could see it for what it was.
So I didn't think that the prejudices
would be hard ones to break down.
And then I remember it wasn't people who knew me
who were telling me, oh, you've made a big mistake
and, oh, you're never gonna amount to anything now,
you've ruined your life.
It was strangers. And I remember at first
I was like, ha-ha, you're funny, that's so ignorant.
And then it was a growing voice
as I got a growing name.
There were more people who want to tell you
"You're too pretty for this, you're too this for that."
I'm, like, what do you mean?
That makes no sense to be "too pretty" for porn.
I mean, they want pretty.
I mean, they don't... How can you be...
It's like saying you're too good of an actress
to be an actress. It's stupid.
I immediately started in this business when I was 18,
so I was still very much a baby
and hadn't fully developed.
My mom got implants when I was in school.
I saw the transformation of her,
how she felt more womanly.
And when I signed my contract, they're, like,
have you ever thought of getting implants?
I was, like, I've always wanted them.
So they're, like, okay, then we will manage you
and, you know, take you to the right people
so we can get it done right.
So I was happy
that they guided me in the right position
and that I had a company that stood behind me
even at such a young age.
I never thought I'd be a porn star.
I was gonna be a weather girl.
I did, and I even had a full ride
to O.U. for meteorology school.
So I was actually gonna be a weather girl.
I was into sex, and even at 18,
like most girls that get in.
I was, like, oh, I could do porn.
But I didn't want to, I was like, no,
'cause what if I do it and then I regret it
or I don't like it?
You thought about that?
I did, I did, and I waited until I was 22.
Is there a lot of people in the industry whacked out?
The girls especially?
Like any industry, by the way.
I know, you know, with the modeling industry,
the various industries that I've been in, of course,
and the entertainment industry,
drugs are prevalent. It's there.
I know a lot of the girls were explaining
how they've had sex with other girls
or girls come onto the set
and in the bathroom every five minutes.
And none of them will say anything.
None of them seem to want to get involved.
And it kind of breaks my heart
that they just want to get the job done,
that nobody's...
Well, they're taking drugs on set
because they're not happy about what they're doing.
They're taking drugs on set
because they see a guy with a cock like this.
They know that's not going anywhere without a Vicodin.
I'm blessed. I have a normal home life.
I have a husband, I have a kid.
I have friends that keep me in check.
I do like some of the porn girls very much.
They are great company.
I have a lot of fun with them,
a lot in common.
And I will bring them to my house.
Do you think these girls have lost a sense
of who they really are as women
when they come into that office?
Yes. Not as women, but they become
the person they are on the screen.
They lose a sense of themselves.
Do you think they're leaving their soul at the door
when they walk in or do you think...
I think every time
someone does a scene in front of a camera
that a tiny bit of their soul disappears.
So I think as fast as the money they might make,
I think they will need to spend half of that on therapy.
"Why I did it in the first place."
Over the past several years,
I've been fortunate enough to photograph
some of the most successful people
in the entertainment industry,
and I'm no stranger
to creating thought-provoking imagery:
From artwork for Grammy-nominated artists
or exploring what happens
behind the closed doors of a hotel
in the art photograph book Room 23...
to shooting beautiful women for erotic stories in Paris.
This was for my first fine-art book, Paper Thin.
Yet one of my dreams was to shoot for Playboy
because of its iconic imagery of the past,
and my dream was realized
when they gave me their cover story with Lisa Rinna,
a woman very much in touch with her body.
Yet having the most sexualized women in bed just for me
was daunting, as I felt that capturing their sensuality
may not be as easy as one would think.
Okay, so what we're gonna do
is we're gonna have you on the bed,
take your robe off,
and have you lie in the center of the bed.
Keep moving around the space
and I'm gonna move around you.
And your lights are here,
so you're gonna play to the light.
If you move your face away from it
and you feel darkness, you will be in dark.
The hardest thing for me
is pulling the sexy out of the girl
and have them really get in touch with their sensual.
You need to soften the eyes
so that you show a vulnerable side of yourself.
I think that's a very hard thing to do
because somehow your guard has to go down
in order to allow that to come through.
But I know that that's really the essence
of what these images are all about
is trying to find the you behind the porn star.
d So you call me
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause you want it
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause I need it
d I keep looking back
d Come on, feed it
d I keep looking back
d ' Cause I found it
d I keep looking back
d I can tease it
d I keep looking back for love d
The hardest thing I find
is to take yourself out of where you are,
the lights, the people, the whole thing.
So if you can put yourself in that place
and just run with it or just connect with me
and just be in that space,
then it becomes a bit more of a dance.
And I think, for me, modeling
or being in front of the camera is a dance.
It's knowing it's not easy,
but when you get it down...
And it's a silent focus.
You can just get in that zone and nothing fazes you.
Nothing. It's a softening of the eyes.
It's the letting go.
More like you've never seen something before.
That, I think, evokes
more of an innate connection to yourself.
d That's the time I'm home d
Not too... yeah, closed is better. Closed.
This is so hard, I swear to God.
No, no, I'm trying to pull you back.
I could never be a real model.
d There's my girl back home
Yeah, every single picture.
Oh, no. I absolutely hate it.
You know, this is the first picture
I've ever loved, by the way.
d So you call me
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause you want it
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause I need it
d I keep looking back
d Come on, feed it
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause I found it
d I keep looking back
d And you tease it
d I keep looking back for love d
d So you call me
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause you want it
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause you need it
d I keep looking back
d Come on, feed it
d I keep looking back
d 'Cause I found it
d I keep looking back
d And you tease it
d I keep looking back for love d
All I know is being in front of the camera,
and in my industry,
it's not always the most glamorous images.
I'm not always doing things
that I feel is flattering or appealing in any way.
So it's a little difficult sometimes
to, you know, just be an object to someone.
Gradually going into the adult industry
was fairly easy for me.
I was a bit timid, you know, at first
and I wasn't as comfortable with my body as I am now.
But as I grew, you know,
it just became who I am, you know.
I was always comfortable in my own skin.
But I feel, like, comfortable in my own body
is a little bit different.
I felt like I really knew myself sexually.
I was releasing things that I'd never done before,
feeling things I'd never done before.
And it was exciting. It was intriguing.
Being sensual is like the beginnings
that give you the butterflies or the goosebumps.
You know, almost like a first date.
The sensuality just, like, gets you excited for the sex.
I was shy about porn and my sexuality.
I hated on girls like that,
girls that embraced their sexuality
and women that flaunted it
or women that could watch porn with their husbands.
I was, like, ugh, how gross.
And then once I started embracing that
and finding out what I like,
it wasn't just about him anymore.
Sexuality is the way I would express myself
and sensuality is how I feel on the inside.
Yeah, I think that's how I differ the two.
Sensuality and sexuality
are just two tremendously different topics.
I know that my life in the industry through myself,
through my fans,
through other people that I've watched, met,
and learned from, I've grown to understand
there's so many different levels
of how you can show your sexuality to the world.
I think the more women own their sexuality,
the more the world's going to be equal,
the more there's going to be a level of humanity,
because when you're told that if you have these parts,
you can only be this
and if you have these parts, you can have this,
then you're segregated still
and there's not an equal playing field.
So I don't think it's bad
for women to completely take back their sexuality.
And if it's a pendulum
where it's swinging from one end to the other,
it's gonna eventually land in the middle.
Obviously, I have moments where, you know,
perhaps something will get under my skin.
I'm human, you know.
I think it's human to doubt yourself
and I think that if you never sit and self-reflect,
you know, you probably need to reprioritize.
I do doubt myself from time to time,
but I don't know if it's 'cause
I just gave up trying to fit a mold
of what, like, society wants me to be.
You see a lot of, like, bravado
and, like, a false sense of importance with girls.
Rule of thumb was always
that I didn't want to do anything on camera
that I've never done in my personal life.
I've watched so many girls do their first anal scene
because they got offered a little bit more money for it
and they were gonna do it on camera
or their first DP or their first gang bang.
And I think to myself, when I'm older
and I'm looking back at my life,
do I want to remember all of those experiences that way?
I came in wanting to be vulnerable
and wanting to be honest
and share the person outside of just the body
doing things onscreen.
And I wanted to bring that entire personality to it.
I mean, I was a shy kid.
I couldn't give a book report in class.
I would stutter and get red and shake.
I was too nervous.
And that's actually one thing
I can really thank the adult industry for.
I needed help socially opening up
and taking risks and putting myself out there.
And so now I've gone from the kid
who can't stand up in front of class
to a porn star who can host award shows
and go on television
and answer the most intimate, personal,
almost offensive questions, and it doesn't even faze me.
It's like being a superhero.
It really helps to have a stage name, of course.
This is better to sell.
It can become a brand,
but it also helps because when you build a character,
you give yourself another chance to have a second life.
We look at the world and we think we know
what the world wants to see
and then we project that into our personalities.
So I have Ash on set doing my movies
and she's a million and one times less censored
than, you know,
Ash out to eat at dinner in Hollywood.
I guess she's someone that I had to invent
to separate myself from being in the Fantasyland,
being in Neverland or being in the real world
where you kind of have to be an adult
and, you know, be practical,
'cause Asphxia is not practical at all.
She's very much... she's just insane,
but you have to have, you know, a balance of the two.
I'm glad.
In a lot of ways, I feel Asphxia saved my life
because she's helped me come out of my shell
and I feel like I don't care if I make an ass of myself
or, you know, act inappropriate
because I won't feel shameful
because Asphxia doesn't feel shameful.
Well, I am.
The other half of me would never do anything like that.
I really don't think it's quite hit me yet
that I'm a porn star.
See, I even make a bizarre face when I say that.
Porn star? Am I?
In this industry, everyone has two names most times,
so very cliche, and I didn't want that.
My agent was like, you know,
you have to have a last name.
He's, like, why don't you use Alexis Texas
because you're from Texas?
And at first, I found it very kind of silly
and I didn't think it was very sexy.
But I know I also didn't want to be a Love or a Sky
or just the typical porno names.
Even though as much as Alexis Texas is a persona,
it's still, like I said, a part of Alexis.
And, you know, I've made that character
who I want it to be,
who I knew people would like
or the things that people like.
And I still, you know, am perfecting that character.
I've always been Nina, you know.
And even when I'm on sets,
I usually have people address me by my real name.
I find it weird to respond to Brooklyn
and sometimes there's a lag in my response
when my name is called
'cause I don't realize people are talking to me.
I think I probably just chose the stage name
'cause that's what people do, you know.
There is a difference
between people that are just working actors in porn
and then people that are porn stars, I guess.
They see themselves as a movie star or a rock star,
somebody that's, like, bigger than life, you know,
instead of just this is your job, you know,
and you just do it as a job,
and when you go home, you're, like, your normal self.
I think sometimes they actually transform
into these characters that they create.
Civilians, they don't understand.
That's why we call you civilians,
because you're different. You don't understand.
You're not us.
You don't understand the risks that we take.
You don't understand the things that we've gone through
to be where we are.
You don't understand the ridicule
that the civilians give us, you know.
I mean, we have fans. We have fans that love us.
But we have people who hate us and spit on us.
We use the term civilian
as somebody basically who doesn't do porn
or, you know, isn't involved in the adult world.
And they don't think the same way, you know, we do.
Like, sex and our body parts
and the things that happen to our bodies
are part of our everyday life
and we're not afraid to talk about it.
It's hard to say that we're different people
because it's really not.
It's just I'm willing to put my sex life on camera
and talk about it, and you're not.
We're not that different, and that's the point.
We have no filter.
There you go. Civilians have filters.
We don't have any.
Sometimes people go, oh, so what you do?
I'm, like, I act and model.
What movies have you been in?
Who do you model for? And I'm, like, mmm,
it's, like, naughty modeling, and they go, oh.
We have real feelings and personalities.
We are real people.
Just because you don't like me
or you don't like what I do,
don't come at me, like, you know,
snobby or bitchy, you know.
Just because I do porn
doesn't mean that I'm just a filthy, disgusting person.
We're probably a lot cleaner
than some of the civilians out there,
and it baffles me the way that we get treated.
I've had a couple people, like,
"Go back from where you come from."
I'm, like, where do I come from?
Am I a different breed or something?
Actually, I had a girl throw me a Bible at me.
Honestly, it was kind of funny.
I'm not gonna lie. I kind of laughed.
But I was, like, just because
I choose to do something that you don't agree with,
you know, one, how do you know who I am
'cause that obviously means you watched it
or you knew me somehow.
But it never made me regret. I was, like, you know,
it just made me start hating how judgmental people are.
I never, ever regretted anything I've done.
Like, I love it so much, you know.
Otherwise I wouldn't do it.
I feel like I have an elegance in me
and, I don't know, like, a beauty
in the filthy things that I do.
And I've been very promiscuous
my whole entire life.
That's just the way I am.
I've never been called a slut or a dirty whore.
Maybe on the DVDs.
You know how it is in the industry.
But in real life, I've never been...
and even now, my friends look at me
and I can see in a very classy way
I'm never looked at.
So beauty and filth is the balance
between the beautiful woman that I am
and the filthy whore.
I've loved what I do
ever since the first time I stepped on film.
Nothing could have taught me what I've learned in porn.
In college, there is no class for that.
So I'm kind of getting everything I need
to feel fulfilled from porn.
If it's not giving it to me directly,
it's financing it
or it's sending me off to weird countries
where I run into the most amazing things I've ever seen.
I have to say, I thought when I got in the business,
there was going to be platters of cocaine everywhere
and champagne and drinking and all that stuff.
And it wasn't at all like that.
It was makeup on set at 7 A.M.
And we did features in the nineties.
We didn't have gonzo, so you were on set 16 hours a day.
You had your dialogue,
you were there all day long working.
So it was a lot of difference.
I kind of actually wish
there was a little more party,
but it wasn't at all like that.
When I was 18, probably about 18 to 20,
I was making more gonzo movies,
which are just straight sex,
wham-bam- thank-you-ma'am type,
not really high-end production.
Well, I love to be choked. I love to be slapped.
I love to spit. I love to smack girls.
I love to... I am dirty.
Just 'cause I look like this
doesn't mean that I don't get crazy.
That's what I like to do sexually.
Just 'cause that's taboo to what everybody wants to think,
in my world I guarantee you
80% of people sexually have been choked or smacked
or hit or got a little rough in their life.
They're just afraid to say that it's okay.
So for whatever reason, you know,
the people that have decided to speak up
have pointed out that maybe that's, you know, wrong
when it's really not. It's really not.
I guess it really comes down
to people are just afraid to express themselves
and they want to pick on the ones that can.
But then sometimes it'll be, like, times
when the guy will want to call you, like, really dirty names
and I'm terrible for it,
because a lot of my fans like me to say,
"Oh, come fuck me, you dirty bastard."
But if a guy suddenly wanted to turn around to me
and say, like, "Get down on your knees, you dirty bitch,
and suck my cock,"
I don't know whether I could let him get away with it.
If you want to enjoy porn, never go to a porn set
because if you actually saw what went on to make that movie,
you would probably never jerk off to it again.
When we film, it is mechanical
because you are going from position A to B to C.
You're stopping in between.
You're not trying to catch smooth transitions.
I thought, you know, there was the chance when I flew out here
that I would be shooting in some overweight guy's basement.
You know what I mean?
And for the most part, you know,
the shoots that I've been on have been pretty professional.
We have sex on camera.
When you're behind the scenes,
it's not that glamorous.
I mean, the finished product is
and, yes, we please our customers,
but when we're filming it, it's not always that way.
So it's very much when people look down on it,
you're, like, it actually wasn't as easy
and as much fun as you think it is, you know.
So you're judging something
when you haven't even been on set.
You don't know all the hardships,
and it's really hard for the men.
It's more of a job for the men
because they have to keep going no matter what.
You know, if I could be in this industry forever,
I would be fine with that.
And then just independently, you know, you know,
continue in the pursuit of knowledge
and go to school just for the sake of doing it.
But, unfortunately, I don't think
that that's where we're headed
with, you know, the piracy
and the economy being such an issue.
I don't know that this will last
for more than five years.
I definitely don't think so.
It does definitely raise the question in my mind,
like, shit, did I maybe jump into this
and did I fuck myself?
I don't know. No pun intended.
I don't think I would have done well
being in this industry when I was younger.
I don't think I was as strong a person,
and I don't know.
I just wasn't as confident in myself
and I think I would have ended up
being one of them young girls
that gets manipulated.
If you asked me where the girls of 2005 were,
they're gone.
Nobody knows them.
The girls now
don't even know the porn stars of my era
and eventually they will fade away.
You won't be needed anymore.
Your services will not be needed.
You will be what they call shot-out
and they will move on to the next girls.
One time I did a scene
and I felt like I was a piece of meat,
like, thrown into a lion's cage.
I cried after the scene because I felt, like, so used.
Like, no one asked me if I wanted to drink 12 loads
out of a cup with a straw. No one asked me that.
They just told everybody else
this is what we're gonna do and we're not gonna ask her
'cause they knew I wasn't gonna want to do it.
But they don't think about, like,
how that person's gonna feel when they're done
and how that affects them
for the rest of their lives, you know.
I always feel that people think that porn
causes these girls to have drug problems
and, you know, bad influences and all that.
But for me, myself,
I did drugs previous to entering the business
and it just gave me more time and more money
to do more drugs.
So it didn't really, you know, influence me.
I had already been doing it.
I was no longer able to work without partying
and when I stopped partying, I couldn't work,
so I kind of had to say goodbye.
It's good to be in the place that I am
where I'm comfortable with myself
and I'm happy for once.
I have a very good life now.
You know, you get where your whole life is just...
You have to keep this look in order to make money
and it gets very difficult, you know,
where if you don't have it,
you're not gonna be able to make money.
But you have to eventually use your head,
and that's what my husband helps me with.
You don't have to look like this forever.
Lucky for me, he's in the same line of work.
It's really nice to come home to someone
and just complain
about everything that happened through your day
or just come home and be ecstatic
about everything that you did in your day
and they're cool about it.
Everyone I date, like, needs to know going in what I do,
and I try to make that a point,
because if you're not gonna be okay with it right off the bat,
you're never gonna be okay with it.
Porno sex and home sex are completely different things,
entirely different situations.
Like, I get asked that all the time
if people think that, you know,
that that's, like, you know, how we all have sex at home.
Like, it's not how we all have sex at home at all.
It's completely different.
Well, you know, my man says there is no such thing
as a monogamous relationship with a porn star.
That's how he feels and I feel totally opposite,
I'm sure, because this is my livelihood.
This is my work, this is what I do for a living.
And there are instances, yes, where I enjoy myself on set.
I love it.
There are other times where I don't enjoy it
and it is just work.
So, I mean, you have to look at that in all aspects
and they don't, and they don't understand.
And it messes with us especially as a woman
being emotional and having someone cheat on you
and hurt you in these ways
because this is what you do and you're nasty.
Oh, my gosh, like, are you serious?
It hurts your feelings.
So at this point, I'm almost through with civilians
and I'm thinking about just fucking with porn stars only.
Porn is... you're selling a product.
Your person, your body, is your product.
I like going to work. It's not, like, a chore.
It's not like it's something I don't want to do.
I love it.
The first thing I ever got was chlamydia and I cried.
But what I looked back and I thought was so cool
is that the guy actually called me
and told me on the phone, you know,
that his test came back positive for it.
And this is before they even tested for that.
He, this performer
would go and get the test anyway,
and I thought that was really cool.
And I've had gonorrhea, you know, I have herpes.
Is that it?
Yeah, I've been lucky enough to not get,
you know, a lot of girls get HPV.
The guys have it, too.
They just don't... you know.
Sometimes you have stuff
and you just don't know you have it.
A lot of people have herpes don't know they have it.
And they blame it on porn, right?
Like, did you do a full panel
before you got in the business
and see where you're at?
'Cause you can have herpes
and not ever have an outbreak, you know.
And then you can transfer it
without even having an outbreak.
So I kind of just assume most people have it.
Of course, in the business when a new girl comes,
you don't tell her the dark side.
I'm sure the same with the modeling business
and everything else.
You're not gonna sit there and say,
well, you might have an STD,
you're going to definitely get an STD.
And there's all these factors
besides all the other stuff I talked about.
But the health reasons, you know,
if you do get something,
health insurance won't even cover you.
You know, a lot of these girls
don't have health insurance.
They don't go visit their gynecologist regularly.
They don't know anything that's happening down there.
If they do catch something, you know,
it is, it's very scary.
And girls come in the business
and when a scare happens, it drives me crazy
when they all jump on the bandwagon,
like, oh, my God, you mean you can catch AIDS from this?
I'm, like, what do you think
you get paid the big bucks for?
You know, stunt guys get paid a lot of money.
You know why? They put their life on the line.
And the same... As soon as you start
having sex in this business without a condom,
you're putting your life on the line.
So that's why you get paid the big bucks.
I know each day that I work, I'm taking a risk.
I couldn't imagine not being with someone
that didn't test regularly like I do.
Like, it makes you much more aware
of what's going on in the world.
When you think about how many people
hook up at bars with other people
and they're actually more of a threat
than the adult industry are
to its performers in a circle.
Like, if you go out
and have sex with someone in a bar,
you don't know where they've been.
You don't know what sexual habits they have,
what hygiene they have.
But we do.
We know what each other is doing.
We have a regimen and we get tested.
So it's a lot safer and I would hope
that we are promoting safer sex to some degree.
The fact is, you're not paying me to have sex.
You're paying me for the right
to exploit that sex... not in a bad way...
but you're paying me
for the right to make money off of it.
And if you're gonna make money off of it,
I'm gonna make money off of it.
Otherwise, I'll have sex behind closed doors
or I'll go film myself having sex.
So it's more like a fair labor thing
than it is I would or wouldn't do it
depending on the money.
Porn is so dirty, porn is so nasty, you know.
But porn can be so dirty and so nasty
in a very sensual, sexual way.
And I don't really know how to explain how I feel about it,
but I belong here, baby.
There's always two sides to everything.
Politicians get hookers all the time
and they're forgiven.
It's normal? That's normal?
We're not hiding behind somebody's back to do it.
We're not sitting there cheating on our spouses.
We're not breaking up marriages.
Everybody that's with us knows what we do,
and you watch it.
So, you know, who are you to judge us?
This journey has give me a chance
to shed light on my own sexuality
and ultimately the loss of our sensuality.
I believe we make judgments on others
because of our own fears, our society's ideals,
and what has been instilled in us
by our forefathers.
So before we make assumptions,
maybe we should take a look at ourselves.
d Did you face each other? d
d Did you hold up to the light? d
d Did you find another way? d
d Did you feel a little more like d
d When you find the animal? d
d Did you find another way? d
d Did you face each other? d
d Did you hold up to the light? d
d Did you find another way? d
d God only knows
d I couldn't care so much for d
d What happened to me
d I only know
d Why I escape so much
d And get high for days
d Did you feel a little more like d
d When you find the animal? d
d Did you hide or run away? d
d Did you face each other?
d Did you hold up to the love? d
d Did you find another way? d
d Did you feel a little more like d
d When you find the animal? d
d Did you find another way? d
d The animal