…and I am psyched. I met Asa for the first time years ago at AVN. Maybe it was in 2010? 2011? She was just starting up the curve of her career then, and she’s remained at some kind of unfathomable peak ever since, so far totally disproving the theory that all porn stars have a short shelf life. Other stereotypes she blasts out of the water with her mere existence? The one about porn stars being dumb, or shallow, or flaky. This woman has never been anything but honest, open, kind, and super smart in my interactions with her. Oh, and she loves a good party.
She recently released a book called Insatiable: Porn — A Love Story that I am absolutely dying to read, and she’s been getting a lot of mainstream press about it (like, NPR mainstream). I’m excited to get my hands on a copy, since the excerpt I read today on Salon was much like Asa herself: smart, funny, and honest. She also did an interview with Tracy Clark-Flory that was an interesting read. I’m hoping to nab an interview with her, myself, after I’ve read the book. Which you should also read. Because I’m so completely over the narrative of sex workers’ lives being told by people who haven’t any idea what they’re talking about. I love reading about their lives in their own words, hearing their stories and struggles straight from the source. It’s a very different experience, without the media-saturated spin we’re so used to.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that this book got a decent copyedit, unlike so many others I’ve read by people in the porn industry. I realize that a lot of these books are put out by small publishers that don’t have large budgets for copyediting and proofreading, but it makes me so mad when I read books that could be brilliant if someone had just copyedited them, instead being weighed down by errors in spelling, punctuation, continuity, verb tense… Uggggh. COME ON PEOPLE, HIRE ME.
But I digress. Go read Asa Akira’s book! I’ve decided to go on a reading kick myself, to try to somewhat diminish thepiles of books lying around my house, so I’m moving Insatiable to the top of my list.