I’m gonna write something soon about this yellowface/Burning Angel/Danny Wylde controversy that’s happening (Google it!) soon, but since I’m writing at my office I can’t read up on all the porn sites involved. That’ll be in the next few days.
In the meantime… I’ve been pondering something. This will sound really wrong, maybe, but hey, this is my blog.
I don’t think I’m slutty enough for my job. I mean to use “slutty” in that take-back-the-night, do-what-you-wanna-do-with-your-body, pro-feminist way, and I think slutty people are awesome and brave for going against what lots of people say they should and shouldn’t do, and just enjoying their bodies as much as they want. I’m totally pro-sluts. I could use the term “promiscuous” instead, but eff that. Y’all know what I’m talking about and I hope you won’t take offense.
But seriously. I didn’t go to the AVN awards and attendant adult expo in Vegas this year, for the first time in five years. I didn’t have the money and I didn’t have the energy and so I didn’t go. And actually, I was pretty glad I didn’t. Because for me, Vegas is usually a long weekend of worrying about how much money I’m spending that I don’t have to spend, agonizing over whether I even want to go to all the parties there are, and being painfully too-shy on the show floor to get the interviews I want or play buddy-buddy with my favorite porn stars. I’m really bad at getting up in people’s faces, but I do it for interviews because that’s my job. But I’m absolutely fucking terrible at assuming familiarity with people I don’t know well, and I’m downright abysmal at figuring out how to turn what’s already a working professional relationship into a real friendship. I feel like porn stars get a LOT of people trying to be friends with them, especially at conventions, and even though I’m not a fan but a reporter, I don’t want to be THAT GUY who assumes that because I know someone on a first-name basis and they know me by sight, that I’m somehow entitled to hang out with them at that night’s party or, like, make out with them after hours. That seems obtuse to me. Presumptuous. If someone likes me or is interested in me, I want them to show their interest so I don’t end up overstepping my bounds and offending someone with whom I want to have a professional relationship.
Also, I have this absurd willpower. There was one night in Miami where I was black-out intoxicated on several substances at once, during which I was in a VIP booth a huge club at the Fontainebleu with a cadre of major adult celebs. Keni Styles, my hugest guy-porn-crush to date, was apparently carrying me around and dancing with me. I’m pretty sure I could have jumped his bones and probably spent a night in a MUCH nicer hotel than the hostel I was staying at… but I didn’t. I don’t even remember how I stopped myself from that, but I did. There have been sooo many times I’ve been almost-seduced by other porn stars, but I always hold off, even when I’m tempted. I’m my own worst enemy sometimes.
Because deep down, I’m kind of a prude about sex. I rarely jump into bed with people I don’t know pretty well personally. It’s never been my style. Personally, I’m ok with that. I have lots of fun in my own way, but I don’t classify as “slutty” in most people’s minds. That’s fine with me.
But now I’m reading about all the fun people had in Vegas this year, without me, and suddenly I’m envious. I want to have all the sex with all the people and drop my inhibitions and be super-popular like all of them! I want to be glittery and glam and drunk and wild!
I’m pretty sure that this is just me wanting to have my cake and eat it too (or, in this case, other people’s genitals), so I’m not going to mope too much about it. But then again… maybe I’m inhibiting myself because deep down I’m still terribly ashamed and afraid of sex. Maybe I should be sluttier. Maybe it would be good for me. Or at least for my writing career. Maybe if I overcame my willpower and just let myself get naked more frequently and with more people, I’d be the best sex-and-porn writer EVAR.
Hm.
Or then again, maybe I do well at this because my reserve helps me keep some perspective, whereas I might lose that objectivity if I dove in with my tongue out and my butt in the air.
Hmmmm….
I dunno. Just saying.
Hi. that word “should” causes more trouble in the world than maybe any other. it is really hard to figure out what i really want to do. right this exact second for example i want to go for a run but i also don’t. that feeling of being torn about things used to bother me because i was seeking a “unity of being” or something like that. at a certain point i realized that i wasn’t a single thing. the thing i refer to as “me” is actually a construct of a bunch of stuff. the wholeness is the entire situation, not the “me,” and it is perfectly normal to be in more than one “place” about anything/everything. we have 2 eyes yet we imagine that we are looking at one thing, but no, we are seeing two things and pretending that it is one. it is built into the neural circuitry. were i to advise i’d recommend a whole lot of slowing down. whatever experiences you think you might be missing, those people who seem to be having them are not having your experiences. i love my life they keep saying. none of us are really missing anything. it is all really happening. at some point you will want to do something enough to do it, then it will have happened, then on to the next thing.
Wow, what a great and thought-provoking response! Thank you so much! I will definitely keep this perspective in mind.