CREATIVE NON-FICTION: EROTIC FILM INDUSTRY INTERVIEWS
Two Asexual Porn Artists Share Their Stories
Ace experiences in erotic film
Do we need to be sexual to care about scarlet-collar workers?
After publishing an article about a feminist erotic film co-op called Primal Lust, I had some interesting and unexpected discussions about scarlet-collar work and asexuality. Several trans readers expressed a disconnect with the erotic film industry due to being on the ace (short for asexual) spectrum.
Some suggested that they were reluctant to read my earlier article because of their discomfort with sexual topics. This shows a division between two groups of people who should be supporting each other: trans scarlet collar workers and trans people who are asexual. Many trans people are physically asexual in part in response to Hormone Replacement Therapy and lack of education about our bodies and alternative forms of sexual expression.
I want to help clear up misconceptions that scarlet collar workers are hypersexual and that all other trans people are asexual. This misconception causes othering of scarlet collar workers within our own community, while encouraging stereotypes about the rest of the trans community, when scarlet collar workers could be providing much needed education to help our people better understand our own sexualities.
The interviewed performers and I want to help to dismantle stereotypes about scarlet-collar work by using this space to share authentic experiences and perspectives of erotic film performance art within this co-op, so I asked members of the LGBTQIA+ community on social media and in private chats what anonymous questions they had about the erotic film industry.
One person asked if there was any asexual representation in erotic films. Fortunately, I know of at least two such people in the Primal Lust co-op! They each answered a series of questions about this.
Where on the ace spectrum are you? How would you define your sexuality? Do you know anyone else on the ace spectrum in the erotic film industry?
Harmonia Lux: “I’m demisexual, and a really good friend of mine who used to do scarlet collar work is asexual. I usually define [demisexuality] as a sexual orientation where an existing emotional bond is required in order to feel sexual attraction towards someone.”
Meekah Fae: “I’m fluid along the ace spectrum. Being ace-fluid means that I have constantly shifting needs for sexual and/or emotional attraction, and a constantly shifting need for lack of sexual and/or emotional attraction. Nothing is ever the same for what I need to get off, and it is never predictable for when I don’t want anything to do at all with getting off. On the other hand, it certainly complicates the need for regularly creating content. It also provides motivation for hella creative scene ideas.”
What is it like to watch erotic films professionally while on the ace spectrum?
Harmonia Lux: “[My friend and I] like to joke about how when we watch, read, or view porn, it’s often purely for ‘educational / research purposes.’ What gets most people really hot and bothered, I look at and think, ‘Yeah, I can see how people would find that a huge turn-on! Great cinematography, very talented performer, this is a really good piece!’”
‘Yeah, I can see how people would find that a huge turn-on! Great cinematography, very talented performer, this is a really good piece!’
Meekah Fae: “Honestly? It makes life a little easier. Watching porn nowadays is more about market and cinematography research and creative scene ideas and less about what turns me on and what that existentially means about me as a person. Do I still get turned on by things that I watch? Sure, sometimes! But it’s less now about who I am and more about what I can create. It’s rather freeing.”
Does your ace identity make erotic performances more difficult?
Harmonia Lux responds, “Both my friend and I agree that it’s a double-edged sword when it comes to our work. Sexual attraction not really being part of the equation means that part of our brain is freed up to think about the other stuff that happens while filming, and that cold, calculated, ‘target acquired’ approach can mean we tick off all the boxes and create the most top-tier content ever. On the other hand, it can come across as not genuine or spontaneous enough.”
Meekah Fae felt that erotic performances were actually easier for them as an ace spectrum scarlet collar worker. They explained, “I’m able to compartmentalize my sexual desires and sexuality into a work-prep mindset. It’s a huge life affirmation, scarlet collar work, at least with those that I’d been privileged enough to find and work with. Having a space where my sexuality was a role I chose to adopt, at the time and place of my choosing, with full understanding and mutually informed respect and consent of those within my carefully crafted world that I’d helped create for myself, is something that I had missed out on throughout my entire life.”
Ace burnout seems to be a real thing for us scarlet collar workers on the ace spectrum, though…
Harmonia Lux added, as another perspective, “Ace burnout seems to be a real thing for us scarlet collar workers on the ace spectrum, though — those I’ve spoken to, like my friend, also generally agree that it makes us reach a saturation point or feel overworked more quickly.”
How does your identity on the ace spectrum impact your life outside of scarlet collar work?
Meekah Fae has struggled with not having their asexual needs respected outside of scarlet collar work:
“‘Normal life’ [in contrast to the scarlet collar industry work life] has always been a world of being non-consensually forced, through shame and through other means, into being a hypersexual being at all times and in all places. Except when I wasn’t allowed to be. Except when I was supposed to be. It felt like I was forced to be ‘on’ at all times.”
They continued, “Specifically, I was always supposed to be actively working on finding someone to pump a baby out of, while simultaneously hiding that fact, until I was supposed to randomly ‘report off’ on my progress through being expected to answer prying questions during an office potluck or a family dinner, and then being judged for not threading the line well enough on acceptable levels of sexuality and sexual expression, depending on the arbitrary rules of whomever was in the room at the time and however they happened to see me (which, as a genderqueer person, is anyone’s guess!).”
‘Normal life’…has always been a world of being non-consensually forced, through shame and through other means, into being a hypersexual being at all times and in all places.
Harmonia Lux had their own struggles both inside and outside of scarlet collar work that interacted between these two aspects of their life:
“Long periods can go by where we are just not in the mood for sexual anything, and engaging with someone or on social media that way in the slightest capacity feels forced and exhausting. For me on my worst days, there’s a pervasive mood of ‘I never want to look at sexual content or be sexualized ever again, I quit and I’m deleting all my socials this week.’ But those feelings pass after some self-care, so I don’t end up acting on those impulses. Whew!”
Do you enjoy the sex in your profession or view it as a job?
For Harmonia, their answer to this question depended on the type of scarlet collar work they were engaged in:
“When I was escorting, I genuinely enjoyed sex with one regular client. We had real chemistry beyond the worker-client relationship, and he took the time to listen and respond to my body rather than making the experience all about him. I’m demisexual, so truly enjoying sex with someone I don’t know well enough to be comfortable around is nigh impossible. So, yes, that was very much just a job for me. It was a task I did to get paid.”
“As a solo content creator, on the other hand,” Harmonia added, “I’m having a wonderful time. Clients pitch their ideas and fantasies to me, and I turn them into something real while putting my own, personal spin on it. I can get myself off, in ways that I know will get me off, while getting them off, and it’s such a win-win. Everybody’s satisfied and having fun.
“I do want to branch out and perform in porn productions, which I know will involve — gasp — OTHER PEOPLE. But since that’s more of a controlled environment with other professionals, I expect to enjoy that quite a bit as well!”
Meekah wanted to unpack some of the assumptions lying beneath this question:
“Are we not allow to enjoy our jobs now when it is sex? Do you enjoy building fences or view it as a job? Do you enjoy creating vaccines or view it as a job? Do you enjoy cleaning toilets or view it as a job? Do you enjoy prescribing medications and operating on people or view it as a job? Do you enjoy serving coffee or view it as a job?” they asked.
“Is this question regularly asked of any other profession or only of this one? And if the answer is yes, we do enjoy it, are we viewed as more or less dirty that the person who cleans out sewer systems for a living?”
Are we not allow to enjoy our jobs now when it’s sex?… Do you enjoy cleaning toilets or view it as a job?
Ace spectrum scarlet collar workers do exist!
I hope these discussions can help to facilitate a few of the many conversations that need to happen to better understand a field that is often shrouded in mystery, so that this can someday be safer and more rewarding for everyone who chooses to engage in this work. Stigma and shame cannot be part of any effective form of protection. We need to listen to the voices of people who have experience in various forms of scarlet collar work to support them on their terms.
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