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Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
Triple-X star Sasha Grey goes mainstream, starring in Steven Soderbergh’s Girlfriend Experience. She talks to Glenn Kenny about dirty films, sexual existentialism—and turning 21.
“Most girls get into porn thinking, I have to look a certain way, I have to act a certain way. And I have to be what my title says I am,” Sasha Grey explains. I am sitting with the 21-year-old brunette in Regency Hotel, in a scenario that feels straight out of The Girlfriend Experience, Steven Soderbergh’s new film starring Grey as—what else, some might say—a high-class call-girl. The setting here is a little more Old World-elegant than the glass-and-steel modernism of CraftSteak, where a similar scene in the Girlfriend Experience takes place—there, Grey’s character, Chelsea, is grilled by a journalist who wonders if any of her clients have an iota of interest in her “true” self.
Full disclosure: I’m in the film, though I do not play the journalist—that honor goes to New York magazine writer Mark Jacobson, a real-life veteran explorer of various American underbellies (his multiple profiles of the drug dealer Frank Lucas formed the basis of the recent film American Gangster). My character is a thoroughly unpleasant fellow who calls himself The Erotic Connoisseur. He manages an escort-appraisal Web site and offers to “up [Chelsea’s] profile” if she would be so kind as to give him a “review copy” of her sensuous wares/skills.
Watch The Girlfriend Experience Trailer
I won’t spoil the revelation as to whether he’s a man of his word, but I will say, from my admittedly less-than-objective perspective, that The Girlfriend Experience, about a very eventful five days in the life of Chelsea as she negotiates her love life and the ups and downs of her career in the midst of 2008’s economic meltdown, is a particularly strong effort from Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who toggles with brilliant deftness between Hollywood blockbusters (Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s 11 through 13), smaller-scaled, edgier fare (Schizopolis, Bubble, The Limey), and neither (his epic-length biopic Che). Grey’s focused, understated performance as an individual who has commodified herself to the extent that even she doesn’t know the “real” her anymore carries the picture. Is her character a cipher, or a genuine enigma? It’s one of the many questions the film leaves hanging.
“If you want to play with the big boys, then you have to play with them. You can't just be a little toy, a little doll, that shows up to the set and says, ‘OK, I'm ready to have sex now, give me my check and let's go.’ Then, yeah, you are going to get chewed up and spit out.”
By now, Grey has done a lot of press, both onscreen and off, as she is attempting a difficult feat: making the jump from the adult film world to mainstream cinema. She is not only a porn star, but a porn star who’s just turned legal to drink, known for enthusiastic participation in acts too dirty to be accurately described on any website that doesn’t require an age check. She’s already gotten the standard-issue “How could you?” treatment on The Tyra Banks Show; she handles the questioning admirably, almost invites it. Her background and unflappable attitude are precisely what won her the role in Soderbergh’s work. She knows, at least as far as porn stars are concerned, exactly what she’s doing.
Of course, one might have a look at some of the titles in her 150-plus porn filmography and ask, as the very concerned Ms. Banks did, just what the hell she’s been doing. Sexual Freak, Teenage Anal Princess 5 (because so much was left unresolved by Teenage Anal Princess 1, 2, 3 and 4), Sasha Grey’s Anatomy (get it?) and so very many more. Since breaking into the porn industry at age 18 (and no, she says, she did not have an unhappy childhood, and no, she also says, she was not sexually molested as a child—although she did watch a fair amount of porn while underage, and her impression that much of it was lame informed her decision to enter the biz), she’s made it a point of exploring some pretty extreme corners of sexuality. And for the most part she looks quite cool, calm and collected while doing so. Her attitude, expressed in a 2006 interview in Los Angeles magazine is what first caught the eye of Girlfriend Experience co-writer Brian Koppelman, who pointed Grey out to Soderbergh. The director hired her after a 45-minute meeting at his Hollywood office.
When I bring up the requisite question about “going mainstream,” with Grey, I get the sense that she would raise an eyebrow at me if she could. But each of her meticulously plucked brows is made up into a permanent arch; along with her very long, straight, split-end-free brown hair; it’s part of her signature look. She shrugs the question off—she gets asked about switching from X-rated movies to a box-office film all the time, but rarely dignifies it. In fact, the idea of “transitioning” from porn to general entertainment isn’t even something she’s all that invested in.
As far as she’s concerned, everything Grey does is part of the same ball of wax—the creation of (if you will) an artistic persona. From the very beginning of her career, she’s been exceptionally astute at locating the cultural nodes where transgression meets the market. She’s worked with the edgy art/commercial photographers Terry Richardson and Richard Kern. Her co-manager is Dave Navarro, guitarist for Jane’s Addiction and sometime porn director. And so on.
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Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures
“And I never thought about it that way,” she says to me, referring to the idea of being a traditional porn star, more like the other girls. “I thought that was bullshit. One of the many reasons I got in the industry was to challenge that idea. It’s funny; whenever I get the chance to communicate with my fans I find out that lot of them aren’t even into porn. And working with people like Kern and Richardson…it was a matter of my liking their work, and their liking mine. With Terry, I just emailed him through one of his sites, and his assistant emailed me back, saying, ‘OK, I want to shoot with you. I like your work. I'm a fan of it.’”
Watch Sasha Grey talk about her Tyra Show appearance
Even though she argues for herself as a new kind of adult star, Grey’s track record tends to elicit quite a lot of paternalistic, moralistic clucking. It’s still is a fact that the porn world is a tough one to survive in, and/or escape from, unscathed. I bring up Marilyn Chambers, the ‘70s Ivory Snow girl turned Behind The Green Door gang banger, a porn legend whose own mainstream debut was a David Cronenberg film. Her 17-year-old daughter found Chambers dead in her trailer in April. Before her death, Chambers famously stated that the porn industry “chews women up and spits them out.” Grey looks unfazed, but not necessarily dismissive, as she mulls this pronouncement over.
“The industry—and I mean this only in the business context—is something of an old boys’ network. But people are going to have to learn, and to progress, or their companies are going to fail. When I first got in the business, people didn't want to hear about change from an 18-year-old girl.”
“I didn’t know her personally, so I can’t really speak for, or about, her experience,” she says. “But from what I see, there are too many women who get into this business forgetting, or not realizing in the first place, that it is a business. Often they think ‘it's going to be a good time,’ or ‘I'm going to get off and have a big, happy family.’ But if you want to play with the big boys, then you have to play with them. You can't just be a little toy, a little doll, that shows up to the set and says, ‘OK, I'm ready to have sex now, give me my check and let's go.’ Then, yeah, you are going to get chewed up and spit out.”
She goes on: “The problem is a lot of girls get in this business by accident. And then there's other ones, other young women, like a Belladonna [an extreme-porn icon who’s been something of a mentor to Grey] who became aware that people were trying to take advantage of her. And I don't mean that in a sexual context obviously—in a business context. And she decided to not let that happen anymore…”
Grey, who treats her brand very much like a business, will soon launch her own adult label, Grey Art, which will put out, among other things, her directorial debut. She’s a little reluctant to supply too much detail—like any good marketer, she knows from timing— but she says, “it's going to be sexually different from a lot of the things I've done. I’m testing new waters.” (While she claims to have cut down on performing in adult films in recent months, Grey's porn product is still briskly making its way into the market—not really a surprise, given that even narrative adult films are shot in two-to-five days. Last month saw the release of Throat, an update of the porno-chic classic Deep Throat, with Grey in the Linda Lovelace role. And as The Girlfriend Experience hits theaters, a porno parody of Star Trek, in which Grey plays the requisite sexy Vulcan—typecasting, some might say, given Grey’s oft-aloof aspect—will be hitting the finer video emporiums of Times Square.)
It’s impressive to hear Grey hold forth with such assurance in the interview, and to make so much sense, at least apropos what her place in the industry is, and what she wants it to be. When I was shooting my scenes with her on Girlfriend Experience, she was perfectly cordial and professional, but she also held herself at such a remove that it was very difficult to get a read on her. Given the rather adversarial relations enjoyed by our respective characters, I figured her distance was apt. But I’m a little ashamed to admit now that I wondered if she wasn’t just another glazed-over adult-world drone who happened to be able to drop good highbrow names and concepts.
She isn’t. At lunch, she isn't at all distant; she’s engaged, alert, whip-smart, smiles easily and sweetly (when she does, that’s when you see the Grey who just turned 21), and almost radiates collegial bonhomie. She even has a collegiate air about her, making, in her way, a point of letting the world know that she’s not only better-read than the average porn star, but that she’s better-read than the average 21-year-old.
“It all goes back to existentialism,” she says of her career. “It's about taking control of your own life, and your own past—not letting anybody do that for you. And people in my generation—and I'm guilty of it too—we don't want to work hard. And we give up too easy. So whether or not the industry has changed as far as how women are treated, I think yes, it has changed a lot, because you obviously have women running their own companies. But still, I think the industry—and again, I mean this only in the business context—is something of an old boy's network and it's playing the same game that it did 30 years ago. But people are going to have to learn, and to progress, or their companies are going to fail. When I first got in the business, people didn't want to hear about change from an 18-year-old girl. ‘Who is she? She doesn't know anything about business. Why should we listen to her?’”
From the very beginning of her career, Grey’s been exceptionally astute at locating the cultural nodes where transgression meets the market.
With her very prestige crossover—or whatever you wish to call it—Grey now has more than just the porn industry listening. Exactly where she’s going to take things from here is anybody’s guess, but it looks very unlikely that anybody or anything will chew her up and spit her out any time soon.
Glenn Kenny was a senior editor and chief film critic for Premiere magazine from 1996 to 2007. His writing has appeared in The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, FIlm Comment, The DGA Quarterly, and other publications. He writes about film for the website The Auteurs' Notebook and blogs at Some Came Running.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Amateur Hour at the White House
Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government official, is author of Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy (HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Going Rogue: The Index
Christopher Buckley's books include Supreme Courtship, The White House Mess, Thank You for Smoking, Little Green Men, and Florence of Arabia. He was chief speechwriter for Vice President George H.W. Bush, and is editor-at-large of ForbesLife magazine. His new book is Losing Mum and Pup, a memoir. Buckley's Daily Beast column is the winner of an Online Journalism Award in the category of Online Commentary.
There's nothing more expensive than free marital sex. $2000 an hour is cheap compared to the cost of unenthusiastic doing-hubbie-a-favor-sex when the wife's overhead is divided by the frequency of mediocre sex. After losing her looks and acting out 24/7 the cultural hype men are dirt, she takes hubbie to the financial cleaners and steals his children in divorce court. My impression is the $100/hr college girls on Craig's List are quite sufficient.
What?
"Dr. Mark Klein" is a well-known misogynist crackpot. Now that he's discovered the The Daily Beast, expect to hear a lot from him.
I'm hoping this is somebody's idea of sick humor.
Someone swallowed a bitter pill this morning.
he's right. paid sex is better than doing-hubbie-a-favor-sex., speaking from many personal and friend's experiences. Sick humor and bitter ? from the women replies here, I think not, He's just telling the truth of what happened to most marriages, the truth that most women will never admit or take responsibility for. I love the quote for the movie "As good as it gets" by Jack Nicholson, when a women asked him how he understand women so well, and he answered, simple, I take a men, then take away responsibility and accountability. I would add also taking away having to admit to mistakes.
Today's women give new meaning to the expression sacred cows. They just can't be criticized. Men who do it are misogynists and female critics are traitors. The reason we're at swords point with the Islamic world is the feay adopting our style of democracy will end up their women treating their men as badly as ours do.
The secrets of male happiness in these times include a first class wash and fold, a George Foreman grill, a house cleaner whose English isn't good enough to hold a conversation, and Craig's List or its local equivalent.
both gross male stereotypes and gross female stereotypes are dehumanizing. i encourage the people who live up to them to take and deeper look at themselves. i think the men above have to take responsibility and accountability for attracting and being with the type of women who lead them to make these broad statements.
In Nebraska, the women really ARE Sacrad Cows.
both exaggerated negative female and exaggerated negative male stereotypes are dehumanizing. further, one must look inward and maintain full responsibility and accountability for attracting / engaging with the type of woman who can be summed up by this sort of negative stereotype.
hmmm...so what you are saying is: paid sex is better than doing-wife-a-favor-sex? Jack Nicholson movie characters' hyperbole provides your deep insight for understanding females? Bravo!
Women committed sexual suicide severely reducing their value as reliable relationship partners. Strongly suspect the explosion in the numbers of self identified gay men over the past 2 decades reflects the utter revulsion to what women have done to themselves. Once upon a time a peak at a lady's ankle excited male ardor. Now prancing around practically naked it's hard to get a rise out of most men!
Yes, but he still gets sexual favors from his betrothed on his birthday.
Truck nuts, right "doctor"? I'm betting you've got a set.
In older english common law, there was a reciprocal duty of support due the wife, and conjugal rights for the male members of the bonded couple. Obstensibly, this was/is a contract, and clearly a breach of this contraact could result in divorce. The evolution of equal protection, and womens "[f]rights" movement have caused a state of unresolved offset in equalibrium.
Now, women are not chattel, but face it, the girls on the Chearing Leading Squad are shooting to become trophy wifes, attached to a cash cow like a doctor, penis size no issue, balance sheet and income tantamount to matrimonial bliss, that is until Doctor no good is caught boning one of the nurses.
In Germany, and other civilized countries, the U.S. is not by the way anyway enlightened as to human sexuality, sex workers receive unemployment, periodic medical checks, and other workers. At one point it was considered an alternative form of employment for unemployed.
Unfortunately, from the onset the male of the species is outgunned because females mature at a faster rate and when a group of middle schoolers are competing for the gal with the biggest gams, the trophy goes to the upper classmen. The bargaining posture is unequal for the start.
Clearly it is simply primative to consider women as chattel, they are not. This Country or our founding fathers were not good bible thumpers, and knew the folly of letting the church or some other organization based on a fairy tale, control the reigns of power.Most American do not the Iranian Iatolla for example, so why do we suffer this in our political regime.
Women, are smart and know a good thing and how to manipulate it. We are barraged with MADD diatribes about drunk drivers, equal pay, how about an equal lay policy.Us boys need to pass our seed, and have been deprived of such by a polical process gone mad.
General consensus is it is OK for someone (a guy) to get sodomized in prison, afterall it and I don't use the pronoun he, is a criminal; by heaven to betsy when the ACLU finds out about boss hog pimping the girls out at the penal farm.
Feminist are opportunistic cunts that have been exploiting the times. I for one think children are only useful if they are going to plow the fields, or get off their dead asses, grow up and contribute to society and the social security fund so I can pay for my porn out of government subsidies.
Of course women who appear in pron are poor little waifs that had no choice; bullshit.
It is sad we as a society so enlightened and all tolerate the like of an Athony Scalia on the Supreme Court who imbues his decisions with religious hype.
We need to have an open market, and a $100 a hour for some broad to open he legs and do what god meant her to do is unreasonable. Our concern regarding the former governor of N.Y. is not so much that they were dipping their willie, it was how did they gets the surplus income to do what comes natural and pay the price. Hey hookers should pay taxes, it would help address the growing deficit and national debt.
Hey ninamiller:
Isn't "misogynist" a politically correct word that defines men as hating women? So isn't that word sexist since it can only be targeted at males?
As much as you try to discount people with sexism, so you discount yourself to others.
The constant interruptions - "warnings" - during the Tyra clip are distracting and obnoxious. If the DailyBeast is going to post videos, assume the people who are watching ARE adults and able to handle the material. Work it out or watch people navigate away from the site. Like ... now.
Agreed. However, it isn't the Daily Beast - but the organization who originally posted the video that put the warnings. If you google you will find an unadulterated version.
This article made me laugh out loud----this writer has made a fool out of himself and of course he doesn't even realize it. Mr. Kenny reveals his own fantasy of what a happy (female!) porn star is like----intelligent! well-read! cordial! collegiate! professional! long split end free hair! 21! 21! 21! I can hear him drooling from here. Talk to her in twenty years, Mr. Kenny (if you're still interested---she won't be 21 then) and see if she's still happy and cordial and full of bonhomie. What a joke.
Well said! I completely agree that this article is feeding into the porn marketing bulls**t machine.
The only unfortunate flaw in your logic, Deeanndria, is that people like Mr. Kenny and Dr. Mark couldn't care less about women over 30 (or maybe even over 25?). They like to eat 'em up young, use 'em up, and spit 'em out.
Real vampirism is the fetishism of youth.
I am absolutely nauseated by this young girl and the entire porn industry. God help us all. It is very very difficult not to hate men for being the main pushers/consumers of this incredibly evil, harmful industry.
I absolutely agree---not that I hate men but the double standard is sickening---would Mr. Kenny want his mother to have been a porn star? His daughter? It's gross. Pornograpy is commerce, pure and simple. If there were no money, no one would do it. That's why this girl is doing it and it's the only reason she's doing it. Consumers of porn want to believe that everyone who does it loves it. How come this girl's eyes look dead?
I completely agree. Any time I've talked about porn with a guy in favor of it, they somehow always get stumped when I ask them if they'd be happy for their mother, sister, or daughter to be in one.
The key to porn being watchable is the depersonalization and dehumanization of the people in it. And I completely agree that the porn industry is "marketing" their product by convincing men that the stars "love it." It's bulls**t.
There is a LOT of porn that is made for home use. For every large budget porn there are countless home made and amateur porn that is made for nothing more than fun.
As for the issue of wanting ones mom or sister or daughter to do it, I would leave that up to them. I would only hope that they act of their own will and not out of a lack of options which is where the victimization and ugliness comes into play. Our society is so hung up on sex that we view it as dirty and that is sick in its own right.
Feel free to hate us. I care about as much as I am sure this "young girl" cares. There is nothing so vile about sexuality or porn in the same way there is nothing so evil about a glass of wine or a fine cigar. There can be problems attached to any of these things but they are not the fault of the object in question.
You don't make one bit of sense. I am also interested in the way "porn posters" on this site continually need to use the royal "we" and "us". Not only are you so weak that you don't seem to be able to healthily relate to another sexually, you can't state an opinon without calling upon the mythological millions who agree with you. Stand or fall on your own.
I feel very safe in assuming that if Ms. Grey were "dropped off on your porch", she would take one look and run screaming away. Dream on and get over yourself as well.
Sasha Grey appears to have chosen a life where, without breaking the law or abusing another human being, she can learn an awful lot about how it feels to be subject to the judgement of others.
It looked to me like Tyra Banks, with her nasty little snipes, was more abusive to Sasha than anything that she would have experienced on a porn set.
Give me a break. This girl was abandoned by her father---she was abused right then. My father abandoned me and let me tell you, when Miss Grey talks about asking the idiot male porn star to hit her in the stomach, she was asking for a physical manifestation of the first sensation she learned from a man: getting kicked in the stomach. This girl isn't a person to you; she's a thing, an object. It makes you feel good to believe that a beautiful bright young girl likes being abused and for you to think that it's a-ok for her to be used and abused by men on a porn set (that she loves it) is tragic. If she likes abuse, Ms. Banks was doing her a favor according to your logic. It's a joke.
Whoahhh. You are so off the mark with your judgement.
Actually it is her choice as to how she cares to live her life. If she is making choices secondary to pain and hurt, I hope she is able to move past it and do better. At the same time I think its silly to assume that is the case. The fact she did not have her father around is NOT evidence of anything more sinister and your talking as if it is says more about you than it does her. We ALL have tragedy in our lives. Get over yourself.
As for needing to see her as less human. I do in fact like seeing her as less human. Girl as object has a hot side to it but it is only a side. If someone wrapped her up in a bow and dropped her off on my porch I would would be more interested in talking to her about issues than treating her like a piece of meat. For as delicious as she is as a package I find her at least as interesting for the non package issues. Take it for what it is worth.
Sad, sad, sad.
She is a child, and she doesn't understand the import of what she is doing to her spirit. Someday she will. Many years and much therapy later, she will know better.
Porn isn't good for the viewers, and it isn't good for the performers. And Mr. Kenny -- you are helping to promote this. Do you have a daughter? Would you think SHE was a savvy little thing with her head on straight if she went into porn -- at 18?
making a few million bucks as a budding movie star should help her spirit.
No, actually, it won't. She'll just be a rich unhappy person.
If Sasha Grey's filmography is to be viewed as "disturbing," then the annotations embedded in the "Tyra" clip strike one as truly horrifying. Aside from the ridiculous assumption that Grey was molested or in some other way abused as a child (how the hell could anyone be sure, other than Sasha, some assumed molester, and perhaps her shrink?), the real abomination is the forced idea of "normalcy" pushed on the viewer. A "normal" sex life is, by definition, a sex life that conforms to the very subjective ideas of normalcy held by whoever is expounding on said issue. The fact is, matrimonial, monogamous, heterosexual missionary just doesn't do it for everybody. And neither does judgmental, puritanical lunacy.
Furthermore, the idea that the type of pornography one consumes somehow is an indicator for one's real-life sexual predilections has been widely disproven (see "Shifting Preferences in Pornography Consumption," by Dolf Zillmann of the University of Alabama, et al). Studies show that viewers seek different, or more extreme, genres of pornography as they tire of more conventional films. Does this mean that watching pedophilia-style role-playing is morally excusable? Probably not, but it is unfair to equate any type of "art" with reality, even if one finds it difficult to define it as such. Perhaps knowing that men and boys like to masturbate while watching said "art" makes it more difficult still for some people. But those are the same people who like to define what "normal" is in the bedroom.
I repeat---she was abandoned by her father, by the man who was supposed to protect and provide for her. That is abuse. Deal with it.
No one is saying everyone has to have a specific type of "normal" sex.
What is being criticized is men paying for sex, whether that be prostitution or porn. As soon as one person pays another for a sexual favor or to do something sexual on camera, exploitation is taking place. It is inherent to the relationship, even if the prostitute/porn star is making $2000 an hour.
But regardless of exploitation, the most basic criticism of porn is that it makes people LAZY! Sure it's easier to rub one out to porn than to have fulfilling sex in an actual relationship with another thinking, breathing person who has a mind of their own....because that takes work! But here's the thing, the work is good for you and is worth it.
Watching porn is lazy and weak, and it allows you never to have to confront and resolve the issues you have that keep you from having the actual sex life you want, whatever that may be.
Everyone has suffered abuse. Be a victim or move on. It is your choice.
The author states clearly that many porn actors are abused as children. It is not a "ridiculous assumption" to assume that she may well have been as well.
I don't know, maybe we are completely bankrupt as a culture, a country, a noble human entity.
What are the repercussions for another young, perhaps troubled teenage girl seeing a bright future as a hollywood star, and all she has to do is subject herself to this life of humiliation.
Oh it's just another choice - right - doesn't a society have a duty to protect its children? Is this the logical extension of American Idol, and reality television?
I am sorry, but this makes me very sad.
We've got to the point where our skank is now mainstream and skanks are now actresses in cinema?
I'd like to keep my Sasha Grey skanks doing "Gangbang my Face" in a separate category than my Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice. These worlds should not meet.
Who knew that my POV would ever end up being considered 'Old Skool'.
Yeah, but I wonder if 'your' Meryl Streep would feel the same way?
I would imagine that as an artist she would take an intelligent woman who is actively engaged in trying to make sense of her life, over some such as yourself who brazenly allows herself to dismiss others' experiences with contempt.
Youwot---I really want to understand, truly. You honestly believe that an eighteen year old girl who admits on national television that she has had sex with fifteen men at once for money (filmed for posterity!) is "trying to make sense of her life"? Really? Yeah, your thought process is waaaaay better than nasty old people who use "judgement." Yeah, it's "judgement" that's going to ruin this girl's life. Yeah, you're just there to cheer her on while she has the time of her life! Why don't you go ahead and buy her an eight ball of cocaine while you're at it? I bet porn makes a whole heck of a lot more sense if you're high.
Maybe this is too simplistic but the Madonna/whore complex that a lot of men seem to have is so disturbing. They split sex from love or even from another human being; They'd rather watch someone else being degraded and humiliated as opposed to relating emotionally and realistically to a live body.
And they don't see that this makes them less masculine, less manly.
Deaanndria, it's like your speaking the thoughts right out of my head.
I think the sociosexual bar needs to be raised for men; they need a higher set of expectations, not just for us, but for *themselves*. Where does it come from that these low expectations exist? How do we as women re-educate men about what we actually think is manly?
I honestly don't know---I am married to a wonderful man that I adore (and I truly think he is the best man that I've ever known) but even he struggles with this (before I knew him he watched porn with his significant others). I told him that I would not watch it and that I would never change. To his eternal credit, he chose me over porn. But I do think he struggles with sex and emotion---that they can and should be linked. I'm not talking about Harlequin Romance gunk----I'm just talking about really and truly experiencing sex with another person. I think a lot of men are afraid of that---and they deny the fear by deriding the notion itself. It's all about power and surrender, I guess. Choosing to lay yourself down (no pun intended!) and be vulnerable to another person in a loving context is the very definition of power because it indicates that you can handle whatever happens next. Men who must have porn to enjoy sex are afraid of and dislike women. I think it's that simple.
From a cinematic point of view, I had to see what this article
was talking about, so I bopped on down to the Movie Gallery
and rented a Sasha Grey "film."
John Waters is right: she's an unadulterated narcissist.
She stares into the camera the whole time, never once looking at the tattooed love boys having a go at her.
And her shouts of encouragement and pleasure are about as
convincing as Edie The Egg Lady.
Soderbergh is putting us on!
Oh bummer. Which one was it so I can tell my teenage son to avoid it.
So why is it that we never have a conversation about the male actors in porn being abused and manipulated and taken advantage of? Is it because we just assume that the person on the receiving end of the sexual act is debased? There's a reason why 'F**k you' is an insult!
When the male porn star is routinely described by names such as "whore" "bitch, and "slut" in film, then we'll talk. (I do believe that the men are degrading themselves, btw).
The male stars, with only a few exceptions, are just props and are treated like it. They make a fraction of the money the female stars do. In that sense, this industry may be one of the least gender biased in terms of compensation and status. The females get the money, the fame, the covers, the exclusive multi-picture deals (if they are stand-outs) and the fans. The guys get paid (a little) to have sex with pretty (if mostly disgusting) women and call themselves lucky.
She said she hopes to make 100-150,000. in that year. Um, that's really not that much money. If she's doing it for the money, how sad. Maybe she can command a little more now that she's a big star at 21, but it can't be enough to last her for that many years, and then what is she going to do? I also think that it's funny the porn star is going "mainstream" by playing the role of a hooker. What a stretch. She claims she is empowered by what she's doing, but the porn industry is supported by men and run by men. It is for them. They are defining her, and she aint making that much money doing it.
I can't take anyone seriously like her. She could be incredibly intelligent and all I would be thinking is: "I've seen your butthole."
A lot. I'm a fan, can you sign this giant rubber dick?
Those are some terrible visuals, xbainx, but they pretty much sum it up.
You can buy expert sexual technique.
You can buy vicarious sexual experiences.
You can buy good acting.
You cannot buy caring, compassion, passion, respect, or someone who doesn't laugh at your foibles behind your back.
Of course, some posters on this blog think that sexual professionalism is more than sufficient.
Which may explain the divorce.
@Deeanndria
sweetie, really, people look at pr0n (and by "people" i mean both men AND women) because naked people having sex is hot. mmkay? sure, some people who look at it have some issues to work out, but sweetie, *everyone* has issues, mmkay? i know you think your life and your little marriage are hunky spunky (lol), but yeah, probably not. in reality, no. in reality, i'm almost 100% positive your husband is hiding all kinds of things from you and vice versa. but hey, that's why we have our little beliefs, right? to get us through the day. awww, bless your heart!
Umm----I admitted to difficulty in my marriage in the above post. Can you not read? My "beliefs" (that women, especially eighteen year old girls, should not be exploited a gang of fifteen men for the profit of others and the enjoyment of losers who can't function sexually without a whole lot of help) are "little"? Is that a Freudian slip? Fascinating that you shoulduse the word "little"! I'm "almost 100% positive" that it applies to you in more ways than one. Bless your heart right back and have a great day!
@aaroneous
If you need to watch 18-year-old girls letting themselves be penetrated in various orifices by groups of older male strangers on film, you have a problem.
If the above sentence turned you on, you have a problem.
Mmmkay? It's not "hot," it's pathetic.
Meet a real human being (of whichever gender you prefer), and find out what it means to have sex. I promise you, you will lose your virginity someday.
In the meantime, watching porn will not help you in your quest for normalcy. (Cute spelling of porn, BTW -- did you think that TDB wouldn't let you use the word "porn" to talk about a porn star? You are spending too much time watching porn, Sweetie. Give your hand a rest.)
@Deeanndria
I apologize for what appears to be the entire male posting poplulation of this article. I am a man who believes that pornographic media and services are destroying not only our country but our world. It begins with what is now considered 'acceptable' behaviors that desensitize and cause a loss of innocence and purity in our children (and I say our because the responsibility rests squarely on us) and pushes them to a 'false' maturity and acceptance that has nothing to do with real wisdom but everything to do with corruption. As man continues to put an onus on glorifying self the more corrupt he becomes until eventually society will become so decayed that its destruction won't be from the outside but from the vile/rotten innards that have been 'maturing' over time.
Again, I'm sorry and I pray for all of these leading in the deception that this is acceptable and an evolved mindset/morality.
Thank you.
Jeez, go back to that book that tells you a Roman-Empire era tradesman is the son of allperson, master of time and space.
I am more worried about the easy slide into government torture as an accepted tool of policy than a 21 year old porn star.
I just did an internet search on her to see what all the fuss was about. I'm not a porn connoisseur but geez. It seems like the business must need to keep getting more and more extreme to stay relevant I guess. As someone else posted, it's really hard to imagine watching her in another capacity without having some pretty specific images stuck in your head. She's in an entirely different league than the previous would-be breakout porn stars - way, way more extreme. I suspect even if she is talented and intelligent she will have a similar fate -token "mainstream" success as a novelty. She'll end up being famous for being famous if she's lucky. If we're to believe her own declarations, then I guess she won't mind since she supposedly is not consciously trying to bridge the gap anyway.
This girl is annoying from the get go. I think there should be porn star rules. If you do porn and you're under 30, you're not allowed to speak.
I watched a painful interview with this girl the other day on G4. She tried to come off as deeper than your everyday porn-star (pun only a little bit intended) and she sounded like a 22 year old who insists shes got it all figured out.
In a few years I suspect she will figure it out. We already have a Natalie Portman who cant act, we dont need 2 of them, even if one shows her vag-jay-jay.
NEWSFLASH! Not all call girls are Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman." Soderbergh got a porn star to play a call girl. Early word is that she's very good in it (although Soderbergh is known for making his actors good).
Everyone needs to grow up (or stop pretending they're grown up) and move on.
Soderbergh is a filmmaker at the top of his class. Plus, I seem to remember a few years ago when every comment on every website on the internet derided Chris Nolan for casting Heath Ledger as the Joker.
Let's let the proven artists make the art, and let's all see it, before we torch the hell out of it, eh?
I agree with Johhny Pittman. Most of the men here are pathetic. Get a life.
Porn sullies your soul. I have a young daughter, and if she wants to pose in Playboy, I see nothing wrong with it. Women's bodies are beautiful, it is natural they are an object of desire.
But having sex for money is completely different. There is no doubt the women suffer psychological damage. It is disgusting and is for those without the inner honesty to imagine and enjoy sex.
I feel sorry for the men posting above. They are cowards. What a joke!
The social psychology and intellectual masturbation being presented on here is what is disgusting. We live in America folks where some people like their sex straight up and others like it with a side of sadism and masochism. Get over it! Here's an idea, if you don't like porn don't watch, but don't get all self-righteous about your beliefs. Clearly millions of people do like it, in myriad flavors.
Porn, fetishes and kinky sex are not unique to the modern world, it's just that they are so much more accessible. Freaky shit has been going on for hundreds of years.
Lots of people like pedophilia, too.
In my previous post, I did mean to imply that you yourself liked pedophilia. All that I want is to dispel this delusion that this young woman (or any woman) involved in this industry is not a victim and is not being devestated by her life. The callousness that I sense in the people who "like porn" on this site is so depressing. If she's so fulfilled and happy, why is she moving to the mainstream? If she's revolutionizing the porn world, why not stay there? If she's such a star, why don't they pay her some of the millions they've made off of her? As I've said here before, her eyes are dead. Perhaps you don't look at the porn star's eyes. The absolute refusal of porn afficianados to acknowledge the cost to this girl is intellectually dishonest. The physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional degradation of another human being is more preferable to you than my "self righteous" protest against it? It's bizarre to me.
I did NOT mean to imply. I forgot the word "Not". I am very sorry.
Dear Shasha, Big fan here. Call me... srsly. Call me.
P.S.- Need a stalker?
On a serious note. I do lean to the more extreme side of visual stimulation and have found Miss Grey to be quite a dynamic eye full. She seems very rare to me in that while she participates in the dark end of the industry she has never once struck me as a victim or as if she was in over her head.
She carries herself with dignity and style while doing things that I could never discuss in more polite company but this really doesn't tend to matter as I seldom keep polite company. I would tend to think that those who would discount this young lady may well be surprised by her savvy and talent. I for one look forward to seeing what she has planned next.
So... need a stalker? Call me.
I have to be honest though, it may not be something I want my daughter getting into, but I was turned on looking at the Sasha Grey footage on the internet.
I don't think that makes me a bad man, I think it just means I am a bit undersexed, and a bit not satisfied with my love life.
In any event, as long as Sasha Grey is strong enough (I don't think I would be though if I were a women), more power to her.
A little happiness is nice.
There is a basic conundrum here though, in general men want their women to be true and not sluts with other men, but they definitely want them to be their own private slut.
Thank you.
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