First Steps

Sorry to suddenly flip stories but after my short sabbatical I felt like writing about my beginnings.

I’ve told you about alot of my firsts in porno but I’m yet to divulge the tale of my first EVER shoot. My stepping stone into the surreal underworld that is sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly judged yet always intriguing, that is the sex industry. The beginning of my new vocation. The taster that got my juice buds suculating enough to make me want to experience more.

This shoot, my first journey into the business of pornography was a full nine months before I made a conscious effort to pursue porn as a career. I was simply testing the water. Playing a game and just trying to have some fun. I wanted to do something wild and daring and totally unlike the real me. I wanted to not be me for a while.

I found an advert in The Stage newspaper from a guy looking for females for adult photographic work. It said no experience necessary and new comers welcome. I built up the courage to call this guy one lunch time. He sounded nice. He asked me what I looked like, how old I was. He said he would travel to my town with all his equipment and book a hotel to shoot in if I couldn’t shoot from my own home. This sounded like a plan. So far so good but I wasn’t prepared for him to say could I make it that evening? Eeek!

My brain raced. Could I make it that evening? Did I even want to do it that same evening? Was I ready that soon? Id assumed it would be arranged in advance and that I would have time to build up to the big day. I knew I wouldn’t chicken out, when I set my heart and mind to something I do it but id really been hoping I’d have some time to get used to the idea and come to terms with what I was about to get myself into.

I told him this was my first time. This could have been a grave error as I opened myself up and laid bare my biggest weakness to a complete stranger. This could have been the magic words to a psycho but my instincts were telling me this was the right thing to do. I wasn’t thinking of dramatics. I was being positive and making sure he knew I wasn’t a pro to cover my back when I would no doubt turn up looking like a rabbit caught in the head lights. I was more worried he’d not pay me because I didn’t do a good enough job than getting raped and murdered. I figured if I was honest with him he’d help me along and coach me through the experience. I really had no idea what happened at an adult photo shoot. Not even enough to forge together a rough idea.

He, Neil, said that he’d pay me £50 cash per hour. Considering I was used to getting just £5 an hour in my then job, £50 was like winning the lottery. He said it would only take an hour or so. I dont recall if he expalined what end use the pictures would have. I didnt know the difference between pro or am in those early days. i didnt know there were hobbiests so i guess i must have assumed at the least that he was a pro.

He was only going to take pictures of me on my own in sexy poses. He asked if I was ok with spreading my legs and I assured him that was fine and it really didn’t bother me in the slightest. I knew this wasn’t going to be some glossy glamour shoot such as those soft and tasteful ones seen in lad mags. I was fully aware that this was top shelf magazine stuff. Naughty, rude, no frills images of me baring myself in all my glory. It was almost worrying how unfazed I was by this notion. I wasn’t erotically excited by it at all either. I was excited but more so by the thought of doing something so different. So unlike me. Of stepping into the unknown and doing something that took confidence. Now I reflect that it also took stupidity and desperation.

Neil wasn’t pushy, it was my own irrational fear that if I said no to his suggestion of shooting that night that I might lose out altogether. Never one to miss out I gathered my thoughts as quick as I could and worked out that yes I could make it that evening. Only just mind. I’d have to grab a taxi home from work to bath, shave my pegs and re do my hair and makeup and collect some lingerie and then cab it back into town. It would be a rush but what the hell. ‘Let’s do it’ I thought.

I put the phone down on a high, buzzing from the adrenaline rush. I still didn’t know where id got the courage from to make the call. I thought I’d be more nervous about that evening impending activities but I didn’t have enough of an idea of what was to happen to be that way. I didn’t have any expectations or aspirations. I was just going to go along and see what happened. I couldn’t think to hard about something I didn’t know anything about and I was glad as I couldn’t talk myself out of it.

I had a smug air about me that afternoon and a naughty glint in my eye knowing that I had just created this hugely controversial secret about myself. I suddenly felt all grown up and adored.

Opening Doors

Peter picked me up at my flat one morning after our first successful shoot and drove me to his little studio in the Summerset countryside.

On the way he said he needed to pop into PC World for some techy stuff for his kit. I milled around the store aimlessly trying not to get in Peters way. He picked up what he needed and we went and stood in the queue to pay. As we did he pointed out some printers on special offer. He asked if I had a printer for my little laptop. I had an old black and white one that had seen better days and cost more than its own value to keep in fresh ink. Peter picked up a printer from the top of the pile and stated that he would buy it for me. I tried to argue that he didn’t need to and what the heck for but he was very persistent and clinched the deal with “you can owe me ok!” so I agreed. I kind of felt uncomfortable that some guy id only really just met was buying me £100 printers for no apparent reason but I figured he wouldn’t have put up such a fight if he didn’t want me to have it.

When we got to his studio he showed me around. It was small and grubby round the edges but fit its purpose and its environment was quaint. He quickly set up using a pale back drop. He told me to strip off and explained what poses I was to get into. We did some standing, some lying down and some sitting up. All tasteful but simple.

It felt like only ten minutes had gone by when he said “All done. Give us a hug and get dressed”. I got up and put my arms around his neck and planted a sisterly kiss on his cheek accompanied by a thank you. We went down stairs to his office and he played the images back to me on his computer. He said he’d give them all to me on a disk but he taught me how to delete images and rotate them and how to change them into black and white. How to make my teeth and eyes whiter and how to print the pictures out on glossy paper with a fancy border round them on my new printer ready to place in my book. I was awe struck. Wow. Now I could edit my own pictures and play with them to make them look more appealing for my portfolio.

My first proper portfolio images. Now I felt like a real model not just someone being paid to have sex.

I emailed my new images out to people and got defensive when I got unflattering comments back about how black and white images meant they couldn’t tell my skin tone or how this image or that didn’t really show my body off very well. What were these people going on about? Couldn’t they see how great these pictures were?

Peter chatted to me on the way back telling me all about his adventures in porn and life in general. Who he knew and who he had fallen out with. I didn’t notice at the time as he seemed so nice and generous but in retrospect he did have alot of enemies. I decided it must be these other people who were the baddies. Peter was too nice.

Peter started telling me about a guy he was working with to build a website and how they were looking for some girls to build sites for too. He had another model he was good friends with – they had similar tastes and she had agreed to do a site with them and now that offer was extended to me. It wasn’t quite ready to go just yet but that meant id have time to build up some content ready for my new site. I’d get 50% of the profits made from people signing up to the site to see pictures of me doing... well doing everything and anything really. Sounded easy peasy. Peter even said he’d take the photos to help me out.

A website sounded like a good way to earn money for not doing very much but it also sounded very permanent. Although I was taking the business seriously I still had no ideas about how long term my new career would be. I was still prepared in the back of my head for the work to just stop one day soon and to realise that that was my lot, time to go back to the rat race. A website gave me some dept in my new role. It was something that wouldn’t just go away one day.

All Work and No Play

I’ve already discussed all the time we performers spend at the GU clinic too. Going for tests, picking up certificates. Team that with the fact your local clinic, as I well found out, might not be sufficient to provide you with the relevant paperwork so more travel is involved. The two main clinics for the business are both in London. I’ve know people who had to travel down from oop north just to get tested once a month then pick up results 7 days later.

Then comes the part that no one thinks about. The admin and back end. The time I spend checking my emails, scouring for work, networking, and marketing myself.

In those early days there were no such thing as Facespace and MyBook. Now managing my office time is an even more impossible, never ending job in itself. I often think I should employ a secretary. Many girls do have secretaries in the form of there pimpy, lecherous partners. These guys act as managers, sometimes calling themselves chaperones. They do all the organising and communication, often pretending to be Sally Ann on email and over the internet and you will find them feeding Sally Ann lines when she speaks on the phone to producers etc. Sally merely has to turn up to the job and do the business, for which her fella will have driven her there and will more often than not enjoy perving in the back ground at his girlfriend or wife getting fucked by other people. He will of course enjoy the money she has just made him.

But more about these sometimes unbelievable arrangements later.

This admin side of my job is time consuming but very necessary. Without it I simply don’t work. Yes I have several agents but I only remain at the forefront of their minds in my early days. Once I’ve been around the block and some fresh meat has waltzed into town I can pretty much wave goodbye to any help I see from my agents unless I’m specifically cast in a part which is rare. Or that I’m called in last minute to fill in for someone who’s no showed.

I’ve made quite a good business for myself just by being flexible enough to cover these flaky girls. I’m centrally located and can always be relied upon. Yeah it’s not so soothing on the ego knowing a large percentage of my work only happens by accident but it is a business and the aim of the game is to earn money.

I get emails from my ads on the modelling websites daily. In fact the volume they come in I found it quite a quick process to learn to sort the wheat from the chaff. I categorise emails into three sections.

Genuine interest. These people are known to me and often professional companies who write helpful, detailed and informative emails supplying links to work often through a website of their own.

Then there are the idiots who I have already discussed. They are fantasists and time wasters. They will write mails like “how much to fuck you?” Yes really that’s it. No please or thank you or even a hello. Or they will make up elaborate stories about running professional companies but not be able to back these claims up. The emails will be so detailed you fall asleep half way through. They describe things so obvious such as “then you will insert a well oiled dildo I have that is 12 inches long and 5 inches wide slowly into you soaking wet shaved pussy” rather than simply state “you’ll do insertion with larger toys”. Yawn – delete!

The last category is in between. They could be genuine but not so good at articulating. Maybe shy or just new to this and not know the lingo or how things work in the business. These people I will entertain until they prove to be examples of the second group. Its these people who eat your time. You waste precious minutes and even hours with email correspondence asking questions to establish how valid they really are, giving them the benefit of the doubt but also getting excited that potentially this is another job. Then it all goes south and you’ll have put off a real job in the vain hope this prat is serious.

Sometimes you don’t get so lucky and you go all the way only for the guy not to show up on the day. I said I worked out quickly how to identify most time wasters but I’m not an enigma machine.

I also have to learn to master the art of self promotion, setting up and maintaining all my adverts and profiles. Tweaking the text so that I sound as appealing as a pair of Jimmy Choos to Paris Hilton. I have to update my images regularly. It’s like having an online portfolio and only the best five or six images will do. You have to keep your images fresh as many people will look at your profile one day and not feel drawn to you but maybe three months later they see a different image and forget they ever saw that dodgy old snap of you or just feel that maybe you are worth booking after all.

I spend time mailing people who advertise for work on message boards. I scour the World Wide Web looking for more and more modelling profile sites to join in the desperate attempt not to be missed by any potential employers.

Then after all that I have to be my own PR agent. I have to create a successful fan base and market myself to them. This will ensure I remain popular enough to stay in demand with professional companies and studios. This as you might imagine means replying to fan mail, sending out signed pictures and DVDs. Uploading images and movie clips on the net and setting up my own official fan pay site where I can promote myself to the world letting them know all my latest movies and movements. Creating my own hype and making people love me.

Time of my Life

A lot of people aren’t aware of all the energy and hard work that goes into being a porn actress or model. I’ll admit I didn’t either to begin with. Even I thought it was as simple as turning up to a job, doing the job and then coming home to enjoy spending the money id just made. Think about traditional models and the rep they get as clueless, talentless beings. How many people have you heard utter the words ‘Modelling...how hard can it be?’

I had this little vision when I started out and it went something like this. I could make as much money doing one single shoot as it took me a week to earn in my old job. Instead of working 40 hours a week I now only needed to work between 2 and 4 hrs. The rest of the week was mine to do as I wished. I could study to do something interesting or be a lazy couch potato eating crisps and watching Trisha on TV. If I did more than one shoot a week id be on even more money so I could spend my time shopping for nice things. Bliss!

Ah life would have been so simple if that fantasy had been true. I’m not the type to sit around being passive and since so much work was being offered to me I simply accepted it and found myself working most days.

The logistics of being a porn star are very different to how one outside the business might believe they are. I get fan mail from people who genuinely think I sit around eating bon bons all day. Either that or being a nymphomaniac (in their minds anyway) I’m constantly having sex in some way shape or form. This fool’s paradise always makes me chuckle. I wish.

Obviously there is a lot of travelling involved in this line of work. Most of my shoots do take place in London which is where I call home but the rest, which still makes up a large volume, can be based all over the rest of the UK and indeed the world. Ok so spending hours on a train isn’t so stressful especially the way technology is today but it can mean very early starts and stupidly late finishes. Just see my last blog to see how long some days can be. In fact some producers have a call time for the day before or for full cast first thing in the morning. That way they can ensure that if anyone isn’t going to show up they have time to call in a replacement and limit the damage that can be created by a no show. They might ask you to travel down the evening before and put you up for the night or tell you to get to the set for 8am only for you to find yours is the last scene of the day at 10pm.

People get anxious and board hanging around so it’s no wonder drink and drugs are found on sets so often to alleviate both symptoms. I started smoking because of this. It would give me an excuse to pop outside and get some fresh air (yeah I know, ironic huh!?) and a change of scenery. It was a bonding mechanism too. A common ground I could share with people and made me feel I belonged.

Then as I mentioned in an earlier blog there is shopping for wardrobe. Ok, it’s still shopping but it’s kind of like shopping for work clothes. It’s not as much fun if any fun at all. It’s not really indulging the real you.

And also maintaining your look as a glamour girl. Fake tans and sunbeds, nails, hair. All this takes time and money. Staying fit and in shape is a must so going to the gym regularly is important. In all honesty more of the girls who just model at a more soft core range rather than the ones who act in movies will do this and take the up keep of their bodies seriously. Girls who mainly do films tend to spend more time boozing and getting high than working out. The latter tends to keep the weight off anyway but these two opposite ends of the wellbeing spectrum don’t mix well as you can probably imagine although I do know one girl who often went to the gym after a session in the bar. Personally I couldn’t have stayed upright on a tread mill for very long if I was wankered.

But all this maintenance is very time consuming. Most women enjoy going to the salon or nail bar. I just found it a damn inconvenience and an encroachment on my time.

Taking My A Levels

Id finished my first boy/girl sex scene and was relieved it was finally over. I now knew what I could expect in future. It hadn’t been at all as harrowing as id thought and I was left feeling silly for being so nervous in the first place. I thought I’d done well and the director/producer verified this with compliments to that effect.

I was getting changed when Carmen came over and asked if id stay on to do an boy/girl scene with A levels later today as id done so well. Ah, so A levels as people kept referring to was anal. The penny dropped for me. Id been thinking it was strange how they expected so many girls to be so educted for such an unskilled role. Initially I was told this would be with Oliver again but just me and him this time. I was elated with the fact id gotten through the first momentous scene in my career and thought I was on a roll so agreed. I was feeling invincible and on a natural high. I explained it would be my first anal with a guy on film and in all truth would probably be the first real anal sex id experience in my life. Id tried anal sex with an old boyfriend but it was too painful. I don’t think he’d even gotten himself fully inside of me but I knew if I agreed to this now it would be the real deal.

At the time I thought Carmen was genuine about being impressed with me and I was flattered into working again but the reality was that some other girl had most likely let them down and since I was there and fresh meat I would do as a replacement.

The afternoon dragged on and I still hadn’t eaten properly. There was one more scene to shoot after my threesome and then I’d do my anal scene with Oliver. Oliver was obviously bored waiting around too but his idea to fill himself up with cocaine had a knock on effect and soon he made excuses saying he had a cold and felt ill and was going home. What he really meant was he’d over indulged and wouldn’t be able to get a hard on. For a moment I thought that meant the scene was off and if I’d been nervous this morning before my first scene I was about to get the fright of my life. Oliver’s fill in would be the director/producer who was also a famed performer as many producer/director/actors in the industry often were. I suppose it’s a cost effective way to work as they are skilled to do two or three of the jobs required to make a porno, many choosing to do both or all at the same time since the trend for gonzo and amateur porn evolved. Remember I called them one man bands?! But it’s one less pay cheque at the end of the day. It also ensures they get as much work as they want and don’t have to rely on other firms booking them.

My horror came from knowing this particular guys reputation. He was famed for having the biggest penis in British porn at the time. I’d never seen it but id been told numerous times about it. Apparently it was about 14 inches long.

I tried to get myself out of this fast by saying I didn’t think I would be able to take such a big guy my first time. Now I really had reason to be scared and nervous and would do anything to not have to go through with it. I didn’t want to let them down but I also didn’t want to put myself in a position where I could end up hurt. Even in those early days where I still had one hell of alot of learning to do about my body and its limits I knew this was a bad move.

One of the girls who worked closely with this guy, whose name was Big Dave, said she had some numbing cream in her bag and that I could use that. I was supposed to put it on my anus and I wouldn’t be able to feel if it hurt. The down and dangerous side of numbing cream or anything with Benzocaine in it is that you can do yourself alot of mischief if you use it. Nature’s way of telling you you are about to damage yourself is to cause you to feel pain but if you don’t have that warning signal you end up with a torn ass hole in my case.

Big Dave did something then that I will always remember and be grateful for. At the time I thought he was just being an arse but he insisted I didn’t use the cream saying it could make things worse. I was starting to really panic now and felt sick and hysterical. I think he could see this. He promised me that if it hurt we could use the cream but insisted we tried it without first. He calmed me down and said he would take his time and go slow. This is exactly what I needed to hear but unfortunately it would be one of the only times in porn that anyone showed me some respect and compassion. This is why I remember it so vividly. I always described Big Dave as a gentleman after this to anyone who asked about my experiences with him.

A Career Choice or Hobby?

When I first set my mind on taking my clothes off for a) some fun and b) some extra pocket money I didn’t even think about porn. The association between topless modelling and full on porno hadn’t clicked. I don’t think I even realised they made porn in the United Kingdom.
Well let me explain a few basic elements of the porn business.

It’s a very close knit community really. I once tallied up how many producers there were within the UK and including all the semi pro ones (of which there are a lot and the numbers are growing, but I will explain what semi pro means later) there were about 50. Which is surprisingly a lot. But when you understand that about 95% of all UK production studios are mostly one man bands where the producer is the director and sound guy, lighting, script writer (if there is a script) and sometimes the make up artist too which could be worrying you can see that this isn’t such an impressive figure. It’s just simply 50 men and rarely women.
The performers are a similar story. There are probably no more than 50 full time actors and actresses in the business at one time but all the amateur ones could easily take this figure into the thousands.

So I better explain what all this professional and amateur jargon is about. Quite simply like any sports person there are people who do porn full time and this is their main form of income. It’s their full time job and chosen vocation. Not for long mind you as most girls typically disappear after 18 months. Usually when they move on with their lives, get boyfriends and float back to reality. Guys, if they are talented, can stay for decades though.

So an amateur performer is someone who might just do it for fun, as a second income or on a part time basis. Adventurous couples (and singles) tend to be amateurs as they just love sex and don’t mind doing the odd film sometimes even for free as it adds abit of spice to there already entertaining sex life. Believe it or not most pro porn starlets aren’t really that into sex. They might be abit hornier than your average girl but doing it all day everyday takes its toll and it soon becomes just a job and the sex losses its appeal.

You get the pro/am distinction in film and image production as well. The same rules apply. If it’s being made for a profit or for sale then it’s a professional shoot. If someone is just doing it for fun or as a hobby then they are what we call an amateur. These amateurs are stereotypically older guys who purely enjoy taking naughty pictures of sexy young girls. And who can blame them? I always enjoy doing amateur photography shoots. They aren’t always old guys and some have more talent than the pros. The fact you’re not working to make a finished product that HAS to be good enough to make someone a profit or even an income means amateur shoots are far more relaxed and usually quite good fun. Any guy who has the guts to book a girl to strip off and spread em just so he can pursue his unusual hobby is OK in my books. Amateur “ togs” (that’s jargon talk for photographers) are a hole other story though.

Then you get the semi pro guys. Now this semi pro thing is a fairly new development in the business and although the amateur guys don’t get upset – why would they, they are only in it for their own leisure and pleasure, the pro guys get rather irked by these semi pros.
Semi pro status is when you are making porn for an income but it’s not your main job. You might be an accountant but do porn on the side. It’s not your only form of income. And this is really the most sensible approach to take when getting into adult film or photography. Despite the general view of the public that blue movie makers are all filthy rich this is a myth. Most of them are flat broke investing more into what they do than what they actually make.

I always say don’t get into porn to make a million cos you will surely lose a million trying.
Possibly this hatred towards the semi pros is because they have actually had the savvy to see that the business isn’t as lucrative as people initially and misguidedly think. Maybe its jealousy that the pros have taken more risks by putting all their eggs in one large and sexy basket but the semi pros stand to make just as much in the long run. The semis get the best of both worlds while the pros struggle. I can count the rich professional get ups on one hand – actually half a hand because several of them had money to start with.

I want to take the time to explain about other distinctions too. About the gay V. straight business, the fetish V. vanilla or mainstream market and also about dirty and mythical associations the business has such as with child porn and paedophiles.