#feminist porn

Since my book ‘Unshaven’ http://amzn.to/1PO96rR came out this Fall I’ve been doing a lot of interviews!

I figured I’d post some answers from various interviews I’ve done lately. If you are interested in doing a piece on me/interviewing me please email me at [email protected]!

-        How has being involved in creating hairy porn affected your self confidence and way you see yourself? Have you always felt happy with your body or did you have to learn that?

As I get older I actually like my appearance and the way people respond to me more and more. I think American society has a lack of respect for women in general but especially for women between 18-25, when they are viewed as sexually available but not quite yet full adults. Given that context I think it is understandable for many younger women to have a lot of insecurities about their bodies and selves in general. There is constant pressure to achieve some kind of perfection, at the same time of belittlement of their opinions and capabilities.  

For me, having body hair is part of that feeling of being sexually mature and sexually powerful. Not everyone feels this way but I like portraying that in the erotica I make.

A lot of the self doubt that many younger women feel was not as much a part of my lived experience. I was a lesbian from ages 14-19 and lived an alternative lifestyle in general. I was very anti-capitalist, pro-human rights and generally not interested in the dominant culture which I saw as oppressive.

I didn’t fully accept beauty norms and hence wasn’t terribly affected by them. I think I was able to build up a pretty strong base of self confidence. My mom is also an amazing woman who only ever told me I was beautiful and admired my changing body through puberty, as well as supporting all my decisions like dying my hair green and not shaving my armpits. So when I ran into lovers (male or female) critiquing my body hair or other aspects of me, it was just cause to cut those people out of my life; I was never affected by them.

Running NaughtyNatural has given me a wonderful opportunity to do even more personal work to build and maintain my self confidence, as well as encouraging others to do so for themselves. I get to create my own photosets and videos. To be the master of my own image. Though I came from a strong base, it has taught me even more self-acceptance and self love.

I’m much more concerned about what I think about photos of myself than what others think. And I try to share that same self love with my models as I edit and promote them. I don’t take out blemishes or delete photos with stomach rolls, I do my best to make them look beautiful while still being very much themselves.

-          Do you think most women shave because of OTHER people? Like, to please them etc.

I think people shave for a myriad of complex reasons which are a combination of personal preference and experience, as well as outside pressures from individuals and society.

Different beauty rituals make individual women feel comfortable and beautiful in their own skin. Sometimes the responses we get from others, especially those we are interested in romantically can guide what we do to feel beautiful.

I do think women have been trained to seek that feeling of ‘beautiful’ from almost solely an outside, and largely male, gaze. Such a heavy focus on an outside gaze is not healthy for any individual, regardless of who that gaze is from.

Figuring out how one wants to present and taking steps towards this is a really powerful and exciting thing. It’s just very different for different people. For some women that means dyed hair, hair extensions, long acrylic nails, tattoos, and lots of make up, all of which they work very hard to learn how to do in the style they want. Especially in terms of gender, it’s very important for people to feel empowered to present the way they’d like to.

For myself it means being more natural. It means growing my hair out (on my head and otherwise), it means staying physically active and eating healthy. It means rubbing my body down in coconut oil every few days. It means my growing collection of gem-centric jewelry that only I can decide whether it’s ‘me.’ It means surrounding myself in herbs and essential oils. It means learning how to do make up in a way that makes me feel beautiful.

I hope my site NaughtyNatural.com and my book Unshaven encourages women, and everyone, not to simply not shave, but consider it as a viable option, when maybe they haven’t before. That they too could incorporate that choice into part of their personal aesthetic and make it their own.

-       How do you feel about social media and the affect that has had on how people, especially women feel about their personal appearance?

We have a society now where, especially for young people, we are connected to one another through social media and many people are very invested in the confidence boost they get from others responding positively to photos they post or simply paying attention to them. There is a positive and a negative to this. I think if people are able to compartmentalize and take this for what it is; then great!

But to put such a heavy weight on that, as opposed to in-person relationships. And the lack of prioritizing one’s feelings about oneself, is very dangerous and chips away at the center of a person which needs to be fed and built. It’s very risky to build your self confidence on attention from others, especially anonymous or disconnected others through the internet. And one should get an equal amount of affirmation from reflecting on your own life, and being happy with yourself.

This opinion may not be popular and would seem to sort of fly in the face of a lot of the online work that I do, but I think it’s important to share my perspective. I do not, nor do I encourage other women to, model to get affirmation from internet culture. I do it because it feels good for me, even if nobody ever sees the content. I do, however, very much appreciate the relationships I have built with members on NaughtyNatural. The affirmations they give myself and other models is very meaningful to me. It is just not the crux of self confidence.

Those interactions can never replace affirmation and admiration from people in my day to day life. And, more importantly, how I feel about myself is more important than all of that. It is such a struggle for almost everyone, from the most beautiful to the most ‘ugly’, to love and accept yourself. It really is a life long struggle, and I don’t pretend to have it mastered, it’s just very, very important to me. I hope to help my friends, my fans, my models, and my members, prioritize themselves in the same way.

-          Some people think not to shave is unhygienic. What do you think about that?

I think this concern is very silly. Men don’t shave or trim all the time and I’ve never heard anyone be concerned about that being unhygienic. So it just seems like a purely sexist concern to me, a double standard.

Interestingly, one of my partners the other day said that my vagina was actually a lot 'fresher’ than most people he’s slept with. It was a funny comment to me because my pubic hair does hold in a lot of moisture and smell.

He attributed it to the fact that I’m very involved with my full body all the time, every day. I play with my pubic hair while I sit at the computer, put coconut oil inside myself and on my pubic hair, masturbate, have sex, run around naked, stretch etc., so my vagina sees fresh air all day.

I think that’s healthy and good! I think everyone should let their vagina’s breath and do nice things like giving them healing oils and fresh water (on the outside, not the inside!).

         Did you ever have a partner who wanted you to be shaved?

Nope. I also don’t think anyone would start dating me if they thought they could change some part of my body or the choices I make about my body. I don’t come off as a person you can change or mold into what you want them to be.

-          How can porn be feminist? What is a way to consume porn in a feminist or ethical manner?

Representations of sexually are not inherently anti-feminist. In fact, I would argue that they have been and continue to be crucial for helping alternative sexualities gain rights. They also serve a more selfish purpose, for any individual of just simply expressing themselves.

Humans are curious, and highly sexual creatures. We want to see how other people have sex. It titillates us but it also stimulates our brains and makes us become curious about new things.  

With NaughtyNatural I do hope to show that women with body hair can be just as beautiful and sexual as women without it. And that showing real orgasms, achieved in a variety of ways, can be just as hot as the rough, fast sex scenes that have become really normalized in mainstream porn.

Homogenous, mainstream porn, I would argue, can rot your brain just like mindless, mainstream TV but that doesn’t mean that using it as an escape every so often is the worst thing ever. I have a more harm reduction mindset than an all or nothing.

NaughtyNatural and other alternative porn sites(there are way more than you think), are more like watching a good film. Like fair trade food, most companies that value an ethical way of doing business will make that clear somewhere on their site or social media.

-          How are the reactions concerning your book in general?

Reactions to my book, Unshaven, have been great! It has nudity, so, I haven’t gotten a chance to talk with or present Unshaven to people who were not already interested in it.

I’m really excited about it because it’s something I can send my biological family (which I have), and other people can show their families or people they wouldn’t necessarily want to show NaughtyNatural to because it’s too explicit. ‘Unshaven’ is a little more digestible, though still very edgy and challenges norms.

I’m really hoping to do a book tour with some of the other authors on the threeL label: Jiz Lee, Siouxsie Q, Tina Horn, Neve Be. We have all these different intersections of friendship and collaboration that I think is really beautiful and interesting. All of them are gorgeous and brilliant and have created their own niche and made their own path, but have really great politics and so many creative ideas in general that we can all interact and support each other in our pursuits.