The day before the COVID-19 shutdown, I was being fitted for a black latex catsuit in the garment district of downtown L.A. There were 46 different measurements from head to toe — and nips to hips — for the multiple costumes that were being made for me for a large-scale cosplay film for Deeper. As I stood there, arms stretched out crucifix-style, with a tape measure across my chest, there were already whispers of a dire pandemic. This boogeyman of an industry shutdown loomed, but somehow, standing there in leather stiletto boots, squeezing my breasts into a makeshift latex piece, I didn’t believe it. I felt like a superhero.
The latex was soon ripped off, like a Band-Aid, and the shoot was put on hold. For how long, I didn’t know. None of us did. I figured it would be days, weeks at worst, and that we’d have to wait until just before May. We were so hopeful back then. We couldn’t conceptualize how days could both seem endless and evaporate all at once. May became June, with the summer forging ahead and no one was sure when any of us would be back.
Our artistic content is now of a quality and standard that can no longer be dismissively ignored; that knocking on mainstream's door over the past few years has grown into a pounding.
As an actress, holding scripts you can’t actively create is difficult. The words are all there, with letters etched side by side on sheets of paper now rumpled by too many turns … not lifeless, but still. It gives you time to think about them, though — what they mean and how that might change. It’s so hard to tell the letters to wait. So your fingers keep turning the pages in the hopes that, one day soon, you’ll move forward with them.
I have tried to be positive in this time off and away. It’s really all you can do. Stillness is better spent in a cocoon than a spiderweb. I’ve remained an optimist, knowing the end of lockdown was near with the pages soon to be off the table and in my latex-gloved hands. In the meantime, I’ve read a lot. And by a lot, I mean … a lot! Kayden gave me no less than seven books to study in preparation for the main feature film we planned. If anyone says porn wings it for their big projects, I have a 750-page book about the social evolution of Homo sapiens I’d like to throw at them.
I know I’d like to throw a book at something.
Immediately after lockdown, I got to thinking about all the performers who may be new to the industry. I was an actress just starting out, once, and while I got extremely lucky early on by getting contracts on a soap opera and a sitcom, being young in an industry is always a struggle. I had my share of disappointment and setbacks and times I had to relaunch.
I relaunched at 22, at 28 and again well into my 30s. Hell, I’m relaunching in a way right now. Everyone has a time when they have to reinvent. But I never had to face a pandemic where, suddenly, without real warning, all studio work was gone. Paychecks wouldn’t be coming in and rent was due. The plans you were making vanished and were replaced with gloom and doubt. Would this have deterred me from continuing on the path I had already walked so far on? It definitely could have.
I hated to think that someone might have to choose between a bag of groceries and their dreams because a virus we couldn’t see had stolen our lives. That’s why I decided to lend my voice, and use whatever platform I have, to try and help. Not as some “savior,” but as a fellow performer who understands and has the means to help bridge a gap. So I began to do cam shows, donating my earnings to causes, like the Free Speech Coalition, that support performers in times of need. Not as a handout, but as a bridge.
The cam shows also became something I, myself, needed to lift me from my quarantine-induced funk. They didn’t feel like work. They were light and fun, and a way for everyone to forget about the world’s problems, if only for an hour. I’ve had corona shower parties — don’t just wash your hands, remember your boobs and pubes! — brownie bake-offs and bedtime story nights with timely themes. I even conducted a full sex scene exclusively with a male Snapchat filter. He kind of looked like he could be my brother. But hey, this is porn…
This time away has also had me reflecting on the past year, which was my first as a professional in the adult industry. There’s never a day I take any of it for granted. I’m so grateful for my journey, and for the people who have supported me and recognized my work along the way. It’s been a longer path than most realize. I’ve been on the road that’s taken me here for the better part of six years and I’ve been performing since before much of the new talent in the industry was born. My first cosplay as Slave Leia has afforded me this latex. A role I played 20 years ago has brought new eyes to porn. I’m thankful for each day and year and step that brought me to that Starbucks where I first met Kayden Kross and she cast me in “Drive.” I didn’t know what a journey we’d be on together, but drinking an iced caramel macchiato now reminds me that anything is possible.
It’ll be my year anniversary with Deeper coming up, and soon after that, the first anniversary of my contract as its face. I can’t wait to celebrate in some profound and meaningful way, but I think that will end up just being Kayden and me getting back to work — as it should be. I can still remember reading the first pages of the script for “Drive” like it was yesterday, or a million years ago. My memory of it is timeless, I guess. The really good things in life are. The words on the pages I turned were poetry and art, and none of that compromised the sex. It only elevated it. It was the kind of project I had wanted to make for so long, but had no real clue how I’d do it, and yet there it was in my hands. As I think about that, I touch the ruffled pages of scripts here, in the present, ready to go. I hope one day the memory of filming them will seem like yesterday and a million years ago all at once.
I can’t say much, but the backdrop of the feature this year will be timely and relevant, and will showcase many of my firsts. Society may be shocked by COVID-19, acting as if nothing like this has ever taken place in the history of man, when in fact the only thing our ancestors could depend on was famine and plague. A day they survived was a surprise and an excuse for good mead. We’ve been so sheltered in our modern day. And while shelter protects us, it doesn’t brace us for the elements. The outcome we expect now is pure bliss. Anything less is failure and disappointment. The bar for good mead is much higher now. That’s the outcome we all felt frustrated with during the lockdown. We weren’t happy. We’re supposed to be happy. Goddamn it, why aren’t we happy? But bliss as a future guarantee often brings strife.
We’ve all been distanced for so long now, it has me wondering what a set will be like. Aside from new protocol and procedures that will be put into effect, how will this whole experience have changed us as performers and as people? Will porn be different, not because of guidelines and restrictions, but because we’ve all been apart? Will the true famine of human connection and touch make a difference in how we connect in our scenes? Will we be fearful and hold back? Or, as my optimistic, cocoon-dwelling self might believe, maybe just seeing each other and being together again will connect and unite us in ways we might not expect. Not trying to make light of it, but a gangbang might really take my mind off of everything right about now.
Here’s another thing I’ve thought about, probably because I’ve spent too many late nights reading about prehistoric man. Mainstream is at a freeze now and far worse-prepared for this sudden winter than porn. Much like the dinosaurs under the threat of climate change and asteroids, it’s a colossal beast looking for sustenance that’s suddenly disappeared. The comparison isn’t ideal, but our beast is small and it survives on much less. We have far more controllable sets, a quicker turnaround and an already established protocol for testing and issues of health.
We have directors, performers and companies willing to try new techniques and ways to conduct business, and we don’t have studio executives, glued to a past that gave them their king’s chair, to shackle us. Our artistic content is now of a quality and standard that can no longer be dismissively ignored; that knocking on mainstream's door over the past few years has grown into a pounding. And the more their stomach growls, the more willing they are to open it and answer its call. I’ve said for a long time that the wall between mainstream and porn is crumbling. Has COVID-19 and this global shutdown provided the cracks to kick it to rubble? Possibly. But, what I really know is that soon, Hollywood will be desperate for new material and won’t be able to provide. And, if we so plan and choose, porn can be the place that will have it.
That is my goal … kicking that crumbling wall down. And I truly believe the material Kayden and I have coming up will provide for this. This is the year we charge.
I keep getting the question, "What now?" What happens next? What will this industry look like on the other side? I don’t have the answer for that. But if I’ve learned anything in my cocoon, or in that 750-page book on early hominid man, it’s this: the only way to move forward is to adapt and to change.
The time for evolution is now.
