Original subtitles

What's the use of having a beautiful body,

beautiful breasts or a beautiful cock,

if nobody sees it all?

25 years ago, I started taking large-format portraits

with an antique view camera in my East Village studio.

My first subjects were New York artists.

Soon I was asked to shoot actors

and then musicians,

writers

and eventually even presidents.

Now I have a new subject -

porn stars.

You can't come into this business and think you're gonna make millions.

We're the original reality show. Period.

Everybody's fucking someone to get somewhere in life. We're just doing it on film.

When you look at the range of pornography

and the different characters in the profession,

just who are these people and why are they so inaccessible?

And why, deep down within, would we all like to be porn stars at one point in our life?

We seem never to tire looking at naked bodies. That is true.

But they have to be always new ones.

I'd been thinking about shooting porn stars for a while,

particularly nude, because I'd never shot nudes.

I imagined these are people who'd be comfortable nude.

This is a mock-up for the book. I've asked 15 writers to contribute essays.

Nancy Friday, Gore Vidal, Lou Reed, all these different voices.

And then it leads into the portraits

which are gonna be clothed and then nude portraits of each porn star,

in the exact same pose, like Goya.

It's funny because when you see porn stars in their everyday clothes,

it's almost more startling than the way the world knows you,

which is naked.

I worked at Scores, the gentleman club in Manhattan, before I started making movies.

My husband really wanted me to make a movie for a wedding present

and I was appalled at the idea at first.

Closed. 22 and a half.

And that's beautiful. Just stand like that.

Chin up slightly.

But the more I thought about it, the more I got turned on by the idea.

I figured no one would find out and I could get this little fantasy over with.

But I got porn fever, so...

I chose to be in this industry

because I am comfortable with my sexuality

and performing on film.

I was very sexually aware at a very young age

and 16 was more watching pornos myself...

18 wanting to be a porn star, just not knowing how.

I'm choosing to make myself a sex symbol.

I think every girl defines herself differently as a porn star.

I don't live the lifestyle of a porn star. I look at it as a business.

I'm just an actress having sex on camera.

Open up here.

Some girls are, you know, addicted to sex.

I'm not one of those.

I can turn on and off really easy.

So let me see your position.

Just the way you are is wonderful.

You can have some redeeming, credible presentation of sex in America,

even though it's through porn.

Remember if you're nude, you won't have pockets.

So what happens if you fold your arms in front?

Because I love women. And you don't degrade something you love.

In the old days it was more about people who really enjoyed sex.

A female, if she enjoys her sexuality and it comes across like that,

she is a sex goddess.

But if she's there looking at her watch and her nails while she's doing double anal

people are like, "She's a slut, needs to be on a street corner" because it's not about that.

It's about art in a way

and enjoying... OK, it's the art of fucking.

I got into porno because I grew up in a time and a place

where I was told that I could make my own happiness.

I grew up in Berkeley, California.

I was reading feminist texts in the early '70s, Our Bodies Ourselves, The Joy Of Sex

and I knew these things were me, they spoke to me.

That's great. Just sort of... Yeah, like that.

More down. Right there. That's it.

For some reason, I'm comfortable with the idea of doing this in front of thousands of people.

So, for me, the mental aspects, mental awareness of SM

heightens the physical sensation and vice versa.

I just like being as nude as possible.

My trainer is European and understands the place of that.

Biggest problem with this house is the electric stove. It annoys the hell out of me.

We had priorities that were very firm when we set out to look for a place.

- Two bathrooms. - Two bathrooms was one.

We also needed floor space

and high ceilings, a space that was shootable and livable,

a live-work space that you can find elsewhere.

But in Los Angeles? Virtually non-existent.

I really like three-way sex. I like sex with women.

And my side of the closet is a lot messier than his.

Your side of the closet looks neater than mine today.

This is the costume section

- where all the stuff that we use in videos is. - Latex, lingerie, corsets...

I still have fantasies and I do it of rather extreme sexual acts.

And this is the coolest space in the world. It's our play space, it's our studio.

We call it the dungeon in the sky.

The floor is rubber.

It's like a sex garage. Everything slides.

My favourite is the suspension.

This is nice because you can hang people on this upside down or not.

We also like to go out to nice restaurants, we like to shop.

We're actually in many ways very normal, bourgeois Americans.

I'm actually currently the biggest gay male porn star.

There's nobody in the industry who has a bigger penis than I do.

I grew up in very rural Ohio, in a one-stop, very Republican type of place.

One week I may have hooked up with a guy, one week I may have hooked up with a girl.

I was married for four years.

Beautiful shot. Stay like that.

For three years I've won best group scene at the GAYVNs.

I won best sex scene also.

I've won best three-way, I've won best oral,

best performer, best supporting actor.

So I've done quite well.

I came from a family like the Huxtables, the Bill Cosby, middle-class family.

I was Daddy's girl. I never could do wrong when it came to my dad.

My mother knew I was different when it came to expressing myself.

When I was 18, I did my first movie. That was amazing.

We had a birthday party for me, we had everything.

And I blew out my candles after I blew out the first sex scene.

When I first got into the business, there was only two other black performers.

I was shocked and they weren't being portrayed right,

just within like how Hollywood is.

Either they were playing the gardener, the maid...

You would see titles - Black Fudge, Swirl.

You know, you would see other movies with the blonde girls

and their names on the box covers.

Very beautiful. Let's do this...

When I started, my films were interracial.

There were not enough black people to do all-black film.

It was very important for them to portray me as Heather Hunter,

not as black Heather Hunter.

To me, honestly I think I'm the Halle Berry of porn.

When I was a student in a law school

I didn't think about becoming an adult porn star.

But once I came to the West,

I couldn't go on and study. I didn't have the money for that.

And I wasn't interested.

I had a body, I had a face, so I started doing modelling.

A little bit too short, five eleven.

So I decided, OK, I will pose for nude magazines,

for adult magazines.

And then it went down the hill!

Time to work today.

I studied a lot. I was a real nerd in school.

I was 23 and I had moved to LA.

I wanted to be a nurse anaesthetist so was going to school for that.

A Playboy scout said, "Are you interested in posing for Playboy?"

I thought, "Playboy? Take my clothes off? I don't think so!"

and they said, "If you become a centrefold, you get $25,000."

I said, "Where do I go?"

You could do it a couple of different ways, like this,

you know, just sitting like this, or I don't know... That way you can see this.

- Or can you see...? - We can see everything.

Everyone always goes, "You're so lucky!

"You have the most wonderful life,

"all the sex must be great.

"You get paid so much money."

And, you know, you come into this business, you give up a lot.

You kind of give up your soul in a way.

Once you do porn, there's no going back.

And as mainstream as the industry wants to go,

there's still a really big stigma attached to porn stars.

A porn star is a person who is famous

for public sex.

To be a porn star requires self-distancing.

An ability to detach from your body.

They're narcissists. They need people to desire them.

Whether they were abused, and I think a lot were...

Nothing great happens to you because you become a porn star aged 18,

or 15, like Traci Lords.

I never wanted to be a porn star.

It just happened.

I never said I'm straight or gay.

I just always say I'm sexual.

I just love sex.

Just look at the lens now, Lukas. That's great. Like that. Good.

And nice.

OK, I'm ready, Mark. Are you ready?

I'm actually retired.

Finally.

Too old.

That's it. Bring your chin down a little bit.

For one second.

And then close your mouth.

That's it. Very good.

You'll be between these two, so I think it would work.

And I think we should try for this pose that I cut

because it's a play on Cézanne.

Come around here.

I usually don't tell people this

cos all the girls go on Howard Stern and say, "I was molested."

One second.

I was put in foster care three times.

And it was either a group home or go back to my mother.

Just the way you are.

And close your mouth for a second.

And beautiful. That's a lovely expression. Hold it like that.

I had to sit there and look my mother in the eye

and tell her she was not capable of taking care of my sister.

Get it on film.

OK, like that and...

Really good.

I lived on Top Ramen.

Me and my sister had Top Ramen and canned olives. Those were her favourite.

Good. OK.

And...Mark, give me your bellows.

So I got this job as an auditor. I got fired and then I got home

and I got evicted in the same day.

So I'm like, "OK, this just isn't my day."

Just the way you are.

If the courts found out about it, they were going to take my sister away.

Now look at the lens.

They had their eye on me like a hawk.

So I see this ad in the paper. "Make $1,000 a day."

I answered the ad and it was a porno ad, and there I was.

Porn stars were considered scum.

Nobody elevated them to celebrity status except within that world.

Society is celebrity obsessed. There's more media than ever.

They made celebrities out of magazine editors and chefs,

people who really weren't stars before.

Then they realised, "How about porn stars?

"The word stars is in there. They're stars.

"They perform in front of a camera, like movie stars.

"They have a following, make money, like movie stars.

"Hey! They are movie stars. They make movies."

I got invited to a party in a furniture showroom, nothing to do with porn at all.

They just had Jenna Jameson on the list of guests that were coming.

I was gonna go but I heard she wasn't coming so I said, "Forget it."

And the bellows is three quarters to a stop.

Jenna Jameson is really the only porn star that's ever crossed over.

Look at the lens. Good. OK. And ready.

Close it. OK. Let's go.

She's done... The E! True Hollywood Story was

the most ever watched E! True Hollywood Story of all time.

So Jenna has really paved the path for the rest of us.

A lot of us have had to work to push the business one way.

You know, Jenna worked really hard to get the business accepted by the public.

She is by far and away the most successful ever to come out of this business.

Savvy, smart, sexy, good at what she does.

Jenna had a vision. She never wavered. She just, "I want that"

and she used her tools

and got that.

Jenna Jameson's probably the one person

that I look up to as an adult actress more than anyone else.

I finally had an opportunity to work with her and after our first scene together

I ran around and was yelling at everybody to smell my face.

I was just like, "Oh, my God, I have Jenna Jameson's juice on my face!

"I'm never gonna wash it again." I was like, "Smell it. It's a hint of Jenna."

Who are your favourite porn stars?

Me? My... Jenna Jameson.

There we go.

Nowadays being a porn star isn't what it used to be.

If you're successful, you make a good income, and...

you look good, for Lord's sake.

It used to be rock stars and models went together.

Then it became, "To heck with these models.

"They're skinny and not much fun. Let's go for the porn stars."

I've been able to do mainstream work.

I've been on Entertainment Tonight, in Eminem's video...

The Sopranos...and it's just benefiting me financially.

My goal is not to go completely mainstream.

It actually gets me more popular in the adult industry, going mainstream.

All the real porn people use it. It's their calling card.

Then they go and become dancers or escorts and they travel and make really a lot of money.

The porn is just their coming attractions.

They're gonna go on the road.

I was, like, 18 and really broke.

It was, like, survival.

It made me feel pretty when I didn't at that time in my life feel it.

Beautiful. That's nice. Yeah.

That's great. That's totally great.

So many girls are strippers then want to be a porn star

so then they can feature on the road as a stripper and make more money.

That was not even an option in 1984.

It was so different.

You got a couple of hundred bucks a day, no rights, no royalties.

Fantastic hair. Beautiful job.

Do that little twinkle again.

Porn stars don't make much money from films

so a side industry has sprung up

where they can do strip joints, sell merchandise.

It adds up to a pretty decent living.

The last few years I have been making sure I get residuals on certain things

like my adult video toy line.

Right now there's about 30 toys out there.

My handcuffs, I have my whole bondage line. My ass and pussy mould.

My doll, which is kind of freaky looking.

But the boxing and the packaging is beautiful and that's what's selling well.

The sexual power for poor women is literally tied to economic survival.

It's a big "Fuck you!" in a way.

It's saying, "If I'm gonna be used sexually, this is what I'm worth,

"I'm gonna make some money off of it."

One reason they're in this business is the high rate of pay

for people with a high-school education.

You can make a comparison to how boxing used to be for young men.

And I just need a bellows on this.

I remember getting my first cheque and I remember thinking,

"The shoe's on the other foot. This is my money.

"I made this money, and no one's gonna take it away from me."

If I wasn't doing this, I'd still be working at Sonic,

probably have about two or three kids,

be married and be very unhappy and very unfulfilled.

People always say, "These poor women!"

And it's like, "Well, no." These women do not have the choice of Harvard - porno.

It's porn - paper hat. Porn - doublewide trailer.

Porn - five kids.

No clothes now.

My son has no idea what I do.

He knows Daddy makes money but doesn't know how.

Not being college-educated, it was the best course for me.

But right now I am in school.

so this has helped me get to that point where I can afford to go to school

plus have a living on the side.

My parents are so proud of me

because I have two nice cars, I've never ever asked for any help,

they saved money on college.

Try and keep in the same spot.

It's not about this is a last resort.

It's about this is an opportunity which you can achieve easily.

There is a big need for adult performers.

And if you have what it takes, you have a good chance to make it big.

Impressive.

The nature of the business is that I work one day, I get paid one time

and the person who made this movie or scene is gonna get money off that forever.

The pay ranges from $400 for a solo girl masturbation

all the way to $1500 for a boy-girl anal.

The men earn a lot less.

In the porn industry it's ironic that the women make more than the men do

since they have to produce less than the men do physically in my opinion.

When individuals say males are just a prop in the adult industry,

that's like American society

taking school teachers and not paying them what they're worth.

Guys in gay films make a lot more than guys in straight films.

That's why there are many straight models who work in gay porn.

A guy in a straight video is lucky to get three to five hundred.

I make almost five times that.

Straight women actually make quite a lot more.

For men, this is as good as it gets for us.

The gay porn industry is the best way to make the most money if you're a man.

Whether it's through porn or you have a nine-to-five job,

it's not ever too late to go back and make something out of your life.

The act of commodifying it and sanitising it in a way

is what I think is more insidious

than the impulse to do it or make it or even make money off of it.

You're just constantly bombarded with sterile images

of rote emotionless fucking on command.

They are great at what they do

but they do it because they're told to and they get paid.

So they're not really enjoying the sex act as much as they seem to be.

That's good. OK.

I was wise enough, smart enough, I would say,

to understand how poor my chances are

to become a film star

or to become a runway model.

Now walk over to the wall.

So I made this choice and this is as close to this as I got.

I'm very happy with my choice.

Otherwise I could still wait tables.

To me, in a weird way, heterosexual porn is meaner.

They don't use rubbers, which is shocking when they have ass-fucking.

I feel like I'm watching a snuff movie.

All gay porn movies, almost all, have rubbers. For a long time, they've used that.

There's little ejaculation in the mouth, which straight porn does.

And if they're degrading gay porn, it's part of a fantasy on both sides.

Sometimes straight porn is scary to me. It's ugly and I feel bad for the people.

I generally never feel bad for the gay people in porn movies.

There's a whole vein of sadism which goes with male sex.

And I'm not talking about just the S&M pomposities

but I'm talking about just the situation.

What is one of the first legends of our race?

Those of us from Europe, anyway.

The Rape of the Sabine Women by the Romans.

They'd go out and they'd kill all the men in a neighbouring town,

grab all the women, rape all the women, domesticate them, have children by them

and it's as though the first set of men never existed.

This is not good Christian behaviour

or good Jewish behaviour or good Islamic behaviour.

But it's behaviour.

You can get caught up in the X-rated adult business.

It's a world where you're not judged, you can be yourself,

and you can get lost in that.

When you step out of that world, that's the reality check

and a lot of people don't accept what you do.

I don't regret anything that I did but I definitely learned a lot.

And I knew when to cash in.

I've realised that there was other talents that I have that need to be expressed.

I'm an artist. I paint.

I'm trying to put together a show.

This one here is called Mind Fuck.

I'm also a writer. I have a book coming out. It's a black-black erotic tale. And my music.

The sexy, the horny Heather Hunter.

What's up? This is Heather Hunter.

And I'm actually bringing the passion, but I'm also heisting.

I have hip-hop albums that I've worked on.

I have, like, DJ Premier, Wyclef.

It's amazing because people put in my mind

that, cos of what I've done in my life, society would not be able to take me

and all my life I wanted to prove them wrong.

Stay in your position.

In the adult entertainment industry, I started in 1975.

In 1996, I went back to school.

I finished my master's in public health. I'll be a PhD next year.

Looking at the lens. Just where you are.

I run the AIM Health Care Foundation.

We're a non-profit organisation. We serve over 900 people a month

by monitoring everyone for HIV and STDs on a monthly basis in porn.

That's pretty great.

Gay porn was always doing movies with condoms.

You know, there are so many clichés and bad things said about porn.

Well, we always had this thing to say,

"We tell you about how to have fun, have a great time, but still being safe."

In our straight industry, they thought that AIDS is a gay disease.

And - bad news. It's not.

It's actually very easy to catch and transmit for straight people too.

And this is such a sham, that it's the year 2004,

and they just discovered it.

You know, fucking without a condom, it's a big problem.

The American dilemma about whether to use condoms or not

makes me uneasy

because it's based on economics -

the fear that maybe European porn might be more popular.

Money shouldn't be part of this equation, you know?

Two more.

Bring your butt around a little bit more.

Don't swing it this way too much.

Ready?

I was dancing my senior year in a Catholic high school in New Jersey.

My first layout was in a Cheri magazine. It was a three-girl pizza shoot.

It was funny.

We weren't touching each other that much

but we had pizza all over, it was cute.

Nice. Ready?

One more.

- Does that work? - I'll just do it from here.

From here? OK.

I was married before, and divorced.

He couldn't handle the dancing. He was just a really jealous guy.

I was too young anyway.

I'm actually remarried.

He's the first guy that I did my first boy-girl for Australian Penthouse.

My dad's a Baptist preacher/missionary.

So when I was little we went on the mission field up to Alaska.

There was nobody there. Some Eskimos.

Got a job when I was 14 baby-sitting.

They had Hustler magazine laying around. That was my favourite thing.

One of my dreams was to be in Hustler.

And I actually was in Hustler last year.

- With me. - With her. She was on the cover actually.

This is a really old camera. Do they make this camera any more?

It's an antique version of what they make now.

It shoots that size negative.

So it's kind of complicated. You have to look at the image upside down.

It takes some getting used to.

I love being in front of the camera when I'm shooting you.

I can see everything you're doing and really see your expression

and for me it's all about the expression.

I think that if a woman wants to be showing her body

or if a woman wants to be looked at,

that there is feminism within that relationship.

Bring your hands up a little bit.

Amazing. Just like that.

Let me see a big smile.

A little more this way. Thank you. That's nice.

Again, that little twinkle.

You don't need the shoes.

- I think it's good. - I like it.

And stay like that. Give me a bellows on this.

I feel more comfortable naked. I'm so weird.

I have clothes on, I'm like, "I look stupid!" I get naked, I'm like, "Yeah, baby, go."

You're comfortable nude because you do it all the time.

In the beginning of the project, I wasn't. It was very awkward for me.

Desire begins with taboo

and taboo is against a little boy or a little girl showing off their naked bodies.

They're told that almost immediately.

So if they go into rebellion of any kind they might be tempted to take everything off

and just break the taboo.

And then get paid for it, which is the ultimate victory.

Everything comes back to money.

When I'm dancing on stage, that's when I like to get watched.

It's like a high. If everybody's screaming, I get even happier.

I probably get more wet on stage dancing than while doing a sex scene.

That sounds bad but that's how I am, personally.

Part of me being so excited and loving this

is knowing that someone's gonna be watching it,

knowing that someone out there is gonna see what I'm doing and get off on it.

The camera comes on and I come to life.

There are people that are truly exhibitionists. They gotta show it to somebody every day.

If they weren't in porn, they'd be flashers.

Being an adult star, I get to act out my fantasy,

I have millions of people watching me in my videos, and it turns me on.

Hold it. Ready. I want you to hold it there so I see your eyes.

There. Ready?

I love the fact that people watch me, and enjoy it...

I might say.

You're allowed to be looking at her. She's allowing you to do that.

It's very parental.

And so the person who is doing the looking

is almost within a child's situation, there's a permission.

And within that relationship it's very comforting.

I think we begin life as exhibitionists because we're little, we need to be seen.

You can't be fed or kissed until you're seen.

"Look at me!" Everybody knows in a family how exhibitionistic children can be.

And we get tamed down by our parents and society as time goes on.

At first it was really hard because I was just super-shy.

I'd never done anything like that. My whole body is naked and you're like, "Oh, my God.

"Are you sure that's what you wanna see?"

After a year I got used to it, and you start to finally enjoy it, I think.

Expression.

Look more affectionate, a little sweetness.

That's it.

My way of doing it is to just go in there with an open mind

and see what you can do to them to make them enjoy you.

Now I'm like, "Bring it on" to anybody, you know what I mean?

I like intense sex. I want a guy to be aggressive with me.

That's just my type.

A voyeur without exhibitionist is a very unhappy person.

An exhibitionist without a voyeur is very lonely.

So we need each other.

Real porn stars, though, when they're 80, will still be nude somehow in public.

I think we're over the top in porn star beauty as it were.

We're almost getting into a kind of weird, science-fiction movie,

looking at women who've had their bodies obviously altered.

When I am not working, my job is to keep my appearance good.

Get those legs up a bit higher. Let's go, eight five.

To be a gay porn star, you have to be a good-looking guy.

You have to take care of your body, go to the gym at least four times a week.

Stay like that. Just like that.

On film. Very sexy, good. That's great.

Your eyes right here. Beautiful. Don't squint.

Male porn stars used to be unattractive but not so much now.

This is a straight look, right?

There was a time when the industry thought

the men wanted to identify with a guy who looked like them.

This guy makes money having sex?

But the fact of the matter is that now the really good-looking guys sell better,

even in heterosexual porn,

meaning that it's a fantasy.

Perfect. Don't fall asleep. Very smart.

They want to see themselves as those marvellously improbable guys

with gigantic dicks that stay erect as long as they damn well please.

There's a responsibility in choosing to be the guy in these movies

because people are superimposing themselves upon you,

living vicariously through your performance.

So what's beholden upon me is to be like the Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant for porn

because what I deliver is what the average guy cannot

so I provide for him a different thing,

and that's your superhero aspect

and that's an awesome responsibility.

I think it should be like this.

You're more like the real cool guy. Straighten up a bit. That's great.

A little this way. Right there.

Right. OK, you're good.

Peter North. Oh, my God.

When we do our scene, it just felt like we were dancing.

I mean, his pop shots were like waterfalls.

I think he pop-shot ten to 12 times at one point.

- Just give it a shot. - We've seen it all now.

Just get a little...

Easy. It's OK.

And then she's gonna hold the magazine.

Boys were created to squirt as often as possible

to fructify an egg.

Girls are there to take nine months to lay an egg

and they have to be thoughtful about what they're doing

to take nine months of their valuable time

which might otherwise be engaged in playing tennis

or at IBM, clawing their way up into the boardroom.

So you have to think twice if you're a woman about what sex is going to mean to you

and they tend to be more thoughtful about it.

Boys just squirt and move on and squirt again. They can keep on squirting forever.

This isn't very romantic.

And to try and make anything romantic out of it,

many a couple has gone crashing.

Porno's like live-action cartoon.

Big penises, big breasts, big parties, big orgasms.

More! Big hair, long nails.

Big!

Unplug it.

OK, so what we had before...

It's only a plus if you are well-endowed.

It's very, very, very good.

I can't lie about that. It would be hypocritical to say it doesn't matter.

It does matter.

Some of the industry is predicated on size, obviously, of genitalia.

But being Sean Michaels without a reasonably large-sized penis,

I would have to say... Yeah, I would have probably with the good graces of the universe

been just as successful, maybe more so.

There's people you see and think, "They look like a porn star."

There's a country and western song. "Too ugly for LA, too stupid for New York."

Everybody in LA kind of looks like a porn star to me.

And no one in New York does.

Well, in LA we think that John Waters looks like a porn star.

Out in LA you've got this huge talent pool.

You've got all these girls who look like they're ready to start filming in two minutes.

They've had the plastic surgery, they've got the hair extensions

and they're ready to roll.

Everybody considers if you're blonde and have big boobs,

you're a porn star.

Most girls in the business are blonde with big boobs.

And if they're not, they get their boobs done or dye their hair blonde.

A little more. That's good. Just in your eyes.

We want big boobs. Men love breasts.

I don't know what it is. It's just so womanly. I always just wanted them.

I always wanted to feel confident and sexy.

I got my boobs done for me.

You know, I have a bottom, I have an ass.

And I love it. I have shape. I like to be curvy and toned.

I think it's beautiful.

Europeans think that Americans are a bit gaga on the subject of breasts,

which they put down to the essential infantilisation of the American public.

Hyper-vigilant breasts. It's really from the baby's point of view.

The hunger of looking at the nipple, or looking at the breast.

Breasts are mommies.

You don't really want to have sex with Mommy. That's why pornography is so great.

Cos if not we'd just be a bunch of motherfuckers!

For casting.

Marco. Dimitri.

- Nice to meet you. - How are you?

So I need you to take your clothes off.

Let me see your body, then you will go to another room.

You'll get a hard-on, I will take one Polaroid picture.

- Boxers, right? - Of course.

No shame in my game.

You turn around.

You have to be a very sexually active person

and have strong sexual desires.

Otherwise you will look like you're getting a root canal on the screen.

That's perfect. Don't worry about that.

Don't worry. That's good enough.

You have to be real good. You have to be very concentrated.

You have to be disciplined.

Just lean to the... Yes, perfect.

And then you maybe will become a porn star and maybe you will be successful.

But you might not.

When I'm performing, I enjoy the fact that people are looking at me,

but I also pretend like there's no one else there.

You have to produce an erection. The blood has to get there somehow.

So I'll think about a great pair of feet that were attached to this great chick

that I knew back in...

and then there I go. I'm back.

Pornography in a way is for people that don't have a good dirty movie in their mind.

Fantasies are a movie that you run over and over, especially if you find one you like.

So you find a porno movie that reinforces your fantasies.

That's all it is.

People get a well-produced videotape and then watch it at home.

It looks so smooth and easy and they're kissing and the skirt comes off.

He's erect! What people at home are not seeing

is that after every oral sex position, every intercourse position,

you have to shoot it soft-core for at least four minutes

hardcore for four minutes, stop for stills!

Penis near the orifice, penis in the orifice.

Hand close, hand away.

Mouth on, mouth off.

OK, next position.

The difference between having sex on film

is that I see it as some kind of exercise involving choreography, the lighting.

I don't consider having sex on film sex in any way.

Camera sex and regular sex are two very different things.

You're supposed to make it look glamorous, make it look fun and enticing.

Lean slightly with your body toward the light.

That's it. Yeah.

Maybe not. Just come back again.

Like that. I think what it is is like...

Somehow there's this space here that you keep almost like your hand is there.

Can you hold it like that? OK? Ready?

I got the face.

That's it.

And then just a little. Slightly less.

Right.

I always used to joke, "Am I gonna get a bed today?"

Because you're always on gravel

or some rock...

You know how I have sex? I have sex at home on a bed, missionary with the lights out.

My husband when he married me thought...

"I'm marrying Tera Patrick. This is great.

"She's gonna bring home all these chicks."

No! I had to tell him, "Let me tell you, I'm really boring."

Our sex life at home is a lot different than in the movies.

I can't last as long.

On film, I do anal...

Which he would love to do on me, but not even in my personal life, I don't do it.

I had a toy up there, a good seven inches and she didn't even know it.

She's like, "Don't," I'm like, "It's already there."

Sometimes I'll get really weird and I'm like,

"We're not shooting a porno scene, let's just have fun doing this."

Not make it last a whole hour!

We don't have sex every week.

Especially if I'm out in LA working and I'm sore.

I'm doing four scenes in a week, I don't want to have sex when I go home.

We all think that we somehow come here fully equipped to enjoy sexuality

in all of its explicitness but we need instruction,

just like we need to be taught how to eat properly, how to dress properly.

Every aspect of our lives, we take lessons and we educate ourselves.

In many ways, people do integrate the behaviour of porn stars

in their personal sexual activities and relationships.

Early on when I was reporting, as someone who had...

nearly no exposure to pornography at all,

my astonishment that these young women would watch porn

literally as instructional videos,

to learn how to position themselves better, to give better blow jobs,

which I thought was great, because, for me, it was just laced with such shame.

Sometimes you think, "I never thought of doing that."

There are some things that may be disgusting but in porno with great-looking people

you think, "Maybe I'll save that for the autumn of my years."

It was like anal queen three years running. I was the anal girl.

It's funny cos I never did anything that outrageous with my butt.

I never did a fisting in my ass or a huge penis in my ass

It's just that my orgasm from anal sex is just so intense.

They're usually not even on my butt, they're on my face.

My eyes roll back in my head when I come.

They call me the Linda Blair of porn.

Sex is a universal urge and porn is just saying, "Here's people fucking."

We all do it, we all wanna do it, we all wanna watch it.

If you say you're not interested in it, you're lying.

Those channels on TV where they just show animals mating...

There's no question that it'd be interesting watching humans,

if there's something inherently interesting about watching mammals mating.

The fantasy of the porn star is the ultimate fantasy

because it's a sexual fantasy.

I think that's why it's so disturbing,

because it really does defy our capacity to control it.

Looking too much at naked bodies is boring.

There isn't a lot of variation, you know.

The great sculptor in the sky ran out of ideas rather early on,

so it's pretty tedious what we're stuck with.

Sex is a normal human experience. Sex is ordinary.

Porn's danger is that it may become ordinary too.

The greatest threat to pornography is not censorship, it's acceptance.

I actually really contemplated leaving the business.

It was because I had a traumatic thing happen to me on the set

with a male performer.

I literally had such a bad experience that I didn't want to have sex at all.

And I went through this period where I didn't have sex.

And then I got myself together and I realised that I can't let one thing happen to me.

I've come too far and worked too hard to throw it all away.

When my husband and I have sex, he'll wanna turn on porn

and I'm like, "You can turn it on, but I don't wanna hear the sound."

Porn irritates me.

I always wanted to be part of Hollywood as an actor, director/producer.

But at the same time, unfortunately entertainment, like everything else,

is filled with politics and prejudices.

Sounds kind of corny, but I do things because I believe in them.

I'm an artist so I kind of have to follow somewhat of a calling.

Porn is one of the greatest forms of art that there ever was.

My dream was always to be a runway model

or to be on the cover of Cosmo, or the cover of Vogue.

But once you do porno, you're never gonna be not known as Briana Banks.

I couldn't walk into Elite and say hey.

They would look at me and turn their nose up.

I have big fake boobs to start with

and second of all everybody in the world has seen me naked,

so there's no chance.

I mean, I made it - just halfway.

This business has been great to me. I'm not ashamed of anything I've done.

It was a means to an end.

OK. Good. Just like that.

It helped me to go back to school so I'm quite proud of the fact that I did that for myself.

And you have a photo done.

If my son became a porn star, it would not bother me.

If that's what he wants to do, more power to him.

Girls shouldn't get involved in the industry until they're after 21.

Because at 18, you're still a kid.

And most of them don't survive in the industry. They're out right away.

A lot of them are beautiful girls. They just made the wrong decision.

And they regret it, a lot of them.

By getting older on camera,

I have brought with me a whole host of fans for 20 years

who are perfectly happy that I'm older.

I have new fans coming in who like me specifically because I'm over 40.

I'm here for my own personal satisfaction, mainly,

but also to speak to people about sexuality from a place of experience.

The American dream for me is starting my own company from scratch.

My family's important and I brought my family here,

my grandparents, parents, brother, came in the last three years

and I was able to support them.

So that was my American dream and I feel like I fulfilled it.

I'm ready.

I'm hoping that my choices don't really hurt me in the future.

I mean, I found my confidence in the nude, and I have to thank porn for that.

Really, it's the most honest business that I can think of.

But my family is really hurt by what I've done with my life.

Like, embarrassed.

I come from a small town.

They wanted to move when they found out.

But I continue with my relationship with them. I keep calling.

Because I'm the same person and I think I've got a great career

and a great future.

And they just are gonna have to accept it.

When I was in the adult industry, I was a sex machine.

When I stepped into the real world, everything backfired.

When I jumped into bed with somebody, I would truly believe that they loved me.

I was Heather Hunter, the fantasy girl

and I was like a notch on everyone's belt.

Up on your toes, that's it.

I remember one time I was having sex with this guy,

we'd had a date, you know, we're doing it,

we had a great time, it was fabulous.

And we were laying in the bed,

he's smoking a cigarette and he reaches over for this pad thing on his desk.

And he asked me for an autograph.

And I was like, "Oh, my God, why did you disappoint me?"

But I signed it, I signed that autograph,

because I am Heather Hunter.

And I have to face that. I am someone's dream, someone's fantasy.

That's what my life is all about.

That's the bed I lie in.

No parent actually wants their kid to become an adult star

but my mom flew out here to see what kind of stuff I do.

And she was so relieved, and so comfortable.

Now when we talk, she's like, "Are you shooting a new movie?"

I'm about to go to Tahiti to shoot Island Fever 3

and she's like, "That's great!"

So she gets into it.

I love it and I'm proud of it and I've had a great life and I still am having a wonderful life now.

The first true alien video is almost certainly going to be porn.

Can you imagine a video of alien sex?

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