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The writer, performer, and pornographer has written an essay for a new book called A Woman’s Right to Pleasure – published exclusively in full here
This essay is an extract from A Woman’s Right To Pleasure – a new book by BlackBook, Dr. Amir Marashi, and Lelo – which brings together work from 77 of the most celebrated female-identifying artists, writers, and creative thinkers of the last century as they explore pleasure – in all it's forms. Out 20 August, A Woman’s Right To Pleasure is available to pre-order here
I’d like to open with a quote. It’s a quote of a rephrasing of someone else’s quote. Natalie Wynn, in character on the “Transtrenders” episode of her YouTube philosophy show ContraPoints, paraphrasing Judith Butler, says: “Gender is a series of gestures. It’s called performativity.” Wynn goes on to talk about dysphoria, gender roles, and to generally get in an argument with herself. Like Foucault, the discourse is in the contra... dictions.
For me, a woman’s right to pleasure is a given. I grew up on second wave feminist texts like Jane Sexes It Up and Cunt. Before I turned eighteen, I knew how to make myself orgasm and how to teach other people to make me orgasm. And I had a certainty in my God-given right to experience as much pleasure as my body could handle.
I’m here to talk about the flip side.
See, I’m a fairly well known pornographer. The last time I had dinner with a friend, the waitress asked what our plans for the night were. I said, “I’ll probably head home and work on my column.” The waitress asked what publication. I said, “Slate.” She asked, “Are you St... St... St...–” “Yes. Stoya,” I answered. She was thrilled. I tipped her seventy percent of the bill, as one does in these situations. I bring this up merely to state the inescapability of my career. There’s no avoiding the fact of it, and that fact almost certainly has ramifications–sometimes for the better, but sometimes for the worse.
A funny thing happens to men when they enter the bed of a notorious sex worker. Either their dick wilts or they attempt to outdo the fantasy of porn production that exists in their minds. Of course, there are outliers who manage to hold their own, but those are few and even farther between.
These men–the ones who want to outdo the fantasy–they want to make me come. Not only do they want to make me come, they want me to come hard, fast, and over and over. It’s too much.
Really.
My pussy gets a cramp sometimes.
I exhaust myself.
I don’t need to orgasm thirty times in a single hookup. One feels like an amazing reset. Three is fantastic. Five is plenty.
Another strong one and I’ll need to stop.
Seriously.
Please chill. No, really. My clit is on fire. Don’t... touch it... anymore, tonight.
I know it’s weird and not particularly relatable, but I have to tell you that I orgasm easily. I’m a freak of nature (and incredibly well suited for the job of porn performer in that respect). I regularly come from penetration alone. With the right kind of catering to the enormous erogenous zone that is my back, and some clitoral stimulation, I might orgasm in under five minutes.
These guys... these guys, they don’t need to try so hard. They don’t need to prove their prowess. I wonder sometimes if I’m setting a bad example for my male partners. Whether I’m some kind of a traitor to womankind for allowing myself to inhabit the patriarchal fantasy of a woman who orgasms easily, no matter how authentic that may be. I’m tempted to hold back, to decline to orgasm until they’ve put in some serious work. To refuse to be the easy girl. Woman. What-femme-ever.
Regardless, it’s a performance of being a porn star, partnered by a performance of being a good, virile man. It isn’t authentic, and that’s probably why it irks me. Eventually they do get it out of their system and relations begin to normalise. We have sex with each other as people. That’s better. Much better.
I remember a time before I was a porn performer. They still wanted to know how many times, and how hard. I wonder how many men are legitimately aroused by statistics. Is it a kink? I haven’t had sex with nearly as many women, but, to generalise, they’re far less concerned with the mathematics of mating.
Clearly, I’ve got some pretty firm ideas about sex. I’m currently employed as a sex advice columnist, and have spent 12 years in the adult film industry in various capacities from performer to producer. So, I feel qualified to make unilateral decisions about sex, what it is, and how it should happen.
Sex, to me, is the physical connection of humans and associated behaviors. Kissing is sex. So-called dirty talk, or explicit flirtation, is sex. Mutual masturbation is sex. Frottage is sex. Penetration is sex.
Orgasms, for either partner, are not required.
I like human connection. I prioritise the moment. Perhaps this is a mark of my privilege, but I just don’t care that much about the orgasms. I want them when they’re imminent–desperately–but they aren’t my goal when I enter most sexual interactions.
It’s great that men care about female pleasure now. It’s truly wonderful that the general public is aware of the fact of the female orgasm and thinks it’s a cool thing to make happen for a woman. I am overjoyed that multiple orgasms are a thing people know about, though the fact that people with penises can have them too does seem to get lost. And I can’t help but think that there’s something starkly patriarchal in this counting and logging.
Sometimes, for me, the feeling of release happens as I’m initially being penetrated. Fingers or cock, it doesn’t matter. Sometimes the feeling of release happens as they brush that sensitive spot on the front wall of my vagina. Sometimes the feeling of release happens during an orgasm. Occasionally – very rarely – that feeling of release comes from kissing. All are equal in my eyes. And that feeling is what I’m after.
The pleasure I take in sex is vast and varied. I feel lucky to have found an activity that I find so endlessly entertaining and pleasurable. But that pleasure is about far more than a few muscle contractions and a release of physical tension. That pleasure comes from being intimate, being gently stroked, sharing body heat, kissing, and giving pleasure myself.
And, every once in a while, I still do greatly enjoy letting a partner wear me out. Even if I have a pussy cramp afterwards.
