So Many Lanes

Ever given yourself a porn star name? You know how it goes: your first name comes from your childhood pet's name, your last is the street you grew up on. Mine comes out to Bucky Willow. This development has kept me out of porn as I have no desire to be a bottom in gay porn.

I often wonder how porn stars come up with their names. Wouldn't surprise me if some of them use the above protocol. I'm sure an overwhelming majority choose from a pool of stereotypical porn star/ stripper names (e.g., Amber, Britney, Nikki, Angel, Heather, Brandy, Chloe, etc). Of course you have your Sasha Greys and their obscure references. Who knew you could make sex flicks with Sascha Konietzko and Dorian Gray's monikers?

What about last names? There are the obvious references to sex (your Coxes and whatnot). There are certain last names that are abundant in porn for reasons I have yet to find out. Cody Lane, Sunny Lane, Vanessa Lane, Morgan Layne, etc. Why are there all these Lanes in porn? Is it their IRL surnames? Is there some sex reference I'm just not seeing? Is there some proto-sex goddess to whom all these women are alluding? Do all these signs point to Chasey Lain? Lois Lane? Does anyone know?

Porn Star Haiku: Naomi Russell

Lordosis never

looked so good. Your ass and you

make me lose my cool.

Choosing My First Impressions

After writing yesterday's post, I reflected about the unique position I'm in.

I have neither seen Sasha Grey in a porn nor a mainstream flick.

First impressions are everything, right? Whatever movie I watch first will, whether I like it or not, influence how I perceive her.

I am in the position to pick the road I follow though I won't necessarily know the outcome.

Should my first impression of Sasha Grey be her lead role in a film by the same Academy Award^® winning director who gave me Schizopolis?

Or should I watch her take on fifteen dudes and a hook first?

Ambassador jumpsuit landmine!!!!!!!

My Utterly Uninformed Thoughts on Sasha Grey

Skydweller, who may or may not be affiliated with the Disney Corporation, writes:


"man could you please write about porn star Sasha Grey? I wanna know more about her."


Skydweller, if you just surfed in here, you probably wouldn't know this but this blog is a reflection on porn as filtered through my personal experience. And I'll be frank, perhaps too frank: I've never masturbated to Sasha Grey.

And in truth I couldn't give you a good reason why. Her videos are easy to come by. She is an exceptional beauty. I have always been partial to brunettes. She seems accessible which, strange to say, is a factor in who I watch. I think with porn like in other areas of my life I have the tendency to stay off the well beaten path. I'm more likely to following my own whims than do something because it's hot. And Sasha Grey is en fuego.

I'm not mad at her for it. More power to her. But for whatever reason, perhaps my current infatuation with redheads, I'm not feeling her right now. Someday I'll get around to indulging in her movies. When that happens, you'll be the first to know.

That said, I hate to let people down. I figure as much as I surf the internets for porn, surely I must know something that may be of use to you. Here is what I been able to gleam from my travels:

Her Wikipedia page is perhaps the most in-depth I've seen for any porn star except Ron Jeremy. What hasn't she done? She's in both Porn and Mainstream films. She's modeled for American Apparel, the company I love to hate. She's put out industrial records. And Much More.

She's a busy Renaissance woman, it seems. Quite an accomplished lady at her age. But from what I've been reading, she has a few detractors. People who say her intelligence, if not her whole persona is an affectation.

Like I said, I not terribly familiar with her, but at this point I'm not inclined to disagree. Take, for instance her constant allusions to Existentialism and French New Wave.

From personal experience, 9 out of 10 people who name drop Existentialism into a conversation are in-fucking-sufferably smug assholes who don't what they're talking about. I'm not afraid to say that I might fall into this category.

And as much I love Godard, Truffaut, and all them cats, most people who say they like French New Wave -- unless that person is a bearded professor or European -- are really trying to impress you. It's code for look at how cool, hip, and savvy I am! It's in the same vein as telling people how much you can bench press. Again, this might be a self indictment.

All said though, regardless of whether she's "authentic" or even likable, based on my light research and my gut, my feeling is that in the years to come she'll subvert our idea of what porn stars are or should be. And if there's anything I'm for, it's good old fashioned subversion.

Oh, and apparently she's beefing with Howard Stern, but I don't think that will go anywhere.

On Porno Art

I watch a lot of porn. Duh, right?

As such, after while, I, being the special guy that I am, notice patterns, fixtures, recurrences. Things like the pervasive potted plant in the corner or the inexplicably ubiquitous folding room partition in the background. Things like black guys keeping their shoes on (I haven't figured that one out yet).

What I notice most is the abundance of art in porn movies. You see it everywhere, and all kinds: good, bad...mostly bad. If the scene isn't outside, in a motel room, or on a fabricated set, you'll probably see something hanging on the wall.

Several questions arise:

1. Have there been any recognizable pieces featured? I'm not talking about The Nightwatch, certainly, but something from a hot artist from the last 5-10 years or so.

2. Does having your art pop up in a sex flick increase or lower its value? I'm guessing if early deaths and bizarre lifestyles are a career-maker, porn appearance can't be that detrimental.

3. Somewhat, related to the first question. The houses a lot of these movies are shot in pretty much look interchangeable. Has anyone seen a painting and gone, "Oh, that's _________'s place"?

4. Am I the only one who notices shit like this?

5. Why?

I guess the most logical (and least fun) explanation is that many non-motel room, non-fake set sex flicks are shot in pretty swanky digs in and around Porn Valley. A surefire way for the arriviste to gain respectability is through collecting art. I'm assuming, of course, Old Money don't let their houses out for porn shoots, but I could be wrong.

A collage construct from a random sampling of my collection:

I am a geek for documentaries and books about the lives of various works of art. I like knowing how it got from A to B, what happens from the time it's created and the time it gets to its present home. If the story begins with an impoverished, unappreciated artist who sells his prized painting to make rent, and then proceeds to how it was hidden from the Nazis by Resistance members in a dank cave for four years, and ends with the painting now a national treasure hung in the Louvre, then you've got my attention the whole time (no mean feat).

Thinking of Porno Art I let my mind wander.

What if there were an artist. He isn't a hot new thing but he is talented. He isn't known in the big art circles, but he does fairly well in Southern California. His work isn't selling for more than $1000, but he's moves quite a few paintings out of his studio. Maybe he has friends in the porn industry, or maybe it's a fluke of fate, but many of his paintings end up in homes in San Fernando Valley.

Suppose he dies at a young age before his career could take off. Maybe his death is especially tragic or unusual, maybe a renown art critic stumbles across one of his pieces by accident (I'm thinking at a garage sale he almost didn't go to). Could be anything that does it, but soon after his death his profile starts picking up.

Five, ten years go by and this guy becomes hot. Paintings that originally sold for $500 now go for $20,000 easy. Many find that by selling that painting from behind the couch they once thought worthless, they could finance several movies, or buy a new car. His works start moving out of Porn Valley and find their way into the hands of prominent dealers and private collectors all across the US, Japan, Russia, Europe.

Another ten years go buy and this guy's paintings start to appear in museums. Women are shocked to learn, when liquidating their husband's assets for the divorce proceedings, that the ugly painting that's been hiding in storage for all these years in now worth $800,000.

Seventy-five years go by and the artist is a major figure in Western Art. His paintings are in the Met, and the National Gallery, and the Guggenheim. The latest auction offering was a frenzied affair with his most celebrated piece going for $1.2 billion (not that outrageous if you consider inflation). Unknown in his own time, the artist is now considered a pioneer and creator of his own Movement.

And in the classroom of an art school, a professor is starting a three day lecture on this man's life and work. He's giving the Life of a Masterpiece Spiel for a painting that is now priceless.

And it goes something like this: "...was featured in Tinker with My Stinker 2 and Interracial Hole Stretchers 4..."

The DoppelGanger and Celebreality

I try. I really do. I try so hard to distance myself from Reality TV but -- some of you have seen this coming -- I find myself watching the newest season of Charm School. Granted, I'm still watching in the same 5 minutes chunks I afford to all of VH1's Celebreality lineup, but my tolerance is slowly, and sadly, building.

I've written about my not-at-all-difficult quests to find the pornwork of my favorite females of Celebreality. I've also written about Celebreality stars I want to see do porn.

And what do you know: two minutes into Charm School Ithought I struck gold again. Brittanya, who, along with being conspicuously absent from the cast listing on the show's website, and seemed to have evaded my notice during Rock Bus of Love, looked like one of my favorite regulars from Naughty America.

Or at least I thought. But bit of googling turned up the fact that Audrey Bitoni and Brittanya O'Campo are two different people. Had not one of them been heavily tattooed, I would have had much more trouble making that asertation. They look remarkably similar.

There is actually a porn star on the show, Brittaney Starr, but I've never been into her.

An Open Letter To Jeanna Fine

Dear Ms. Fine,

Allow me to start off by saying that I have been a fan of yours for a great many years now, nearly half of my life. Your onscreen exploits made an indelible imprint on me during my formative years. I doubt I will ever forget the effortlessly waton sexuality that you exuded. For that I want to thank you for making my adolescence what it was.

The reason for the letter is to implore you, beg you, to return to porn once more. I know I can't be the only person who's been waiting for you to come back. I sincerely believe that your return will stoke the pornstalgic flames of many men my age as well as enflame the hearts and passions of a new generation of youth.

The time is ripe; it has been for a few years now. The new swell of Milf and Cougar porn has brought many of the legends of yesteryear back to the forefront of our nation's pornographic consciousness. Your background reveals that you are Milf Compliant. Even without kids, you would fit quite naturally as an uberCougar, a role you seemed destined to play since the the early 90's.

If retirement is too sweet a deal to leave behind, please consider a limited run at the top reality sites. Or perhaps a season as Naughty America's Milf/Cougar-In-Residence?

I can't convey how much your return, however brief, would mean to young men (and maybe some women too) around the country. You would be doing us all a great honor even thinking about it.

With what I assume to be love and what I know to be the most sincere admiration,

You everlong fan,

Oruba Stone