He point's to his lip's.

December 19, 2012 7:37 AM

Kayden Kross writes, at length, about opposing Measure B and making a DMV-style sex test. Both SFW.
James Deen makes the world's most expensive burrito and is also a food critic. NSFW banners.
Kayden Kross shares a funny moment in a porn script and a funny text conversation with a porn star. NSFW text.
James Deen got a "shit head kitten". NSFW banners, still.
Kayden Kross dresses up her fleshlight like David Foster Wallace and like a hot dog. NSFW fleshlights.
James Deen waxes nostalgia for Nine Inch Nails and the era when people listened to albums, not songs. Banners still NSFW.
Kayden Kross shares pictures of her horse and pictures of herself buying her horse's love. Also stories about riding her horse. Also pics of her bunny. All SFW.
James Deen has a crush on Lexi and Stoya and Daisy and Stoya and Maddy and Stoya and occasionally he writes them haiku. Blatantly NSFW the lot of them. Plus banners.
posted by Rory Marinich (46 comments total)

Deen also does a great Ikea Monkey.
posted by yellowbinder at 7:42 AM on December 19, 2012 [7 favorites]

So apparently not Paula Dean's kid like I thought. OK.
posted by boo_radley at 7:44 AM on December 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

Kayden Kross shares a funny moment in a porn script

My god, it's full of apostrophes.
posted by enn at 7:45 AM on December 19, 2012 [11 favorites]

apostrophe's, you mean.
posted by Rory Marinich at 7:46 AM on December 19, 2012 [4 favorites]

What's the point of this?
posted by legweak at 7:47 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Nothing personal, but I can see the crush on Stoya.
posted by Samizdata at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2012

boo_radley: “So apparently not Paula Dean's kid like I thought. OK.”

Still pretty sure Kayden is somehow related to Redd Kross, though.
posted by koeselitz at 7:49 AM on December 19, 2012 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: What's the point of this?
posted by Grangousier at 7:50 AM on December 19, 2012

What's the point of this?

Porn stars are suspiciously like real people.
posted by mullacc at 7:51 AM on December 19, 2012 [5 favorites]

Hell really is other people.
posted by Burhanistan at 7:53 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

That DFW fleshlight is hysterically funny.
posted by padraigin at 7:53 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

What's the point of this?

That porn stars today have access to social media and are human beings with thoughts and lives and kittens and karaoke nights and recipes and burrito opinions, not just soulless meat-puppet drones for us to wank to as they fuck for the camera before being put back in their cage.

When I was growing up, the only interviews I remember with porn stars were in Hustler and High Society magazine, Lisa DeLeuuw talking about what kind of cocks she preferred* or someone's first anal scene. Their sexuality was the extent of their humanity, and raunch was held at a premium. It was almost uncool to think of porn stars as normal people.

I for one kinda like the idea of social media humanizing sex workers. Because that's the first step to humanizing sex work and society's attitudes towards sex workers.

*The reason I remember Lisa D's interview is because she preferred uncut cocks and my lonely, awkward 12-yo self with the stolen magazine took that as a shout out.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 7:55 AM on December 19, 2012 [29 favorites]

April O'Neil is my pornstar of choice. It's doesn't hurt that she seems to be a geek in real life.
posted by Fister Roboto at 7:56 AM on December 19, 2012

legweak: “What's the point of this?”

If you mean 'why exactly does Kayden Kross have a fleshlight?' then I share your confusion.
posted by koeselitz at 8:03 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

The point is that James Deen is really good at marketing himself (see: the Metafilter thread about him from last month)
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 8:04 AM on December 19, 2012 [5 favorites]

What's the point of this?

I've wanted to FPP James Deen's blog for a little while now, both because he writes really entertainingly and because he posts some great pictures of himself and starlets making funny faces for the camera. Then this morning I stumbled upon the David Foster Wallace fleshlight, read more of Kayden's blog, and found that I really enjoyed her long-form posts too.

Originally I wanted to alternate clever/witty things Kayden wrote with a steady stream of:

"James Deen loves fucking Stoya."
"James Deen loves fucking Lisa."
"James Deen loves fucking Jesse."

Kind of using links to his blog as the recurring punch line. But then I found way too many things by him that I liked for that to work, and I decided it was unfair to mention only his enthusiasm for fucking, so I put all those links into the last line.

I was considering making this a Pornstar Blogs roundup but most pornstar blogs totally suck. There was one interesting post by Audrey Bitoni about leech therapy [nsfw], but her voice wasn't super strong and most of her blog consists of her making lists like Favorite People and Favorite Cities and Things I Want On A Desert Island, so I left her out of the rotation.
posted by Rory Marinich at 8:07 AM on December 19, 2012

Pornos have scripts. Huh.
posted by tippiedog at 8:07 AM on December 19, 2012

It's doesn't hurt that she seems to be a geek in real life.

Which is kind of the point, isn't it? Social media can humanize you as PBZM points out, or it can be used to advance the persona you want to advance, and porn stars have the same problem every other creative industry worker has: it's dreadfully easy to pirate their work.

So in order to make sure you can have a profitable career in porn, you need to work to advance your personal brand, and ain't nothing better for that than a blog anna Twitter anna Tumblr where you can extend your appeal beyond people liking the way you fuck on screen to include intangible qualities. April O'Neil is a "geek pornstar" because she's taken opportunities to point out that she likes geeky things often enough that now whenever someone else writes about her it's an easy hook for them to use it for discussion. There are plenty of other pornstars who like geeky things - your Bobbi Starrs, your Kimberly Kanes. But April O'Neil gets the "geek pornstar" badge almost by default because she's branded herself that way. Which: good for her.

The upshot of this is that it makes porn, on the whole, smarter. Siri, for example, would have probably been a niche performer ten years ago because, even though she is absolutely gorgeous, she is not your traditional "sexy body type" that gets written up (not even in porn, which never really went to the anorexia-as-beauty standard that Hollywood continues to endorse). But she's clearly very smart, and she knows how to work her brand as "big girl with brains" (because there is a certain sort of person who wants their porn stars to be intelligent as well as visually hot because that makes their porn experience better). I've never seen a porn star make the case against piracy as well as she has.

Anyway. If porn is to survive, it needs performers who know how to market themselves, because more than almost anything, sale of porn is sale of a projected, idealized self. This is just the next level of that.
posted by mightygodking at 8:13 AM on December 19, 2012 [7 favorites]

FYI, the first time you visit James Deen's blog, it makes you go through an age verification page, then redirects you to the most recent entry, not the one you clicked on. And the most recent entry is very non-SFW.
posted by smackfu at 8:17 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

I think having insight into the lives of porn performers outside of their products and the common perception that they are all dysfunctional people with drug addictions and histories of abuse goes a good way towards humanizing them.

There definitely is always going to be a breed of porn consumers that wants to completely reduce the pornstar to some sort of commodity that they can use to facilitate their sexual fantasies but I think there is definitely a market for more "realistic" scenarios that still have lots of sex but also include a greater degree of plot development and characterization. This seems to definitely be the case at porn directed at a more female friendly audience.

I think there is also a desire on the part of some consumers to have the sex scenes show a greater degree of passion and having porn actors and actresses that genuinely seem to enjoy their jobs rather than just seem like victims of circumstance goes a long way towards making porn seem more acceptable and less squicky. There is still definitely some degree of exploitation going on but having the actors seemingly exerting more agency over their careers and who they work with goes a long way towards reducing some of the common complaints about porn.

I think they also know with the proliferation of the various "tube" sites that offer seemingly endless hours of material that they have to develop a greater connection to their audience and avenues like social media go a long way towards developing a "connection" that might give someone a pause when they have a chance of pirating that star's porn.
posted by vuron at 8:25 AM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

Also, disappointed about the lack of information about the aforementioned burrito.

Besides, if he IS posting an article about making the world's most expensive burrito, maybe he should look at killing the "Help me keep my blog open - DONATE!" banner.
posted by Samizdata at 9:03 AM on December 19, 2012

Still pretty sure Kayden is somehow related to Redd Kross, though.

Wrong! She is the daughter of Kris Kross.
posted by Mister_A at 9:11 AM on December 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

I don't get the appeal of James Deen. I read about him on MetaFilter, looked up a few videos and saw a hunky, well-hung guy with wooden macho affections have mechanistic sex with impossibly thin women.
posted by werkzeuger at 9:16 AM on December 19, 2012

well-hung guy with wooden macho affections have mechanistic sex

Oh! You mean porno. ;)
posted by ReeMonster at 9:25 AM on December 19, 2012

That kitten is adorable, though. Awww. Kitty!
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:40 AM on December 19, 2012

If you mean 'why exactly does Kayden Kross have a fleshlight?' then I share your confusion.

I'm assuming it's a fleshlight not just owned by Kayden Kross but actually modeled on her lady bits. By taking a mold and so on.
posted by Justinian at 9:42 AM on December 19, 2012

Now I feel bad, because Kayden's long form post about the DMV was just so so much better than I expected.
posted by interstitial at 9:54 AM on December 19, 2012

Dig the Deen and used to follow his blog religiously, but after a while my brain went to mush because it's so horribly written. The only good article was the Measure B. His Reddit AMA was really good. I think his content needs to be more interaction with his readers rather than the utter mind meld crap he posts currently. He's so ....yum....but as soon as he says "rad" it's a total turn off.

Stoya--very intelligent womant to a fault. On the other side of the pendulum you have her overly dramatic, droaning on and on posts to the point where you just scream SHUT UP ALREADY, SHEESH by the time you reach the 9th paragraph.
posted by stormpooper at 9:58 AM on December 19, 2012

April O'Neil is a "geek pornstar" because she's taken opportunities to point out that she likes geeky things often enough that now whenever someone else writes about her it's an easy hook for them to use it for discussion. There are plenty of other pornstars who like geeky things - your Bobbi Starrs, your Kimberly Kanes. But April O'Neil gets the "geek pornstar" badge almost by default because she's branded herself that way. Which: good for her.

I really hope she wears a yellow jumpsuit in every video she does.
posted by kmz at 12:26 PM on December 19, 2012 [3 favorites]

One of the many weird things about Deen is that he claims he has been openly saying that he wanted to be a pornstar since he was about five, as I recall-- almost as if by taking thought, you can add a cubit to your stature.
posted by jamjam at 3:16 PM on December 19, 2012

werkzeuger: I don't get the appeal of James Deen. I read about him on MetaFilter, looked up a few videos and saw a hunky, well-hung guy with wooden macho affections have mechanistic sex with impossibly thin women.

Look up some more videos. It's the whispering and the um...cunnilingus (can I say that here?) that the ladies love. I mean, that's what I hear anyway.

FPP needs more Xander Corvus, k thanks!
posted by youandiandaflame at 4:35 PM on December 19, 2012 [1 favorite]

For the record: I have no problem at all with this post. I rather like knowing what actors are like when the camera is turned off... particularly when it's outside of mainstream Hollywood where there's an entire industry devoted to patting its people on the back.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 4:48 PM on December 19, 2012

"human beings with thoughts and lives and kittens and karaoke nights and recipes and burrito opinions"

And herpes!
posted by bardic at 9:01 PM on December 19, 2012

I'll take a pass, I've already used my allotted narcissist snacks on feeding the Kardashians.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:07 PM on December 19, 2012

And herpes!
posted by bardic

Wow. Way to miss the point entirely there, bardic.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 6:50 AM on December 20, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'll take a pass, I've already used my allotted narcissist snacks on feeding the Kardashians.

Is it the making porn or the having a blog that makes them narcissists?
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:52 AM on December 20, 2012

Is it doing porn or having a blog that you think makes them worthy of everyone's time (i.e. fame)?

There is a reason why people have problems with cults of personality and insta-fame reality tv stars. If you would like to try to differentiate why this is different I would like to hear it, but so far the reasons you've given are exactly the same as why people fawn over Kardashians.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:32 PM on December 20, 2012 [1 favorite]

P.o.B.: Not to put it crudely, but the reason they're "worthy" of their audience's time is that their audience needs something to masturbate to, and these two performers are especially good at making their performances masturbatory.

The need for sexual release is probably even more necessary than our need for other, more elevated sorts of art. Maybe I can argue that a painter or director or poet fulfills me spiritually, but my spiritual longing isn't as much a bodily function as the one that led me to porn. I mean, it's not like anybody (other than James Deen) decided at a young age that they wanted to masturbate: on the contrary, many young people are nervous or ashamed of their sex drive. So the fact that everybody* masturbates has to do with more than just "I was watching TV and this thing came on," the way the Kardashians are. Porn fulfills a function which more elevated kinds of art and entertainment shy away from (not always, but usually).

Given that people are going to masturbate to something, there is something inherently interesting about pornstars that are good at what they do. And make no mistake, there's such a thing as a good pornstar. Kross and Deen are each quite talented; Deen is perhaps the most famous guy in porn, at least to a younger audience who doesn't know Peter North and Ron Jeremy and the like. It's not entirely dumb luck that some porn stars are better-known than others. There's a talent that can be nurtured and cultivated, and the best porn stars improve their trade over time. (I read an essay once about the development of Lexi Belle as a star over the first few years of her career that fascinated me; if you're interested I can search for it and link you.)

Beyond simply that these are two people who are good at doing something which many many people benefit from their being good at, there's something interesting about the authorial voice of a porn star that is valuable in its own right. Part of it is that they are each interesting writers – Kayden is a legitimately good writer, and funny too, while Deen's enthusiasm is totally infectious – but what interests me more is that they write from a cultural perspective which is alien, if not outright taboo, across much of American culture. It's not just that they show nude pictures or write about sex, it's that these things are so ordinary to them that they speak of them casually, have inside jokes about them, have little hierarchies of behavior which are ordinary among other social activities but which don't form over sex, not in this large-group-of-friends way. It's not intimate writing about sex, it's sex without any intimacy whatsoever, sex with the least amount of intimacy possible.

While I don't read either of these two bloggers frequently, I do occasionally hop over to their blogs and see what they're saying. Beyond the value of their writing as writing, there's something meaningful to me about seeing this attitude towards sex being expressed and published by people who, other than their porn talents, are pretty ordinary people. They're not professional writers, they're not politically motivated or trying to score points. Some of the writing's bad, some's good, some's introspective, some's funny, but that range itself serves to underscore the meaning I find here, which is: our attitude towards sex is manufactured by the culture we were born into. There's nothing natural about it, or especially meaningful either. And I don't find that interesting because I'm interested in porn or in casual sex, but I do like to be aware of just how many of my beliefs were influenced by forces beyond my control. Since sex factors into just about everything else in life, to some extent or another, looking into a culture whose stance on it is so different from the one I'm used to is refreshing, sometimes insightful, occasionally inspiring.

I don't recommend porn be something we talk about on the blue every single day, or even every month or every year, but I found these interesting enough to share, and I'll argue all day that there's more value to the voice of a talented pornstar than there is to the voice of a Kardashian, if you listen to it for the right reasons. But I'll also suggest that this argument is not worth any more of your time. People like things you don't like and find value in things you don't. I trust this isn't too shocking a revelation.
posted by Rory Marinich at 12:48 AM on December 21, 2012 [2 favorites]

What Rory said.

The Kardashians are famous for being famous, their fame is the product they sell. Porn stars actually produce stuff that people want.

And honestly, I get a little tired about people whining about how the Kardashians are forced down their throat and imposed upon the in a most uncivil matter, like the Trash Culture Police are checking the meter on your TV.

Whiner, please!

Ya know what? Lexica & I don't pay for cable TV, don't even have a TV (we do have youtube & Netflix). We don't listed to commercial radio (though we do have Spotify). Ya know what? The Kardashians are a non-entity on my cultural radar. They don't bother me because they don't pop up but in the most fleeting ways.

Lisa Sparks? Jade Marx? Lorelei Lee? Jiz Lee (no relation)? I consume their professional output enthusiastically and am also interested in what they have to blog about because the ones who are personally interesting (aside from being fap-worthy) are, well, personally interesting as people.

Your dismissive comment about having to spend your "Narcissist Snacks" sounds perilously close to Ye Olde "Why do these movie stars have political opinions? They should shut up and just act in movies".

And maybe you should take a closer look at what some of these so-called "narcissists" actually have to say. Maybe Stoya's take on street harassment by men:

They say I have a sweet ass, nice tits, a real pretty dress. They say I'm their future wife, or I'd look good with their dick in my mouth. They try (and probably succeed at times) to take pictures down my shirt. They ask if they can get my number, they ask where I live, why I'm not smiling, why my boyfriend lets me walk around by myself. Then they ask why I'm such a bitch, if my pussy is made of ice. They say that they never do this, as though I've somehow driven them to inappropriate behavior and deserve it. They say they're just having fun, trying to pay me a compliment. Pretty frequently they get mean, slipping into a loud tourettes — like chant of bitch-whore-cunt-slut.

Before you try to tell me that it's because I take my clothes off for a living, let me tell you that this started way before I was 18. Let me tell you that every single woman I know has at least one truly terrifying story of street harassment and a whole bunch of other stories that are merely insulting or annoying. Let me remind you that in a room of pornography fans, who have actually seen me with a dick in my mouth and who can buy a replica of my vagina in a can or box, I am treated with far more respect than I am walking down the street.

SO yeah, back to the subject of humanizing sex-workers amidst a culture that treats them without dignity or basic human respect...
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 10:26 AM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Rory, you didn’t post this for “their” audience, you posted to expand “their” audience.

Essentially what you’re saying, and what I disagree with, is that they deserve more fame. Fame based on a non-measurable talents. Talents that equal fuck all, literally.

“Check out these people, they are cool because they fuck good and that makes them interesting” is a weird justification, but okay if that’s what you like. I’m not here to tell people what to do, but as an open forum I’m pretty sure it’s alright for me to give my opinion and to point out that what you saying and doing has larger ramifications.

To be clear, though, a “good” porn stars doesn’t mean what you seem to think it means. You are confusing talent with simple notoriety. A notoriety based on being young, good looking, a catchy name, the right measurements and a willingness to fuck onscreen. Factor in longevity and you get your “good” porn stars. The talent you’re talking about is an afterthought at best, and generally has little to do with success. You’re kidding yourself, and others, when you say it does.

You know you really haven’t differentiated a real quality between a porn star and a reality star such as Snooki aside from whether they keep their clothes on most of the time. Point being vacuous consumption is vacuous consumption and dressing it up as something else is a bit disingenuous.

Perhaps we’ll have that conversation about how we as a society are dishing up fame to people who are actively seeking it unto itself, and the ramifications of that, some other time because you seem to have dodged that wholly here.

PBMZ, you lost me in the depths of your conflations and odd reasoning.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:18 PM on December 21, 2012

But let me try.
- Kardashians are ridiculously popular so apparently they produce something people want - a show, just like pornstars.
- Never complained about the Kardashians, nor did I complain about porn.
- Fortunate that my dismissive comment didn't say that porn stars "should just shut up" though, right?
- I actually have looked at porn star's blog in the past.
- Surely you don't think it is dehumanizing to not read porn star's blogs?
posted by P.o.B. at 1:32 PM on December 21, 2012

You know you really haven’t differentiated a real quality between a porn star and a reality star such as Snooki aside from whether they keep their clothes on most of the time.

This seems like a crazy point to me. Porn stars are mostly famous for their work in porn flicks. Just like mainstream movie stars are mostly famous for their work in mainstream movies. And like television stars are mostly famous for their work in television. Why is this difficult to accept? The only possible way I see for there to be confusion on your part is if you believe that movies (can't really say "film" anymore, what with movies like The Hobbit) and television have some sort of intrinsic merit while neither porn nor reality shows have any. So a "movie star" is famous for something worthy while Snooki or Stoya are famous for something unworthy.

Is that your position?
posted by Justinian at 3:47 PM on December 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

No
posted by P.o.B. at 4:06 PM on December 21, 2012

Ok, so what's the problem with the simple and obvious difference that porn stars are famous for being in porn movies and Snooki is famous for being on reality television? Isn't that an actual difference which doesn't really need any elaboration? I'm not trying to be difficult here, I just don't understand the problem.
posted by Justinian at 6:38 PM on December 21, 2012

Er – does it actually matter whether there's a difference between Snooki and James Deen? And if there is, does it matter what it is? I feel like this is a dead end in the argument.

P.o.B.: “You know you really haven’t differentiated a real quality between a porn star and a reality star such as Snooki aside from whether they keep their clothes on most of the time. Point being vacuous consumption is vacuous consumption and dressing it up as something else is a bit disingenuous.”

I don't know how much I agree with this part, but that's only because I'm having a hard time pinning down what "vacuous consumption" means.

“Perhaps we’ll have that conversation about how we as a society are dishing up fame to people who are actively seeking it unto itself, and the ramifications of that, some other time because you seem to have dodged that wholly here.”

We could have that here. To try to back up what I think you're saying – I can see something narcissistic about expecting people to pay to watch you have sex. To be honest, it's hard for me to see how that could not be narcissistic. We're a pretty narcissistic society in general, but in a sense this is kind of a pinnacle in a way. In past eras, people paid for sexual acts, but in general they expected to be allowed to be part of those sexual acts. Porn stars expect people to pay just for the privilege of having someone watch remotely; their clients aren't even in the same room.

It is sort of remarkable what pornography does – it isolates the clients of sex workers more than they have ever been isolated in history. We pay this no mind because we regard it as the price for our much-vaunted privacy. But I really don't think sex is about privacy; in fact, it's probably about something that's almost the opposite: naked intimacy.

However, that's probably more my ax to grind than yours. You said that porn stars "actively seek [fame] unto itself." I agree that porn stars are in some sense seeking the gratification that comes from being able to demand money to allow people to watch you fuck; but it also seems as though there are other motivations. Money's usually a big one. Well, and sex, obviously. I don't think there are many lines of work where one would get to have as much sex as James Deen seems to, although maybe my understanding of the world is just limited.
posted by koeselitz at 7:15 PM on December 21, 2012

Esquire: Is James Deen The Most Likable Man In Hollywood?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:37 AM on January 19