LAS VEGAS—The venue, being the stage at the bottom of The Joint, may have been a bit unusual, but that didn't stop a decently large crowd from gathering and paying close attention to four transgendered performers who described something of their lives both in and out of porn.
The panel, "Trans Activity," was moderated by Grooby Productions publicist Kristal Penn, and featured four stars, all of whom have been nominated for either an AVN Fan Award or as Transsexual Performer of the Year: Natalie Mars, Aubrey Kate, Foxxy and Stefani Special. The seminar was part of the "Sex Is ..." educational fan seminar program at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo. "Sex Is ..." is sponsored by CalExotics and Wicked Sensual Care.
Penn began by asking each performer to describe her "public persona," and the gals didn't hold back.
"I'm an anal slut," Mars said right off the bat. "I'm into anal. I like doing anals. In my personal life, I'm kind of an introverted, geeking kind of person who plays a lot of video games."
"I'm Aubrey Kate and I'm a slut," Kate similarly began. "I like to walk around and talk to guys I don't really know, and that's how I got a date for tomorrow. On and off camera, I'm a slut."
"The cool thing about Aubrey is that in her professional life, she owns that stuff," Penn added. "She's unapologetically slutty all around, correct?"
"Bet on it," Kate agreed, adding, "I think in my real life, I'm actually sluttier!"
"Foxxy is a versatile lesbian, straight—I'm very diverse, both as a person and as a performer," Foxxy, the next speaker, told the crowd. "I love women to have sex with, guys, so a little bit of everything. I top, I bottom, I can be a stud, be dominant—you know, everything ... I started as a solo model, and I think, over time, I became more open-minded. I never thought I would be having sex with girls, with other transsexuals besides men, so doing that, it opened doors for me, gave me opportunities, and I met a number of wonderful people. I think I want to let my fantasies come true on film. There's a lot of things I haven't done yet and still want to ..."
"Like what?" Penn asked.
"I want to be as slutty as Aubrey; I want to be that slutty," she responded. "I've never done a gangbang, I've never done double penetration. I want to work with Aubrey for once. We've been planning to work with each other for years and we're always on set together but we're never with each other, so I'm working on that."
Finally, Penn called on Special to answer, "Who is Stefani Special?"
Special, clad in a skimpy pink teddy, took the stage to tell the crowd, "It's good to see you're all here especially when we're here to talk about things that mean a lot to our community. Thank you for listening to us tonight. I'm Stefani. I'm the BDSM girl on the team here," adding that she admired Aubrey Kate's attitude when it came to hardcore scenes.
"I'd rather do more performances, and also integrate the BDSM community into what trans viewers watch," she said. "It's really amazing when we see somebody break on camera, and maybe if that person's able to be rebuilt again, isn't that fucking amazing?"
Penn then asked each performer to get a bit more personal and talk about how their professional lives compare to their personal ones.
"I think I've learned how to separate my personal life, my family life and my career, and I would say I'm different for each of them," Foxxy revealed, "because when it's time to be professional, the my mind is focused on my work, and once I'm finished, you know, you get your paycheck and it's time to go home, and then Foxxy gets put away, and then I go and hang out with my friends—they're not in the industry so it kind of keeps me grounded, keeps me away from always being the scene, and I'm very family oriented, very close to my family, and we foster five kids, my mother and I, so my work at a parent is fun, it's exciting; they keep me on my toes and it's just—it keeps me focused, it keeps me sane, it keeps me grounded as a normal person, and I like that. I like to be able to just do whatever I do when I have to do it when the time comes."
"I actually think that, as a slut, I'm very boring," Kate offered. "You know, you probably think I'm always partying in the porn star lifestyle. I've done that, but at home, I'm usually watching TV, calling somebody ... I'm very shy ..."
"I'm definitely very shy," Mars agreed. "I spend a lot of time on Twitter, interacting on social media and stuff like that. I watch a lot of TV, play video games... I live with four other roommates who are also performers. I real life, I don't slut about as much as I'd probably like to. Everything I do on film is really me. I'm into pretty much everything I do. I definitely like to bottom. I'll play a top on film, but I feel like a lot of guys picture trans women as wanting to use their dicks and fuck them, but we'd rather be getting fucked, I feel like—most of us, anyway; I don't know about all of us, but most women would rather bend over and take a dick ... We want to be treated like women."
"My life is always changing, always evolving, and my career should be too," Special said, "so I would like to make it possible for myself to grow as much as possible through the situations I go through, whether it be just regular life things or whether they be S&M things... I have a personal lifestyle that's usually really shy but sometimes I can be really out there. But yes, there is a popular misconception in porn that trans women do topping, and that's usually not what I want to do."
Penn then opened up the floor to questions, and the first asked whether the stars' families knew about their profession. Kate said that her parents did, and described herself as "very open." Another questioner asked Foxxy how she'd gotten started in XXX, and the busty redhead laid it all at the feet of Steve Grooby.
"I was go-go dancing here in Las Vegas, and I was young and adventurous, and I was getting all these business cards," she said. "And I was like, what are these cards for? And they were like, 'Oh, we want you to be a model for us' ... So I got curious, and I got some information, and I figured, well, I'm dancing half naked for people anyway; why not do it in front of the camera? So I did and never looked back."
It was a short panel, and the venue was pretty noisy, but it certainly seemed as if the crowd of about 50 was well satisfied with what they heard—and many will probably attend Friday's trade seminar Born This Way, moderated by Venus Lux and featuring Buck Angel, Milcah Halili, Verta and Jack Hammer.
Pictured, l-r: Natalie Mars, Aubrey Kate, Foxxy, Stefani Special.
