Getting Into Porn? Star Panel Tells Actors What They Need To Know

LAS VEGAS, Nev.—Free Speech Coalition's Lotus Lain and the FSC's “Inspire” program deserve credit for putting together a beautifully diverse assemblage of panelists for the panel discussion "What I Wish I Would Have Known," which took place January 23 during the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. The group of speakers could be described as offering "something (or someone) for everyone."

Just to run it down, the panel, which was moderated by performer/director Casey Calvert, consisted of veteran actress (and veteran sex educator) Jessica Drake, male actor Wolf Hudson, trans star Casey Kisses, "plus-size" model Karla Lane, and award-winning black star Ana Foxxx—and it's hard to believe there'd be something a newbie in porn would need to know that someone in that group couldn’t tell them.

Calvert began by asking each panelist how long they'd been in the biz, and it turned out the "youngest" (two of them) were four years in, compared to Drake's 20, much of that time under contract to Wicked Pictures—and the tales of just how the panelists got into acting was nearly as diverse. For Drake, it was through porn stars she'd met while dancing at strip clubs in Texas, while for Foxxx, it was on account of a "shitty boyfriend" who brought her into the industry with him.

For Lane, it was after observing guys come out of arcade booths in adult stores "happy," "so I wanted to do whatever that was." Kisses had plenty of time to contemplate what she wanted to do with her life while confined to a wheelchair after a car accident, and decided to turn her part-time cam work into a full-time video career.

The audience got a kick out of Hudson telling them that he started out as a bookkeeper for a button distributor, but after being laid off, he saw an ad on Craigslist for a gangbang—"and the rest is history."

Calvert then got to the meat of the panel, asking the performers to have a conversation among themselves about what they wish they'd known before (or while) getting into porn—and the advice came quickly and, for want of a better word, diversely.

For instance, Lane suggested that incoming performers think carefully about what industry name they choose, since "if you can't answer to it for the rest of your life, then..." she trailed off.

Foxxx, as she'd mentioned earlier, learned to give blowjobs after getting into porn, "but what I really didn't know was that I would gain a lot of power, and myself, I gained a lot of confidence—which I don't know if I was ready for all the power to come hit me at once... You've got a lot of power, and as you grow in the industry, it builds, and the longer you're here, the more you have a responsibility to be a good example for other people ... I grew up a lot and I care a lot more, I think more than I ever expected myself to, and I never thought I would be proud of myself so much as I am now in adult."

"I wish I had known my worth when I got in," echoed Hudson, adding that it was this lack of knowledge that led him to choose projects that, he now feels, "I wish I had taken my time and just trusted my intuition. ... If you don't know your worth and what you are comfortable with, that can set a bad precedent and make you bitter about doing other things."

Kisses agreed: "I really do think that knowing your worth and picking the shoots that you actually want to shoot is so important, and there's so many times when you'll get offered a shoot and somebody will be like, 'I want to take this shoot just because they're offering it to me, not because I necessarily want to do it.' Chemistry is the biggest key to selling a good scene."

But one aspect of the business that Kisses really wishes she'd known about was content trades.

"So many performers are doing content trades now, and one of the biggest things on that is, there's not a lot of contracts, there's not a lot of discussion about what goes into that, and one of the most important things is to know who you're working with, where it's getting posted, and to know what you can do to protect yourself," she warned. "The first time I ever did a double anal, one of the male performers ended up posting it on Pornhub while I was selling it on a subscription site, so there was no contract protecting me from that." She went on to advise that the participants not only enter into written contracts regarding how the scene will be marketed, but also state the terms on-camera.

"One of the first things that I wish I would have known... I wish I would have been more knowledgeable of the things that I was signing when I was working for other people," Drake stated. "I would take a closer look at my percentages, of royalties, of who was getting what, and why... One thing I would offer to any performer: Please read everything before you sign it and understand exactly what it is, what rights you are giving away by signing it, and that understanding will help with all performers being more comfortable in demanding a rate that they think is worth whatever it is they're doing."

But Drake then turned to a darker subject: "The biggest thing that I wish I would have known back then was that it wasn't doing the industry a service for me to feel as if I was fighting the stigma that people hold of the adult industry by only maintaining a very polished veneer... I experienced a consent violation on set as a younger performer [and] I was afraid that if I spoke about it, was vocal about it, that it would make the adult industry look bad, and now in retrospect, we have to understand that I lived experiences, and sharing them, being super-vocal about them, these are the only ways that things are going to change in this business... We have to get it out, we have to talk about it, because that's the only way that it's going to change."

"One thing I wasn't ready for was the divisions of the adult industry," Foxxx said. "When I started, I heard 'This is sex work,' so anyone who has sex, we're all in the same group, but it's very divided... Working with each other, each sex act has to be labeled, where I thought I could just work with humans; I never before thought I had to title myself as gay, straight, binary, black, whatever; I just have sex... and I never thought that there would be somewhat of a punishment if I went outside those boundaries."

Those thoughts struck a chord with Hudson, who stated, "I didn't know there was such a segregation in the industry, and I came in doing gay, straight—I didn't know there was such intense reaction to that. A woman can have sex with a man or woman, totally fine. I came in and I was the anti-Christ; I'm here to plague every single performer with HIV. I don't have HIV, but that was the reaction... I'm here to work, get paid, do a good job." He went on to note that every time there was a warning of a disease outbreak, he would be immediately suspected because of his crossover status. "I didn't know it could be so cruel."

One thing everyone on stage agreed with, was that porn has too many "isms."

"People forget that we're human and have to deal with all these issues, and it's a lot," Foxxx said.

Moving on, Calvert suggested that one topic that should be of interest, not only to newcomers but to all performers, was how to deal with money.

"A lot of us come into the business, and suddenly we're getting paid thousands of dollars a week, on the day of the job," she noted, "and it's important to learn that that money doesn't last forever, and that the money you make in your first three months in the business doesn't last forever, and the job that you get right away don't last forever, and you have to learn what a savings account is, and how to pay your taxes, and how to be a business person."

"And that gives you freedom to have sex with whoever you want," Lane immediately rejoined, "because if I don't have to take a job for money and I can do it for myself or somebody else, I have the freedom. Control of your money gives you freedom to do whatever you want, not just in porn but in life, and if we treat it like a business, we make it into a business."

Calvert then asked the panel to describe their "hardest moment" in porn, and to describe how they'd overcome that. For Hudson, it was his decision not to change his name when switching genres, that he decided he was "Wolf Hudson" whether working with straight partners, gay or trans. "I missed a lot of opportunities because I didn't change my name," he admitted, but added, "I also met a lot of people just because I wouldn't make that change."

On the other hand, Kisses spoke of being "violated" on a set one day, and when she complained about it, she was told her next scene, scheduled for the following day, had been cut—and she described feeling "burned" about that, but noted that she got support from other performers for taking a stand—which led Lane to note that some of her hardest times in the business was when she didn't get that same sort of support, when her fellow performers just brushed off problems she'd told them about.

Foxxx harked back to her previous statement about there being too much labeling in the business, and said that being black and being referred to as "black" had made her feel isolated, unwanted—and even made her feel like a "token."

Calvert then asked the panelists to relate what was the best advice they'd gotten in the business, and Drake was right up front, saying, "Always remember, no matter what you do, this will always be part of your life. You will never get away from it no matter what you do."

Foxxx, on the other hand, took the high road, advising everyone to treat each of their co-workers as "the best," which, she said, helped avoid conflicts on the set and elsewhere.

"My advice? Love your body because you only have one," Lane advised, while Kisses said that one of the things she enjoyed best about making adult content was that she found herself in a "community of performers," which had allowed her to gain a circle of friends upon whom she could rely when needed.

"What I wish I could tell everyone is, 'It's just sex; have a good time'," Hudson said. "After all, porn is, first and foremost, entertainment, so just commit to it."

Finally, Calvert asked the panelists what advice they'd give to a performer who was about to do her first scene?

"Jewelry is your friend," declared Foxxx, who explained that not only can earrings or a bracelet enhance certain parts of a performer's body, but it gives the camera something to focus on besides the sex itself.

Lane's advice was a bit more practical: "Make sure you bathe before the scene—and after"—a suggestion Hudson heartily agreed with, going further and advising performers to practice good hygiene generally.

Also practical was Kisses' warning that performers should not put the fluid from enema bottles in their asses—something Calvert said she wishes someone had told her when she was first starting out.

Finally. Drake informed potential performers to understand that on the set, "You are the boss of the scene, so enjoy it," adding that besides general hygiene, it's important to keep one's fingernails clean.

But Calvert got in the last word, warning that performers should familiarize themselves with the symptoms of common STDs and other venereal diseases such as yeast infections, chlamydia, gonorrhea and the like, because such infections can sideline a performer for days or weeks at a time—and may even cause a temporary industry shutdown.

All in all, for beginning performers and even some experienced ones, this panel presented advice that will stand them in good stead for their entire careers.

Pictured, l-r: Wolf Hudson, Casey Kisses, Karla Lane, Ana Foxxx, Jessice Drake, Lotus Lain.

For more information about the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo, presented by MyFreeCams, click here.