Tristan Taormino is a badass. Wait, make that an ass-pert. I mean,
if you’ve got a question, just ass, I mean just ask, Tristan—her
list of credentials is a mile long. She’s written tons of books, worked
as a sex columnist and editor, been in over 200 publications, appeared
on television shows, and done lectures at colleges and universities
speaking on gay and lesbian issues, sexuality and gender, and
feminism.

She also runs her own adult-film production company and currently is
a director for Vivid Entertainment. (Read: porn.) I had a few questions
for Tristan. Please enjoy.

Congrats on winning the 2009 AVN [Adult Video News] Award for Best
Educational Release for The Expert Guide to Oral Sex, Part 2: Fellatio!
Is “Educational” a new category?
Yes. It’s a brand-new category this year, and I am thrilled. It
means that there are now enough instructional movies each year to
warrant our own category, which is fantastic.

You also have Expert Guides on cunnilingus, anal sex, positions,
threesomes, and the G-spot. What’s next?
The next title is Penny Flame’s Expert Guide to Rough Sex, which
comes out March 25. After that, we’ve got Tristan Taormino’s Expert
Guide to Anal Pleasure for Men, on May 27, and Midori’s Expert Guide to
Sensual Bondage, in September. We also have a few more titles in the
works.

Is there a really specific topic that could use a proper sex-ed
video, but probably won’t be made?
Well, I would have said handjobs, but we made that movie! Seriously,
Penny Flame’s Expert Guide to Hand Jobs for Men & Women came out in
the fall of 2008, and there really is no other sex-ed video out there
like it. I am really proud of that title, which I codirected with
Penny. People underestimate just how important our hands are and how
much we can do with them.

Do people ever send you gushing thank-you cards? I think I have one,
somewhere, that I never mailed. It went something like, “Dear Tristan,
thank you for teaching me so many things that made my life better. You
are like Santa, the tooth fairy, and/or the Easter bunny…”
Yes, absolutely. It’s definitely the best part of my job. I love the
idea that I had an impact on someone’s life in a very concrete way. I
save every thank-you letter and e-mail I get.

Which Expert Guide DVD was the most fun to make? And the most
difficult?
I think that Expert Guide to Cunnilingus was the most fun because I
knew it was going to be different than any other movie out there, even
other oral-sex instructional movies. It was all pussy-eating, all the
time! The most difficult movie had to be the Expert Guide to Rough Sex,
because L.A. Vice showed up on the set in the middle of a scene we were
shooting to try to shut down production. We had all our proper permits
and paperwork, so in the end we weren’t in trouble, but it stopped
production for several hours. It was very hard for everyone to bounce
back after that and resume filming. Talk about stressful.

Your videos are anything but boring or “unintentionally funny,” like
most instructional films. Sometimes your advice seems a little funny on
purpose. (“Lick it just like a half-melting ice-cream cone!” or “Place
your hands on his cock like you’re juicing a lemon!”) What’s the most
memorable metaphor you’ve ever uttered or written in print?
Oh, that is definitely from my Expert Guide to Anal Sex. I talk
about how to touch the anus with the pad of your finger, and I say
something like, “You just want to let the butt know you’re there, like
ringing the doorbell!”

Um, will you confirm that there really is such a thing as the
Feminist Porn Awards?
Yes, I am the recipient of several Feminist Porn Awards! The Fourth Annual Feminist Porn Awards are in April this
year. They’re produced by Good for Her, a feminist sex shop in
Toronto.

Okay, last question. You’re an XXX director (and former actress).
Can I just ask this? I feel like a lot of porn—not just
educational/instructional—can be fun and liberating for WOMEN to
watch. In the last porn column, in a review of Cheerleaders, I was
accused of things like “debasing and demoralizing real women
everywhere” and of “insulting women who are victims of sexual abuse,
exploitation, and violence”; someone even said that I was “sick, plain
and simple, and an abject expression of ‘womanhood.'” Am I really a
dirty pervert ’cause I thought Jesse Jane looked really hot bouncing
around on Manuel Ferrara’s Budweiser can? Tristan Taormino, am I a
sicko?
Of course not! Unfortunately, porn is still a very hot-button topic
for people, and they have very strong opinions about it. Listen, not
all porn is wonderful. There is certainly porn that I find boring,
stupid, and yes, degrading. But there is also porn that’s sex-positive,
sexy, and fun. People need to know there are a lot of different options
out there when it comes to watching porn.

Tristan Taormino’s books include Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships; True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion; Down and Dirty Sex Secrets; and The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women. She’s penned sex-advice columns like Pucker Up for the Village Voice and Anal Advisor for Taboo Magazine, and she was the editor of On Our Backs, a sorely missed lesbian sex mag. She’s also been in the New York Times, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Entertainment Weekly, Details, New York Magazine, Men’s Health, and Playboy; appeared on HBO’s Real Sex, NBC’s The Other Half, The Howard Stern Show, Loveline, Ricki Lake, MTV, Oxygen, and the Discovery Channel; and done lectures at Yale, Brown, Columbia, Smith, Vassar, and NYU.

More about Tristan Taormino at www.puckerup.com and www.openingup.net.

Kelly O—formerly a Stranger staff photographer, music writer, Drunk of the Week columnist, and more!—finished art school and a soul-crushing internship at a corporate advertising agency in Detroit,...

14 replies on “Porn!”

  1. KELLY-O, (Great porn name btw(bet I’m the 1st to tell you that(Am I?)))

    Anyjizz, I’ve been watching GOBS of porn in my unemployment status, and I have an assignment for you…

    I have been secretly masturbating to my now-former-coworker who is a Pakastani immigrant. She’s gorgeous!!! And in my attempt to quench my Paki-porno thirst, I came across Arab Street Hookers. Terrible site, but….there’s this one chick, Trixie Love, that has finally hypnotized my one-eyed monster.
    Thing is, there’s this other chick out there called Serena Del Rio who’s done about a half-dozen scenes on different sites.

    Is this the same actress? And what goes into a porn name anyway? How to choose the BEST?

    Also, a question that EVERYONE wants to know, but is nearly impossible to find out:

    How much do these girls get paid to do porn? I doubt Penny Flame and Trixie make the same amount, no?

    But what is the pay-scale for porn? How much for facial? In the mouth? Anal? Threesomes?

    I know some women truly enjoy the process. It can be fun, exciting, liberating. It’s a calling for some, but…..

    …..let’s face it. Most do it for the cash. What is the price of letting someone videotape a guy blowing a load up your nose, and putting it on the internet for the rest of digital eternity?

    Can you answer some of these, please?

    Much Love,

    Chester P. Squirtalot, esq.

  3. Tristan Taormino is a) a modern folk hero, b) hilarious and c) been neck-and-neck with Janeane Garafolo on my personal unattainable celebrity crush list since, like, forever.

    Seeing her stuff in my early twenties and realizing that it was the first adult film that I’d ever seen anyone actually laugh and smile in like they really meant it was incredibly eye opening for me in terms of realizing both what was wrong with most porn and what porn could aspire to achieve. A truly rad, amazing lady. Good on you for getting the interview Kelly, as well as for being another rad posi-porn lady.

  4. no one cares if you enjoy porn, kelly o. we don’t want to read about your opinions and plot summations of porn you deem AWESOME. EVEN IF YOU INTERVIEW TRISTAN T.

    MOVE ON. I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY ABOUT PORN. YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT.

  5. Hey, watch yer porn and shut the hell up, I care what porn Kelly O thinks is AWESOME, you can go ahead and move on, don’t read it if you don’t care. Geez…

  6. I care what Kelly has to say about porn.

    And underneath every porn opponent – as in “it’s wrong”, not as in “I don’t like it” – lies an oddly perverse desire to control the thoughts and desires of others. Of the many I’ve heard from, an exception has yet to appear.

  8. Tristan, when she gets nekkid, is the best part of her own movies. I so wish she’d stop using porn pros to do her instructionals/real-life stuff; they don’t seem able to turn off the mainstream-porn phony moaning and yelling and facial contorting.
    Tristan’s the only one in her films who gets me to run up the flagpole and salute.

  9. Tristan is so amazing, I got to meet her years ago when she did a reading at Bailey/Coy.

    Agree with catbrother, I want a film focused on naked Tristan, not just a hint of Tristan in her “instructional” videos.

  10. spring sprung is correct. But what is it that is oddly hot about Tristan’s chin? I don’t get it. I have never been attracted to a chin before.

  13. Why pixilate the hard core shots? I mean The Strangler is supposed to be alt and Dan Savage is certainly hard core. So why the reticence to show what’s really on your mind? Is the Strangler so afraid of defying “community standards”? And let’s face it, your actual “community” wouldn’t be shocked. Even if you can’t print the images why censor them online?

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