Editor’s Note: This letter was submitted to us by Sasha Grey, the porn star and soon-to-be lead actress in Steven Soderbergh’s newest film, “The Girlfriend Experience.” Having starred in over 150 adult films, Grey won the “2007 AVN Award” for Best Three-Way Sex Scene for her role in the film “Fuck Slaves.” Musically involved as well, she released her first album - inspired by industrial music - titled “AVigillant Carpark” in December 2008. After reading about herself in two editions of the “Wednesday Hump,” Grey decided to send in a response. The following is her unedited letter:

Sex on camera is performance. While I enjoy the same pleasures at home, I’m not attempting to “keep the train moving” in a sex scene; I am there for myself and for my audience…not to stroke the egos of my male counterparts. At home, I am there strictly for my partner and myself.

I am neither ashamed or reluctant to admit what I do is performance art; I have also expressed that at times I come prepared with dialogue. This resonates two of my primary objectives in the adult business (in which the supermodel’s show cut out of my response) one: challenge the idea of what women are supposed to like or be like in bed, and two: most of the porn I used to watch was boring and I wanted to make it more fulfilling for myself and viewers. These statements were made in order to challenge the one dimensional, romanticized Hollywood-idealized perception of “couples friendly sex”.

Aside from my objective, I also enjoy many facets of sex that most people can’t fathom.

I fetishize psychological play; I enjoy perverse “disgusting dirty talk” and improvisational fantasy of such acts. This also allows me another area of exploration in a business where many men are jaded by the sex they are having, it gives me the opportunity to push them for an honest reaction, an animalistic response if you will, that you don’t see in many adult films.

Entertainment often makes satirical references to dirty talk, and as we all know satire/comedy is derived from real life experiences-people enjoy it but are afraid to talk about it without making a joke, as are most sexual exploits. As human beings we often make fun of what we don’t understand, personally I refuse to live a fear-based life. Like insensitive gay jokes of bygone and present generations, bdsm and rough sex are the new black.

I am a very sexually healthy young woman and I take pride in the liberation of female sexuality, I have a cause, I am determined, and I am a hard worker (pun intended). As a sex symbol, with an intellectual stance, I am and will continue to be vilified, and I am ok with that…in fact I am content; it gives me the opportunity to shed the light on the darker areas of sex and validate the insecurities of sexually repressed women. The days of victimized, disturbed porn stars (and civilian women) are fading
away… I am the new breed.