Jess lanai

I did two interviews for my part in the Mektoub film which was released in France on December 3rd.

Most all the people that know of me aren’t going to have any idea what Mektoub is. It is worth looking up all the controversy. The making of Mektoub is even wilder and weirder than the film.

But this particular post isn’t about Mektoub. It is about the reason most people reading this do know of me.

I was, I guess, a decently successful porn star.

What do I qualify as decently successful? My first year in porn I was nominated as best new starlet and my second year in I was nominated as female performer of the year.

So at the very least I was ‘successful’ enough to be put on a few lists with other very successful names.

I might’ve ridden the porn waves for a good decade before I hit the wall and died there. But I quit in my third year.

Both the lovely ladies that interviewed me for the Mektoub film asked the porn questions. But I wasn’t allowed to talk much about it.

The press handling Mektoub preferred I keep the porn off center, not let it be the focus. Which is perfectly fair. The focus is the film Mektoub, not the fact that I did porn before it.

But most people do want to know about the porn. So here are the three most common questions I get asked about porn.

Number one: why did I start porn?

Boys. I was boy crazy. Am boy crazy. Will likely always be boy crazy. It’s possible I’ll be a creepy old lady someday.

I love men.

And porn men are a breed apart.

Casual sex is actually not possible for most men. (I said what I said) because most men can’t stay casual without devaluing the woman.

Men generally need to feel the woman is beneath to be able to keep sex casual.

But porn men have a different relationship with sex. It is a service as much as it is a need. They are doing a job and part of that job is to make the women around them feel comfortable.

Porn men treat the woman they sleep with as nicely as a regular man treats his girlfriend. With that much care and consideration.

I’m not going to lie, that was very nice and for a bit very fun.

Second most common question: Were you ever coerced?

A couple people did try to coerce me a couple times. That did not go over so well for them. At that age my emotions were extreme and if I thought I sensed actual intentional manipulation I ripped off heads.

Is there coercion in porn? That’s a very complex subject matter that requires a very thoughtfully crafted blog of its own that I will eventually write.

But was I personally ever coerced? No. Not at all. I did many things in porn I deeply regret. But I chose to do them all on my own.

Third most asked question: why did I quit porn?

I quit porn for the very same reason I started porn.

Boys.

A side of boys I’d never know. The side of men where there is flirting, uncertainty, vulnerability and feelings.

Where there is something really at stake. The environment is not controlled and people can really get hurt.

I was 21 when I started porn and almost 24 when I quit. My sex life at the time was like a lot of young girls. Entirely mechanical.

Whether or not they do porn or only fans, young girls these days receive an incredible amount of pressure to have casual sex. I call it mechanical sex.

My porn life actually doesn’t much compare to the private sexual lives of most young girls today.

I would advise most young women to limit their casual sex. Id say the same thing to most young men too.

I don’t believe casual sex is very good for maturing. I think it’s actually damaging and can stunt development. But that’s another complex subject matter that requires its own post.

This post is just about why I quit. Not porn in general. Not people in general. It’s about me. My reason.

I quit porn because I was at a party once and a boy there gave me butterflies.

And I realized I’d never had butterflies and I was missing out on an entire universe by just having casual sex on camera where there were no feelings and no challenges to me as a person.

I had the exact thought that if I didn’t get out, if I didn’t quit, I was knowingly damaging myself and it became impossible for me to continue in porn. Or in even have sex at all for years.