Jess lanai

At seven I wanted to be a ballerina.

Because I wanted one of those sparky dresses and figured only ballerinas got them.

I did like the actual ballet part of ballet too but the instructor did not like me. She told my mom I had no talent and I should do something else.

To be kicked out at seven means I must’ve been impressively bad at ballet.

And it pissed me off. At seven years old I didn’t care if I had talent or not. I just wanted to dance around in a freaking sparkly dress.

Then I found out that figure skaters get sparkly dresses too.

That I was good at. Picked it up in seconds but the figure skating coaches had much less honor anyhow.

They didn’t care which paycheck had talent or not.

But the problem with figure skating is the people that like to do it.

Figuring skating moms live in an alternate dimension that’s been sealed off from the rest of a reality.

A place where only their daughter’s success in figure skating matters.

It’s quite horrible to be around.

I told my mom I didn’t want lessons anymore and I just went skating by myself for fun.

I never got my sparkly dress though.

I think porn is a lot like college. I’ve never been to college so I’m guessing. But I imagine the psychologies are quite similar.

My first few months in porn my ego went through a flattening process. What do I mean by that? Imagine all self confidence being deflated and run through a rolling machine until it’s paper thin.

I had no idea what I was doing or how to do it or even how to know how to try what to do.

But that’s part of what swept me up. In porn there were people there to tell me what to do and all I had to do was do it.

Especially with sex. Which was still something I had very little experience in and very little confidence with.

I think that’s why people go to college too. To be around people to have sex with and to feel like they’re at least trying something. It’s some kind of purpose.

So what got me into porn? What exactly?

A modeling site. The exact same site I used to get the little modeling jobs I did.

A ‘girl’ reached out to me on there and said I could make lots of money if I joined ‘her’ agency and did porn.

I was tempted by the money and I responded just to keep it an option with no plans to ever respond again.

But it had gotten placed in my mind.

I was not in any kind of desperate state.

My rent at the time was like 600 (yep. 2013. 600 to rent a room in La.) I didn’t have a car. My bills were low. I was working at the Walt Disney concert hall and actually making livable money.

I was of course terrified of my own lack of purpose or direction.

Now that I’m older having purpose is like having a hobby. Or maybe a really, really great tv show or book where I can’t wait to see what happens next.

It’s fun.

But when I was 21 having a purpose felt like life and death.

I thought I was so dramatic. So worried and so anxious so needlessly impulsive when I could have just kept working in restaurants and been fine.

My opinion on that changed when I went to Locarno Switzerland and saw the Mektoub film. A film that never would have happened if I had never done porn.

I understand my impulsive panic now. How ruthless it is. I now know that young people aren’t dramatic. They’re aware.

Cities wear you down.

If I hadn’t moved to La I’m not sure what parts of me would never have existed.

I know I’d still be aggressive because that started when I was a kid.

You should have seen me in an Easter egg hunt. I shoved kids out of the way and grabbed the eggs out of their hands. I cut myself and bruised myself slamming into things and other kids to get those eggs. Absolute monster.

I think maybe I’d still be mute. Because my shyness is something I’ve had to develop a lot of control over, I still can lose control over it when I’m feeling too introspective. Most of the character development of getting over my shyness was in porn.

One thing is for sure. If I hadn’t moved to la I never would have done porn.

But porn didn’t create my suggestibility nor my impulsive curiosity. Those things are also inherent in me and they make me open to all sorts of dangerous ways of living.

When I started porn I had a total break in my identify. The flattening of the ego.

I was doing something I’d never planned to do and most certainly had never aspired to.

It’s something that everyone goes through. It’s not unusual.

Any time we get a new job for extra money. Or get dumped by someone we really liked. Or even just move to a cheaper, shittier apartment.

We get a bit flat and then we get a bit blank and then we get extremely open to any source of direction and get comfortable doing things our previous selves never imagined.

The problem with porn is normally when we do something new the rewards are gradual. The building of new confidence is gradual.

But with porn there are a lot of very large rewards very instantly.

Instant big paycheck. Instant sex with nice hot men. Instant everyone kissing your ass and telling you how great you are.

I got rewarded before I’d even had a chance to acclimate to the environment. No patterns had been built. I hadn’t associated myself with anything.

All the reasons I was obsessed with doing Tae Kwon do are all the things porn lacks.

In Tae Kwon do I learned how to learn on my own. I had a way to get ahead without input or instruction from my coaches.

I had figured something out myself and it developed a confidence in myself.

But in porn I’m not figuring out anything for myself, everything is just being given to me. So I don’t know how anything works.

Which means I cannot appeal to myself I have to appeal to others. Because they are the gods raining down on me, I have no sense of my own power.

I was reminiscing with one of my best friends about how immature we both used to be and she made me realize one of the dark psychologies behind authenticity.

She was a pretty popular actress and said the reason she was so ‘authentic’ was because she was a brat that always expected to get her way.

So she had no need to ever be fake to anyone on anything because everything was about her and what she wanted. She didn’t even have a need to try to hard, she was talented. She got popular by being herself.

And that’s another truth of porn. It spoils you.

I got a bit spoiled in porn.

Porn actors actually do work hard. I especially know this to be true after acting in a real movie. Porn actors work way harder than real actors. (Generally speaking from what I saw)

But we were still spoiled. When I went back to real life and a real job it was an adjustment.

My authenticity had to be adjusted because in real life there are real consequences for always being yourself and always telling the truth.

When I write fiction, which I love to do, I tend to fall into tangents and just basically never finish anything.

(Ive never in my life finished a single piece of fiction)

Someday maybe this year or maybe when I’m sixty (I can feel it in my bones that I’m going to be an amazing 60 year old. I just know it.) I’ll figure out how to control my tangents enough that they connect and actually build into a full story that has a beginning middle and end.

But with this post I’m letting myself go and seeing what happens. I’m being authentic.

If you followed me when I was a porn star you’ll probably know the loud opinions I had back then.

After about a year of swept away by the porn currents I did start to swim.

After letting my fears wear themselves out. (That’s one of the benefits to being highly emotional. I cycle through emotions probably ten times faster than most people. I’ve imploded, gone through guilt, shame, regret and remorse while everyone else is still on anger)

I started to find my own groove. My own way I wanted to do things. Especially when I discovered twitter.

(One of the more hilarious plot twists to me is that twitter is now called X. Who the hell is writing this story? Fire them.)

Twitter was both good and bad for me. It was good for me in that it helped me get some confidence and therefore direction.

It was bad for me in that it made a super opinionated little brat.

A large amount of what I said on twitter had to do with sexual consent.

In this modern time I personally have never found sexual consent to be all that complicated. I find no grey in it. I think it’s pretty purely black and white.

If I say no to sex and I lose a job because of it, I still had the right to say no. I could not be forced. I just incurred a consequence from that no.

Which is just true every day. Every single goddam day. I will receive some sort of consequence from not indulging someone the way in which they want to be indulged.

Human beings are very dangerous. When you have them truly on your side what you’ve acquired is a weapon. They will unite with you against your enemies.

When they are not on your side and you are not yet friend or foe, they are looking for any indication of which box to put you in. Appeasing them makes them put you in the friend box.

And that is the strategy a lot of women employ with sex.

I wouldn’t even see it as transactional or manipulative. Men tend to think the woman had genuine interest when the woman was really just being appeasing.

It’s a very strong instinct in woman when we feel overly vulnerable. To please people.

I think it’s pretty easy to guess my stance on the whole Mektoub controversy.

Back in the day, when it first happened, I had zero sympathy for Ophelie Bau.

Zero.

Because in my mind she’d chosen to do the scene and it didn’t matter if she changed her mind later and regretted it.

Now I’m older and I’ve softened. I understand the psychology of it more.

The actual belief many girls hold that they really have no choice. How strong the instinct to stay safe is and how deeply aware all young girls are of their circumstances.

Now I’d advise young girls to go for things as viciously I hunted Easter eggs but to never stay trapped in old psychologies that have lost their usefulness.

Actors are worse than figure skaters.

They live entirely in one dimension. Their purpose in their career isn’t a hobby, it’s life or death.

Obviously this is an extreme generalization. But it is the general truth enough that lots of accusations will pile up.

Because when something feels like life or death people will do things they normally wouldn’t do.

There’s a very similar psychology I’ve noticed in myself with dating.

Which is far more vicious than figure skater, porn, or acting combined.