The hitachi hummed as I scrunched my eyes shut, lying on the padded bench and steadying my breath. Even with my eyes closed I could see the glare of the LED light against my lids. I tried to clear my head, struggling not to giggle as completely nonsexual images flooded my brain, pressing the vibrator harder against my clit as if it could drown out my thoughts.

My boyfriend and I were spending date night shooting porn, in part because I’m a workaholic and in part because once you start hustling for jobs, you find it hard to stop. And I love performing with him, I think he’s gotten some of my best performances out of me. I think it’s because it feels like something special that he does with me that he doesn’t do with his other lovers, and it’s nice to have a special thing (even if it’s work).

But this was not like the porn work we were used to. This was for a site that focuses on the faces of people when they orgasm. Created to highlight and celebrate “authentic” orgasms, the shoot felt like an elaborate performance of normalcy. Unlike my usual experience with porn, which involves having your hair done, some decent stage makeup, and a porn-y outfit, this was stripped down to the minimum- bare faced, no breasts in shot, no genitals, just the face. So I wiped off my hot pink lipstick and rubbed the catlike liner from my eyes. Gotta look “natural”, whatever that means when you have blue hair and tattoos.

When I masturbate by myself, it’s often under covers, with a phone in my hand as I watch porn or browse smutty stories. I usually have elaborate and loud makeup on, my mascara smudging under my eyes as I sweat, my lipstick smearing if I cover my mouth so I don’t scare the neighbors with my moans. Being laid out on a bench with little makeup and no concern about the visibility of my cunt was a new one for me, but I was eager to give it a go.

Feeling self conscious, my first video was soft, quiet, just me and the hitachi.

I rarely masturbate in front of a lover, and with my boyfriend in the room just… there, I felt exposed. I came sooner than I expected, in part because I was picturing my lover putting a speculum into me and taking notes while I jerked off. With just my face to go on, I wanted to be sure I communicated my arousal and orgasm well, yet I was constantly reminded to just masturbate like I normally would. I kept my eyes closed, feeling as my body crept closer to coming and willing it to do so. I wanted to reach for a distraction as I masturbated, but was afraid of knocking over the camera of making too much noise, so instead I just imagined he was watching me and jerking off too. Maybe he was.

I certainly wanted to masturbate when we switched off. His video was beautiful to watch being made. I love seeing and feeling his cock as it slowly grows hard under his hands or mine, and watching his eyelids flutter was sexy as hell. When we’re together we usually have a lot of up close, hot and heavy making out mixed with his fingers in my cunt, in my hair, in my mouth, and mine grasping the bars of his bed, or running down his back, or twining with his fingers. I don’t really get to savour his whole body, to just watch- we perform for each other as we fuck, and that’s amazing too. But there was something about gazing at him, watching how he caressed the head of his dick as he looked into the camera, that was especially hot for me.

And yet. At the end of the day, this, too, was work.

Getting to the second videos, and then doing the interviews, felt daunting, even though it was masturbating in front of my super sexy lover. I could sense he was a little drained by the whole thing. As was I, to be frank — I love doing photo sets or filming things, it stimulates my creative brain in a way I enjoy, but the setup can still take a lot out of me. No one wants to have sex be a chore, especially not me. I’ve had enough issues with my libido to have a lot of sympathy (and perhaps even paranoia) around that feeling. For me it’s still fun work, and doing it with a partner is exciting, but it’s also performative for an audience which is typically more judgmental than someone who loves you.

I’ve been having a lot of headweasels and body dysmorphia. It’s hard not to compare myself to my lover’s other lovers who are better educated, more slender, more financially successful, even when I know that the only person feeling that pressure is me. I worry that I don’t measure up, that I am discardable, because as a fat woman I have been discardable so often. I worry that he will grow bored with the normalcy of our sex but that I cannot provide him the novelty he craves — not for lack of willingness, but for lack of other people’s willingness. I feel a lot like my fatness is a prison I’m trapped in, as diets and working out hasn’t released me. I lie awake at night when we’re together, concerned that my fatness and my trauma around that gets in the way of threesomes and moresomes that come so easily with other people. I worry, mostly, that my body holds him back, that in his ideal world he’d be surrounded by sexy people who want to fuck him and who he wants to fuck, and that instead I, the unfuckable one that people don’t approach, prevent him from getting his needs met. I worry that I’m not enough, and I fake my confidence, every day, to attempt to brush away these nagging doubts.

I think that’s part of the value of shooting porn together, for me. It feels daring, and creative, and it’s a way to prove to myself that not only does he want to fuck me, he’s not afraid of the public seeing it, seeing me, seeing us. But he doesn’t need it like I do — he knows he’s sexy and that people desire him, I kind of get the impression he could fuck someone new every day if he wanted to. I’m the one trapped by insecurity, feeling like I’m performing bravery and fierceness while inside I feel small and sad and like I want to slink away and hide, that I’m invisible anyway.

Porn gives me a place where I am forced to take up space.

And sex, sex is where I can let go and be in the moment, where pleasure and skin against skin is everything and there are no comparisons to anyone else. I don’t feel like an imposter when we fuck, and I guess having that captured on film reminds me of how freeing that is. I can see myself relax.

I thought a lot after jerking off for this what was authentic and what was performative. I felt my second video, where I was fingered off camera, was more authentic because that’s more like how I fuck. I certainly swore a lot more, which is what I’m like “In Real Life”. I considered if I would look into the camera’s eye and thus the viewer, but I closed my eyes as I rode the waves to orgasm, much like I do when fucking. Also I was not terribly loud when I came… I tend to be quiet when I orgasm, and when I fuck generally. I feel strangely shy, even though I love dirty talk — if the sex is any good words will fail me.

I also felt self conscious about not wanting to seem like I was overacting, which I enjoy doing with my partner as a way of communicating what I like and don’t like. My authentic sex looks performative, and my performative sex probably looks authentic, leaving me wondering what the value is in calling some sex one and some the other. Is it a value judgment? Isn’t most sex performative? Unless you lie there like a log, there’s performance of some sort, whether it be athletic or interpersonal. Is that a bad thing? Why is it “authentic” (and, so often, feminist) if I’m wearing a neutral lip, but suddenly “porn performance” and “bad” if I’m wearing obvious makeup? Who am I trying to convince?

Ultimately the whole idea of ”make this look just like when you masturbate at home, except with less makeup and better lighting and sound” is a fascinating one to me. The appeal of staged “authenticity ” is surreal and difficult to master in a way that looks natural while being totally unnatural. I think it’s also in some ways harder when you’re doing it with someone you love — I felt that I was both natural, yet also totally out of my element, and that’s hard to shake. And yet I didn’t feel uncomfortable with my body at all, which is a small miracle. It definitely led me to think more thoroughly about what I enjoy about porn sex, and what has been less fun, and what I enjoy offcamera, and why.

I’ll admit that I look forward to a date night when we can go out to a movie and jerk each other off in the back row, like civilians. I think I forget sometimes that even filming sex with a lover is still a lot of effort. I’m glad we’ve documented some of our sex (I love watching us), but I wonder if on some level I was trying to prove to myself we’re in love by making a bunch of porn clips. There’s something to be said for representation, and showing that fit men do desire fat women sometimes — normalizing that is important to me. I wish it had been more normal when I was growing up, I might not have so much trauma around it now. Still, when sex is part of your work, it’s important to find the boundaries of how authentic you want to be, how much you want to give of yourself to the public. It can still be something special between us, but maybe I should consider finding something else special and sweet just for us that isn’t also emotional and physical labour.

Onscreen sex is fun, but I think I prefer it when the only rules we have to follow are our own.

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