Dylan Ryan

Another installment of my Ethical Pornographer column just went up. This one features the smart and sexy Dylan Ryan. Whenever I hear this song I think of her:

I could probably write an entire blog post just about why this song reminds me of Dylan, but I don’t want to do that because I don’t actually know her as a person. But basically, in my mind she’s a strong woman who deserves a lot of respect and what I gathered from Fluid: Women Redefining Sexuality is that she likes to reclaim words. She has reclaimed ho and I could totally see her reclaiming “sexy bitch” and giving it an awesome positive attitude.

Anyhoo, here’s a snippet from the interview:

I do enjoy performing with a wide variety of people and that I do is completely intentional.  As a person, I feel a lot of pride about being queer identified and feel it important that the understandings of what queer is be more broad.  I resist being pigeonholed in general but also want to represent a more fluid sexuality that feels available to all people.  I guess I strive for it and it comes naturally, I just enjoy sex and want to promote a sexuality that is open and accessible.  Lately I have been getting to choose who I work with, especially in doing boy/girl porn.  It’s fun to be able to choose because as I mentioned earlier, I know who is professional and has a reputation for shooting great scenes and being pleasant to work with.  I also have people in the business that I admire and want to work with at some point so getting to choose those people is always great.  I am also flexible and enjoy working with people who are booked, which is how it happens most often.  Again, I have been very lucky that I have really enjoyed a lot of the people I have shot with, that’s the benefit of working with companies you love, they hire great people and you make new acquaintances that way.

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Speaking of ethics, I just posted my newest installment in my column Ethical Pornographer. In this one I interview Scott Owens of EroticBPM. The truth is we’re buddies. We’ve known each other a long time, but he’s also someone I look up to a lot. He’s also the person that I’m currently exploring starting an ethical certification for adult products and services with. He’s pretty rad and you should read about him!

Here’s a snippet:

GJ: You’ve boasted before that feminists like your website. How, as a man, do you feel that helps or hurts your business model and why do you think they say they like your website?

SO: Early on, this was a really interesting thing for me.  It felt really good to come into an industry that many at the time viewed as purely exploitive of women and then really get a sort of stamp of approval from not just women but feminists.

I think the way that I worked with women and gave them the freedom to express themselves how they want without pressure or incentive, it connected with a lot of people.

Unfortunately, it became a sort of marketing gimmick for a lot of sites to appear feminist by appearing to or actually being run by women.   I didn’t jump on with that and it probably hurt me a bit.  For a while I got quite a bit of email from people who said they could not support me or work with me because I was a man.  Some people believe that a man in porn can not be feminist and will always inherently be exploitative of women.  I disagree, but with so many different schools of thought on feminism it’s not something I care to debate with people.

Today it is less of an issue, I don’t give much thought to it or hear much about it because I don’t define or promote my business that way.  Though, nothing has changed, I still have the same ethics that brought me the attention in the first place.

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