Mentioning "subtle body porn" in the comments of Alessandra's excellent guest article on Mass Produced Sexuality reminded me of this short note I had thought to write a few weeks back. Have you ever watched porn? For at least a decent chunk of people, the answer is probably, "yes" in some form or another. If you're male, those odds probably jump dramatically, though that chasm is rapidly closing in.

What have we known about porn stars in the past? Not much. We've known what they look like naked, of course. We've known what they look like having highly staged sex and what their melodramatic o-faces look like.

But beyond that, porn stars have been these one-dimensional, sexual dart boards against which we've been able to hurl our various fantasies. Well not anymore. 

A little over a year ago, Beams friend Vanessa Fisher wrote about the intricacies of porn star Sasha Grey as an example of postmodern female power. The interesting thing about Grey, as Vanessa pointed out, is that she effectively transgresses so many of the stereotypes we have about porn stars, often times violently.

The other week, I stumbled across another example of how today's porn stars aren't your parent's proverbial porn stars. Following a Twitter rabbit hole, I wound up at the Tumblr blog of porn actress Stoya. The writing I found there wasn't so much audacious or raunchy as it was... really, really good.

Consider this graf from one of Stoya's posts:

There is a very long escalator leading from street level down to the subway platform. Standing in front of me is a woman with a furry pink scarf. She’s absorbed in a conversation with the woman on the step below her. I’m staring at the scarf trying to figure out if I can pet it without her noticing. It looks really soft and I wanted to pet kittens earlier in the day and didn’t have the chance. The scarf is on top of her hair, which is on top of her winter coat. She’s probably wearing at least a shirt, if not an undershirt as well. There are so many layers between the scarf and her skin that she’d have to be like the girl from The Princess and the Pea to feel anything. I must have some facial expression that conveys the mischief going on in my brain, because Matt leans over and asks what I’m up to.

“Nothing.”

My hand reaches out to touch the pink fur, letting him know that I am in fact totally up to something. Up to something really weird that he’s going to have a hard time talking our way out of if I get caught. He gently slaps my hand down and reminds me that we’re in a foreign country. He’s distracted by trying to formulate a convincing argument against touching this stranger. We’re getting close to the end of the escalator and I’m running out of time. My right arm is trapped, constrained by Matt’s hand and what I’m currently perceiving as his spoilsport streak, but my left arm is gloriously free. Very gently I reach over and stroke this woman’s fuzzy cold-weather accessory with my index finger.

“Yes! What? I think it’s healthy to indulge my bizarre compulsions. It was harmless. She’ll never know.”

… and she never would have known, were it not for her friend who was standing behind us watching the whole scene unfold.

Oops.

I mean, I don't know about you, but Stoya had me hanging off of every word there. Not just because it was an interesting scene from life, but also because of her skill in conveying the subtlties of it. And other posts contain similarly well crafted prose.

Another site I happened across about six months ago is London Andrews' blog On The Road (she's since moved to Tumblr as well, but the best of her writing remains at the original site). Andrews isn't a porn star, per se. She did a couple of amateur online porn movies, but primarily focuses on nude modeling. However like Stoya, she has a certain ability with the written word.

Here is a graf from a piece that Andrews wrote on Burning Man that has something approaching a "Kerouac's little sister" quality to it:

At 5am, I left Matthew asleep in the temple with a hundred of other people.... I wandered off and watched sunrise from a lookout tower. Nothing quite like a sunrise at Burning man.... The Sun comes up slowly.... a backwards sunset....Colors before the light - It's quiet. Some people are just waking, some are going to sleep, some are disoriented and walking in circles, some walk on their palms... drums pound in the distance. The city awakes... Day begins.... The Sun-star glows brilliantly....The sun has no mercy for your hangover... Your tent will cook.

What's fascinating to me here is not just the quality of writing, which is -- given the low barriers to access that blogging presents -- pretty darned good. Rather, it is the way that each woman is able to break down the images we might have of them by forcing you to reckon with who they are through their words.

Both women are highly expressive and quite open about their thoughts and experiences. They are both quite attractive in their own way (I'm a London Andrews sort of feller, myself), but the real treat -- the real nakedness -- is in getting to know them and see who they are beyond their images.

In that way, both Andrews and Stoya cease to be porn stars and become, well, people. Imagine that porn movies and nude modeling with real live people. Maybe that something like what subtle body porn might begin to look.