July 8th. Have so much to cover, it's a mess.



In fact, its been a bit of a shit storm for months now. Living in Toronto has made working much more difficult than it was when I resided on the west coast. The flights are 6 hours instead of 1, the time away is a week or two instead of a day and my calls are always roaming. And I am always missing home.



Being away takes a toll on your relationship...on any relationship but especially the monogamous relationship of a ho. I have a boyfriend and we are monogamous. Yes. monogamous. And yes, that means that "we" don't sleep with other people, even though, professionally, I do. It means that when I'm out of Dylanland, my love, my body, my sexuality is reserved for him. He gets all the parts, not just the porno parts. And though this fosters a connection that is important, special and works for us, it also where the trouble comes in. Because "technically", well hell, not even technically, just factually, I'm going away for weeks, days at a time to sleep with other people. On camera. For the world to see... to download...to keep on their hard drives and in their dvd cupboards. So I'm away and all we have is the cell phone, ever-roaming and g-chat on my laptop to try and maintain threads of intimacy...



A few days in a no matter how well the shoots are going, I'm usually pretty knocked out which compounds on all the distance. I'm craving a non-porn person in my life to sit and talk about "real life" things with me and remind me that I have school work and that I need to get some sleep or I will get weepy. I might already be weepy. Sexin is hard work and when its done and the amazing adrenaline rush is gone, what's left is often kind of dark. The non-pornys in my life fill up that space with their chatter and love. When I'm in L.A. or New York however, I don't always have a friend around and so I end up being weepy with...my boyfriend. Poor guy. Sometimes I wonder how he deals. Sometimes I feel like a lot. All tales of empowerment aside, I occasionally sit and ponder my location in society and remember how complicated my choices are. How non-normative I am. When I think of what it must be like to try and create a steady relationship with all those complicated choices in the mix, I feel for his effort, I really do.



You hear so many stories about suitcase pimps and the male heads of sex trafficking rings and men who beat their girlfriends into sex work. These stories exist for a reason. These men are so devious and terrible and care so little for women that they abuse, act coercively and use women to sate their own financial and social agendas. I have known some and I have seen women destroyed by some. I, so thankfully, am not with one of these people. Though sex work has wreaked some unmeasurable amount of havoc on my relationship these past years, it has oft been a source of strength and love and support. My boyfriend has worked very hard to stick by me, encourage me and always provide for my choices in this business. He's never directed me or forced me or given me ultimatums...and consequently I have been able to find myself...



And it's Summer in Toronto...and I find myself working about twice a month-ish. Knee deep in University... grad school anxiety, an assembly line state of being... and trying to get shoots in there all the while. I would love to work more... but is it worth it? The flying...the being away...the being Dylan... I love my job but right this moment, I would love it to be less messy...

be careful what you wish for...you just might get it...

When I grow up,

I wanna be famous,

I wanna be a star,

I wanna be in movies

And so begins the saga of a girl who always wanted to be the prettiest... the oft cliched story of the ugly duckling who became a swan...albeit a naked swan... Here begins the saga of Dylan, aka Me, an eccentric hustler cum porn star who has, against all odds ended up in on the doorstep of mainstream exposure. It was both coincidence and calculation... and now that it seems I have what I want, that nagging question remains, do I really?

This isn't the first time this question has crossed my mind, with each new elevation up the ladder of stardom it has flashed past. Do you really want to do that? Do you really need to try that? What are you looking for? Each time it illicited from me only the most brief of pauses... OF COURSE I WANT THIS. If I didn't then what the hell was all the hard work for? From photography to stripping, each one a gateway drug to the next, I found a deeper and deeper calling, discovered the depths of my predisposition to sexual performance. I just kept on having fun and each new avenue of sex work provided a curious opportunity for self exploration and further excavation. I wanted to peel back the layers of my sexual identity and I wanted to do it in front of and for others. Yes, I am an exhibitionist, a fact that took me years to embrace... an adjective that is hard to wear like a badge in a society where girls are supposed to be good and good girls are supposed to be neither heard nor seen. And the exhibitionist in me had no interest in the archetypal female goodness of bygone times, she wanted to show sex as it was meant to be seen... wanted to embody and represent the scores of women who love sex, who want sex, who are kinky and vanilla, unabashed and reserved, women who are sexual. I wanted to be the unashamed characterization of "that girl" the slut who isn't sorry, the scarlett letter with legs, the freak in the bed who might or might not be a lady in the streets. It felt like time and it felt like me...

And like all good bildungsromans, my story has developed. It has been close to four years now... I have done girl/ girl, dyke porn, kink and BDSM, mainstream, boy/girl, anal, edge play, group scenes and on and on... I have been gagged, flogged, hung and bound, I have been cum on and hooked, I have been fucked and sucked and I have had good days and bad. I have grown up in and out of the industry and I have forged most of this path by my wits, stellar luck and the kindness of many many people who used to be strangers and are now friends. And when I say lucky, I mean lucky, nearly blessed to have a story that's not a made for t.v. movie. No childhood abuse, no coersion, no victimization and a lot of wonderful supportive friends and a partner who has rubbed my back when I was exhausted. I am not a rule but im also not just an exception. Sex workers are varied and many and our stories are as well. I also consider myself fortunate to have entered the business at the ripe old age of twenty-three, young enough to have boundless energy but old enough to act with intention, though that last part took me awhile... more about that later.

Today all these details have propelled me here, to the Venetian Hotel, January, 2009. Short shorts pasted to my backside, industry pass dangling from my neck atop a pile of thin silver chains, I am, as they say, " Workin it" or as we would say at the LL, " Hustlin". Like a crane, I teeter on 5 inch black patent mock-croc heels, amazonian in stature and more pale than most the flesh here. I am here because I have been invited by an agent to attend with the rest of his brood. The AVN's... an infamous event that I have heard a lot about but never attended. It has always seemed to me to be the temple of porn, where the mythological frolic and eat grapes of each other's naked carcasses. Heretofore beyond my league... but now very much the ballpark I'm playing in. Suddenly I am smiling big smiles and flashing my petite B cups for producers as opposed to just directors. The guys with the bucks and the eye to smash or grab and they are actually grabbing ME. The ego boost is palpable, my skin rises in a flush and my inner akward jr. high schooler pirouettes ecstatically. I wonder momentarily if my forehead has broken out in hives reading "Chosen One" before I toter away and the stale air of the exhibition center erases all remining warmth. What did I just talk about, what did I agree to shoot? I forget... whoa, I am so out of my element... Fighting back the overwhelm in favor of a grinning mouth full of teeth, I take long, leggy strides to follow my agent, who despite his short stature is FAST. We'll call him Mike and leave his description at Vizzini from The Princess Bride with a deeper voice and more facial hair. I have found him to be surprisingly embracing. For a man who makes or breaks careers of beautiful young women, he is much more of a surly father figure than I expected. He and I are sharing a room...a fact that has thus far lead to much generously free room service and my falling asleep to his habit of watching latenight History Channel.

He and I are in a room with a small and lovely spit of a girl named Evie. Initially shy, Evie has quickly become my partner in disillusion as we choose to navigate the showroom floor together, tall and small, doing interviews and listing the kind of sex acts we do like sordid cafeteria lunch ladies. On the menu today, Evie's vagina and my ass. Again I find myself lucky that I'm surrounded by decent human beings. Night after night, worn from industry parties and flirting with bigwigs with deep pockets, I kick off my shoes, pop on my dorky red librarian glasses and peruse the menu for what over-priced selection is going to ease the vegas acid that has congealed in my stomach. It's all just almost too much, almost too surreal and I search for a glint of reality amidst the ca-ching of the slot machines and the ba-bings of the sex trade. I call home with news of famous introductions, Rocco Sifredi said I was beautiful, Belladonna said we should shoot! It's great and I'm tired, the full effect of the past four years effectively rear-ending me as I stop at this major intersection. I want a slice of Me to mix with the daily Dylan. A nugget of conversation that's not kinky, not sexy, not trying, just talking. I want to go out without makeup and I want to be famous, evidently I still want it all.

It's a searingly long four days, culminating in an early morning flight, future negotiations for shoot dates, porny girl hang-out dates, dates of school and when I will be able to get back to L.A. Negotiating my real life with my porn life presents a frequent problem and its complicated, seeing as school is the biggest link to my real future while 747 eagles and spread eagles are the link to my porn future and my future of financial freedom. It's a constant choice. My head is spinning as I board the airport shuttle, my suitcase bulging with mini skirts and clingy awards dresses, mind bulging with images of the jumbo screen scrolling award-winning names and contract star girls flitting across the stage with clear crystal statuettes in their teeny fists. I'm here at the top and yet still peering through the gateway. Welcome to what you have always wanted. Do you really want it?