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Joanna Angel is joining the show this week and she’s excited to talk about her new book, “Night Shift: A Choose Your Own Erotic Fantasy.” We discuss how she came up with the story, the nostalgia of times past, feeling awkward and sexually inexperienced, and how some of Joanna’s favorite memories of sex shop tours inspired so much of the book.
Joanna and I also talk about porn and what people get wrong about the industry, how she stays creative making 24 movies a year, how porn (and all of entertainment) is changing, and what’s next for her literary adventures.
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In this episode, Joanna and I talk about:
- Joanna’s new book, “Night Shift: A Choose Your Own Erotic Fantasy” which is a fun, delightful, nostalgic read.
- Joanna’s protagonist, Taryn, and the beauty of her innocence. We explore why Taryn’s self-discovery was so important to Joanna.
- Sex shops of old, those seedy, gritty mom-and-pop shops from strip malls in the outskirts of town are a dying breed. Joanna has a lot of nostalgia for those shops.
- Because of the internet, that old rite of passage of turning 18 and going to the store for porn is no more. We giggle over the curtained-off adult section of the Blockbusters and trying to sneak peeks.
- Joanna remembers a funny sex shop in Florida that was the inspiration for her locale in Night Shift
- What so much erotica is missing and why Joanna wanting that missing element to be a part of her book and the sex scenes.
- Joanna’s fascination with people and how often people surprise her and inspire her
- How Joanna gets inspired because making 24 films per year is a LOT, so what keeps her creating?
- Why sometimes you need a wordless striptease instead of a full-blown script.
- Joanna’s love of heels, makeup, glamour, and the rockstar aesthetic, and why that’s gotten her some pushback.
- The most misleading thing in the media about porn that Joanna wishes more people knew.
- Joanna’s advice about becoming a sex worker and the realities of it, the hierarchies of porn, and ways you can tiptoe in. She cautions that if you do porn, or even camming, your family, your friends, your neighbors they will all find out. Can you be OK with that?
- The value of porn – how much it’s gone down and how Joanna feels about those shifts.
- Joanna’s new whiskey and what it’s been like branching into new revenue avenues as a way to grow in a world where people are paying less and less for their porn
- What Joanna said to her dad when he asked if he should read her new book. Ah, parents.
- Don’t forget to write an Amazon review for the book!
About Joanna Angel:
Joanna Angel is an award-winning adult film star, director, producer, author, entrepreneur and CEO of the venerated adult studio, BurningAngel Entertainment. Pacific Standard magazine stated she is, “One of the most powerful feminist icons in the adult industry.” She’s stormed mainstream media outlets being featured in the New York Times, Forbes Magazine, Vice TV, LA Weekly, and CNBC just to name a few. She was inducted into AVN’s hall of fame in 2016 and continues to make her mark on the adult industry and the world at large.Listen and subscribe to Sex Gets Real
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra, that’s me. This is a place where we explore sex, bodies, and relationships, from a place of curiosity and inclusion. Tying the personal to the cultural where you’re just as likely to hear tender questions about shame and the complexities of love, as you are to hear experts challenging the dominant stories around pleasure, body politics, and liberation. This is about the big and the small, about sex and everything surrounding it we don’t usually name. The funny, the awkward, the imperfect happen here in service to joy, connection, healing, and creating healthier relationships with ourselves and each other. So, welcome to Sex Gets Real. Don’t forget to hit subscribe.
Hey, listeners. Welcome to this week’s episode with Joanna Angel. I think you’re going to enjoy this chat as Joanna and I talk all about her brand new choose your own erotic fantasy book “Night Shift” that I had a chance to read. It is actually so fun. Patreon supporters, I read an exclusive clip from the book. The book is all about a girl named Taryn, who starts working at a sex toy shop. And it’s in this seedy, gritty sex shop with rooms in the back where people masturbate and fuck, and she’s kind of new to this world. Joanna Angel actually wrote herself into the book, super meta. And there’s this really, really fun scene where Joanna Angel actually strips in this sex toy shop and Taryn experiences Joanne Angel for the first time. So, it’s about a 20 minute read and people who support the show at $3 or above get access to that. Plus, all of the other bonuses that release every single week with behind the scenes chats and bonus discussions with guests. So if you head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast, you can either support the show or if you’re already a supporter, check out that really juicy tidbit from Joanna’s book.
Dawn Serra: I also want to let you know if you are an educator and entrepreneur in management at any kind of company or an event coordinator, I am now producing other people’s online summits, speaker series, symposiums, and conferences. I am booked all the way through the fall of 2018, but I do have some consulting spots available. So if you’ve ever wanted to make your own online event happen, especially from a social justice and feminist-based perspective of a coaching business that’s inclusive and fun, then file away that I can help you make that happen – including video production, services, and all kinds of fun stuff.
So, what’s up for this week? Me and Joanna Angel. Joanna Angel is an award winning adult film star director, producer, author, entrepreneur, and CEO of the venerated adult studio Burning Angel Entertainment. Pacific Standard magazine stated she is one of the most powerful feminist icons in the adult industry. She’s stormed mainstream media outlets, being featured in The New York Times, Forbes magazine, Vice TV, LA Weekly, and CNBC just to name a few. She was inducted into Avian’s Hall of Fame in 2016 and continues to make her mark on the adult industry and the world at large. So, I hope you enjoy my chat with Joanna that is coming up next and don’t forget to head to Patreon where you can hear all about Joanna’s book and a very juicy section of Joanna herself, getting naked and making money being a stripper in Night Shift.
Dawn Serra: Oh, and one last thing, we are just over a week and a half away from the live taping of sex gets real to celebrate passing 200 episodes. And we are just about a month away from 4 million downloads. So we are doing a double celebration. I am going to be recording a live episode online. There’s about 40 seats available and there are still seats available. So if you want to join in the fun to ask me questions live and to be a part of the show, because what we record that night will become part of the show forever. I would love to see you there. There is a link in the show notes and if you had to sexgetsreal.com/ep204 for this episode, which is episode 204. You can put your name in the hat to get a spot and I would love to help celebrate with you. So here I am with Joanna Angel.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Joanna. I am so excited for this conversation.
Joanna Angel: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Dawn Serra: We are chatting because I had a chance to roll around in your new book, “Night Shift: A Choose Your Own Erotic Fantasy,” which is pure delight.
Joanna Angel: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dawn Serra: The book is similar to those Choose Your Own Adventure type stories that lots of us grew up on. One of the things that I really, really appreciated about this story is that it’s genuinely sweet and playful and full of curiosity, and awkwardness but sexiness and it just felt So organic and wonderful.
Joanna Angel: Well, since my first novel was fiction, I didn’t want to write from my own point of view. I really wanted to get into the mindset of other people and write from their point of view. But generally, when I make movies, whether it’s porn movies or when I write stories, I’ve always been that way. I like happy endings. I like everyone to be happy. I like everything to feel kind of healthy and fun, even if things go to a kind of twisted, dark place. They all work out in the end. And I think that’s just my own way of creating art. Why would I want to make a fantasy where things aren’t a fantasy, you know?
I know different artists have different ways of creating their art and some people do like to get really dark and fucked up and twisted. They get joy out of it. But I like to create a quirky, happy, funny world where people grow and people love and people learn. I’m like an interesting person, I guess, because I do porn and I’m very open-minded sexually. But I’m also a hopeless romantic. So, I really do. I like love stories. I didn’t just want to write an erotic novel that was just filthy with no with no romance.
Dawn Serra: There was so many different kinds of sex and bodies, and races and identities.
Joanna Angel: Thank you. That was very important to me to show that. And I knew that with the Choose Your Own Adventure format, I would have that ability. I didn’t want to have a Choose Your Own Adventure book and every adventure is with the same group of people. So I really tried to step outside my comfort zone and show a fantasy with so many different types of people.
Dawn Serra: So for listeners, when you get this book, there are so many wonderful avenues that you can explore with Taryn, who’s the main character. And, there are a variety of endings and I’m wondering if you have a personal favorite?
Joanna Angel: No, and I made sure of that. Every time I wrote a path is what I basically call each little adventure. Every time I wrote each adventure, I would get stressed when I was done. I was like, “God, I really love that one.” I don’t want the book to have a favorite. I don’t want the book to be like one of them. You really want people to read and the others you don’t care about. So I would take a good breather and cleanse my palate, and really try to…
When I started a new path, I really tried to shake everything off and pretend the other paths didn’t exist so I wouldn’t have a favorite. I tried to put my own love into every single one.
Dawn Serra: You actually wrote yourself into the book, which is deliciously meta.
Joanna Angel: Yeah, that was a really fun thing to do. That was actually the last thing I wrote before I was completely done with the book. And I was getting wacky with that one. I was like, “All right, let’s get weird here.” I was laughing hysterically the entire time I was writing that part.
Dawn Serra: You could tell there’s some really funny little one liners and that’s something else I appreciated. Taryn is like – she has a wonderful sense of humor, even when it’s just her internal dialogue. These one liners – it’s great.
Joanna Angel: Taryn really is me. I’ve been directing porn for many years. And I still feel like a weirdo. I think people assumed me to be this sexually, open-minded, free person. But sometimes I’m on set and there’s an orgy or a gangbang – stuff going on in front of me and I’m still deconstructing it in my head the way I did when I was 20 years old. A lot of times this stuff just doesn’t make sense to me. There’s always a humorous dialogue going on in my head. That’s like, “What the hell is going on? How did my life get here? Do I want to be like this? Do I know I want to be like this? How do I become…” I don’t know I think I’ve always just been awkward, and Taryn let me just be more honest about my awkward side. Whereas I feel, usually in life, I’m trying to hide that awkwardness, you know?
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that pulled me in so much, is just the realness of that awkwardness and even some of her fears and insecurities…
Joanna Angel: And I appreciate that. Some of the reviewers – maybe we live in a world now where everybody’s just so sexually free – some people were like, that was the only criticism I’m getting from reviewers. They’re like, “Taryn’s innocence is a little bit ridiculous. Nobody’s that innocent.” And it’s like, “What you’re talking about? She works at a sex shop where people are going in there and doing insane things. Of course, she’s going to react a certain way. How do you react when you’re in a room with people doing these things? Are you just completely nonchalant?” They’re like, “Nobody’s that innocent.” It’s like, what kind of world do you live in?
Dawn Serra: I know! What kind of cynical, pessimistic place do you come from?
Joanna Angel: I know! Because I’m in porn! Even I have that innocence about me. So, I don’t know what kind of crazy life you’re living, but it’s just funny. But yeah, people are like, “That’s just completely unbelievable. Nobody that innocent” It’s like, “What are you talking about?”
Dawn Serra: Yeah, see? That’s exactly what pulled me in and made me feel so much like I was invested in the choices she was making. I was genuinely curious about what would happen if she made this decision or that decision. And I got to learn and grow with her. It felt very organic.
Joanna Angel: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
Dawn Serra: Taryn, who is the main character has gotten a job at this sex shop that’s owned by this older woman, Sandy. And the sex shop has the rooms in the back where people can fuck and strip and masturbate. And, this seems to be a dying kind of business. We’ve got, I know, great big box chains and then the newer feminist shops that are very well lit and very organized.
Joanna Angel: Right. Did you actually get to the part of the book where she goes to the Hustler store?
Dawn Serra: No.
Joanna Angel: Okay. There’s a really quirky, funny chapter where she goes to the Hustler store and she’s just so confused and so shocked that there’s millennials with tattoos working there and a place that makes lattes inside the store. People asking you, “Oh, would you like a different size dildo? What kind of orgasms do you have? We have everything…” And she’s so confused by the legitimacy where it feels like you’re in a high end clothing store, but it’s a sex shop, because the only thing she knows is this hole in the wall strip mall. And, I’m glad that you acknowledge that.
I really wanted to point that out in the book, because as somebody who’s traveled around the country and I’ve been to so many different kinds of stores– And I love the feminist sex shops, the Babeland, the Good Vibrations, the Hustler stores. I mean, they’re amazing. And it’s crazy to think that those kinds of stores exist, when 2030 years ago, the only sex shops that existed were things that people were very embarrassed to be seen at. Now, they have events that – very higher up people in the city coming to the stores and buying vibrators for their wealthy wives and whatever. But it is a dying part of the industry and I think with Choose Your Own Adventure it’s like a throwback to the ‘80s. And the concept of a store that is like this is getting old school. These kinds of stores are the, I don’t know, the Tower Records of porn.
Joanna Angel: I love these stores. A lot of them are family-owned. These small stores that are in these podunk towns in the middle of a strip mall that are open 24 hours. There’s not a lot of them left and I think they’re very special. Whereas, I think that somebody might think that a person like me would only be a champion for these feminist chains that specialize, you know what I mean? Like sex education and stuff. There’s definitely a charm to these types of stores.
I think a lot of people learn a lot about themselves in these types of stores. You might not have a person like Billy coming into Babeland or something. They might be intimidated. And I’m not knocking those stores. I just wanted to capture the importance of these kind of seedy, dirty stores that people don’t give enough credit to. And the way they’re run and the way they’re managed. I think, as a small business owner myself, I’ve always had a love for these small businesses, you know?
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Yeah, the day I turned 18, I went to a strip mall that had a little dark sex shop…
Joanna Angel: I know and you know that’s going away because literally the first porn that I saw was when I was 18. I don’t think that happens anymore.
Dawn Serra: No.
Joanna Angel: And it was such a rite of passage. I turned 18 years old, I’m going to go into this porn store and buy a vibrator, and a copy of Hustler magazine and some DVD. That doesn’t exist anymore and it’s kind of sad.
Dawn Serra: It is. I remember spending a significant amount of what I thought was a secret time standing in the back of the Blockbuster, where they had the curtain doff adult section, and trying to catch peeks inside.
Joanna Angel: I know. I remember that. I remember going to Blockbuster with my parents and being like, “What’s in there? Why is there a curtain?” And my dad’s like, “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.” And it was so exciting. “What’s going on in there?” I really wanted to know. It’s so crazy that that’s like dating myself now to speak of that. All tangible sex thing has kind of gone away, which is whatever. It is what it is – gotta adapt with the times. But yeah…
I really wanted to capture the intricacies, and the beauty and the filth inside these stores. And I did. I talked to so many different people that did work at stores before I wrote this book. Because even though I’ve been to a hand-full of stores, just from doing signings and stuff like that, I didn’t work at one. I didn’t spend 12 hours there. I’d be there for a couple hours and hang out with my fans and leave. So, I really tried to get to know, go deep inside the mind of the people that actually worked at these stores. And it was really fun to find out what’s common in these stores.
Dawn Serra: From your time doing signings and tours, and having a chance to pop into some of these places around the U.S. Do you have any favorite memories or stories that you like reflecting back on?
Joanna Angel: Yeah. I guess everything that happened was pretty standard, but the book in the store was actually based off of a store that I went to. And it was in Tampa, Florida. I do remember it was a family-owned store, and the owner of the store was making me her own moonshine in her bathtub that she gave me. And it was amazing and she was so funny. It was this grandma that knew everything about dildos. I was like – I loved it. Her granddaughter and her granddaughter’s husband worked there and they were all like, “Oh, Don’t mind her. She’s crazy.” And I was like, “No, I love it.” And, they did have rooms there that people came in and had sex in, and I was fascinated by the people coming into the store.
So, it really was based off of it and I had been done with my signing. I remember they’re like, “Okay, you’re done. Do you want to ride back to the hotel?” And I just hung out at the store for a while because I was so fascinated by all of the people coming in. And the store, I remember, had this message board where people would post on the message board like old school kind of ‘90s Internet style message boards or early 2000s. People would write on there what their fantasies were and they would come to the store and hope that somebody would make their fantasies come true. It was really crazy to watch it happen. I was like, “Whoa, this is so cool. It exists.”
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Something else that I really appreciated about Taryn, but sadly I think is is a little uncommon, is even though Taryn is new to the sex shop, she doesn’t have any kind of formal education around porn or sex toys. There’s something about her that is not ashamed of her pleasure. She’s not conflicted about whether or not she deserves it. She may not know where to get it, but she allows it.
Joanna Angel: No, that’s how I was, too. I was very sexually inexperienced, not because I thought sex was wrong. I just didn’t know. I didn’t know how to go about it. That’s a tough thing to do. And I think that’s another reason why I really loved porn, I was able to explore my sexual desires in this controlled environment so it wound up working out pretty well for me. But yeah, she wasn’t prude. She just was shy. Sex requires another person to explore it. So, she wasn’t ashamed and she wasn’t closed minded. She wasn’t some – I tried to make references in the book. She’s like an activist just like when I was growing up. She’s kind of a left wing, quirky person that listens to weird music and stuff like that. She doesn’t know how to make the sexual part of her weirdness come to life, because she needs other people to do it with and she’s kind of a hermit. So, the store was the perfect place because it came to her just like porn for me. You don’t have to go out into a bar to look for a weird sexual experience here in porn. It’s your job.
Dawn Serra: So, I know humor is something that’s really important to you. It’s a big part of the book and it’s a big part of the porn that you create and are a part of. And laughter has been a really important part of my sex life. But I know a lot of people take themselves very seriously.
Joanna Angel: I think, especially, these days. I think people take themselves too seriously when it comes to anything. It’s a difficult time. I think humor is important and you have to be able to laugh at yourself. And yeah, I do think a lot of erotica takes itself way too seriously and doesn’t acknowledge all the awkwardness that comes along with exploring yourself sexually. I feel like everyone and I’m not generally– I’ve tried to read through a lot of erotica before I wrote this book and it just seems like everybody has this sexual knowledge and experience where they’re just ready to go and they know everything about getting wet,and having orgasms, and this and that. And it’s like, not everybody’s born with this knowledge.
Dawn Serra: We have to kind of fuck up our way towards it.
Joanna Angel: You do. Everybody’s a virgin once upon a time. Everybody’s bad in bed for a little while, you know? It doesn’t just come naturally. It comes with experience.
Dawn Serra: What are some of the ways that you tap into your creative humor when you’re creating? When you’re sitting down to film or write a script or even write the book – how do you keep yourself feeling open to the possibilities of the absurd and humorous?
Joanna Angel: It’s just the way I’ve always looked at the world. A lot of people always say that – I remember in my creative writing classes in college, they would say that writers always had a sense. Every time you go somewhere, you’re looking at people and analyzing them and making up your own stories about them. I’ve always done that. And fortunately, my life is always led to being around probably because I’ve always been a writer. My life has always been being around lots and lots of really different people that fascinate me. I mean, between my family being religious Jews to being super heavily involved in the New York City and New Jersey punk scene, to being in academia and college with all the other academic nerds. And then, going into porn and knowing people in the porn industry that come from so many different places and do so many different things; and having so many friends in the music industry.
I started to become friends with a lot of people that work in… What do you call it? They work in extreme sports and stuff like that – like skateboarders and BMX people, and tattoo artists. I have this vast knowledge of experience. And then I was a stripper for a really long time so I was constantly just interacting with everyone from a horny kid that just turned 18 and wants to go to a strip club on his birthday to a billionaire businessman oil sheet coming in looking for a good time and everything and anything in between. I’ve always been fascinated by people. People are not always what you think they’re going to be.
Joanna Angel: I found connections with people along the way that I never thought I’d be able to connect with. I’ve found that people that I thought I’d have everything in common with, I actually have nothing in common with. People just inspire me and the life I’ve led and I have the vast knowledge of people I have to choose from. They all inspire me. And sometimes, I mean the good thing is the Internet now, everybody speaks so loudly all the time. So when I was feeling a little brain dead, especially with the Billy Bonnie character, because that character’s someone that’s pretty far off from anyone I’ve ever met in life.
I read a lot of Facebook pages, Twitter pages. I wanted knowledge from real people, not from books, not from texts and studies. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to find a cross dresser on Facebook and just read through their friends. See what they do? What do they eat? Where do they sleep? Where do they hang out? What do they do?” Different blogs and stuff like that just from hearing real insight from real people really helps me with writing this. So it’s pretty cool. It’s like you have the world at your disposal.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. And I think what’s really beautiful about Taryn is how open she is to finding out who people are and what they’re interested in or what they’re curious about, and allowing them to be that.
Joanna Angel: Yeah, yeah. She was hungry for more.
Dawn Serra: Because you have such curiosity about other people and observing them and then creating with other people. I know that you’ve had a chance to direct hundreds of people in the videos that you do. And I’m wondering, what are some of the ways that you create safe environments and make those real relationships that can be in a new or scary circumstances, a place where people want to be?
Joanna Angel: Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve made so many pornos and the inspiration for every single point I make is always different. It’s very hard to create. I mean, in porn, some people don’t realize how much work porn directors have to do. I’m one of the smaller studios and I make 24 movies a year. Most of my friends in the industry are making way more than that. And a lot of times it’s based around a girl a lot of times it’s just, I don’t know, based on a fleeting thought I had. Sometimes I just see a sexy outfit somewhere. I don’t know. I’ll be like, “Oh wow, that girl walking across the street looks hot in yoga pants. Maybe I’ll make a whole yoga pants movie.” I mean, a porn can be inspired from anything, which is pretty cool.
I made a workout movie because I’ve been working out a lot, and I think it’s sexy when girls go to the gym and like their bodies, and get in touch with that. On the other end, I’ve made movies about really curvy girls, because I think curvy girls are beautiful and hot. I don’t know. It just comes from anything. And sometimes, I make very long scripted features that are based on quirky ideas that I write stories about. So, my inspiration comes from everything. When you have to create that much, you have to really be able to get inspired from everything.
Dawn Serra: I can’t imagine. 24 seems so many.
Joanna Angel: 24 movies and every movie has four or five scenes in it. It’s a lot and every time I’m done with one, I have to come up with the next one.
Dawn Serra: Oh my God.
Joanna Angel: It’s a lot. That’s why sometimes in porn, we just need the striptease. Sometimes it’s like, “You know what? You are a beautiful girl and you don’t have to say anything. You’re just going to walk into a room and be your sexiest and suck this dick.” And that’s it because I do not have it in me to write a script for today. That’s why sometimes you need a striptease. You can’t come up with 24 different – 24 times five, whatever that is.
You can’t come up with that many different scenarios. And sometimes, it’s very difficult. I’m like, “God, I think I have thought of every single scenario in the history of time,” where two people walk into a house and have sex. Because most of the time, all I have is a house to work with. It’s very rare that I get a bar or an office or something like that. And even when I get that, that’s limited. Because you’re like, “Okay, well, I have this bar set. But there’s not going to be people in the bar. How many scenarios can you come up with?” “Oh, I’m closing up.” I’m like, “How many more scenarios can I think of of two people sitting in a house that are strangers that are going to fuck?” Oh my god. It’s so crazy. People don’t realize how much has to go into it sometimes.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. I admire the endless creativity that that requires. Because, man, I have trouble with the blog posts sometimes and what you’re doing takes a lot more. One of the things that I know you’ve talked about that you really enjoy about the way that you film is that you enjoy the glamour, the heels, and the makeup, and the outfits.
Joanna Angel: I do and I’m glad you appreciate that, because I know… And it doesn’t matter to everybody. To each his own. I know sometimes in the kind of feminist porn community, they’ve deemed my porn is not feminist because I because I like heels and makeup and glamour. I like the rockstar-ness of porn. It’s kind of funny, because even though the body type and the image of the porn star in the ‘90s is completely different than everything I stand for. But I loved that. I loved ‘90s porn. I loved the glamour of it.
I mean, everything has to get put into a category and you can’t choose your own fame and I have respect for everybody making what they want to make, and they need to go where they need to go. But, I know sometimes a lot of the porn that gets put into the feminist porn category, they want girls to be as natural as possible. They want the sex to be as natural as possible. And it’s like, I don’t know. There’s no way that a gang bang is natural or maybe not in my life. I don’t know. So let’s make it as much of a fantasy as we can possibly make it. Let’s have some extra loud orgasms and moans and yells. Let’s put on as much makeup as you want and put on an outfit you’d never wear to the supermarket. I think it’s okay to have some porn that’s not real. And that’s my own way of exploring my own sexuality and my own feminism, and stuff like that. I’m glad that you appreciate that because I know I’ve been kind of knocked for it. Like, just because girls are wearing makeup and getting really dressed up, and coming down a glamorous staircase and walking into a room and getting railed by someone, that’s not feminist because it’s not capturing their reality. But I like stepping into a different persona and becoming the sexual superhero. I like that and I think Taryn liked that, too. I think the store opened her up to become a different person. She couldn’t be in the confines of her own world.
Dawn Serra: I wear my femme armor anytime I’m on video. I got my falsies and my makeup and my pretty dresses. It’s part of what makes me feel ready to show up.
Joanna Angel: Yes, sometimes you want to step into a different zone,
Dawn Serra: Exactly. I’ve had many different sex workers, porn performers, porn creators on the show, and they all have unique stories and experiences. One of the things that I’ve grappled with with many guests is how so many of the conversations that happen around porn and sex work tend to be super reductionist and polarizing; where it’s like, everybody is vilified, everybody’s a victim or everybody’s empowered. And it’s the best thing ever every day. I’d love to know, what do you wish more people either new or thought about when it came to your experiences?
Joanna Angel: I think the most misleading thing from doing a lot of media about the porn industry is that everybody thinks we are all the same. Everybody thinks we all came from the same place. We all do porn for the same reasons, that we all get paid the same amount of money, that we all walk into a building every day called porn and report to the same boss. Do you know what I mean? People are like, “Oh, well, is the porn industry doing this? Is the porn industry doing this?” There’s no one person in charge of the porn industry.
The porn industry is a business comprised of many, many, many small businesses and everybody has their own careers and their own things. There’s so many different types of people in it. Maybe in the ‘90s, there was only four companies and everything was similar, but it’s not like that anymore. And I think people need to understand that there is struggle in porn, and success in porn, and there are good days and there are bad days. It’s not like every single day I wake up where I either feel completely on top of the world or completely degraded. Sometimes a day is just another day just like any other job. I think everybody thinks of porn in such extremes where we can’t just be normal.
Joanna Angel: There’s a lot of people in the porn industry. There’s not just people – people talk to me and all they want to know about is, what goes on on set? Do you know how much work has to get done in the porn industry that doesn’t happen on set? The people that do marketing, the people that do coding, the people that do editing, and people that work in distribution. There are people that work in the porn industry that never actually see the porn being made. There’s so many behind-the-scenes people that I think people take away from the fact that this is actually a real industry that operates like many other industries; where there’s products and there’s marketing, and there’s selling and there’s distribution, and there’s everything and anything in between. I think a lot of people don’t understand that.
Dawn Serra: I get a lot of questions, especially in the past six months, from women who are considering either going into porn or caming or stripping or some form of sex work, and they are often asking for advice. And I wonder if you might want to offer advice to someone who’s thinking about maybe moving into this space, if you have any words of wisdom.
Joanna Angel: I mean, you can’t expect anything. You have to know, this is entertainment, like any other facet of entertainment. There are people who succeed, there are people who fail and then there’s everything in anything in between. There are some people who do this for a year. There’s some people who do this for their whole life. There’s some people who love this and there’s some people who hate this and this isn’t for everyone. Don’t just do it for quick money. If that’s all you’re thinking of, maybe try stripping. The porn industry is like a real industry. This is a real job with a hierarchy. You have a boss, you have multiple levels. There are multiple levels of success and stuff here.
I think if you want some quick cash, maybe try caming, maybe try stripping stuff like that, especially stripping. You could go in for a night of work and if you hate it, you never have to go back and the world won’t know about it. Once you do a porn, it’s on the Internet forever. You need to know that and you need to really think about that. So I don’t know if that was good advice or bad advice or practically talking somebody out of it.
Dawn Serra: I think it’s really practical and I think it’s important, too. I think that there’s this assumption that it’s quick, easy money.
Joanna Angel: And for some people, it is. But, like anything, I mean, this is a job and what you’re going to do in the porn industry, I mean, it’s going to exist forever. So, I would say if you’re not really sure about it and you’re nervous, stripping is the one part of sex work that could disappear and caming being the next step, even though I know a lot of cam shows get recorded and stuff like that. There’s so much caming going on that the chance of people finding it if you only do it once is pretty slim. Think about every single person you’ve ever met in your whole life finding out about it before you do it. That’s what’s going to happen.
When girls tell me, “Oh, I don’t think my parents are going to find out.” They’re going to find out. They will. It’s impossible. Your ex-boyfriend’s going to find out. All of your friends are going to find out. Teachers you went to school with are going to find out. And you have to be prepared. Are you okay with that? People are going to criticize it. Not everyone’s going to love it. People are going to be uncomfortable about it. You’re going to lose friends over it. Even with my husband, even my husband’s in the porn industry. He wasn’t when we first met. Just when he started being public about our relationship on his own Facebook page, he had friends of his be like, “I can’t believe you. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore because you’re associated with the porn industry.” People are weird about porn and these are people you wouldn’t expect. They were not pastors and preachers and politicians. These were friends of his that just didn’t like porn and you have to expect that that’s going to happen. You have to be prepared for that kind of thing.
Dawn Serra: The industry has changed so much because of technology over the past decade or two. And I know from VHS films, to those late night packages you could order on cable to DVD and now to streaming. I’m wondering, as you look ahead at where we are and what’s next, is there anything that really excites you or that you’re really looking forward to or that you really dislike about the changes and where we are?
Joanna Angel: Every industry changes. People are like, “The porn industry has changed so much.” It’s like, “So has music.” My dad’s a consultant for a living and that industry has changed. Everything’s changed. The journalism industry– radio’s changed. I mean, we wouldn’t be doing this podcast right now if the world of radio– People used to only listen to AM-FM radio and that has changed drastically. That’s going to happen with any industry. Obviously being the producer, I did not know when I first got into porn that the value of a porn was going to go down so much and that’s a hard thing to deal with. Because creating a porn, the price has gone up and the value of people paying for porn has gone down. So that’s a very difficult thing. And I don’t know how to deal with that. I’m just trying to adapt the best way I possibly can. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t whine and cry, and make that go away. That’s happened with every facet of entertainment.
People don’t pay for music the way they used to. People don’t pay for Hollywood movies the way they used to or TV shows. Everybody’s using media in a different form now and I just got to adapt with it. And I’m glad I caught the tail end of people still paying for things. It gave me a good foundation to start with. But you know, what are you going to do? So I hope that this book leads to some new things. I’m trying to just create more tangible products. I made a whiskey that you can buy, it’s called Dooms Whiskey and that’s something tangible. I wrote a book. I made boner pills, as you call them. It’s called Bone Master. You can find it at bonemasterx.com I’m trying to just branch out into as many ways as I possibly can.
Dawn Serra: I read a review of the Dooms Whiskey and they said that it had these wonderful caramel smoky undertones. What was it like creating a whiskey?
Joanna Angel: Yeah, it’s been really interesting. My husband, he was the one who was like a mixologist before so he knew a lot about that. I kind of looked into the business side of the alcohol things. He was the one that did the actual recipe for it. It’s been really fascinating to learn about. The product is still new. It only launched last year on Friday the 13th, in October. So it’s still new. I’m still learning about it, but people love the whiskey and it’s pretty cool and it’s nice. Everyone in my family bought a bottle for the holidays and stuff, and they all really like it. It’s nice for me to have something I could share with people in my family. I think they’re happy about it too.
Dawn Serra: Is “Night Shift” something that you feel like you can share with the family that they’d appreciate?
Joanna Angel: My publisher told me a day after the book came out. She was like, “Oh, you’re only a handful. You’re less than 100 copies away from being an Amazon bestseller.” And I got really excited. So I called my dad and was like, “Dad, can you buy some copies of the book? Help me be a best selling author.” And he was like, “Okay,” and he was like, “Should I read the book?” I’m like, “No. No, Dad.” I’ve had some – my cousin. I have cousins who have read the book, again, because it’s not about me so it’s not that weird. But still, I don’t want to picture my dad reading an erotic novel. That’s weird.
Dawn Serra: “No, Dad. No.”
Joanna Angel: “No, don’t read it. Maybe give it to other people to read.” For a minute. I was like, is it not weird because it’s not a memoir. But I’m like, No, I dad reading stories about people getting fucked. I don’t want to live in a world where I think my dad knows about threesomes and anal and fucking vibrators and dildos. I don’t want to know about that side of whatever. He may or may not know about that.
Dawn Serra: Keep it to yourself, Dad.
Joanna Angel: We don’t have that kind of relationship.
Dawn Serra: So, because you’ve completed “Night Shift,” which I have to admit, as someone who has it on my bucket list to write a fiction book at some point, this was so ambitious to have all these different possibilities and storylines. Are you interested in writing another book?
Joanna Angel: I am totally interested in writing another book. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. I mean, obviously it’s a big undertaking. But, yeah, I’d love to. I mean, I’ve always wanted to be a writer ever since I was younger. It’s always been my passion and I was a English major in college with the creative writing concentration. I’ve always excelled in my writing classes. I even won some writing contest when I was literally in kindergarten – like a short story contest. I used to do open mic nights for my poetry and always went to a lot of writing workshops after school. It’s always been a big part of my life that I don’t think a lot of people really knew about. Because writing is a weird hobby. You can’t really show people, “Hey, read my new story,” until you have a book published. It’s not like people who are in a band, they can just throw something up on Soundcloud and be like, “Hey, listen to this,” and people will listen. Somebody has to really be invested in your story for you to read it. So, it’s just not a very – the most public passion to have.
Anyway, I definitely want to pursue it. I don’t want to stop. I’m proud of this book. I just got to think of what I can do next. I love this book so much where I’m like,” What could I do that would be as good as this? I don’t know.” But, I feel that way about my movies sometimes. I’m crazy every time I make a movie, I’m really proud. Every time I come home from the AVN Awards with awards, I’m happy for a good hour and then I get really depressed because I’m like, “Oh no, how am I ever going to top this? This is the best thing I’ll ever do and now it’s downhill from here and I’ll never do…” That’s just constantly my brain where I’m always happy when I complete something, and then I get stressed that I won’t be able to compete with what I just did.
Dawn Serra: I completely understand that.
Joanna Angel: Yeah, it’s a stressful thing.
Dawn Serra: I’m wondering, as someone who really loves writing and reading, are there any authors or books that you’re obsessed with?
Joanna Angel: Man, I need some new books to read. But, some of the older books that I read when I was younger, I always really liked – she was Jack Kerouac’s girlfriend and she wrote a couple books. Her name was Joyce Johnson. I really liked her. I always really liked the humor writers like Jonathan Ames and David Sidereus. They always really inspired me and this very funny, quirky, inner dialogue. I need some new book obsessions. I got a few good recommendations along the way. When I was at a reading, I always asked the bookstore owners, “Oh, is there any new book you’d recommend?” So I came home with a couple of books and I have to find time to read.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, finding time with a schedule like yours, I imagine, is very tough.
Joanna Angel: It’s difficult and reading these need your full undivided attention.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Well, I would love it if you could tell people how they can buy the book and also where they can find you online and maybe pay for some of your porn.
Joanna Angel: Yeah, please pay for my porn. You could go on burningangel.com and that’s where most of my porn is. And you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram. My name is Joanne Angel. Both accounts are verified, so I’m very easy to find. And, buy the book. It’s called “Night Shift.” You can find it on Amazon. There’s actually several books called Night Shift, but only one night shift by Joanna Angel. So, make sure you go on there and buy it. I’m sure everybody in this world buys a bunch of stupid shit on Amazon every day that they don’t even use. So, when you’re buying some new dog food or weird crystals or bras and panties on sale or some kind of bizarre nail polish that cost 99 cents, just throw my book in your cart, as well.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, and leave a review.
Joanna Angel: Yes, and leave a review and be honest about your review. If you don’t like the book, I’d like to know. If you liked the book, I’d like to know.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I will be writing my review this weekend after I finish…
Joanna Angel: Thank you.
Dawn Serra: …the other half of the threads that I didn’t get through yet. But man, I had so much fun. My husband and I took turns reading it to each other at night. It was super fun. Well, thank you so much for being here with us, Joanna. I will, of course, have links to all of the things in the show notes for this episode, as well as a link so that people can go put that book in the cart. Thank you so much for being here.
Joanna Angel: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying the book. It’s really been a dream of mine to write a book that people actually read. It’s crazy. It still doesn’t feel real.
Dawn Serra: Well, thank you. To everybody who tuned in, be sure that you grab a copy of “Night Shift” and that you head to burningangel.com for some super sexy fantasy goodness for your eyeballs and all your other parts. I will, of course, talk to you next week. This is Dawn Serra with Joanna Angel.
Joanna Angel: Thank you so much.
Dawn Serra: A huge thanks to The Vocal Few, the married duo behind the music featured in this week’s intro and outro. Find them at vocalfew.com. Head to patreon.com/sgrpodcast to support the show and get awesome weekly bonuses.
As you look towards the next week, I wonder what will you do differently that rewrites an old story, revitalizes a stuck relationship or helps you to connect more deeply with your pleasure?