Interview with a Porn Star: Siri

 

 

This week I interviewed insanely talented, articulate, and intelligent American Porn Star, Siri.

I discovered Siri back in January on Twitter in the midst of a controversy over the airbrushing and photoshoppery of her breasts by Bang Bros for a promotional photo. Apart from having the gorgeous, nerdy girl next door look (see above), Siri is known for having very large, un-augmented breasts. Sadly for Bang Bros, she also happens to be known for being very outspoken and incredibly social media saavy across multiple platforms.

On top of running her own site, creating all the content for said site, managing all her social media channels, performing in videos for other studios, hosting her own radio programme, and being nominated for / winning awards; Siri is also an active campaigner against slut-shaming and internet piracy. In fact herself and wrestling legend Mick Foley were associate producers on the new documentary SLUT as part of the Unslut project by Emily Lindin (click link and scroll down to hear Emily's interview with Newstalk's Sean Moncrieff).

My interview with Siri could not have been more timely either, as just hours after I received her answers, reports starting flooding in about Eden Alexander, a porn performer who had her crowd-funding campaign to cover the cost of treatment and recovery for a serious medical emergency that nearly killed her cut by WePay. This was allegedly due to her retweeting messages of support from colleagues promising pornographic content in exchange for donations to Eden's fund. Her story starkly highlights both the discrimination faced by people who have sex for a living, and how the age of pirated adult content has drastically affected those people's living standards. Don't even get me started on America's healthcare system! We could be here all day, so let's get to that interview...

The porn industry has changed vastly in the past 20 years with the advent of the internet and free tube sites, tell us why it’s important that we pay for our porn, and in what ways you’ve had to diversify to keep up with the industry?

    The adult film industry is dying a slow death as a result of piracy. We’re the only industry who pays everyone less now, across the board, than we did ten years ago. Those statistics you’ve seen thrown around about this being a “multi-billion dollar industry,” they’re completely wrong and misleading. The people who actually make porn films are barely keeping their heads above water. There are no massive profits here. As a performer, less than a third of my income is from companies hiring me for scenes. I work 12 hours every single day managing ten separate income streams, including my website, all of which are necessary for me to make a living. Notice I said make a living, not get rich. Piracy directly affects my ability to make a living. Every video stolen from a porn studio means that studio is losing money, which means less work opportunities for me and other performers. And when I see my own videos on tube sites, which I paid out-of-pocket to produce for my website, that is incredibly upsetting to me. That’s literally like someone stealing money right out of my pocket. Piracy is NOT a victimless crime.

Like every other business in the digital age, it would seem performers must put in so much more work to build and personalise their brand. You’re incredibly active on Twitter, Quora, Vine, Snapchat, etc. (which was how I discovered you); you answer all your fan emails yourself; and you and your husband create and publish all the content for your site. Do you ever look back to the earlier days of your industry with envy for it’s simplicity; or do you prefer the present, putting in the extra work but getting more fan interaction?

    In no way would I choose the way things are now, over the way they were in the past. I really wish I could have experienced the earlier days of the porn industry, before piracy started to ruin everything. It’s the most depressing thing ever to hear industry veterans reminisce about the way things used to be. There’s a general sense of despair and hopelessness among those I’ve met who’ve been in this industry since before the days of internet piracy. I love what I do, and I love my fans. But out of my 100,000 Twitter followers, my educated guess is that less than 5% of them have ever, or would ever, pay to watch porn. Fame and popularity alone do not pay the bills. I didn’t choose this career because I wanted fame or money. I chose it because I love performing, and I love sex, and I wanted to make a living doing both. As much as I do love my job, it’s not my gift to humanity to perform sex on camera… it is a career, and I’d like it to last as long as possible. It’s kind of hard to do that when most people don’t pay for the products this industry produces. And it does test my patience when it comes to fans, because every fan email I get, I have to weed out who’s supporting piracy and who is a loyal, paying fan. I only give my time to supportive fans of mine.

You’re also an avid cosplayer. Do you find there is much crossover between the two worlds or Porn and Cosplay? Do you think you’ve been successful in turning your porn-fans onto more nerdy endeavours and vice versa?


    There’s quite a lot of crossover. Most of the crossover is in the fan base, because the majority of porn fans seem to also be into the various nerd-doms, whether it’s comics, sci-fi, fantasy, or whatever. So I don’t know how much I’ve turned my fans onto nerdy stuff, as much as I just attract existing nerds as fans of mine because we’re into the same things, haha. And my fans have definitely turned me on to new things. It was my fans in the first place who suggested I cosplay Power Girl.

If you had to choose between never doing cosplay or never doing porn again, which would you choose and why?

    I hate that ultimatum! But if I were absolutely forced to choose, I would choose to keep doing porn, because porn is my source of income, while at this point cosplay is not an income generator for me so much as a hobby.

You had an amazing Youtube channel called “Siri’s Porn Star Diary,” which gave such wonderful insights into your everyday life by showing you answering fan’s questions, doing cosplay as Powergirl, and prancercising. But it was taken down despite the channel being safe for work. How on Earth did that happen and any chance of the Diary coming back on another platform like Vimeo?

    I’m convinced that some content-review lackey over at YouTube was having a bad day and just decided that my channel was not to their personal taste. I actually read every single word of YouTube’s Terms and Conditions, and nothing at all in any of my videos violated the agreement. There are much more offensive and inappropriate things in popular music videos that YouTube allows. I was pretty pissed off when they deleted my channel, but I just don’t think about it anymore. I will eventually make the entire archive of my Siri’s Porn Star Diary videos available in the members section of my site, and I’m already working on uploading some of them to Vimeo.

One thing I love about so many adult performers’ use of social media is that it’s not just a way to market themselves to fans. Whether it is your intention or not, a knock-on effect of that is breaking down the social stigma of folks who work in the adult industry. When people see you as a regular, intelligent, prancercising human being, it helps to normalise the discussion around sex and diffuse societal slut-shaming. Tell us a little about the Unslut Project and how yourself and wrestling legend, Mick Foley got involved as producers for the documentary.

    The Unslut Project aims to put an end to slut-shaming. Bullying and shaming of girls and women for their sexuality, whether perceived or actual, is a worldwide problem, as evidenced by stories in the media  - take for example the sexual bullying which led to the suicide of gang-rape victim Rehtaeh Parsons of Nova Scotia. And Ireland’s “Slane Girl,” as she’s become known, as well - why was she so publicly shamed for her actions, yet the boys involved weren’t shamed at all, but instead basically celebrated? Our society’s sexual double standard is sickening, and it’s completely out of hand. Young girls are taking their own lives as a result of slut-shaming, and it’s time we highlight this issue and put an end to it.  As for how we got involved, Mick and I were already friends when I came across the Kickstarter page for UnslutProject.com’s Slut: A Documentary Film. I contributed to the Kickstarter fund and mentioned it to Mick, who was incredibly interested and immediately made a contribution himself. Together with our individual contributions and via promoting the Kickstarter fund on Twitter, Mick and I helped successfully fund the film, and now we’re both Associate Producers.

Where can people find you all over the interwebs?

    My official website is www.SIRIpornstar.com. I also have a blog, (blog.siripornstar.com) where I have a store full of signed merchandise, as well as my bio, photos, and links to nearly all of the films I’ve done.

I’m on Twitter @SIRIpornstar, and Instagram @SiriPG.