Why?

Since I'm new to the industry, I'm often confronted by both agencies/studios, and by friends with the question of "Why?"  They ask things like why are you going into this, what made you decide this was right for you, how did you come to this, or some type of related question.  Of course, many people come to it with some type of preconceived notion such as I'm just that big of a whore, or I'm desperate for money or whatever else, but for all that no one ever expects the real reasons why I do this.

Truth be told, there is no one reason why I'm doing this. There are several, but it really comes down to two main reasons.  The first I wanted to talk about is the more secondary reason for joining, and that is since I started into the industry, I have not met one person yet who wasn't completely unlike anyone else you'd meet in the "normal" world. The men and women I've met in porn are more down to earth and less inhibited than any other people I've ever met.  It relates to the second reason I'll be talking about, but basically put, they help me to feel comfortable with being myself.

That being said, there's a deeper, more personal reason I do this, and that is to help my self esteem.  I know, people say you shouldn't seek outside approval to feel okay about who you are, but then those are the type of people who haven't lived the life I lived. (Here's where it starts to get deep, but don't read it like some typical sob story)

I don't have any memories of my life before age 14, and all I can remember from that point in my life was physical abuse of my adopted father.  We were living in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, and he was a religious leader in the Mormon church, and as such, commanded a lot of influence and power in our community, so no one really believed me when I would tell them takes of his abuse and passed off the bruises and such off on just typical rough and tumble behavior of a teenage boy.  It wasn't until about this time that I started to fight back and the physical abuse stopped.

This didn't stop him completely, however, and he started from there to beat me down mentally, telling me on a regular basis how stupid I was (this continued up into high school when I was talking 2nd year calculus, physics, and was taking college level art, English, and other courses at the community college while also balancing extracurricular activities in the performing arts after school and maintaining a 3.7 GPA)

I spent so much of my teenage years yearning for acceptance from anyone, but not finding it.  As a gay, closeted, abused, Mormon boy, trying to find positive reinforcement was difficult, if not impossible to find.  At age 19 I came out, and was kicked out onto the street.  It wasn't until then that I started to realize how wrong my family was when it came to issues regarding my worth.

I say all this, not to try to gain your pity, as I've learned to accept this point of my past and have grown from it.  I say it merely to provide a background and to sing the praises of this industry.  After a scene goes up, I can expect to hear feedback from fans, and so far the positive has outweighed the negative.  It is always a huge boost to my day to log onto Twitter and hear the feedback, or log onto Grindr, and have people recognize me and say how hot it was to watch me.

People often speak to how corruptive this industry is to a fragile mind, however, I would argue that it has just as much positive influence on a person as negative, and while I've only had two scenes go live so far (along with 4 cam shows from Jason Sparks' visits) I can already say that from these experiences I feel more empowered, more confident, and more beautiful than I have ever felt in my life, and I have porn to thank for this.