Mr. Pink's Blog

Jenna Haze 2.0

Jenna Haze, one of porn’s most distinguished performers and most prominent women, announced her retirement from on-camera adult performance on Tuesday, informing her fans via a YouTube video posted on her Tumblr page. In the video, Jenna first thanks her fans for their love and support before announcing her retirement and declaring that, although she won’t be performing anymore (and in fact hasn’t performed on-camera in about a year), she will continue to direct for her Jennaration X Studios company, as well as keeping busy with “a bunch” of non-adult projects that she’s working on, the most immediate of which can be seen in the current issue of FHM – a photo spread in which Ms. Haze appears with her gal-pal Taylor Momsen. She also clarified that she will continue for feature dancing work.

So, what does this mean for the adult industry? Clearly it marks the closing of one era and the opening of another. Jenna Haze wasn’t just consistently popular with fans throughout her ten-year career as a pornstar, she won the approbation of the larger industry bodies, too. Nominated three years in a row for AVN Female Performer of the Year, winning that award in 2009. That same year saw her take home similarly high-falutin awards from XBIZ, XRCO, FAME, Nightmoves, and Hot d’Or. Clearly Jenna Haze was the queen of porn.

Of all current performers, though, who seems most likely to assume Jenna’s former position at the top? Now that Sasha Grey is well and truly finished with performing in adult films, it seems likely that said successor will be either Japanese-American superstar Asa Akira or the winner of 2012 AVN awards for Best Porn Star Website, Best All-Sex Release, Best POV Sex Scene, and, Female Performer of the Year, the insatiable, the relentless Bobbi Starr.

As long as Jenna directs both Asa and Bobbi, who is now also a director, it’s clear that, although we’ll be nostalgic for Jenna’s glory days in front of the camera, we’ll also be extremely happy that she’s still making hardcore porn, just doing it on a new career path.

The Further Adventures of James Deen

In all my years as a sexually active heterosexual male, I have only twice occasioned to obtain biblical knowledge of a partner who held more than a vague curiosity in the pornographic arts. One of these women had numerous sexual problems – anorgasmia, bouts of frigidity, “Daddy issues”, and compulsive self-degradation – while the other was the polar opposite. Able to orgasm almost at will, this woman – we’ll call her Miss. B – enjoyed watching porn by herself, with friends, with lovers, and pretty much whenever she was mildly bored and slightly horny. I discovered this not by her asking me to watch porn with her, but because of a flippant remark she made regarding my alleged resemblance to her favorite pornstar, Mr. James Deen.

Widely regarded as one of the most likable dudes in porn, James Deen, a 27-year-old native of Pasadena, has been lighting up the skin-filled screen for nearly eight years, appearing in a reported 2000 films. In that time he has not only filled the mouths, pussies, and assholes of porn’s most popular women, but charmed his way into the hearts of a legion of female fans. So famously endearing, Deen even attracted the attention of ABC News, supposedly due to the abundance of these female fans.

As reported by Nightline’s Cecilia Vega, Deen remains unaware of why he appeals to so many young women, supposing that it might be his so-called “everyday” looks and personalities. Whatever the reason, his appeal has led to an AVN Award for Male Performer of the Year (which he won at 23, making him the youngest recipient in history) and has even attracted the attention of comparatively mainstream filmmaking figures like director Paul Schrader (Mishima, Blue Collar, Auto Focus) and writer Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho, The Rules of Attraction).

Collaborating on a film noir to be set in Los Angeles and produced under a “micro-budget,” Ellis and Schrader seem like a perfect match, both having dealt with the harsher sides of American life in much of their work. Thanks to Ellis’s Twitter-habit, word got around that he considered porn’s everyman, James Deen, to be his first choice to play the lead in the pair’s noir project, in which, according to Ellis, “nudity and acting is a must.” Additional information on the project is still under wraps as it continues preproduction, but Ellis let slip that he met with Deen and called the well-endowed burrito and anal sex fanatic “super-smart, funny, perfect for the part,” also saying “if he doesn’t get it I’ll be very disappointed.”

So will Miss B., Mr. Ellis. So will Miss B.

Remembering Kandi Barbour

Some sad news crossed the Mr. Pink’s desk this week, concerning the apparent loss of another porn heroine of the Golden Age, Kandi Barbour. Star of such XXX films as The Pink Ladies (1980), Bon Appetit (’80), California Gigolo (’79), and Screwples (’79), Barbour (real name Linda Jean Smith) amassed a small but impressive filmography over her nine years as an adult performer, leading her to be inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2009. To the surprise of many people in porn, the native Kansan was sadly found dead in San Francisco on Thursday January 26th, another victim of the city’s immense homeless problem.

As Golden Age director Carter Stevens recalled to AVN, the last time he had any knowledge of Barbour’s whereabouts and health was 22 years ago when his wife saw her in Hawaii. “She was living above the club [Club Hubba Hubba] and working there… she had a drinking problem. She had gained a lot of weight and was living in a muumuu and never took it off. She did has some mental problems, even at that point.” Suffering from a dysmorphic body image, Barbour believed her nose to be crooked – it wasn’t – and often spoke of having it “fixed.” Very little information about her life between that time and the discovery of her body on a San Francisco street. She was 55-years-old.

Sadly, like so many performers who came both before and after Barbour, she may largely be remembered by her rather modest entry at Wikipedia: “Kandi Barbour was a former American adult models, pornstar and exotic dancer.”

Lost in Lust

Dear Missy Pink;

Lately I’ve been checking the history on my boyfriend’s laptop and he has a lot of porn sites he’s saved. We use to look at those things together, but I thought they were silly and stopped, but apparently he’s continued when I’m not around. Do you think the sex sites are turning him on more than I do? I’m feeling really insecure over a computer.

Lost in Lust

Dear Lost;

I always try to find the silver lining to every sexual cloud before casting judgment upon anyone. If you turn your face a bit towards the sun, you’ll see there is a bright side to the fact that he did include you in the beginning, meaning he wasn’t trying to hide or sneak. You were the one that didn’t find it appealing and stopped sharing the juicy journey with him, which I’m sure he understood, it’s not for everyone, but apparently it is for him, so he continued. I can’t help but wonder if you really weren’t interested, or maybe you felt a bit threatened, and you thought if you stopped, he would too.

If that were the case, then you can’t really blame him for any boner filled backfiring that took place in your plan. Has your sex life decreased? You don’t mention that, so I get the impression he’s still assuming the position frequently enough that you feel comfortable in knowing you do indeed still turn him on. We have to remember that men are the visual species, so, if there’s a chance to look, we can’t blame them for following what’s in their “jeans.”

Nothing says you can’t become his personal little porn star. Break out that dusty credit card and buy yourself some lingerie and stockings, maybe a kick-ass pair of stilettos, and then show him that he can fall in love and in lust with you. Keep in mind the only actual satisfaction the porn brings to him is the hard-drive on his computer, but when he’s ready to slide his floppy into the portal of pleasure, he’ll find that waiting for him in bed each night. Don’t be threatened by something in cyber space, spin your own world wide web and let him curl your url!