panelists

coming out like a porn star – participant bios

Jiz Lee (editor) has worked in the adult industry for over a decade, spanning independent erotic films and hardcore gonzo pornography. A versatile performer and key player in the queer porn movement, Jiz has been the recipient of multiple AVN and XBiz Award industry nominations and Feminist Porn Awards, and in 2015 was named an honoree of The Trans 100. (Jiz is agender and uses the gender-neutral pronouns: they/them.) Jiz works behind the scenes at San Francisco queer porn company Pink & White Productions (CrashPadSeries.com, PinkLabel.tv) and fundraises for LGBTQ and sex worker-focused organizations through their erotic philanthropic art project, Karma Pervs. They’ve presented on porn at Princeton University, the American Studies Association Conference, and were featured on MSNBC, Fox News, and proudly, Lifehacker. Jiz has also appeared in non-adult productions including short films FLOAT and If Not Now, and has a recurring guest role as “Pony” on Transparent. In 2007, Jiz began to blog their adventures in the adult industry on JizLee.com. Their writing has since appeared inThe Feminist Porn Book, Best Sex Writing, and Jezebel.com. Their first book, Coming Out Like a Porn Star (ThreeL Media, 2015) was named “Best Sex Work Books” by Reason Magazine. They are the co-editor of the forthcoming Porn Studies Journal Special Issue: Porn and Labour. When not working in porn, Jiz is training for an IRONMAN 70.3.

Sinnamon Love is an adult performer and fetish model. She began performing in adult films in the early 1990s, and has since appeared in approximately two hundred movies. She directed the movie My Black Ass 4, which received nominations at the 2001 AVN Awards for Best Ethnic-Themed Video and Best Anal Sex Scene (Video). Love was admitted into the Urban X Hall of Fame in 2009, and the AVN Hall of Fame in 2011. She was profiled in the book Money Shot: The Wild Nights and Lonely Days Inside the Black Porn Industry by Lawrence C. Ross Jr. Her writing has appeared in Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex, edited by David Henry Sterry and R. J. Martin Jr.

Mireille Miller-Young is associate professor of feminist studies and affiliate associate professor of black studies, film and media stud¬ies, and comparative literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research explores race, gender, and sexuality in visual culture, media, and the sex industries in the United States. Her forth¬coming book, A Taste for Brown Sugar: Black Women, Sex Work, and Pornography, examines African American women in pornography.

Candida Royalle, president of Femme Productions, is a frequent TV and radio guest and sought-after expert on relationships, sexuality, and women’s self-empowerment. She is the author of How to Tell a Naked Man What to Do: Sex Advice From a Woman Who Knows. Royalle was a popular adult film star during the “golden age” of porn, between the years of 1975 and 1980. With that firsthand experience, Royalle felt she could effect change within the adult film industry, provid¬ing a woman’s voice to a previously male-dominated genre. Royalle pioneered the genre of erotic movies by and for women and couples. Widely used by counselors and sexologists, her work has received international accolades for its sex-positive and egalitarian approach to sexuality and eroticism. In 1995 Royalle, along with Groet Design, a Dutch industrial design company, created the Natural Contours line of stylish and discreet intimate massagers. Royalle has lectured at the Smithsonian Institute, the American Psychiatric Association’s national conference, and the World Congress on Sexology, as well as numerous universities including Princeton, Columbia, Wellesley Col¬lege, and New York University. Royalle is a member of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) and a founding board member of Feminists for Free Expression (FFE).

From her background in design and construction in mainstream film and television production to performing in front of the camera as the sexually-charged figurehead for chubby Asian girls everywhere, Kelly Shibari is a stereotype-breaking tour-de-force. Her Feminist Porn Award-winning site, PaddedKINK, is the premier destination for plus-size fetish performers, and she has the distinct honor of having been the only plus-sized Fleshlight Girl in existence. Her current self-produced project, Kelly Shibari is Overloaded, is nominated for both XBIZ and AVN Awards.

Courtney Trouble is a filmmaker, adult performer, photographer, queer rights activist, DIY genius, and an award-winning feminist pornographer. The founder of TROUBLEfilms, IndiePornRevolution.Com, and QueerPorn.TV, as well of the director of 14 full-length films, including the Reel Queer Production line through Good Releasing and three films through their own line at TROUBLEfilms, Trouble has been producing, directing, and performing in Queer Porn since 2002, and is responsible for coining the term “Queer Porn” as a genre in the mainstream industry. Nominated for 7 AVN Awards, and winner of 5 Feminist Porn Awards, Trouble’s films speak to an extremely fluid, authentic, and hardcore version of graphic sexual imagery.