“How Did You End Up In Porn?”
Editor’s Note: Big-breasted beauty Siri busted onto the adult scene in 2012 and has quickly become one of our favorites. We are pleased to announce that she is the latest edition to sign on as a guest blogger for the Adult DVD Empire Blog!
As all porn performers do, I get tons of questions every day from my fans via social media and email. I respond to all of them no matter how repetitive they get, but the question that never fails to annoy me (aside from “How big are your tits?”) is “How did you end up in porn?”
Key words: END UP.
This implies one of two scenarios:
Scenario one: I was walking along happily through life, when suddenly a black hole opened up, I fell in, and was eventually spit out, disheveled and bewildered, onto an adult film set in Porn Valley.
Scenario two: Being a porn performer is some form of divine punishment, an unintended consequence resulting from a series of wrong turns and bad decisions.
I did not “end up” in porn. Actually, this is how it happened: I decided five years ago, when I had just turned 19, that I wanted to do porn. It was a very serious, important, carefully considered decision for me. Those of you who are already fans of mine know that I’ve been in adult films for under two years.
So why the nearly-four-year gap between deciding to do it, and actually doing it?
Well, I wanted to finish what I’d already started, that being college, before moving on toward a career. I majored in Communications and minored in Spanish. I loved my university experience and my life as a student, which was why I stayed with it and continued to take out student loans each year, despite knowing that I would ultimately be doing something pretty irrelevant to my degree. Or so I thought.
I’ve come to realize how much my education not only helped me to find my footing in this industry, but continues to benefit my career every day. My focus area in my Communications major was Performance Studies, which I can best explain as a combination of character study and performance art. This not only helped me keep up my acting chops (I was a theater nerd in high school, so it was important to me to retain that in college!) but also better relate to and understand what motivates people from all kinds of backgrounds. Those are invaluable tools in any work environment, of course.
Each year in college I was heavily involved in my university’s feminist leadership organization, and I was a chairperson for two years. I also took many, many sociology classes. Almost enough to qualify for a second minor. That was where many of my most valuable college experiences stemmed from, because my way of thinking was transformed completely. I went from simply observing and often accepting the problems and injustices I saw around me, to questioning them and searching for ways to make improvements.
One of the most important tools higher education can provide is to challenge students to think critically – to look at the world around us and ask questions, to see through many different lenses in order to develop better solutions to the world’s problems. And THAT is a skill the porn industry can really benefit from, especially right now, considering how many companies constantly struggle with online piracy. For a lot of producers, it’s a daily fight just to keep their heads above water. I love this industry, and I love the hell out of my job, and I want to be a catalyst for change.
Sure, it can be painful to see the numbers drop in my bank account each month when I’m sending off my student loan payments, but I’m so thankful to have my education. On the bright side, my career choice enables me to stay ahead of my student debt, and I know that in this economy and today’s job market, many recent graduates cannot say the same.
