by Jiz Lee
LITTLE DATA
Dale Cooper
Dale Cooper lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with his cat, CatJim. This is his first author’s bio. He has a website, which is DaleDoesPorn.com.
A while ago, I received an email. I am terrible with email in general and email for my porn persona in particular, so I did not notice it until about a month after it was sent. I’m a bit of a slacker at heart, to be honest.
Hey Dale, this is Kyle and I’m fifteen years old.* I was asking for advice because I’ve been struggling with sexuality. The thing is, I’m a Christian and I fear every day that I am just not good enough in life. My mother is very strict on things like that as well. My siblings and I are not even allowed to look at certain shows that support homosexuality. I am not really sure, but I saw some type of post about you online and I just decided to reach out. I am just so confused about everything in life. My mother is suspicious of me and says if I ever do that, I will go to hell, and keeps telling me that over and over. Also I just can’t see myself “that” way. So tell me, what should I do, and how was that whole situation like for you growing up? It would really mean a lot to me. Thanks.
Nested in the same email thread, sent just over four hours after the first:
I’m sorry. PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND.
Out of respect for those sentiments I did not respond, so I don’t know what happened to Kyle. Even if I wanted to respond, I probably shouldn’t, with the legality of an adult film actor communicating with a fifteen-year-old being something I don’t think I would like to tussle with, regardless of how I may empathize with his situation.
I can only wonder at what may have happened in the intervening hours between those two emails. Had Kyle’s mother found the email? Was he worried about leaving a trail that could lead to uncomfortable questions about his burgeoning sexuality? Had Christian guilt, standard-issue teenage apprehension, or straight-up fear become too great? Had he just thought better of it?
It is the day and age of, at one and the same time, the need to carefully guard your information and to disperse it as widely as possible via friends on Facebook, YouTube views, Twitter followers. For some, it’s not just the “big data” concerns of an increasingly surveilled life that are important. On the other end of the data-size spectrum is a person’s “little” data. The data that may coexist on your Internet-enabled devices that others use, the one most immediately linked to your physical presence. For some, such as Kyle, your ability to secure emotional, psychological, familial, financial, perhaps even physical stability can hinge on your ability to control the traces left on your computer.
I was outed by my parents finding porn traces on my computer. My mother found gay porn in the browser history. My dad, independently, found straight porn. They decided I must have been bisexual. I am not, at least not in the commonly understood sense, but I think that may have been some comfort to my parents, both fairly liberal Puerto Ricans living in suburban Texas. This happened despite my being a computer-savvy youngster. All of my life, my father had been a computer hobbyist (my mother was a probation officer), and I could fiddle with computers and circuitry as easily as I could play with LEGOs in my house. I still wasn’t vigilant enough to impeccably scrub my browser history every time.
Although the early days of the Internet were redolent with the myth of “bodiless interaction,” the opposite has proven more true: People share themselves and all the particulars about themselves, down to the naughty bits, on their devices. The Internet can be deeply personal with its selfies, information about your health, buying habits, likes, browser histories, your sex.
You must give in order to get online. This idea is central to the technical structure of the Internet—sharing (to be somewhat euphemistic) information, not just downloading. When you used to open a browser, the computer sent information such as IP addresses, browser type, language preference, user domain, and so on. This, despite the fact that your blank screen seems to suggest that your computer only reacts to your requests. Today, the list of transmitted data is far greater, including access to “nonidentifying” info, perhaps GPS location, links to your social media profiles. Internet users must take the time to agree to terms and conditions, to share cookies with some and not others, navigate through spam email and pop-ups on sites with nude pictures, tinker with purposefully arcane “controls” on how your private information is “shared” on social media, wait five seconds to dismiss a video advertisement.
I am a grown man, and I don’t have to worry about the people I share my computers with finding my “little” data. I do not risk losing a roof over my head or the ability to continue to feed myself if my mother and father found, not just traces of porn, but straight-up participation. Yet ostensibly, the risk and concern has magnified. I could pop up on any computer in the world, whether I was searched for or not, and one of those could be in use by someone I would prefer not see it: a family member, potential employer, future love interest.
A connection of my pseudo-public persona to my private life could have far-reaching ramifications, for sure. People, frankly, love to out people, and the news it generates leads to plenty of click-bait and page views for hungry content providers. The antennae of public attention seem finely attuned to the freshness of every drama of (especially involuntary) sexual uncovering, and it is made more desirable, rather than staled, by the increasingly intense atmosphere of public discussion of a love that is famous for daring not speak its name. But when that love has the curtains of its boudoir pulled aside, you’ve got the makings of some decent ad revenue.
At a prestigious university, a student was outed by a peer after being in the industry for less than a year. A public school teacher left her job after being confronted with her porn past, over a decade gone cold, by a student. A porn gossip website outed a chef who appeared in a reality TV show as someone who also chose to participate in a grand total of four porn scenes a few years prior; if that sounds like a lot, imagine it as four days on the job. Health information is fair game. Patient databases at clinics that cater to the porn industry have been breached, exposing test results and private information on thousands of current and former adult film actors. And pocketbooks are just as susceptible; Chase Bank, one of the largest financial institutions in the nation, shut down an untold number (estimates range from a few dozen to a few hundred) of personal bank accounts for individuals involved in the adult entertainment industry.
Even people who aren’t involved in the industry are fair game when it is outing season. There is revenge porn, where porn production is cruelly crowdsourced to vindictive exes. Today, if you’re going to be naughty, even if it’s just a sext, you must learn to balance, on the one hand, the implicit distinction between the supposedly protected and identifiable fact of your sexuality proper (provided it is legal), and on the other hand, the highly vulnerable management of information about it. “Outing” now verges on being an all-purpose phrase for the crossing of almost any politically charged line of representation, and anytime someone can be pushed over it, all the better for generating buzz.
I highly value my privacy. I really like having some semblance of control over where my porn name and given name overlap. I chose to be a porn actor, and I navigate the consequences of having videos of me fucking online. I should emphasize that my work is a choice because, as is often pointed out in discussion of this particular vice, for some it isn’t, or the willingness of the participants is suspect—and that can be particularly fucked and vile when true, but it is not my case. You could say that a consequence of that choice is to live in a state of constant jeopardy of outing.
Well, yeah, sure. Do I want people to see these skin flicks? Yes, absolutely! Do I want everyone to see them? No, of course not. Do I want fifteen-year-olds to see them? No, but I know this is the Internet, after all. My porn is a big part of me, sure. It was also a big help paying off my student loan obligations in a shitty labor market. So were a few others jobs I’ve done, none of which are as salacious as
porn. And while I’m proud of some of the work, regarding other parts of it I was just happy to get my paycheck and head out the door for a happy hour beer because sex work can be a lot of fucking work, and sometimes you don’t want to be reminded of it after the fact.
That said, although I signed up for it, I wasn’t familiar with the landscape of this kind of open secret. As a gay man, you’d think I would be used to that type of closet—of hiding what “everyone” knows, a blind trust in “out of sight, out of mind.” Like any secretive structure, it is only by being somewhat shameless about risking the obvious that all the bullshit gets done with and out of the way.
I’ve been open about it to boyfriends, friends, fuck buddies, acquaintances—and during those times when I was relying on my porn income to pay all of my bills and people asked me what I do, I answered honestly.
The thing that gives me the most pause about my porn participation is that, while there is open and constructive dialogue (among other types of talk) about almost any other imaginable scenario that you can see people acting out on a screen—war, death, love, faith, consumerism, the environment, family—there is not around sex.
The thing I most want to be open and out about is that sex needs to be something that people are open and out about. I do porn and I act like I am supposed to act in it, but that ends when the camera is shut off. My number one desire is to be comfortable, honest, open, assured, and relaxed when I am asked about the sex industry and my participation in it. All of those adjectives are just about the opposite of my usual disposition: sarcastic, a bit of a loner, a bit moody, perhaps a bit of a dick unintentionally but kind of funny about it (I crack myself up constantly), and generally a good dude. Perversely, I have to perform as someone who is a better human being than I am when I am questioned about getting fucked on camera. I have someone openly talking to me about something that we are all told should be the most private part of us—sex—and I have to set them at ease. There are times I am better at that than others, but I try.
We live in a society where people like Kyle feel so threatened about something that feels natural, ingrained, and right to them that they reach out across cyberspace to an actor in a porno they saw for advice. Think about this.
Dear Kyle,**
I am sorry I did not respond to your email in the four-hour span I had before you asked me not to respond. I hope you are okay and that you might read this some day.
Get your own computer that you can use in a private space where you can lock the door. I understand that computers can be very expensive or that may otherwise be impossible. If you share computers with your family, try taking the following steps:
•Download a browser that has a privacy mode. Many offer this now, and while I don’t normally recommend Google products, Google Chrome has an excellent, if not foolproof, “incognito mode” that will not save your browser history.
•Always have a second window on your screen open that is safe for mom, and practice pressing the Alt and Tab buttons simultaneously and quickly if interrupted. This will swap to the next open window on your computer. I must stress the importance of practicing this.
•When you are done reading or viewing whatever, open a command prompt (look up how to do that online if you need to), type ipconfig /flushdns and close the command prompt.
•Consider using a program like the excellent CCleaner, which has macros you can program to automatically wipe and delete potentially dangerous Internet history from your computer with the push of a button or even automatically.
I am sorry that you have to do all of this.
I have to be honest and say my parents were supportive, if saddened by it, despite their general openness. I should also add I did not come out officially to my parents until I was older and out of the house, which may be a strategy for you to consider. If you read any of the above you may understand why. My mother did admit to crying about it, but she was more concerned about what I could face in the wider world. I understand your mother may not react the same way.
The Christian Bible can say some scary things about homosexuality. I understand that this, as a believer, could make you feel conflicted about your sexual feelings and your faith. Know that the Bible was written in a certain time by certain people for their own reasons, but if you believe it is the word of God, I would seek out the books of Samuel for guidance. Samuel talks of the relationship between David and Jonathan. First Samuel 18:1: “And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.”
And 2 Samuel 1:26, where David says: “I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast though been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”
Find a friend or an adult that you trust who shares your faith and, if you feel up to it, you could use these passages as a way to start a conversation with them.
This may be a very difficult part of your life where you will have to manage the expectations of your mom until you are capable of supporting yourself. I do not know entirely what your situation is, of course. As such, I must advise for a worst-case scenario. Find a job you can manage while still performing your other responsibilities and start saving money; this will also get you out of the house. Do your best in your classes. If you want to pursue college, that is a great place where you can find other people you can talk to about all manner of things, including sexuality. If college is not for you, consider what you want to do and where you would be most comfortable being who you are wherever you are doing it. A lot of young men who like men found living in the city a more open environment.
If you believe you are going to hell, so am I and I will see you there. Just please don’t do anything that would cause you to get there before me. You must be brave. More importantly, you must be smart.
Take care of yourself,
Dale Cooper
* Kyle is not named Kyle. I should mention, I suppose, that I don’t condone minors contacting me, and on every public listing of my professional email address that I have control over, I mention that I and my social media representations are for those over the age of 18 only, in accordance with federal law. But this is the Internet, after all. If you are Kyle, go to the last page of my essay.
[**] This is not your name.
I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A PORN STAR
Denali Winter
Denali Winter is a genderfluid dinosaur who lives on the Internet. They are also a hair stylist, drag queen, porn performer, and proud feminist. Their free time is spent working on their pet project, PetplayPalace.com, a queer fetish porn site focused on BDSM and animal role-play. They have one cat and a habit of making bad porn-related puns. They will probably never stop being naked in front of cameras.
My interest in BDSM and sex can probably be traced all the way back to the third grade. I was an avid reader as a child, the stereotypical nerd in school with the big glasses and big books. I was a ten-year-old with the reading level of a college student and there wasn’t much my teachers could offer me that presented a challenge. My dad had just remarried, and my new older sister became my roommate. When she moved in with an entire bookshelf of young adult novels, I was incredibly excited. Suddenly, there was a whole new bookshelf in my room with a fresh supply of far-off lands and alternate realities that I couldn’t wait to tear into.
Some of those books should probably not have been on a shelf low enough for me to reach. I think perhaps my sister had never read all of them, or it hadn’t occurred to her that I’d want to read them. But I wanted to read everything. And so I started unwittingly reading books tinged with eroticism, clearly intended for young adults of the late teens/early twenties variety, and not overeager not-yet-preteen bookworms. Sexual attraction, power exchange, taboo love affairs, all of these mature concepts flew over my young head. I didn’t know at the time what these things really meant, but I had some kind of notion that they were the book equivalent of PG-13 m
ovies, which I wasn’t allowed to watch. But the books had big words and complex plots and long storylines, so I made myself a nest in my closet and would lay there for hours, silently reading and absorbing materials that I feared my parents would not approve of. The framework for my future sexuality was being unintentionally laid by fantasy romance novels.
Gradually, middle school and high school wore down my innocence, and I found a social safe haven with the geeky girls who traded manga books and vampire romance stories at lunch. They also read a ton of fan fiction. Fan fiction blew my mind. It had never occurred to me that people could write their own stories about characters that already existed, and suddenly I could find really long and involved tales about virtually any character I’d ever found attractive. The concepts I had once read and skimmed over were now bubbling and brewing in the back of my mind, and popping up again in the things I was reading on the Internet. I soon found myself swimming in a sea of “M for Mature” erotic stories, always a few clicks away from something new.
I was in my late teens when I finally made the jump to watching porn, and I dove in headfirst. I remember not really caring so much about watching heterosexual sex; I had read all about that and it sounded pretty straightforward. I was more turned on by role-play, bondage, and dominance. The first full porn video I saw was a hardcore lesbian BDSM scene starring the long-haired beauty Chanta Rose, from a website called Chanta’s Bitches. It was a scene between her and another woman whom she had bound up and was forcing orgasms out of while the woman screamed through a gag. I learned to masturbate right there, that night at the computer.