by Jiz Lee
It’s very natural for kids to want to run around naked, yet in our body-negative and sex-negative society, we consistently get the message to cover ourselves up. We give Em the knowledge that we wear clothes when we are cold or to protect against dirt or unwanted germs entering our body. If Em is warm and wants to run around the house naked, that is okay. If we see a naked child running around, we don’t make a big deal about it, and if Em shouts out that they see a naked child, we might also point out a child that has clothes on and make note that the child without clothes must not be cold, or bring the experience back to how Em thinks it might feel for the child that we see without clothing on.
Potty learning also proved to be an excellent opportunity in cultivating a healthy relationship for our child around their anatomy. Potty learning begins with role modeling. When Em watched where I eliminated my urine and feces, it informed them about the process of bodies and elimination. This also gave Em an opportunity to see different genitals, where pee and poo go and where they come from. I’ve had exciting conversations with my three-year-old about our urine exiting our urethra, poop or feces exiting the anus, and where in the vagina the urethra is located.
When I’m menstruating, I use a menstrual cup that holds my menstrual blood. So when my child accompanies me to the bathroom when I’m emptying my menstrual cup, we have the opportunity to discuss what menstruation is, when it happens, why it happens, and in what bodies it happens.
As Em grows, they will have new questions. Life is a constant learning ground and every day I’m faced with new questions like, “Is this a microphone?”
“No, my love, that is Mommy’s nonsharing vulva toy. It is only for me to use.”
Or, “When I grow up like Daddy, will I have a penis too?”
To which I’m able to answer, “When you grow up, if you choose, you can buy something like a penis at Good Vibrations, or if you decide having a penis would better fit the way you feel about your gender you can take hormonal treatments in which your clitoris would develop into a penis.”
All of these moments advocate Em in developing a healthy relationship with their body, intimacy, consent, body agency, gender, boundaries, and the natural humanness of pleasure.
My child can identify the anatomy of the vulva more succinctly than many of the students at my workshops and can ask for consent before giving you a hug. They know where their uterus and clitoris are located and know how to ask for privacy, please, in their bedroom if they want to explore their own body. They know that no one has the right to touch them without consent and that they need to ask others and gain consent before gifting affection. Em knows that Mommy and Daddy are artists and filmmakers that make films for grown-ups, about grown-ups who are sharing consenting pleasure and affection for one another.
I remember when my child was two years old, they asked me, “What are you doing at work tonight?”
I was teaching a cunnilingus class. I was able to tell my child, “I’m teaching people about how to share pleasure, use their words to ask for what they want, and helping them to learn more about vulvas.”
And my very wise two-year-old looked at me and smiled and said, “That is a great idea, Mom!”
I’m challenged and inspired on a daily basis as I engage in the practice of life and motherhood. But throughout those daily challenges, I strive to stay authentic and true to myself and my child as we forge forward in beautiful and fearful moments that make up who we are and what we believe in.
QUEEN BELOVED
Milcah Halili Orbacedo
Milcah Halili Orbacedo is a writer, publisher, performer, and entrepreneur living on the West Coast. She divides her time between Portland, Oregon, and the Bay Area, California. You can find more of her work at MilcahOrbacedo.com and follow her on Twitter @milcahorbacedo. Milcah’s first book is Sisterhood: Ate (ah-TEH).
My legal first and middle name means “queen beloved.” As a self-identified Oakland suburb hoodrat from the Bay Area, I so wanted this to be true. I wanted to be a beloved queen, and I believed, as a young woman of color from a lower-middle-class background, that to achieve this in a capitalist society I needed money to self-care like a beloved queen would. I needed money to house, feed, and decorate myself in radiant beauty.
I turned to sex work because Antonia Crane wrote a column for The Rumpus called “Recession Sex Workers.” I’ve always wanted to be like the writings I read. Antonia was a self-identified stripper turned writer. I was obsessed and read anything I could read of Antonia’s on the Internet. By my mantra, what you read is what you become, it was all in due time that this writer become a stripper. When I auditioned at a strip club for the first time, the house mom of the club asked me, “What’s your stage name?”
“My stage name?”
I did not want to give her one. I didn’t want to feel like my legal name was a secret or something to be uttered in shame. I wanted to give her my given name because I’d already built a following in the pornography industry with that name. When I fill out model release forms before porn shoots, on the line that reads “Stage Name” I write my legal first and middle name: Milcah Halili.
“My name is Maya,” I said, as I acquainted myself in my titty bar with strange men from the neighborhood looking for naked bodies dancing under black lights, whiskey shots and beer, and, if they were lucky and polite, undivided attention from their favorite dancer. I had a hard time believing my stage name, often grateful I had picked a name that started with an “M” on the off chance I’d forget. I had a window of time after I sounded out the “M” to switch the incoming “i” with an “a,” squeeze the “aya” out before the “ilcah” made its way.
During the beginning of my foray into web-camming (which warmed me up to the idea of pornography and, eventually, stripping), Antonia found my blog of writings and candid nude photos and wanted to interview me for her “Recession Sex Workers” column. I gave her my consent and we emailed each other questions and answers.
“Sex workers never use their real names,” Antonia wrote. She asked, “Why have you decided to use yours? What if your family, grandparents or brothers find out? What will you tell them? What do you think their response will be?”
“I’m assuming my whole family will eventually find out,” I wrote, “and if they should come at me with any judgment, I hope I have enough love in myself to say to them, ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I am grateful. But I’m okay and you don’t need to protect me. Only God can judge me. Please let me have my peace.’”
This is what I tried to tell my father. It was a few years after my father and mother left me with my then-fourteen- and thirteen-year-old brothers to run wild for a while to squat, steal, and sneer at the world. I was still angry. Despite my anger, I agreed to video call on Skype with him. I told him I was doing better, that I: had found community with open, sex-positive, and polyamorous people, and that I was taking care of myself. He nodded his head, said, “Hm.”
“I read your interview,” he said. Then he laughed. “You said I molested your mother?”
“That’s what you did.”
“Okay,” he said. “And now you do this . . . web-camming?”
“Yes, it’s just by myself. It’s super safe and my community knows I’m doing it.”
“Okay, Milcah. Just don’t take it too far,” he said.
“You have no right to say that to me,” I said and broke into sobs. I pounded the keyboard of my laptop and my web-cam feed ricocheted with the force of my anger, causing the image of my tear-streamed face to blur.
“I finally feel like I’ve found family. You never gave me a sense of that. You abandoned your own family. And now that I’ve found mine, you have the nerve to tell me not to take it too far?”
My father’s forehead creased at his third eye. His pale complexion blushed. His mouth frowned and his hazel eyes saddened.
“My family loves me. And I love them. Tell me that’s unholy,” I said. I punched the keys with each utteranc
e. “Tell me that’s unholy.” Again. “Tell me that’s unholy.”
He stayed silent. I wailed more into my laptop and balled my hands once more into fists. The image of my pained face pixelated with each punch to the keys. He let me cry. Eventually he said, “You are right.”
He said sorry and asked me for forgiveness.
There was another part of my answer to Antonia. I wrote, “As much as my parents have hurt me, I love them with all of my heart, and I want to rebuild a new name for them, honor them. I want my mother to be strong and my father to be understood, and the way that I feel I can do that is through taking their name, my name, and changing what it means with dignity.”
What hurt me most, more than the memory of my father and mother leaving me with my younger brothers, was the image of my father pinning my mother by the wrists, his mouth nonconsensually on her neck as she cried in silence. Her hands were tight fists. That image of her clenched hands still haunts me to this day.
Seeing my name in porn gave me a sickening sense of faith. I was nauseous with the belief that now my name wasn’t a symbol of some sad past, but of a woman strong enough to be submissive and vulnerable in the space of professional BDSM.
Once on the set of Electrosluts, Mz Berlin punched her fist into my cunt over and over again, the image that would become the cover photo of the scene. The bold red and green headline text in the cover photo read, “An Electrosluts Christmas.” When I saw the cover photo on Christmas day, I felt proud.
“I’m literally punching your pussy,” Mz said.
“Huh?” That day, the clenched hand was a thing of beauty, something that gave me joy. Mz’s fist in me made me feel like a beloved queen. I left my drunken and dazed state to cast my eyes down on my pussy. I remember most the shock I felt when I witnessed Mz’s black-gloved hand gliding effortlessly in and out of my own body. I felt like I was inside of a lucid dream.
Never had I ever been pussy punched before. The production crew lubed me up well, but it wasn’t just that. I was extremely wet. No matter what Mz did, even if she humiliated me and cattle prodded me, it aroused me because she stayed within my limits, and I felt heard and held. The element of consent made me open with such a force, I could take anything in and alchemize it into a positive and pleasurable experience.
SO WHAT IS IT YOU DO, EXACTLY?
Ms. Naughty
Ms. Naughty is a writer, editor, blogger, entrepreneur, and filmmaker with a passion for making better porn. She’s been curating and creating adult content online since 2000. Her site BrightDesire.com features her filmed and written work, and she also co-owns ForTheGirls.com, one of the first adult sites for women. Her short film Dear Jiz won Best Experimental Short at Cinekink in 2014, and her films have screened at numerous international festivals. She lives with her husband in a small Australian town, surrounded by fundamentalist Christians.
“So what is it you do, exactly?”
The conversation had moved on from “polite” and we’d had a couple of glasses of wine. I was feeling fairly comfortable and figured that these two friends of my cousin were open-minded. They were lesbians, after all, so I assumed they were fairly liberal in their views. I dropped the bomb.
“I make pornography.”
There was a shocked moment of silence.
Trying not to panic, I went on to explain that I make erotic films and run an adult site for straight women. I gave a brief rundown of my efforts to make positive, feminist porn with a real effort to respect my performers. I did my very best to point out that no, I’m not like those other pornographers and that, really, I’m an artist.
One of my listeners went very quiet indeed. The other unexpectedly revealed how she’d been a stripper in her youth and then expressed her view that sex work always causes problems with one’s relationships.
I nodded and then decided to change the subject.
After they’d gone, I felt the usual mix of bravado and regret. I wouldn’t ever see these people again, so it didn’t really matter what they thought of me. And yet I wondered if it might have just been easier if I hadn’t mentioned my real job at all.
This is one of the dilemmas of working in the adult industry. In the course of everyday life, people ask your occupation. On top of that, it’s a required item on customs forms, on tax bills, on government documents. Do you embellish the truth, lie, or just come out with it? Worse still, what do you tell your family?
I’ve been writing erotica since the ’90s, and in early 2000 took up advertising porn on the Internet. This snowballed into a full-on career making porn, although I am not a performer. I have been very successful in my chosen vocation, with published stories, award-winning films, and two websites that are profitable enough to ensure I don’t need to have a “real” job.
My parents know what I do, but they don’t ever want to talk about it. It’s interesting because we are not a religious family, but I think my Dad has a conservative streak. I originally didn’t hesitate to tell them about what I was doing because I didn’t see any need to hide it. I think they were impressed with the money I was making (back when the exchange rate was astronomical) but really didn’t want to know the details. It’s sex, after all. My mom once said she has no problem with the idea of people using a bit of porn in their marriage but that’s the most we’ve ever talked about it. I occasionally tell them that I’ve got a film screening in Berlin or New York, and they’ll just nod and quickly change the subject. I suspect they wish I had stayed a librarian or become a teacher like a “normal” person. When other people ask them what I do, they say I make websites, which is the official explanation given to all those who don’t need to know the details.
My dear departed nana was proud of me, though. When I told her that I’d had my first-ever story published in 1997, she was thrilled. When I added with a tinge of embarrassment that it was a piece of erotic fiction in Australian Women’s Forum, she boldly went out and bought a copy. She always told me she wanted me to write a Mills and Boon romance and become rich like Barbara Cartland but said erotic fiction was a step in the right direction.
I miss her.
I don’t have kids, but I have twin nieces who turned eighteen recently. It’s always been difficult trying to think of things to talk about with them because I can’t discuss what I do. Given that we’ve done a lot of travelling to shoot things or go to film festivals, I’ve often fudged various explanations for it. Now they’re adults, and I’m hesitating, wondering if I should spill the beans next time I see them or if it’s best not to mention it. I’ll admit that I’m curious about their thoughts on porn and sexuality, but I don’t know if I should be talking about it with them. Am I a cool aunt because I make porn or a creepy one?
The occupation question is always a minefield when it comes to social situations. I find myself sizing up strangers, trying to work out if they’re the type of person who is okay with porn and liberal sexuality or if they’re the churchy, judgmental type. If they ask what I do, there can be an awkward moment when I hesitate and have to make a snap decision to lie or tell the truth. If I’m at a charity fundraiser, say, I might take the easy option and say I work in PR. But if I’ve had a couple glasses of wine and I’m feeling mischievous, the truth may well out.
This happened at a local film festival a couple of years ago. My husband came back from the bar to find me surrounded by ten women, holding court. “Uh oh,” he thought, “she told them.”
Telling the truth does two things: It sorts the wheat from the chaff and it acts as the perfect icebreaker. You can easily spot the people who aren’t impressed; they go quiet, back away, or excuse themselves. I know then that they aren’t the kind of person I’d want to talk to anyway. Unfortunately, I then have to worry about what they’ll do with that information, but thankfully I’ve encountered very few of these people. Perhaps I’m just good at choosing my company.
More often than not, I’ll spill the beans and find myself surrounded by new best friends. Once I tell them what
I do, they raise their eyebrows and express the view that I don’t look at all like a pornographer. I guess I should be bedecked in feathers and fishnets rather than the very boring cotton-and-comfortable-shoe type of clothes I usually wear. Indeed, I suspect I present as a homely, pearl-clutching bore at first glance rather than an evil purveyor of dirty, dirty smut. It’s part of my successful camouflage.
In any case, after this first shock they smile, lean in conspiratorially, and want to know all about it. So I tell them, talking about the ins and outs of filming sex, of writing sex, and of selling it. A lot of people are genuinely fascinated about porn and they want to know the details of what goes on behind the scenes. It’s such an out-of-the-ordinary thing that the conversation is instantly engaging and lively. We invariably end up in a philosophical discussion about porn itself and what’s wrong with it. I’ve met real fans but also plenty of people expressing a frustration with mainstream porn and how it presents sex.
Perhaps most interesting is that revealing my secret seems to give people permission to reveal theirs. I’ve heard all sorts of private stories of porn use, masturbation, and sexual exploration from near strangers, despite not really wanting or needing to know about such things. I’ll nod and let them talk but I’m not inclined to offer my own sexual history. Despite what I do, I like to keep that part to myself. It’s a dividing line that I try to maintain, although it can be difficult, especially when it comes to drawing on your own sexual fantasies to write fiction or scripts.
I’ve been doing this for a long time now and there’s not a lot that surprises me. I usually tell people that porn is a bit like working in a chocolate factory; what seems exciting to the outsider can become very humdrum after a while.