I know, I know, what Lux says is true (internal: do I have to nsfw tag fleshbot links?): It's totally difficult to come up with a fresh angle on Sasha Grey. Even before the movie hype-machine shifted another gear, Sasha was giving out a lot of interview. And now profiling the smart-alternative-philosophical-fuck-machine has become just another media gang-bang that offers nothing new or stimulating.

But surely there are bigger and better questions to ask! Queries with more girth, if you will. Sasha's persona as it comes across through, uh, interviews is one of a straight-shooter who's not afraid of tough questions. Even better: She's deep. There's a feminist streak to her brand of self-possessed sexual liberation. So, myself an oversexed philosophy major, I was excited for thoughtful conversation with the candid Miss Cum Buckets #8.

Alas, as Vanessa Grigoriadis wrote in her Rolling Stone profile, "there is something about Grey that is hard to reach, like talking to a woman behind glass." And I'm here to report: It's true! Even over e-mail!

What follows is my interview with Sasha Grey. But instead of treating it like a straight Q&A we're going to deconstruct along the way, in search of answers, but perhaps finding only more questions.?.?

TAN: Do you think you can be seduced via email interview?

Sasha Grey (SG): No.

TAN: I haven't seen any of your movies (Really! Well, except for The Girlfriend Experience which I just saw — ed: these Q's were sent beginning of May.) What am I — and others out there — missing from the purely-visceral-porn side of your oeuvre? Do you consider yourself as having an "oeuvre"? I did read about you being asked to get punched in the stomach, and everyone loving that: is that something recommended, or strictly for professionals?

SG: That was sorely taken out of context; it never happened.

ed: Google says otherwise?

TAN: Everyone talks about how smart you are! It sort of feels like when Obama/black people are celebrated for being "clean and articulate." Are porn stars all idiots or something?

SG: I don't believe so, unfortunately there are people that perpetuate the stereotype but it doesn't mean we all fit into that category.

TAN: Are you familiar with the 10,000 hours theory, via Malcolm Gladwell and others? It suggests that masters/geniuses of their craft become so by somehow someway diligently working at their craft for 10,000 hours. Do you think you've hit the 10,000 hours mark for fucking? Are you a "fucking genius"? Are there masters of porn/geniuses of the craft of sex? Sexual "outliers." If one fucks for 10,000 hours will one be a genius? how would a layperson identify this sort of talent?

SG: That's just a belittling question.

I find this response telling *strokes chin*. I mean, there's an attempt at a humorous tone to my question, but the theory is real. And fucking for 10,000 hours, for pornstars at least, is real. So why the copout response? When I sent the questions these (amongst others that got cut) were subhedded as "About the Porn Industry". From the interviewer perspective, the questions are the opposite of belittling and represent a few different approaches to trying to get her to talk about work that others find controversial, but she takes very seriously. It's one thing to not answer, and be a Deniro, but "belittling"?

TAN: You often discuss the psychology of porn/sex. How that enhances the experience. Can you discuss why this is the case, and what is the best way to turn someone on psycho-sexually?

SG: I say that because many people come to set with a premeditated routine, I enjoy being able to break them out of that frame of mind, and get an animalistic response out of my partner. I don't think there is any one way to turn someone on, whether it be psycho-sexual or not, because we are all different. Everyone is turned on by something different, just as everyone likes a different color, genre of music, film, or taste of ice cream-it's such a simple fact but it's often quite overlooked.

TAN: In your Twitter-interview w/ Black Book, you mention ?uestlove being the one who got you on to Twitter (now 1,666 updates and counting!). Coincidentally, I'm in the process of trying to get The Roots more integrated into the Gawker comunity. Why do you love ?uesto, and/or The Roots?

SG: I've been a fan since I was probably eight years old or so. Their music is never disposable; you can actually listen to an entire album and enjoy all of it. The fact that they are a live hip hop band, a real band, is so rare in that "genre", they never phone shit in, and are always true to their "Roots".

TAN: On the same thread, the challenge of integrating The Roots with an audience that isn't a hip hop crowd, is similar to the challenge of being a pornstar with mainstream aspirations. There's this fighting of "the system" of American demographics. People are resistant to change, so even open-minded folks need lubing up to get comfortable with doing something out of their comfort zone. How do you handle the challenge of audiences/consumers being so fractured and niche, and yourself having such a range of interested and ideas/impulses? Seems the Artist Business Model in America is about consolidating and focusing your energies. But to cater to the "intelligent" crowd, for example, means to alienate another crowd, the "Maxim-loving frat-boy" crowd maybe, but that's an equally valuable crowd for you. Do you think about these things?

SG: I cater to many different people, partially just because of my individualism, it's never been a conscious decision of which audience I'm going to try and market myself to. If I only concentrated on one thing, I would limit myself in life. So, fuck the "system" I subscribe to my own way of operating.

TAN: You're young. Just recently turned old enough to drink, yet have obviously done and seen more than many your age. How do you feel about mortality, and getting older? It's a minor theme in the movie — how in this business you need to be extra conscious of looking good — so do you feel yourself getting jaded via the business?

SG: No, do you feel jaded being a blogger? I mean, would you ask anybody else this type of question that's not in the adult business?

Huh? Well, actually, yes, there is some jadedness to being a blogger. And, yes, I would ask anyone else in most lines of work that question. The existential influence of our mortality affects everyone, so far as I know, everyone gets older and tired and bored etc., and so I can't help but feel another door that leads to actually advancing the conversation has been closed. And very gruffly at that.

TAN: The maxim "youth is lost on the young" (or something like that) comes to mind: You're very self-aware etc, how do you handle the challenges of being a mature business-woman yet not squandering your youth and indulging it?

SG: By being very self aware and focused, you just said it yourself:) I don't waste time partying and worrying about petty things; I work hard while I have the energy.

A smile! It's not all bad. Can't wait to tell my boys about this! Still, not much meat to the actual answer. Admittedly, not my finest question ever, but I'm just trying to get in. This is the "backdoor of youth" attempt!

TAN: Finally, most view porn stars as abused or having dysfunctional issues. I saw an interview where you talk about having a healthy bond/relationship with your mother, despite her disapproval of your career choice. But you also mention a father who flew the coop. We often romanticize artists as being broken and such, that dysfunction being the fuel for their craft. Do you think we make too much of it, or is it a real thing? Are the best artists great because they're trying to fill an emotional void? Can you make art that grips you, has that fire, and be emotionally stable?

SG: Yes, I have a healthy relationship with my mother; and no my father didn't "fly the coop", my parents were divorced and I don't talk to my dad much-he has since remarried and had another kid. Sometimes too much is made of it, such as in my case...people enjoy making horror stories about the upbringing of "porn stars" so many details I've given in interviews have been looked over, and misconstrued.

The whole "trying to fill an emotional void when it comes to the best artists" is a loaded question; I don't like to generalize groups of people because everyone's an individual. I don't think any human being/artist is 100% emotionally stable, based on the human condition and our emotions that relate to it. Are you asking if I can make that kind of art, or can artists?

Here our interview ended, and fittingly with a question. There wasn't enough time to do any more exchanges. And, from what we have here, you couldn't feel certain it'd be worth the effort; I guess one could say any question asked is "loaded".

Sasha's young, and doing a lot of publicity, and kindly answered my questions. (Thank you!) But the responses, especially framed within the entire Sasha publicity complex, feel like another take of the same Experience. I mean, sure, her getting Carson Daly to stumble because she used the word "cum" on television feels like it adds to her legend, but not her narrative. Everything you read about this girl indicates there's more there. But when anyone probes, they get the glass wall. Or worse. I don't know, maybe she's just a girl who likes to fuck. And the rest is cinema.

image: via

Yall. Sersly just kind of wish all the popular memes were started by me. Like the hipster grifter, and this is why you're fat, and lolwhatever, like what if you I unveiled that I did all those things. And I was Dooce. And I'm blak. You would totally friend me on f-book, I know it.

N e ways, just feel peeps are always treating blak like a brand, or sub-brand. Like blak peeps are a french horn and white people are acoustic guitars. They're both instruments, yall. Depends on how you play it.

Don't want to make this post all entry-level black and uncomfortable. Like when u make jokes about not getting a cab even though they pick up every1 now. Just think there's a lot of blogs and pundits and smart people out there and we could figure it out if we focused.

Maybe I should live my life in Red HD, like Nyle. That camera makes every1 look good!

OK. THAT VOICE IS OVER.

This was sort of a trying weekend. I had Sasha Grey lined up. Then I had these hipster dewds, which is why I was talking hipster kewl; wanted them 2 feel comfy yall. But didn't come together as planned, and alas the weekend, for WTAN, has come to an end.

We should have Sasha next week though. Unless she fucks me. Sorry, had to do it. No, I'm pretty sure she won't. (again!) She's at Exxxotica, I'm told. But here's some of my questions as a teaser. I have more, but feel free to add yours in the comments and maybe we'll get them in for next weekend.

Have a good one, yall!

Sasha:

1. Do you think you can be seduced via email interview?

2. I haven't seen any of your movies (Really! Well, except for The Girlfriend Experience which I saw last night.) What am I — and others out there — missing from the purely visceral porn side of your oeuvre? Do you consider yourself as having an "oeuvre"?

3. Everyone talks about how smart you are. It sort of feels like when Obama/Black people are celebrated for being "clean and articulate". Are porn stars by and large idiots or something? Do you think your intelligence would stand out in other fields/careers as much?

4. Are you familiar with the 10,000 hours theory, via Malcolm Gladwell and others? It suggests that masters/geniuses of their craft become so by somehow, someway diligently working at their craft for 10,000 hours. Do you think you've hit the 10,000 hours mark for fucking? Are you a "fucking genius"? Are there masters of porn/geniuses of the craft of sex? Sexual outliers. If one fucks for 10,000 hours will one be a genius? How do we identify the geniuses?

TK TK TK

Back to you, Fek. Holla if you need me.

image via

The film, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on Tuesday, will be released on May 22 in New York and Los Angeles and on demand on the TV network HDNet. It follows an escort named Chelsea who charges $2,000 an hour to act as a client's girlfriend for the night, providing more intimacy than just sex. (In the film's opening scene, Chelsea and her client are shown at a chic Manhattan restaurant discussing the film they just saw - Man on Wire - going back to his apartment and making out, and then having breakfast and reading The New York Times together the next morning.) The story takes place over five days in October 2008, and is partially improvised by the mostly unprofessional actors, who play versions of themselves, like New York magazine staff writer Mark Jacobson, who plays a journalist, and movie critic Glenn Kenny, who plays an escort reviewer. (Some readers may recall that Kenny served as writer David Foster Wallace's editor and sidekick when the duo attended the AVN Awards for a piece for Premiere magazine.) But the casting choice that has garnered the film so much attention is that the main character is played by real-life porn star Sasha Grey.

At the Tribeca Film Festival, Soderburgh explained that he chose Grey precisely because of her porn persona, The Guardian reports. "With Sasha, you can within seconds see her do anything you can imagine with her clothes off," he said. "What you can't see is what it's like to be her boyfriend, to hang out with her and be emotionally intimate with her. So my whole theory is that's the fantasy for those who've been double-clicking – that they want to spend 77 minutes being her boyfriend."

As Soderbergh put it, Sasha Grey is "not the normal adult film star." Grey is 21, but has appeared in 150 adult films and branded herself as a "new" kind of pornstar since beginning her career at the age of 18. According to the Associated Press, Grey is known for "pushing the boundaries of normal sexual acts," but, "she maintains she's always in control." Vanessa Grigoriadis, who profiled Sasha Grey for the new issue of Rolling Stone explains:

Sasha Grey is the adult industry's reigning princess of porn, a rock & roll 21-year-old with an actual mission statement - "Most of the XXX I see is boring, and does not arouse me physically or visually. I am determined and ready to be a commodity that fulfills everyone's fantasies" - and few taboos.

Grey, who is co-managed by former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro (and appeared in the porn film he directed), has modeled for American Apparel, and sung with the reggae musician Lee "Scratch" Perry. She says she is striving to make porn more artistic; Grigoriadis asserts she is changing the relationship between feminism and porn:

"Porn has been one of feminism's most divisive issues because it hits on such a raw level to so many woman. Here are the fantasies of men, and it's of course better to live out those fantasies through pornography than to try to do them in the real world, but the fact is the real world is impacted by it. Grey says, ‘If you look at me and you think "Here's a woman who's intelligent, cognizant and making her own choices, and you still tell me that what I'm doing is wrong, screw you, because that should end the debate.' "

Grey's appearance in The Girlfriend Experience has been interpreted as the first step in her attempt to go mainstream like former adult actresses Traci Lords and Jenna Jameson, but according to our sister site, Fleshbot, (link NSFW):

If anything, we suspect that Sasha is attempting to remake the notion of what a mainstream star is, and does-much the way she's remade any notions of what an 18-year-old pornstar looks and sounds like .... it's also possible that Sasha could rise to fame in the mainstream cinema while continuing to work as an adult star-perhaps completely remaking our notions of what it means to have crossover appeal.

Though Grey doesn'tactually have sex on screen in The Girlfriend Experience, Soderbergh says that he felt comfortable casting her because "Porn is beyond everywhere now." He told Time Out New York that he thinks prostitution should be legal and does not consider the prostitute in his film a victim. When asked what he would say to someone who has been roped into a life of prostitution, he replied:

Well, there are people for whom that is true. That's not the case with Chelsea any more than it is with Sasha in the adult-film industry. But, yeah, I think whatever agreement two people want to come to about whatever is really none of my business. I don't know what the difference is between that and what I'm doing for Sony Pictures right now [directing Moneyball].

According to the Village Voice review:

Like Godard, Soderbergh views prostitution as the ultimate paradigm for capitalism. But where Godard saw the hooker as a tragic or exploited victim, Soderbergh suggests there are no victims, only failed traders, in the post-Reagan era of DIY capitalism.

And, says Variety's review, the film de-emphasizes the sex involved in Chelsea's work and portrays her as a woman in control of her own get-rich-quick scheme, much like her clients who strive to make a fortune in the world of finance.

From reviews and interviews, it appears Soderbergh was striving for some sort of meta commentary on how capitalism makes prostitutes and porn stars of us all. The johns in the movie delude themselves into thinking they're experiencing a higher level of intimacy with "the girlfriend experience" than they would by just having sex with a prostitute. Similarly, Soderbergh suggests that audience members, who have presumably seen Grey's porn films, will delude themselves into thinking they are experiencing her on a more intimate level by watching her act in a mainstream film rather than a porn film. But by focusing on a high priced escort who chose to get into prostitution, and having her portrayed by an actress described as an atypical pornstar who feels in control of her career, he conveniently ignores the fact that many women in both industries are exploited. Soderbergh is certainly allowed to use the old fantasy of a sex worker who simply loves her work. However, by ignoring the uglier side of the sex trade, he undermines his argument that his film reflects any underlying truths about sex, pornography, or society.

Trailer for The Girlfriend Experience:



Steven Soderbergh On The Girlfriend Experience: 'I Hired Real People And Turned Them Loose' [The Guardian]
Porn Star Sasha Grey Stars In New Soderbergh Film [The Associated Press]
Sasha Grey, The Dirtiest Girl In The World: The Story Behind The Story [Rolling Stone]
Sasha Grey, Crossover Star (NSFW) [Fleshbot]
Steven Soderbergh Interview [Time Out New York]
Soderbergh's Girlfriend Experience Porn-Star Is A True Character [The Village Voice]
The Girlfriend Experience Review [Variety]

Earlier: Dave Navarro Makes Porno Debut
American Apparel Now Sponsoring Bloggers & Porn Stars (NSFW)
Oprah Learns About The Ins-N-Outs Of Legal Prostitution

You can read live updates in the Twitter Room or follow them all on this Twitter feed.

Starring 20-year-old porn princess Sasha Grey amid a strong cast of non-actors (including former Premiere movie critic Glenn Kenny in a hilarious, disturbing cameo as a talky sex-trade connoisseur), Experience follows elite New York escort Chelsea through the routines and rigors of ambition, love and lifestyle. While she and her gym-trainer boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos) strive for a more sizable slice of the American Dream — even as the economy contracts violently around them — their relationship erodes to a stalemate. The presidential election, the recession and each lover's unwavering career-mindedness coalesce into a nonlinear cocktail of modern dread, made all the more potent by Soderbergh's still, chilly camerawork and Grey's compounding vulnerability.

Soderbergh said during the post-screening Q&A that his lead was the only one of his actors who had ever appeared in front of a camera before. And yes, 150+ adult movies count, though Experience lacks not only explicit sex but rather any sexiness whatsoever. Having several years ago read Grey's more philosophical industry perspectives in a Los Angeles Magazine profile, the filmmaker said he hand-picked the actress to more realistically explore the transactional nature of Chelsea's sexuality.

"When the idea for this movie came about, I contacted her, and we sat down and talked," he said. "And I sort of described the way we work on these things. I said, you know, 'Would this be interesting for you?' Because even though the film's not very explicit, there's a comfort level that she obviously has from making all of those films that I think is difficult to fake. There's kind of an attitude. And she said, 'I want to try it. Let's see what happens.' ... It's really fun as a director to watch; I really like the idea of people speaking in their own words, really speaking for themselves. Everybody in there — that's them."

The final cut and mix are yet to come, but may be ready as a late addition to the Berlin Film Festival or, more likely, a premiere in competition at Cannes. Magnolia Pictures has yet to set a release date. But as Soderbergh films go, it's in the austere league of Bubble and Che, likely to confound the average moviegoer and irritate the eager pornhound Grey-ophile — which is kind of how we like him. At least until Cleo.

Which we take to mean will involve unsimulated sex onscreen a la Shortbus, Romance and 9 Songs — but that would be the easy part. Who has the other improv chops to play the lead in what Variety calls Soderbergh's "first exploration of sexual relationships since his breakthrough film, sex, lies & videotape?"

We don't study nearly enough porn to guess whom critic Glenn Kenny's referring to today when mentioning "an adult starlet who recently cited Catherine Breillat as a hero of hers" or another actress who "likes to drop Descartes during interviews." But we trust that our loyal, knowingly pervy readers will have a few casting suggestions of their own as we connect the dots. We're assuming (hoping?) Jameson is out. Among the rest, your crossover clues are as good as (if not better than) ours. Take it away!

• Soderbergh to direct 'Girlfriend' [Variety]