Why the smartest stripper in the world objects to being objectified

Melissa Todd is happily married, a member of Mensa and a sex worker. In her upcoming book she looks at how porn became the enemy

I wonder how and why the chap who’s paying for this clip became interested in women getting their hands stuck in vases (Getty/The Independent)

Walking into shot, I pause to exclaim over the delicate beauty of a small china vase, before pushing my hand deep into its recesses. The script dictates I must then struggle and wriggle for 10 minutes to extricate my hand. Ten minutes is an eternity. I try not to watch the clock on the wall. I look out of the window, at the passing commuters, and vaguely wonder if, when they hear the word pornography, they could ever imagine this. I wonder how and why the chap who’s paying for this clip became interested in women getting their hands stuck in vases; all my porny friends have also been asked to make this film. Did his mother get her hand stuck at a time that coincided with his first erection? Does the vase represent a vagina, a throat, a urethra? But sometimes a vase is just a vase.

I can’t fathom why my client will pay any amount to see this happen, over and over, anymore than I understand those who want to watch me repeatedly depress my clutch pedal: I’ve a shapely calf, admittedly, but an hour of watching it flex? Nor the chap who likes to watch me deflate a leather football, or the one who encourages me to rub my thighs with Edam. I can’t get my brain round any of those punters’ predilections but I genuinely admire their creativity, their courage in sharing their fantasies and trusting me to render them flesh. I do my best, always, and don’t ask why. It’s a privilege to bring sexual fantasy to life, and I’ve a rare talent for it. It’s been my job for 26 years now.

To pass the time I argue with the angry feminists in my head, the ones who want to simultaneously rescue me and destroy me. I used to argue with them online, occasionally, but my refusal to accept their pity made them so angry I feared their brains might boil over.

This film isn’t porn, they mutter, because I’m wearing tights and a cardigan, and the only hole being ruthlessly banged is made of china. Yet I’m getting paid well to bring someone’s sexual fantasies to life, and that’s my understanding of porn. The dictionary defines it as visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity: that strikes me as tediously vanilla. Often I’m paid to create the thrill that occurs between my client’s ears, not on screen.

The word pornography is used frequently in a pejorative sense, to describe depictions of sexual fantasy of which one disapproves. We talk about the pornification of society, how it leads to the objectification of women, as if these were real, quantifiable concepts, rather than just vague, scary sounding notions against which we must fight.

But this is to ignore the enormous quantity of gay porn that exists, and much of the kinky porn that I make too. And do we honestly imagine that men would look at women less if filmmakers weren’t around to do it for them? Some of the earliest artworks were pornographic; Venus figurines with exaggerated breasts and buttocks, dating from at least 25,000 years ago. As soon as we can hold a pen, we draw rude things: my husband tells of the school friends who decorated every textbook with spunking cocks. Whenever we have the time and tools to express ourselves artistically, we have shown an interest in depicting sexuality.

In the past 20 years there has been a huge shift in people’s responses to sex work (Getty/iStock)

What has changed drastically over the years is our reaction to this interest. Even over the last two decades I’ve seen huge shifts in people’s responses to sex work. I say people, but I mean women, largely, although some men try to curry favour by lecturing me gently on why I’m a disgrace to the sisterhood, which I find particularly irritating.

Generally, however, men tend to be happy when you’re naked; women, increasingly, very cross. They try to redeem you, rehabilitate you, rescue you, and when that doesn’t work – I’ve amassed enough of a property portfolio that I needn’t make porn anymore, and continue only for the camaraderie and creative outlet it provides – they tell you you’re privileged, unrepresentative, and just plain wrong.

Porn is abuse, not empowerment. (I never refer to myself as empowered. Why must sex workers always be empowered by their work, when nurses and bus drivers are allowed simply to do it?) Porn encourages violence and objectification; it’s awful for the women involved, who hate every moment and only do it because they’re forced to commit horrible acts to survive under patriarchy; it leads to appalling attitudes, rape, sexual abuse and assault, unrealistic beauty standards and low self-esteem; it’s addictive, and perverts need an ever bigger, filthier dose each time to get their hit.

Let’s examine those claims closely, biggest first.

It’s a privilege to bring sexual fantasy to life, and I’ve a rare talent for it. It’s been my job for 26 years now

Pornography is not harmful. Take a moment to grasp that idea. There is indeed a correlation between the consumption of pornography and sexual violence, but it is an inverse correlation. This seems so staggering to those of us raised on a constant media frenzy of porn equals evil that it is worth lingering here a moment to allow the idea to digest.

In countries where there is the strictest regulation around pornography there are also the highest rates of rape and other serious sexual crimes, including child sex abuse. Rape has been declining since the 1970s, but with particular rapidity since the 1990s, and in his book Porn Panic Jerry Barnett argues compellingly, with an array of enlightening statistics and studies, that the sudden existence of internet pornography is the cause of this decline. In the US, the four states with the lowest internet access are also the four states that bucked the trend and showed an increase in rape between 1980-2000. In the Czech Republic, the swift transition from brutal repression to liberal unfettered access to any damn thing in 1989 saw child sex abuse plummet by almost half. And on, and on. In multiple studies from across the world, easy access to pornography is linked to lower rates of sex crime.

Barnett continues by making the point that tightening regulations around pornography is very likely to reverse this trend. Easy access to pornography seems to reduce rape among teenagers, so it seems likely that if the anti-sex, pro-censorship campaigners get their way, we will see a spike in sexual violence that will worsen in the future.

Why do feminists keep fighting so hard for something which will actually harm women, when the anti-sex movement, with its campaigns for censorship, poses a far greater risk?

Easy access to pornography is linked to lower rates of sex crime (Getty)

And why do they ignore the fact that those who benefit financially most from the sex industry are invariably female? Why assume that their right not to be offended is more important than other women’s right to work, to earn, to give themselves and their families a decent standard of living?

On the few occasions I’ve worked with men they have always earned less than me. Usually in films chaps get their travel expenses, if they’re lucky; more often nothing at all, while occasionally they must pay for the privilege of sharing my set. Some ethical porn producers insist on paying men and women equally. I don’t. Bugger that. I sort of admire the sentiment, but also think they’re bonkers. Dick isn’t precious. It’s everywhere. Men can’t find women prepared to look at it free, or they wouldn’t bother with dick pics. In films, men are nothing but props. They don’t matter. If I work with men, and there are four cameras in the room, three of them will be focussed on me, and the other will be watching the man watch me. When men are queuing up for the chance to interact with me on or off screen, when men don’t sell particularly well anyway – not many straight porn consumers are that interested in seeing men’s bodies, myself included – why would I pay them?

Recently a female film director contacted me to say she wanted to create erotica for women, and would hire me in order to free me from the objectifying male gaze. She was keen to break into the male-dominated world of pornography, make something fresh, innovative, female-centric. I watched her eyes fill when I explained that almost all the big studios I work for are run by women. I’m perfectly happy to work for men, but currently 95 per cent of kink studios are lead by female directors and producers, and they keep me pretty busy already. Why, I don’t know. Are women kinkier? No idea.

I’m 45, a stone overweight, covered in stretch marks, tits drooping from four years’ breastfeeding, and I’m busier now than I’ve ever been

And if I’m not working for other women, I’m extremely busy working for myself. I’m offered commissions for more custom films than I can produce, and daily I upload clips and pictures to my OnlyFans site. Have I time to squeeze in another female porn producer, much as having a middle-class woman patronise me is among my favourite pastimes ever? Well, perhaps if she pays properly. Ah, content share until the arts council cough up? Yeah, maybe not.

I can hear the feminists rattling as furiously as my hand.

Porn sets unrealistic expectations for all women: there’s another cliche I hear every damn day. Thanks to porn men expect all women to be young, tight, firm, busty, shaven. Do these people ever actually watch porn? I’m 45, a stone overweight, covered in stretch marks, tits drooping from four years breastfeeding, and I’m busier now than I’ve ever been. Women in their sixties complain to me constantly they haven’t time to go on holiday or enjoy their earnings; recently I shot with a woman of 92. Complain to Instagram about standards of physical perfection, for men and women both, not Pornhub. Whatever you look like, someone will perv over you. Isn’t that a pretty thought?

Oh, and porn’s addictive, that scabby old chestnut. Well, no, it isn’t. Why do people assume the hobby of which they disapprove is likely to become addictive, while all other pastimes that light up the pleasure sensors – music, football, being a smug sanctimonious killjoy – are perfectly safe?

Official figures put the number of sex workers in the UK at 73,000 – but no one really has a clue (Getty/iStock)

Last cliche: porn stars are all miserable. I would dispute that, and studies into the well-being of adult industry professionals tend to support my cynicism – self-esteem and body image improve when you go slut, in addition to the delight of being liberated from money worries – but I’m sure it’s true of some. There are 73,000 sex workers in the UK, they reckon, although obviously no one really has a clue, but let’s go with the official figures: around 0.1 per cent of the general population. Loads of us. They will be parents, students, interns, disabled, mentally ill, every colour and religion, male and female and everything in between; they will be dirt poor and fabulously wealthy, educated and ignorant; they will be happy in their work and wretched in their work. They will form a microcosm of society, in short. They will not be anything at all, aside from sex workers. Any generalisation you make will possess zillions of exceptions.

This matters, because when every story about sex workers is negative it tends to impact on the political sphere. Sex work and often sex workers themselves become a problem to be eradicated. When half a dozen Asian sex workers were killed recently in Atlanta, the killer cited his “sex addiction” and desire to remove temptation as explanation for his crimes. Killing evil whores becomes roughly equivalent to a problem gambler deciding to smash up a slot machine.

Sex workers are not a universally pathetic, tragic blot on society, nor are we evil deviants destroying the minds and morals of decent folk. We are human beings, varied, unique, fabulous. Stop showing me a version of my story I cannot recognise, while refusing to acknowledge mine.

I’m old enough to remember when feminism wasn’t synonymous with being anti-sex. As a teenager I read Germaine Greer and Spare Rib and thought feminism seemed kind of cool, liberating, bringing a message about enjoying your body and exploring sex and fantasy on your own terms, from a place of power and knowledge.

Why does feminism, which 50 years ago campaigned for liberation, now seek to attack and destroy representations of the female body? At some point it was decided that women’s flesh is sinful, corrupting, and must be covered to save men from themselves; that women’s sexuality can only be whispered about, and then only in the context of exploitation and victimhood; while sex itself is a tool of male oppression, utterly devoid of joy and playfulness.

I don’t recognise myself in their definition of women. I’m horny all the time. I love watching porn and making porn. Other women of my acquaintance have struggled so much with their feelings of shame at their enthusiastic, varied interest in sex and kink they have been left depressed and suicidal. Happily for me I don’t feel shame. I do feel rich, creatively fulfilled, and glad I can make people happy.

My 10 minutes complete, I wrench my hand free, shake it, smile, and fade to black.

‘My Body is My Business’ by Melissa Todd is published by Clink Street PBO at £7.99. Click here