Filtering by Tag: PORN
The Porn Blind Project #1
Dildos on table, North Hollywood, Calif., 2000 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“Porn Blind” is a a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. (You can subscribe here.) I’m publishing the series on my Substack newsletter, and I thought I would chronicle the project, analytics, and insights here.
Subject
As I state in the series subheader, I spent almost 30 years writing about the adult movie industry. Along the way, I learned a lot about the business of making pornography—and about myself. This series seeks to reveal what it’s like to write about the adult industry, how being a woman shaped that experience, and how the sausage gets made when you’re writing about one of the most provocative industries in the world.
Backstory
In fact, I’ve been trying to write this story for years. For some reason, I found myself unable to do it. Last December, I started another attempt. Because I was out of town, I began writing it in Notes on my iPhone. The advantage to this was that it was hard to revise while I was working on it, which was good, because I can get caught up in over revising. The disadvantage was that writing that way made my neck hurt. So, when I got back from traveling, I transferred what I had written into a Word document. Then I spent the next several months doing what I always do when I try and write this story: restarting it, revising it, not finishing it. Finally, on a Sunday night about a week and a half ago, I became extremely frustrated. The problem was that this process in which I was engaged never works for me, or only with great difficulty. What I do like to do is write online. So, I decided, I would write it in installments (using some of what I had written already) and publish it through my newsletter. In the early morning hours of the following Monday, I published part one. This push-to-publish process does not allow for me to stall out. At some point you have to publish.
goal
I’m not sure what the goal here is. To write something I’ve been wanting to write for a long time. To conduct an experiment that will reveal what happens when you serialize long-form journalism through a newsletter. To get a book deal. To increase my visibility. To prove that I have something to say about this subject matter.
PUBLISHING
While I originally fantasized I would publish the entire series in 10 days, that proved unrealistic. So I settled on a schedule of publishing once a week (the target day is every Monday). The final total length is expected to be approximately 10,000 words. It is comprised of 10 sections, so each section is around 1,000 words. Each installment of the newsletter for this series is one section. As far as promoting the project, after I publish each installment, I share a link to the latest installment on social media and my blog.
analytics
Subscribers: On March 15, 2026, the day before I published the first installment of this series, I had 934 subscribers. A week later, on March 22, 2026, I had 947 subscribers. That was an increase of around 1.4%.
Views: To date, the first installment of the series has 1,056 views, and the second installment of the series, which published yesterday, has 820 views, for a series total of 1,876 views.
Open rate: To date, the open rate for the first installment is 42.1%. I’ll share the open rate for the second installment next week, when I update this data.
INSIGHTS
What are we to conclude from the undertaking of this project thus far? Really, there isn’t enough data to conclude much on the data front, other than there has been a small uptick in subscribers. So far, I’m enjoying the process of doing the series, that it gives me soup-to-nuts control over the project.
I’ll be back next week with more thoughts, data, and insights to share in The Porn Blind Project #2.
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Porn Blind: Part 2
Adult actress, Las Vegas, Nev., 2013 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
In my newsletter, I’m publishing “Porn Blind,” a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. The series starts here. Subscribe to my newsletter here. If you want to support my work, please share a link to it online. Thanks!
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Porn Blind: Part 1
Adult movie set, Canoga Park, Calif., 2009 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
In my newsletter, I’m publishing “Porn Blind,” a 10-part series about what I learned writing about the adult movie industry for nearly 30 years, how the business changed, and how it changed me. The series starts here. Subscribe to my newsletter here. If you want to support my work, please share a link to it online. Thanks!
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Me and My Oeuvre
“Recently, I’ve been updating my website, and as part of the process I went through some of my past journalism stories. Quite a few are about the adult movie industry.” — read the rest and subscribe
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What I'm (Looking Forward to) Watching: Peter
My 2026 Journal: Day 7
Today, I am considering Michelangelo Caetani’s Maps of the Divina Commedia as preparation for writing more about the adult movie industry this year and am currently trying to identify my current location on this map.
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Operation Me
AVN Awards, Las Vegas, Nev., 2013 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“Because the narrative is filtered through me, covers a vast expanse of time, and includes not only what I witnessed but how what I witnessed shaped the person I became, the essay had to feature me as a central character. In the past, I’ve avoided this angle; on the set of an adult movie, I am the least interesting thing in the room.” Read my latest newsletter, “How to Perform a Literary Auto-vivisection,” and subscribe.
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My 2026 Journal: Day 1
Today I’m working on a 10,000-word personal essay about how the adult movie industry has changed since I first found myself on the set of an adult movie over 25 years ago and how what I saw there changed me. The working title is of the story is “When Pornographers Were Kings.” “Scenes From My Life in Porn Valley.”
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A Triptych of 2025 Triptychs
A Last-Minute Gift
The Hardest Working Director
Adult movie set, Los Angeles, 2024 | Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“High production value is something of a Greenwood signature. Unlike the low-budget, lo-fi ‘gonzo porn’ of yesteryear, his productions are saturated in deep colors, preoccupied with story, and look more like a movie produced by A24 than garden variety smut.” — How the Hardest Working Director in Porn Gets the Job Done
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Hollywood to North Hollywood
The 1,000,000 Views Photo
“I’ve posted photos I’ve taken on adult movie sets before, but this one seemed to appeal to people for reasons that were not entirely clear to me.” Read and subscribe to my newsletter: The Reverse Cowgirl.
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The Girl in the Photo
Pornhub's 2025 Year-in-Review
“Gen X searches included ‘fisting,’ ‘bukkake,’ and ‘double penetration.’” Subscribe to The Reverse Cowgirl.
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Tripp and Other Tales
Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
“In maybe 2016, I got this idea to write a short story about a male actor in the adult movie business.” Read it.
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The Other Uncanny Valley
“‘It’s a phantom-limb penis syndrome,’ said a tall, British man who goes by the name Adam Sutra. Adam is the CEO of CamasutraVR, a company that makes, among other products, virtual-reality pornography. He was trying to explain to me what it’s like when you’re a man, you’re immersed in virtual reality, and you look down at yourself.” — from “Porn’s Uncanny Valley,” The Atlantic, 2018
Beatniks!
How Do I Become a Male Porn Star?
“It is unclear if they know who I am. One addressed his email to ‘Sir.’ For the record, I am a woman. I am a journalist. I download their emails in a home office with a desk, a filing cabinet and a garbage can for recycling. I am not who they think I am. I do not have a magic wand that can turn them into male porn stars. I don’t know what to tell them. Truth be told, it is very difficult for men to break into the porn business (unless one rides on the coattails of a female who wants to be a porn star, a scenario with its own set of complications); many of the men who work in porn do not make a lot of money ($150 to $300 for a scene is not uncommon); and what it takes to be a male porn star (to wit: get up, get in, get off) is, for lack of a better word, hard.” — an excerpt from my 2013 Salon personal essay: “How Do I Become a Male Porn Star?”
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