Valley Five-O

I took this photo in Studio City on Ventura Boulevard. For more of my photographs, follow me on Instagram.

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Books I Read in 2024: An Honest Woman

I really loved Charlotte Shane’s new memoir, An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work. Beautifully written and poignantly rendered, it’s an evocative recounting of her life story; how she got into sex work; what she learned about men, sex, and herself along the way; and what it’s like to navigate that space and ultimately fall in love. It’s Pretty Woman without all the bullshit. I highly recommend it.

Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer

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My Online Shop

At my online shop, you can buy a consulting session with me; a signed copy of my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment; or a digital short story I wrote: The Tumor. Got questions? Email me.

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The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries #1

Over on my newsletter, I’ve changed the format. Moving forward, it’ll be delivered as The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries. The first one is: “The Reverse Cowgirl Diaries #1: Recent Perversions.” In total, it’s a way for me to share some of what it’s like writing about sex and the weird shit that entails. This week’s edition includes my latest journalism, a music video about underpants, and a flashback to a porn star in a bathroom. Check it out here. Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share. Every Sunday night, it’ll arrive in your inbox.

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How The Hardest Working Director In Porn Gets The Job Done

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in July 2024.

On a recent Saturday morning, the adult movie director Ricky Greenwood was busy overseeing the production of a big budget pornographic feature entitled Project X. A couple dozen crew members were buzzing around the office space that previously housed a biotechnology company. For now, most of the action was taking place in a hallway where a hospital gurney had been rolled into position. Soon, a sex scene starring veteran performers Mick Blue and Cherie DeVille would be shot.

These days, Greenwood is one of the most in-demand directors in the adult business. At 42, he has made, by his estimate, over 500 porn movies, among them Grinders (a skateboarding movie), Talk Derby to Me (a roller derby movie), and Machine Gunner (a war movie). Originally from Montreal, Quebec, he is tall, bearded, heavily tattooed, and speaks with a Québécois accent. His favorite movies include The Exorcist, Point Break, and High Fidelity. Among the directors he most admires is Michael Bay: “He’s doing commercial movies that are like a big cheeseburger.” Greenwood says this is not unlike what he does. “I know when I’m making porn, I’m making a sort of entertainment. I go with that and play with it. He’s that type of guy.”

Before he got into the adult business, Greenwood worked in television in Montreal. At a certain point, he took a job directing a porn movie. It wasn’t a positive experience. So he went back to television. A friend had a boss looking for a production manager in adult. So he gave it another try. This time, things went better. He moved to Los Angeles. He wrote and directed adult movies. He won some awards. The story for the movie he’s directing today came from its producer, Digital Playground. It’s about what happens when the government finds an alien ship that has crashed on earth. DeVille plays a biologist. When Blue arrives on set, the wardrobe supervisor hands him a white lab coat with a name tag that reads: “Dr. John Harding GENETICIST.”

Getting on the same page Prior to shooting the scene, DeVille, Blue, two talent liaisons, and Greenwood convene in a room. As a camera records, the group goes over a “Pre-Shoot Discussion & Boundary Checklist.” (The performers are given time to complete the consent checklist prior to the meeting.) Here, the actors identify what they are willing and not willing to do in the scene. DeVille takes the lead, noting her dos and don’ts among the 30-plus items listed in the “Sex Acts” column (said acts range from the vanilla—say, kissing—to the not-so vanilla—say, bondage). “The goal is to make the talent comfortable, to create a safe space for the talent and make them feel heard and respected by production,” Greenwood relates later.

Make it look good 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. “Real porn back in the day used to be cinematic, used to be a movie,” he recalls, nostalgic. “Now we want to go back to it: big production, big budget, something that is entertaining.” In the hallway, DeVille and Blue, clad in white lab coats, await the call for action. The lighting is tweaked. In a dimly-lit adjacent room, Greenwood takes a seat and strokes his beard thoughtfully as he surveys the video feeds from the three cameras displayed on the monitors.

Catching the sex “And, action,” Greenwood announces. The cameras move in and out, following the actors’ lead. There isn’t a lot of direction. When it comes to filming sex, this director takes a mostly hands-off approach, preferring to let things unfold organically. “I like to let them do what they want to do,” he shares. “I barely direct them for sex because I feel I want to have a more natural sex scene. I want to be a fly on the wall watching them. I don’t want to give them tricky angles and positions. I want us to witness and not have them working. If you create that safety zone, they will forget the camera. You will get those nice moments and scenes. If you direct them, it become like a job for them, and it become like a fake scene.”

Work against stereotype “As performers, we are like athletes,” Blue, who has pale blue eyes and an Austrian accent and is canonized in the AVN Hall of Fame, opined earlier when asked what it’s like working with Greenwood. “Not a lot of directors who haven’t performed understand that stuff. The better the director understand what we do, the better the outcome will be.” As Blue and DeVille do their thing on the gurney, Greenwood watches, his face bathed in the green glow of an EXIT sign. He’s good at his job, he says: “Because I care.” He knows that some people don’t respect what he does for a living. “‘It doesn’t matter, it’s just porn,’” he parrots the critics saying. But it matters to him. “We want it to be good. We want to make it interesting and different. If we give them a regular porn movie, what’s the point of doing it?”

Know your niche A little over an hour later, the first scene of the day is completed. “I love working with Ricky,” DeVille, an award-winning MILF performer who ran for president in the 2020 election, says in a bathroom afterwards. “I like being extremely organized,” she adds, something they have in common. Meanwhile, Greenwood is getting ready to film a dialogue scene with other actors. He’s busy, but thankful for the work. His friends who direct mainstream movies make a movie every five years. He makes nine or ten movies in a year. Still, there’s a stigma with which to contend. In Europe, “People see a porn director as any type of director. They see it as the same thing as a regular movie director.” In America, it’s taboo. To him, porn is “just another genre that people like and can watch.” That said, he believes public perception is changing—for some, at least. “The younger generation don’t see it so much as bad.”

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Hollywood Walk of Dildos

I took this photo in an adult store on Hollywood Boulevard. For more of my photos, follow me on Instagram.

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I Was 758

New York Times bestselling author Dani Shapiro interviewed me about my life story and my memoir, Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment, for her widely-listened-to Family Secrets podcast. The episode is entitled “I Was 758,” and it’s available on most podcast distributing platforms. Thank you to Dani for doing this intimate interview. You can buy Data Baby from the retailer of your choice here and read more about it here.

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What You Don't See

I had this idea recently that I should do a series of photos that I have taken on adult movie sets but the photos have no depictions of sex in them. When I visit a set, there are plenty of photos that I take that have no sex in them; oftentimes, they have no people in them. The subject of these non-sex images is the stuff that gets left out: the waiting prop, the douches and wipes, the clapperboard, the set itself, the girls getting their makeup done. You see these same impulses in the works of Larry Sultan and Jeff Burton, who have both photographed on porn sets. There is a preoccupation with the banal behind the explicit, the ordinary juxtaposed against the extraordinary. Years ago, a guy reproduced stills from porn movies and Photoshopped out the people—I think that’s what he did—but I can’t find his work or remember his name. Anyway, this documentary photography series I’ll be working on is untitled for now. Here is a shot of a gurney that I took on a set I went to this June.

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Meet The Artist Turning Blowup Dolls Into Fashion Designs

This story was originally published on Forbes.com in July 2020. It has been lightly updated.

Nicole Daddona, who goes by Friday, is 32, lives in Los Angeles, and is, as she puts it, “an artist, comedian, fashion designer, filmmaker, and toy designer” who’s created a popular line of blowup doll fashions. If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a handbag with the face of a vintage blowup doll on it or a coat covered in blowup doll faces, Friday has you covered. Here, Friday, who’s also the editor of FRIDAY Magazine, explains how she got into blowup doll fashion and why her designs are so coveted.

Susannah Breslin: How did you come up with the idea of turning blowup dolls into wearable products you could sell?

Friday: Last year I was living in a retirement community with my dad in Connecticut for a few months. I found a vintage blowup doll at the thrift store and immediately purchased it. I've always been drawn to blowup dolls. I just think they're such a fun part of pop culture. I've always made things out of other things. I used to go to the dump with my dad a lot as a kid and turn little trinkets I'd find into accessories I could wear. When I was in high school, I made a chair out of recycled plastic bags. I like upcycling and turning things into other things a lot. After having Judy—which is the official name of this style of blowup doll—around the house for a few days, I knew that I wanted to keep her with me always and that the best way to do that was to turn her into something wearable. I cut off her face—which sounds terrible, but was oddly cathartic—and assembled a very poorly made prototype of what is now the Blow Me Judy Bag.

Breslin: Where do you source the blowup dolls from?

Friday: At first I was getting them from eBay and thrift stores when I could find them, but after posting the bag as a pre-order for sale and getting a larger and more positive response than I anticipated, I knew eBay's blowup doll supply was going to run dry quickly. I found a manufacturer who makes blowup dolls, and now I source the blowup dolls from them directly. 

Breslin: How do you manufacture the blowup doll products?

Friday: At first I was making them myself, but each bag was taking hours to make, and I was getting injured a lot by my sewing machine, so I knew I needed to find some manufacturing help. After a lot of research I was able to find an amazing manufacturer to help with production.

Breslin: Are the items made entirely from blowup doll materials, or do you add other materials?

Friday: The original prototype was, but after wearing it out a few times I realized that the vinyl material of the blowup doll's body wasn't going to be sturdy enough for longtime wear. I like a bag that's sturdy and can fit a lot or a little while also being great for casual or classy events. The Blow Me Judy Bag is all of that and more. When it came time to manufacture the bag on a larger scale, I did a lot of research. It was important to me that the bag, like everything I sell, was made of all vegan materials. I found a great vegan leather material that was the same color as the original blowup doll's hair, and that's what I use for the bag, which is essentially supposed to be the rest of the doll's head.

Breslin: The Blow Me Bag is $89 $150. How did you settle on that price point?

Friday: $69 seemed too obvious. I wanted to pick a price point that would cover my expenses, labor, and time. I run Magic Society completely on my own. I do all the marketing, customer service, shipping, web design, photography, product design—you name it—myself. The price point is on the lower end in the world of designer handbags, which was important to me because the Blow Me Judy Bag is definitely a designer piece, but I wanted the price to be something I'd be willing to pay for a designer bag. I also see it as a piece of collectible art and myself as an artist, so hopefully the value will go up over time. My dream is that one day it will be in a museum between Pedro Friedeberg's hand chair and Warhol's paper dress.

Breslin: Is the Blow Me Judy Bag your bestseller? How many have you sold?

Friday: It sells really well. So far I've released two pre-orders of 100 pieces each. I'm just about to sell out the second pre-order.

Breslin: Why did you choose this model of blowup doll?

Friday: Judy's the one! Out of all the blowup dolls out in the world, she's the most iconic. She has a classic design that's been around for decades, so she has a warm nostalgic feeling about her. I like that she plays it classy with her closed mouth, but we all know what she's really got on her mind.

Breslin: Is working with blowup doll materials easy or challenging?

Friday: It's 1,000% challenging! The mask part of the doll is flexible plastic, which is very thick and difficult to sew, but makes for a sturdy bag. The vinyl the body is made of is difficult to wrangle in the Los Angeles heat, but it's all worth it when I catch Judy's hypnotizing gaze.

Breslin: Your blowup line is amusing, but it's also sort of disturbing. In the product description, you even refer to the Blow Me Judy Bag as a potential "relationship ender." Do you think your blowup products are beautiful? Terrifying? Art?

Friday: I definitely think of it as all of the above. The blowup line is pop art personified. It's high fashion and lowbrow all at the same time. Magic Society's slogan is "Lowbrow High Fashion.” I don't think anything sums that up better than the Blow Me Judy Bag. The good thing is that the blowup line is a great conversation starter. It also makes uptight people uncomfortable, which is always fun. Gotta love scaring Karens. 

To quote Delia Deetz, "This is my art and it is dangerous," kind of sums up most of the work I do. From the films I make with my directing partner Adam Shenkman to the clothing I design, I like to make things that dwell in the subconscious, touch on surrealism, and most of all amuse me. I know in a world as big as the one we live in that there are like-minded people out there who will get it and get something positive out of my creations.

Breslin: Have you gotten any interest in carrying the Blow Me Judy Bag yet from, say, Nordstrom?

Friday: Not yet, but hit me up, Nordstrom! I'm ready to take this line all the way to Fashion Week and confuse the masses. London. New York. Paris. Milan. Retailers, drop me a line! Magic Society will cast a spell over you!

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Sex Sales

Today on Forbes.com, I wrote about Etsy banning adult toy sales, among a host of other new constraints imposed on people who hawk mature wares on the e-commerce platform. You can read it right here.

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Books I Read in 2024: End of Active Service

Have you read Eat the Apple? It’s a memoir by my friend Matt Young. It’s a wildly inventive memoir-ish recounting of his days as a Marine in the Iraq War. Now Matt has published a novel: End of Active Service. It’s an alarmingly intimate tour through the mind of a man who has returned from war—but the war rages on inside of him. It’s a really beautiful book about love, letting go, and starting over. I highly recommend it.

Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer

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The Other Hollywood Reporter

AVN, aka Adult Video News, is The Hollywood Reporter of the adult industry. It’s been around forever, and I miss getting the paper version in the mail. In any case, the folks over there were kind enough to mention my recent story on Forbes: “How The Hardest Working Director In Porn Gets The Job Done.” Thanks, AVN!

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I Get Email (I Am Newcomer)

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August Is the Hottest Month

In August, I’ll be posting more frequently on Forbes. Got a story suggestion or a tip? You can email me here.

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Los Angeles Apparel

It’s Los Angeles Apparel. It’s not American Apparel. Got that? For more of my photos, follow me on Instagram.

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H Is for Hardcore

This fictional short story was written by me and published in elimae in April 2004.

You'd think that porn would have helped. You'd think that porn would have made everything better. You'd think that porn would have seen that your life went as you had planned. You'd think that Barely Legal would have started you out on the right foot. You'd think that Stop My Ass is on Fire would have answered any questions you had along the way. You'd think that The World's Biggest Gangbang would have illuminated your path into adulthood. You'd think that American Bukkake would have demonstrated the importance of hard work. You'd think that The Vomitorium would have reminded you this was the life you always wanted. You'd think that Rough Sex would have explained you were still alive, no matter how you felt. You'd think that Perverted Stories would have made it clear there was no other route for you to take. You'd think that House of Freaks would have shown you what it was you were becoming. You'd think that Pink Eye would have opened your eyes to where it was you were heading. You'd think that Midget in a Suitcase would have illustrated just how little growing room you really had. You'd think that the coprophagy and bestiality tapes would have driven you out to find the girl of your dreams. You'd think that White Trash Whore would have gotten you to see it was time to finally settle down. You'd think that Gag Factor would have gotten you through the vows. You'd think that Ready to Drop would have made you want to start a family. You'd think that Golden Showers would have carried you through the darkest times. You'd think that Century Sex would have kept you company when everyone was gone and it was you and porn alone, at last. You'd think.

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Meet Bill

Something I came across on YouTube: “170cm M7 Bill realistic male sex doll silicone.” [NB: The video is NSFW.]

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The Porn Director

After a little over a year hiatus, during which time I published and promoted my book, I’m back as a senior contributor to Forbes.com. In my latest story, I spend time with Ricky Greenwood, a very popular, very busy porn director. Ricky is a big bear of a guy, and I enjoyed watching him work. The scene I saw him direct features two award-winning veteran performers: Cherie DeVille and Mick Blue. Read the story here.

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Books I Read in 2024: The Valley

The Valley by Larry Sultan is one of my favorite photography books. A gorgeous, evocative, moving chronicle of life in the San Fernando Valley's adult movie industry by the late great Larry Sultan. Includes a front of the book essay by Sultan that interweaves his youth in the Valley and being on the sets of adult movies.

Books I Read in 2024: Victory Parade, I Hate Men, My Friend Dahmer, The Crying of Lot 49, Machines in the Head, Big Magic, The Valley, End of Active Service, An Honest Woman, The Money Shot, Atomic Habits, Finding Your Own North Star, Crazy Cock, Sigrid Rides, Your Money Or Your Life, The Big Sleep, Eventually Everything Connects, Smutcutter, Shine Shine Shine, A Serial Killer’s Daughter, Confessions of a Serial Killer

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It's Not Nudity, It's Art

I was a little surprised to see that this Saint Laurent video on YouTube entitled “Tan Lines” featured a topless model. Did that mean it was possible to post boobs on YouTube? To find out, I checked out the site’s Nudity & Sexual Content Policy. “The depiction of clothed or unclothed genitals, breasts, or buttocks that are meant for sexual gratification” was not allowed, it informed me. So, the Saint Laurent model’s breasts were allowed because they were being exposed for the purpose of fashion, not sexual gratification? This did not seem to allow for viewer interpretation. In any case, I felt heartened. Maybe the tech giants weren’t so anti-sex, after all. Then I tried to embed the video in this post and saw it was age-restricted. Anyway, it’s pretty sexy.

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