We have all had friends who seemed to have innate skills that were core to their personality and these skills made them destined for a certain profession; the guy you knew who was destined to work in sales, or the girl you knew was going to be a lawyer. Even as a young woman, Aiden Starr loved to be the one in control. She even tells stories of how much she enjoyed tying boys to trees. Her own mother, upon finding out Aiden was working at a dungeon in New York City, opined, “What took you so long?”
Aiden Starr prides herself on her ability to make a match, and there is no better match she made than the one between herself and the BDSM lifestyle, and the adult film industry where she would make a formidable name for herself. We interviewed Aiden about her upcoming title, Bisexual Fantasies, which is currently exclusively offered on HotMovies. Along the way, we got perspective and opinions from a performer and director who has seen and done it all over the span of the last twenty years in the adult industry.
HM: First, I wanted to clarify the year you actually started in the industry.
AS: The first movie I did was for Rick Savage in 1999. I don’t know if I had a stage name…?
We actually have that movie, we titled it The Submission and Bondage of Aiden Starr. I think we are the only ones to have it. You called yourself Annabelle and you were the submissive in that video, which is not typical for you, correct?
That was the only thing that was available. Back then, the BDSM community didn’t allow 19 year-old girls to top people. Now they do it all the time, but back then there wasn’t a hardcore porn aspect to it, it was just BDSM, so nobody got to dom when they were 19 years old.
So, when did you?
I think it was a couple of years later, and it was for Rick. I had done some girl-girl stuff that was kind of switchy, but then I did some stuff with a guy who was my lover in my personal life and I toppped him. My first couple of years of shooting, I didn’t do that many movies; they were all BDSM and they were all BDSM stuff in New York for Rick Savage.
Was there a point where you realized that you weren’t a sub, that you were a Domme? Did you do it to just learn the other side of it?
Um, somewhat. Also to prove to myself that I was a solid performer, and being a top wasn’t just given out to anyone. You had to prove yourself.
Does being a dom or a sub satisfy a certain predilection? Can you tell me how each one satisfies the person?
From the submissive point of view, in terms of how other girls and guys enjoy it, I am sure it is because they like being the center of attention and have everything happen to them. And topping people is because I like to fuck people. I really enjoy tying people up. I really enjoy doing BDSM with people. That is very gratifying for me.
You have previously stated that you were always into that role, even when you were young; you liked the control aspect of it.
Yes, you are correct. My mother was not surprised when I started working in a dungeon because I was like that before, and she did say that she thought the minute I turned 18 I would have done that. But it took me a year or two to find it.
You have shot movies with every type of sexual preference there is. Do you consider yourself gender-fluid?
Yes, I do consider myself gender-fluid.
In regards to that, you started back in 1999 and at that time, those concepts didn’t quite exist back then, right?
They weren’t as solidified back then in the same way that we know them. The concept of “trans” was around, but it wasn’t as solidified as it is today, and I think that has a lot to do with the amount of information that is able to be exchanged globally on the internet.
How has the proliferation of these ideas, trans and gender-fluidity, had an impact on your career?
It has made my sexual predilections more mainstream and acceptable to a mass audience, which has been great because it allows me to make a higher volume of the kind of content that I want to make.
When you first started out, you were making appointments for the doms at the dungeon and you discovered you had a knack for making matches. You said you liked “to make the experience enjoyable for not only the clients, but also for the providers. Not only was a monetary exchange, but an exchange of a good time and a good energy.”
Yeah, I think if you have girls working for you and they have a better time working for you, she will prefer to work for you.
Yes, a simple concept. I have seen that in other interviews where performers had said that about you, that it’s always fun working with you. In regards to making the matches on set, what indicators do you look for to tell you whether a match will be good or bad?
Personal chemistry between two people before the camera starts is a good indicator. The amount of openness the person will share with me and their communication skills. If a girl or guy can tell me what their goals are for their career or what they are looking to do in their scenes and how comfortable they are with those things are all good indicators that I am going to be able to match them up with someone with who they have good chemistry. I also tend to have a preference for performers who are friendlier towards everybody and enjoy having good chemistry with people, and I talk to people a lot before I hire them for roles. The amount of communication that a performer is willing to have with me before we shoot is key.
Have you had a situation where you had to say, “this isn’t going to work”?
Just this one time it sort of came close to that, because I had shot with a girl in a scene beforehand with Kink, but then I went to shoot her on my Evil Angel set, and part of the way through the scene I wasn’t sure if she was intoxicated or not. I asked her if she was okay to keep going, and I asked the male talent if he was okay to keep going, and they both said yes. I don’t know. It is California, maybe they smoked a bunch of weed, but it threw me off that she may have smoked weed before my set. So I actually have a “no weed” policy on my sets. Even if you take it for medicinal purposes, you are not allowed to smoke it on my set. There is no intoxication on my set. It is a zero-tolerance policy because it throws off my ability to communicate with people.
You have an intricate understanding of what a performer feels while on set, and you have said that during a performance, a person may be in an “altered state” where they may be okay with something in the moment, and less likely to express anything wrong until afterwards. So, you have made it a practice to continuously ensure consent on set. What would you do if a person decided after the fact that they are no longer okay with the scene? What would you do?
It has never happened to me, but I have certainly thought about it. If it were my scene, I would pull it down. If I did not own it but I shot it, I would buy the scene back. I have to think about those things because we work on a timeline and my projects are due at a certain time. But, once the scene is out there, you can try to take it back, but you can never get it all off the internet. So, rather than work in a “no means no” environment, I operate in a “yes means yes” environment, which is high consent. This means we exhaustively go through every single sex act and make sure the performer says yes before we even get started. This is a peer-to-peer environment which I think helps prevent anything like that from happening.
When did you start directing? It was fairly early on in your career, wasn’t it?
The first movie I directed was for Mel at Galaxy (the person who produced the Rick Savage content), and then I directed a lot of stuff for Kink.com, but that is uncredited because it was mainly brand-forward and not director-focused. And then I had a website for Wolf Hudson, so I shot a ton of stuff for him and we co-directed a bunch of stuff. My larger projects, though, have all been with Evil Angel.
You started in New York, but then moved to LA and began running a dungeon there as well. Do you see a difference between the two areas and their respective BDSM scenes?
Yeah. In New York, subs and doms are more hardcore. East Coast people in general are more hardcore.
When did you receive your first award? It was some time after you started.
I won an award in 2009 for Best All-Girl Threeway with Belladonna and Kimberly Kane. It was 10 years into my career, but early on, I hadn’t really shot a lot of porn. It was mainly fetish and BDSM stuff. I didn’t really get into hardcore porn until about 2006 when I signed with Mark Spiegler.
With the current focus on the #MeToo movement, I wanted to ask you about a previous quote where you had said, “I don’t see rape culture as a feminist issue, I see it as a humanist issue. People get raped, humans get raped.”
Thank you for bringing that up. I will offer my official redaction of that statement. I have changed my mind. I was just thinking about this the other day and I was wondering who was going to call me on it. I was wrong, I am one kind of woman, right. I am atypical for most women and I think we can all agree on that. I have spoken to a lot of other women about it, and they feel like rape culture is a feminist issue and it is uniquely female issue. Just because I don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It is like racism, in fact, I used to be a “I don’t see race” person and I have spoken to many people of color who changed my fucking mind. I talked to women about rape being a feminist issue and they changed my fucking mind. So, I officially redact that statement.
Because of what you do and who you are, what is your perspective on the #MeToo movement? What do you think they are doing: right or doing wrong? Is there good and bad to it?
What “bad” do you see?
People are having their feet held to the fire for things they did thirty years ago. I would use Al Franken as an example. What he did was not nice, yes, but should he have lost his job twenty years later when he has already proven that he is a better person now? Is that fair?
I think it is only good for everybody who gets accused of doing something wrong, no matter how late in the game, to be able to be accused of doing what they did wrong and change that about themselves and learn as a human being. We have classic examples of that in porn that involve stories too long to tell here, but Al Franken is a good example. Is he a great fucking guy? Absolutely. Did he do something wrong? Yes. Is he still accountable for it? Absolutely. It is unfortunate, because he is awesome, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t do what he did. What he did was systemic of the misogyny problem that we have in the US. I mean it is a global problem, but I am only aware of it where I live. I only see what I see every day, and we do have a problem and it needs to be addressed.
What do you think is good about the #MeToo movement?
I think everyone will get to be freed from the current horrible system that we live in. Women don’t like it. Men don’t like it. Nobody likes the way it is right now. People want to be free. Let’s be free.
Tell us about your new movie Bisexual Fantasies. What can we expect?
Yes! I am so excited. Alura Jensen is on the cover. I have a mad crush on Alura Jensen. She is my kind of lady. She is MILFy and super curvy. Oh yeah. All of the ladies in this movie had fantasies about doing bisexual porn scenes and I was able to fulfill that for them, which is why the title is Bisexual Fantasies. This is real-life fantasy fulfillment.
In regards to “bisexual,” you mean male-bisexual, not female-bisexual, correct?
Yes, when we label things… You know, fixing the misogyny issue is going to free men too. Because a lot of men want to experiment with other males and they are not able to because of repression in society. So, when we throw off all of these chains, it is going to free everybody. Men are going to be able to express themselves in ways that women have been encouraged to express themselves for years with no shame. I receive no shame if I express myself with another woman, but it is not the same way for men and that is not fair to men.
I ran into you getting interviews at the AVN Awards red carpet. Who were you getting interviews for?
I was working for VividRadio.com and Sirius XM 415 doing red carpet interviews for them. You can hear the interview there.
Evil Angel recently signed Aubrey Kate as their first trans contract star. Did you have anything to do with that?
I did. She is awesome. She is great to work with and it gives me an opportunity to shoot bigger, badder stuff with her. Our showcase movie, Aubrey Kate – TS Superstar, killed it. Now I want to explore different ideas and more creative film styles and sexual combinations with her. She is very involved in the filming process in a way a lot of other models aren’t.
I remember transsexual movies used to be strictly trans performers with men. Now we are seeing trans with women and trans with other trans. Do you think the different pairings appeal to different audiences?
I think there is a new emerging audience of trans viewers. Millennials and the next generations are going to consume trans pornography in a completely different way than older generations have previously.
After being in the industry for twenty years, you have seen the trends come and go and the advancements that have been made. What does the future hold for the adult industry?
We sit around and talk about that all the time. You know what I see overall is that the quality of pornography is going up and up and up. We are not slamming it together just to meet deadlines. Each project is special to every director and brand right now. Porn is a more special experience for the people who are in it, and make it, and view it.
I did not ask Aiden Starr if there was any other profession she would’ve liked to pursue, because it is evident that her career path was never in question. Even if she had tried to avoid it, the fates would have intervened and promptly put her right where she is now; right where she should be. And we are all better off for it.
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