James Deen
Dear Readers,
First of all: No, this is not a misspelling in the heading. Secondly, please let me first explain why and about what I am going to write about. This article is not about the famous American movie actor from the 50s called James Dean. However, the person I am going to write about is also referred to as a „famous“ actor, but the movies starring James Deen are nothing like the ones portrayed by the other guy mentioned. The movies he plays in fit the genre of adult movies. Those of you who already find themselves disgusted by this words can, of course, leave this page. The others (whose interest I might have provoked) are welcomed to keep on reading. What brought me to this topic was a video of an interview in the online version of the Guardian. I was actually reading an article about immigration to Ireland for the second progress check as I saw this interview in the section „suggested videos“ on the right-hand side. (Interesting what the Guardian suggested to me as I had never visited their site before.) It was saying „Porn star James Deen: ,I don‘t consider myself someone who objectifies women‘ “. Of course I was interested in listening to that one – tell me, wouldn‘t you have clicked on it too?
What do you think about the interview and what do you think about him? Quite funny how relaxed this guy is talking about his „profession“. What is actually interesting to me is that he does not look like the „regular porn actor“. He is nothing like this hulks you might think of when thinking of porn – he is just a normal slim guy. He has got the looks, indeed, but still he depicts an average guy that could also be the guy next door, I would say. That is why Deen seems to have a lot of female „fans“.
It is also interesting to read through some of the comments people made about the interview. Some are rather serious, some are just pseudo-feministic and not making sense. One often mentioned opinion was something like: „Were‘s the problem with men objectifying women - women are objectifying men too.“ A funny comment came from a Guardian staff member. She wrote that the whole department was making fun of her colleague who gave a nod of assent and a cautious smile when Deen explained the reasons why he was against „measure B“ (a law set up making it mandatory for porn actors to wear condoms during their „work“): an above average sized penis and it would not work to shot the scenes with condom due to lack of durability of condoms and the time span a video has, blah blah.
For further reading I do recommend to you the following article of the GQ magazine*:
* from Wikipedia: GQ (originally Gentlemen's Quarterly) is an American monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books.
It was also recommended by the reporter who made the interview with James Deen. Here is why I consider it worth reading: It is actually a reportage of James Deen. I have never read a reportage in English before and I have to admit that I never did well on writing such a piece of text in the my German course in high school. It was fascinating how well the author did in this piece. He gives you a very close insight (sometimes even too close) in Deen‘s life. The reader is not just thrown into some weird kind of sex scene. Rather he took it slow and starts off with a portrait of him and his family conditions. Switching between interviews, facts, stories from Deen‘s past and the actual things „performed“ in front of the authors eyes makes it a lively text. The author himself, who had first been in great anticipation, was allowed to follow him on a whole „work day“. He was told Deen‘s life story and drove with him from one set to another. That actually means traveling long distances and turns out to be rather exhausting. Another funny aspect is that the author describes the sex scenes in detail at first, in the solely purpose of giving the reader a better understanding. Later on he does not want to describe the scenes any more because of pure disgust – well, he still does. Yet another fact I was surprised of was that Deen‘s parents were rocket scientists! („His father is a mechanical engineer for NASA. His mother does data analysis for the space agency.“) But I really do not want to give to much away. All in all, it is is great read, seems very neutral although there is some jargon used to describe the practices which I did not even try to look up in a dictionary (because you probably will not find it). The reportage is really worth reading.
At this point I have to say, though, that I somehow feel pity for James Deen. He emphasizes that he loves his job, but I just could not imagine that a guy like him can ever get intimate with someone anymore. After all he mentioned – if I remember correctly – that he once had sex with someone in private and did not really enjoy it, because there was no camera on. He was not feeling anything, he was just numb. Can you imagine that? That is very sad to me. However, it is his own decision what to do in with his live and if he likes it he can do whatever he wants. To put it in his words: „My life is pretty awesome!“
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I would like to point out that I would be glad to receive some opinions from you! Feel free to start a discussion. What do you think about the interview and the reportage? What do you think about James Deen? Does his statements about measure B and „objectifying women“ make sense to you?
