Former Porn Actress Jan Meza interviewed on JMC Live [an excerpt]

Former Porn Actress Jan Meza interviewed on JMC Live

[an excerpt]

(starting point, est. 9 minutes, 43 seconds)

[To get through porn performing and prostituting] I put my subconscious on a shelf. I just didn’t even think about it. That was the only way to get through it, [it] was pure survival mode. … . It was just something that was innate, it was in my nature to survive no matter what, and to provide for my children no matter what. I didn’t want to become a victim of The State, I didn’t want to end up in a homeless shelter. I didn’t want to experience those things that I had experienced as a child. And I was willing to do anything and everything, obviously, to make sure that that didn’t happen. … My journey into the porn industry was justified by my desperation to feed my children, that was the bottom line, I was desperate.

When I got into the porn industry I had no idea of the type of monster I was about to enter into. There was no formal education about the industry. There was no Free Speech Coalition there to protect me, protect my rights, and explain the porn industry and how it works. The Adult Medical, AIM as it was, was a complete joke. I mean, they gave me such a false sense of security as to what I was going to be tested for and what I was going to be exposed to that I just really had no clue. And I am an intelligent woman. I’m not going to say that I was totally naïve. Yeah, I knew that I was going to be selling my body for money on film but I had no idea about the different amounts of abuse(s) that goes on behind the scene(s). I didn’t know about the emotional, and mental, and physical abuse that went on behind the scene(s).

I got into the porn industry and it was crazy. I had to constantly be this character. This demonic Elizabeth Rollings. I lost sight of Jan Meza, I lost sight of who she really was. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I wasn’t a good parent, I wasn’t a good mother in the form of being there for my kids even though I justified what I was doing in order to take care of them. I was constantly driving from Las Vegas to California in order to do films and sometimes I would fly to New York and other states. Basically wherever the money was is where I went. And I just lost track of days and times, and started going into parties and then you have to spend all the money that you get on living up to this persona that everybody thinks you’re supposed to be; this glamorous lifestyle that doesn’t exist.

Porn is not glamorous. It’s not some great fantasy lifestyle that you’re living. It’s hell, it’s hell on Earth. Producers started using me, they wanted me to have sex with them …, the agents wanted me to have sex with them …, it was all just a big game to them. They didn’t care [about] the destruction that they were wreaking in your life. They didn’t care what you went through personally, as long as they made a dollar off of you, that was all they cared about. Their bottom line was that you were bringing them in money and the minute that you started giving them a hard time about that, or standing up for your rights, or saying, ‘But, isn’t this the way that you should be treating me?’, you’re out, you were blacklisted and you were never going to be able to work again. And to any girl who’s desperate for money, especially if she’s a single mom, you’re going to want to keep making those paychecks.

And so, it just came to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore. I was numb. I was void. I was tired. I didn’t know if I was Elizabeth Rollings or Jan Meza, from one day to the next and so I just started drinking, and smoking pot, taking painkillers. … It’s not like drugs and alcohol are ever hard to come by [in the porn industry]. [Porn] producers and agents always have it ready on the set. As soon as I got there, ‘Oh, do you need something to drink?’, ‘Do you need some bud?’, ‘What do you need? What do you need to relax?’. And they also use that as a tool to get more scenes out of the girl(s).

A lot of the time they [porn producers] tell you that you’re going to go to the scene to do just, like, a simple boy-girl. You get there and it’s some kind of hardcore, anal, gang-bang. And if you don’t do it, guess what? You’re not going to get paid. So any girl who wants that money, again, she’s going to do what they’re telling her to.

… They want to keep their abuses secretive. People only see that 30 to 40 minute finished product. They don’t see the 3 to 4 hours that goes on behind the scenes and what these girls are physically and mentally and emotionally having to go through, and sometimes the men too, in order to make this money.

… I have never once, in my entire time in the [porn] industry, had an orgasm. It’s all fake. There’s scenes that they call squirter scenes, it’s just so, um, – fake, in the industry, I mean, that’s all the industry is. It’s a fake, made-up, lie in order to make money. People do not care, people in the porn industry: the producers, the agents, the companies, they do not care about human value. They don’t care about the pornstars, they don’t care about the porn actors, they don’t care about the porn addict. All they care about is that you’re making them money. They don’t care [about] what porn does to a person’s life.

There were so many times where I was in pain and the producer would actually just stop the scene and say, ‘Okay, look. We don’t need you to show that you’re in pain. We need you to make it more believable. We need you to make it so that people know you’re enjoying yourself. So, instead of saying ‘Ow’ or stopping the scene, just moan harder, just moan louder.’ And any kind of safeword that anybody thinks you can use in the porn industry is a total lie too. There is no safewords [in porn], they will just keep rolling* (i.e: filming*), they don’t care how much pain you’re in. They don’t care if they split you. They don’t care if they cut you, if they bruise you. They don’t care what happens to you. You’re nothing but a product to them. And they’re going to just keep using that product until it’s no good anymore.

… [In the porn industry] You’re a slave. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. There’s no easier way of saying it. You’re nothing more than a slave. Everybody has a price on their head, some people get paid more, some people get paid less. You’re not a person, you have no real name. You’re just an object, you’re just that point of fantasy that people can relate to but it’s not real. These porn addicts don’t understand what these people are going through and they don’t care because all they care about is what they see and believe on camera to be real, and it’s far from the truth.

… What started as [my] breaking point was the gang-bang scene that I did. I did a 25-guy gang-bang scene, and people right away would be like, ‘Oh my god, holy crap! I would never allow myself to be put through that.’ But I was so far gone already into alcohol and drugs and wanting to numb out and void myself of the lifestyle that I was living, the job that I had because, I mean, it is a job. When the agent and producer came to me, approached me, about the movie they basically played it off as like, ‘Look, you’re going to get $4,000 to do the scene. We’re going to pay you this money, but you’re not going to actually have to sleep with all 25 guys.’ And then the preparation that I actually had to go through for this scene; I didn’t know what to expect because I had never before done anything like that, especially not in my private life even though I was married before.

[In preparation for the gang-bang scene] I had to cleanse my body. So basically I just kept taking colon cleansers. I didn’t eat, I just kept drinking alcohol. I just wanted to numb myself completely. I got completely high. And what’s so funny about the porn industry is that they will film you and they will ask you if you are well aware of what you’re about to participate in, and every single person, of course, is going to say ‘Yes.’ But I guarantee you, at least 90% of those people that say ‘Yes’ are high, or doped up on something, or have been drinking, or have no idea where they’re even at that day.

When I got there [for filming] the producer basically told me, ‘Well, I know I said you weren’t going to have to sleep with these guys, but we’re just going to make it look good.’ And they just kept saying that, ‘We’re going to make it look good.’ He told the guys to, ‘You’re going to respect her,’ and all this other stuff, ‘When she says stop, just stop.’ But nobody did.

… After the scene is done and I’ve just slept with 25 guys, and I’ve been hit, I’ve been punched, I’ve been slapped around, my hair is crazy, and I am miserable, I am in pain even being high. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. All these guys are coming up to me saying, can they take their picture with me. And I’m like, okay, wait a minute: So here I am laying in body fluids, covered from head-to-toe, and these guys are coming up to me, these so-called professionals who have been in the industry for so long are coming up to me and asking me for my picture and I’m like, ‘Why?’ Well, I come to find out, after the scene, that these guys, most of them, weren’t actually people who had worked in the industry, they weren’t employees. They were people who had been answering an ad to come and sleep with their favorite pornstar, and I was devastated. I mean, devastated isn’t even the right word. I was petrified because I’m thinking, oh-my-god, what did I just get? That was my first thought, ‘Did I just get AIDS?’, ‘What did I just open myself up to?’ because I trusted this agent and this porn company to do their jobs and to protect me like they said they were going to. Who knows, I mean, that’s probably the day that I did get herpes, but thank God it wasn’t something worse. And that was the breaking point for me.

I couldn’t go to the bathroom right after that for like, two weeks. I couldn’t even walk right. I didn’t even want to get out of bed for the next couple of days. I didn’t want to move. I was just sick to my stomach of what just had happened.

(excerpt ending point, est. 24 minutes, 8 seconds)

From (ex)Gynocraticgrrl