Dreamgirl Chapter 4: “I don’t think she remotely feels she’s done all the things she wants to do.”
Make it stand out
When I am with Casey, I think of a friend’s story, how he was once on Concorde and Keith Richards was the passenger seated next to him. Not wanting to gawp, he made sure never to look in Keith’s direction, which he found stressful for a long flight. Near the end, they ended up in terrible turbulence, so bad he was frightened they might die. At this point, Keith Richards poked my friend in the ribs and and said: “I’ve done everything!” But I don’t think that’s how Casey feels. Though she is serious about her ethical polyamory, her lovers she maintains in different cities, I don’t think she remotely feels she’s done all the things she wants to do.
I ask if she can feel an alternate reality where she pursued rock climbing instead of sex work.
“No, because the opportunity wasn't there. Making a living as a professional rock climber wasn't really a thing, especially that a woman did. Rock climbing is in the Olympics now. But not then. And so sponsorships are available and female rock climbers make money, do grand deals and become social media influencers.”
Then she smiles as she explains that one of the things that was advantageous in rock climbing, beyond her strong core and ability to focus microscopically on tasks in front of her, was her unusually small hands which could fit into crevices - and that this makes her particularly requested for fisting scenes, where she inserts her whole hand into a woman’s vagina.
Having, at 33, aged out of her days as “Best New Starlet”, she has directed many, many porn films at and is proud of her work. Contrary to the conventions of the industry, she cares deeply about the acting performances and the lighting. As a director, she has a particular aesthetic, such as not permitting her performers to wear fake nails or eyelash extensions.
“I feel comfortable giving very specific grooming instructions like that, because a lot of companies will give you very specific instruction in the opposite direction: “Please come with French nails”. “Please come with your hair extensions” and like all that stuff is just very common. This is my subconscious rebellion against the industry. My favourite scenes are when the persona cracks and you get some reality of a human.”
I know what she means: in a straw poll, the female performers who are favourites of women seem to elicit in their male counterparts a visible sense of shock that they are feeling a real feeling.
When Casey was nominated recently for Best Director at the “Porn Oscars”, she wore a green velvet Bella Freud suit which I enjoyed, not only because it covered her whole body when other women were mainly half-naked, but because the grand daughter of Sigmund Freud dressing a sex worker for glory makes good sense. Aren’t we all working out our issues through our kinks and our clothes? Even better, Casey had a fan pay for the suit. She’d come a long way, emotionally and stylistically, since she was nominated for Best New Starlet and spent her own $2000 on a Halston gown.
As our friendship expands, I see the ways I am influenced by Casey. A much older, extremely wealthy man who is romantically interested in me based purely on having read my memoir (my own version of nakedness) says he can’t invite me to stay with him when I visit New York because of his fiancee - but offers to wire $2000 to my account so I can get myself a nicer hotel.
I say “Yes” unflinchingly, and would not have without knowing Casey. The cash is in my account by the end of the day. I go to a nice hotel for the weekend and enjoy it very much.
“The female performers who are favourites of women seem to elicit in their male counterparts a visible sense of shock that they are feeling a real feeling.”
I have been terrible at drawing any boundaries whatsoever with my daughter’s father. But I find, getting to know Casey, I begin to experiment with casual lovers, practicing boundary making. When a new lover sends me a text post-coital that I do not like the shape of - it’s not an awful text it just wasn’t the response that I’d needed the next day - I cut things off with him. It happens again, with a new man, in the same two date span. I tell him the shape of the contact I require to keep seeing him. He says “Of course!” Then doesn’t do as requested. I politely cut things off.
What of my ex-boyfriend? Have I discarded him as young women are historically discarded in porn? Used him as a means to an end? He would certainly like a threesome with me and Casey, of this he has been extremely clear, the one clarity in our amorphous post relationship “relationship”. Erectile issues reversed like Tinkerbell coming back to life after being clapped for!
But I think of the source injury that led me to Casey: my boyfriend had been drawn to me because he thought I was a MILF (the acronym for Mother I’d Like To Fuck)- the third most viewed category in all of porn, an outsized role in adult entertainment. But when presented with a real human rendered vulnerable from repairing actual child bearing injury, he couldn’t deal. He has been, on the one hand, extremely generous to me about my friendship with his favourite porn star. But he also feels he deserves his threesome. A woman living out a man’s fantasy - bringing a porn star through the screen and into your life! - tells a different story. It becomes a woman’s personal growth moment - both mine and hers. Whereas what a man assumes it needs, bless him, is his dick.
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Emma Forrest is the author of four novels including Namedropper and Royals, and of the memoirs Your Voice In My Head and Busy Being Free (which she is currently adapting as television). She is the writer/director of ‘Untogether’ (2018), starring Jemima and Lola Kirke, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Emma began her writing career age 16, as a music journalist, at the height of Britpop. She finds it laughable, with age and distance, that Oasis were ever considered in the same league as Blur.
Casey Calvert is an award-winning adult director, writer, performer, and content creator. An eleven-year veteran of the industry, she won Director of the Year and Feature Movie of the Year at the 2023 "Golden Globes" of porn. Casey is constantly working to better integrate a more modern sensibility towards issues of mental health, polyamory/alternative relationship structures, and gender identity into her cinematic work. She currently resides in Los Angeles with her hastily-assembled terrier.