Dana DeArmond

The world of adult film has many corridors, veering off into many different directions. Every fetish and fantasy is addressed, focusing on body parts from head to toe, and almost all manners of behavior. Until recently, though, there was a certain sameness to it all, rooted in the style that came about when video was born. Many casual viewers are familiar with that style: girls with blonde hair and artificially enhanced breasts, in cheesy settings, where pizza delivery boys and pool cleaners are seduced. Over the course of a few decades the settings are at times much classier (a lot of adult films are shot in fancy LA-area mansions) but even the flimsiest of plots have been axed. Gonzo porn (which means there is no plot at all) used to be a novelty, but now it seems the norm.

And so, in answer to that, a new style has emerged over the past few years, called "alt-porn." It is mostly shot on film, with a gritty, punk aesthetic. The girls and guys look different--no fake boobs, no bleached blonde hair. There are however, lots and lots of tattoos and piercings. In an attempt to get more young people and women interested in porn, Vivid, one of the largest adult film companies in the world, has a line called Vivid-Alt, and produce much of this new style. The main performers are women like Joanna Angel, and a woman I've just discovered, Dana DeArmond.

DeArmond is very different from most adult-film performers. For one thing, she just turned 28, which is an age when most porn chicks have long retired. A former fetish model, she's been making films for a couple of years and has a few dozen titles, much of which is typical stuff, but she has also done a few for Vivid-Alt that bear a distinct stamp. I saw two of them recently, Girls Lie and Dana DeArmond Does the Internet.

Girls Lie was directed by Eon McKai, perhaps the most prominent director of alt-porn. In a series of vignettes it tells the stories of girls who, well, lie. There are scenes set in places where many guys my age would never want to set foot, like a meth lab in suburban LA, and the back room of a punk club. The performers are splattered with tattoos, which I don't much mind (DeArmond has only one, a cluster of strawberries--or are they cherries?--where her pubic patch would ordinarily be) but the piercings can be a bit much. DeArmond has one in her "taint," while the guys have them in areas where no sharp object should be introduced.

In Dana DeArmond Does the Internet, we get a look at what her life is like. She says she is shy, and socially awkward, and also is "Straight Edge." I had to look that one up, and find that it a lifestyle that is an off-shoot of punk that abstains from alcohol and drugs. Some Straight Edge folks also do without promiscuous sex, but clearly DeArmond doesn't follow that dictum.

What is most interesting about this DVD is the Behind the Scenes footage. DeArmond relates how important this film is to her, and how passionate she is about making the kind of porn that will change the industry. At a few points she gets teary-eyed, and it's easy to see that even in this shadow art form, there are people who care about what they are doing just as much as musicians, dancers, writers, etc.