I make films about sex. I work with straight people, gay people, lesbian people. I don’t really care who sticks what where. I do care whether or not the people I work with are actually enjoying being with each other and being on camera. I’m not a good enough filmmaker to create the illusion of people enjoying themselves, I can only hope to capture it when it happens. To that end I work exclusively with people who have sexual relationships with each other when they’re off camera.

Some people call what I do porn. I pay people to have sex while I film them, so I suppose it is not an inaccurate description. Still, it’s a label I’m uncomforatble with. As a woman we worked with last weekend said, “Porn is so degrading to sex.” I couldn’t agree more, and I’d add that porn degrades filmmaking. I’m trying the best I can not to be degrading to sex or filmmaking.

Right now I’m in the middle of production of several scenes. We shot two last weekend here in New York, and have several more lined up for the middle of next month out in the Bay Area. I decided to start this blog because the process of organizing, shooting and editing these scenes makes me think too much about what it is I’m trying to do with this work, and a blog seems like it might be good place to vent, masticate and ponder.

When I was in school, most of my teachers encouraged the keeping of a journal as an adjunct to artmaking, a practice I’ve rejected for my entire professional life. Yet here I am, nearly twenty years later, journalling. Most of what my teachers tried to teach me has turned out to be true. You can add “keep a journal” to a long list of their good advice.