Porn Burnout

I have a confession. I’m really, really sick of pornography right now. Totally over it. I have no motivation, no interest and absolutely no good ideas. And it’s driving me a bit crazy.

I’ve been doing this for over fifteen years. Porn has been my life and my livelihood since 2000 and I’ve watched it grow and evolve and get steadily more crazy – and inclusive – as the years have gone on. I’ve loved being a part of it and contributing my own version into the mix, following my dream and creating something feminist and female friendly.

It’s just that right now I think I really need a break, if only for a little while.

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For The Girls is about to turn 12. We launched it on the 1st June 2003 and it’s still there, chugging along. My own personal site Bright Desire is now two and a half years old and it’s just won Best Website at the Feminist Porn Awards, an accolade I’ll admit I’ve wanted for a long time. I have created a feature film by myself and last month made it available online. I’ve also had my films shown at a bunch of festivals and I’ve also won a couple of awards here and there. In theory, I should be on top of the world.

My problem is that I’m feeling burnt out. I have a regular update schedule for Bright Desire to meet which means I need to put at least one new exclusive video on that site per month. And lately I feel like I’m not meeting my previous standards with my films. I’m scrambling just to get things shot and edited and I’m to the point that I’m settling for simple scenes, just so I can make my deadlines. My creativity is pretty crap right now. I really feel like my ideas are a bit dull, especially when I see some of the other amazing things that my colleagues are making. I can see film festival deadlines looming and I’m not sure I’ve got anything worthy to submit.

It’s been a huge job, getting Bright Desire up and running. And last year I did a huge amount of travelling for the site and for my feature. There wasn’t a lot of downtime. I think that’s starting to show.

The other thing is this: how many ways can you present sex and sexuality? How can you find new things to do with people fucking each other? After fifteen years I feel like I’ve seen everything and I’m damned if I can think of something original to do. At least, right now anyway.

I’m actually going to be filming in the coming week and I’m going to play with a couple of ideas and hopefully create something a bit different. But there’s also worry that they’re still not going to be good enough. There’s also a lack of motivation there, I feel stressed about these shoots, I’m not excited like I should be. If I didn’t have the deadline of Bright Desire I wouldn’t be making these films.

There’s also a million other jobs that need doing – upgrading sites, promoting my feature, general PR, film festival subs, writing reviews and columns, customer support, general maintenance… it’s all feeling a bit much. You’ll notice I haven’t blogged much this year and this is partly why. Add a recent bereavement and a huge amount of family drama (long blog post for later) and I’m finding it hard to get out of bed in the mornings.

I keep thinking about the idea of “long service leave”. In plenty of Australian jobs, if you stay with the one employer for ten years you get some extra time off. I feel like I need to give myself that time. I need a bit of breathing space to fire up my imagination again, to feel motivated again.

My problem is – I’m self employed and I have no-one to take over. If I want to take time off I need to work double time to line things up ahead of schedule so I can take a breather. And I don’t really feel motivated to do that extra work. I feel a bit stuck.

I’m considering asking one of my friends to do a “guest director” spot at BD for a month, just to create some space. I think this will help. And everything else might just have to wait. I’m really hoping if I can take a break I can continue to do this work. Because really, being a self-employed pornographer IS a good job, I pick my own hours, I pay myself well 🙂 So finding another career doesn’t feel like an option (even IF I could somehow find a job in the “normal” world).

Anyway, this is just a whinge. Had to get it off my chest and maybe explain why I’ve been a bit awol from things lately. I’m sure it’s just a temporary situation.