Aria Interview

After spending a few hours on Ron Spallone’s set Tuesday, I drove a mile up Ventura Blvd to Woodland Hills to get a long massage from Keri (www.humblebodyworks@mac.com), who used to go by the porn name Aria. Then I interviewed her for 80 minutes. Here’s the audio. Aria Interview Video
Prior to two weeks ago, I had not communicated with Aria for two years though we were always friendly while she was in the industry. As a child, Keri wanted to grow up to become married and a mother. "I didn’t think about a job." She began dating at age 15. She lost her virginity shortly before turning 18. Then she began going to clubs regularly and drinking. She had a sexual relationship with a couple. A friend in Florida, Jack Spade (Jeremy Doudna), sent her a plane ticket to come to Florida. They married June 12, 1999. She was 22. They were church-going Christians. Keri confessed her threesome to Jeremy (six years older) who got excited about it and decided they should visit the couple. On the trip, Keri won an amateur night at a strip club and earned $500. The Doudnas were behind on their bills. Keri decided to strip most nights of the week. Then she did a porn film in Tampa in 2001 and another 300 or so over the next four years. Keri quit porn on April 1, 2005. Luke: "What allowed you to do porn?" Keri: "The ability to separate my emotions (and morals) from my actions… It’s like you’re playing a character. It’s not you. It’s not healthy but it’s the only way to do it." Luke: "The first time porn was raised to you as a possibility, what went through your mind?" Keri: "I thought I was going to throw up and then I was heart-broken that the person I had vowed my life to and the person who told me he’d love me till I died would ask me to do such a thing." "’There’s no other way. We can’t pay our bills. We’re going to lose the house.’ I was a young newlywed. I knew better but I allowed him to be the man of the house and make a decision." "After I started in the business, I couldn’t go to church. How can you stand before God?" "The fourth movie I shot was on Playboy in three months. I looked horrible. Everybody back home found out from that one video." "I lost everything because of the business. My husband and I got divorced. I had nothing…after five years in the industry. I wanted my life back. I wanted my relationship with God back. I wanted to call my family and not feel like I had to keep my conversations brief in case they asked about work. I wanted to have a real relationship." Luke: "What did you do with that $250,000 a year you made in the industry?" Keri: "I paid for my ex-husband’s girlfriend’s abortion. Bail. Attorney fees. Divorce. The computer. I have no idea. I’ve got some cool clothes. My ex-husband would say, ‘You have to have the best computer. You have to have the newest phone. You have to set an image. You have to dress a certain way and act a certain way. You have to have nice cars. You have to pay a trainer $1,500 a month. You have to have a personal assistant at $4,000 a month to get your groceries. Let’s build a website. I don’t like it. Let’s build another one. So let’s pay this person $5,000 to build it and let’s pay this person to run it. "It’s all gone and I still owe money to the IRS." Luke: "Some parents are so supportive of their daughter’s porn career that they help manage it. What do you think of that?" Keri: "It’s disgusting. It’s so bad. It’s sick. I don’t understand that. How can you go on set and watch your daughter get screwed by some stranger and say, ‘That’s my girl. She just got a thousand dollars. Yay. She’s going to go to college.’ "That tells us where our society is going. Next the dad jumps in. ‘OK, we’re going to do a little father-daughter action." "I think the parents need some psychological evaluation." Luke: "What’s it like having a spouse who’s working in porn?" Keri: "I was the person who was working. He spent his time working on my career. Some would call him a suitcase pimp." "I would get home from work, exhausted, and the first thing out of his mouth was, ‘We need $10,000 by Friday.’ We’ve got a stack of bills due. Why didn’t you call this person? Why don’t you want to have sex with me?’ "What? How about a glass of wine? Rub my feet. Light some damn candles. And kiss my ass. "Women are emotional creatures. My emotions were removed all day at work. When I got home, I wanted to detach myself from work and let my emotional side get a break. And I’d get home and I’d have to stay in character. "My emotional needs were not getting looked at, which is why he ended up getting a girlfriend [Becca Brat]." Keri has been with Lee Stone, 39, for most of the past three years. Keri: "In my current situation it’s difficult. When I was still performing, I was dating him, but now I’m out of the business and he’s not. He’s trying to be out. It’s baby steps. I emotionally detached myself during scenes and so does he but it’s not easy to deal with." Luke: "How much would you want to have sex with your husband when having sex was your job?" Keri: "Not much. The last time we had sex was on camera. It was a horrible scene." Luke: "How should society deal with the sex industry?" Keri: "They should make it more difficult. I feel bad saying, ‘Shut down the porn business!’ It’s me turning my back on people I’m still friends with. Morally, I think they should go after the porn industry with all they’ve got and try to shut it down." "Immorality is never going to go away but it is society’s job to try to protect the people from it. We’re our own worst enemy." "Porn is very addictive. It doesn’t just go away. It’s unhealthy to show it to anybody." "In my church, we have a sexual recovery group. Much of it is for guys who struggle with internet porn… When it is that out there, when you push it in someone’s face, it’s dangerous. It breaks up marriages. It ruins relationships. It ruins men’s self-esteem. It makes them curious and then they turn to transsexuals and animals and children. Once they don’t get high any more, they have to push it further." Luke: "How would you feel if your daughter went to work for Max Hardcore?" Keri: "I’d love to say that I’d shoot Max Hardcore but truthfully I probably would because I do like guns." Luke: "If your daughter was driving drunk, would you call the police?" Keri: "I totally would." Luke: "What percentage of porn stars do you think are happy?" Keri: "None… I think that deep down inside, they feel an emptiness… You can look back and read interviews that I did about how much I loved sex and loved the business and I had so much fun and I was this wild crazy creature. All I think about is sex. Whatever. It’s a crock. "It’s not all I think about. I think about God and a good pure relationship with a man and I think about my family and I think about having children and how my life is going to effect my children. And when you think about those things, you stop and think, wow, this business sucks. How would I feel if my 14 year old daughter found out I was a porn star when I was in my twenties? How is that going to effect her and effect her friends and the way they look at her? "It’s not a natural normal business and there’s no way to be happy in that business." "I would play a character but a lot of it was how I am. I just put my morality and emotions on the shelf. "There were times I got emotionally attached, like with the guy I’m seeing now. We got emotionally attached while we were both working in the business. So our scenes on camera were intense. "During oral, I had orgasms a couple of times on camera but only with the guy I’m dating. He was the only one I’d let myself go with." "I go to a casual laid-back church. I tell anyone who I feel needs to know. I’m open with people at church. This is my testimony. This is what I used to do. So far, there’ s been nobody that’s had a problem." "I had just retired from the Adult industry and the greeter at the door [at church] said, ‘Are you and Lee [Stone] still doing that show on Spice TV? You’re my favorite porn star. You and Lee have the best show on TV. What happened?’ I’m like, ‘Can I have my bulletin? This is church.’ "He did it again a couple of weeks later. He asked me something that appalled me. I asked the pastor to have him removed as a greeter." "My dad has people pray every Sunday [at his tiny conservative church] for Aria. He doesn’t say who it is. Even though I’m not Aria anymore. He just prays for that whole part of my life." "I still struggle with purity. Because I’ve had so much sex, it’s hard for me to go cold turkey." Aria says the place for sex is within marriage. "I never felt I was emotionally unhealthy. I just thought I was pretending to be something that I wasn’t. I was spiritually unhealthy." "I was a freak. You said you wanted to post all the old stories on me and I said that I’d rather that you didn’t because it’s not who I am. It’s not who I was. It was how I portrayed myself to be. I don’t want to be remembered that way." "I think I did pretty good at what I did. I look back at interviews and I don’t even know who that person was. A total nympho, going to parties. There are pictures of me making out with girls on the dance floor, skirt flipped up, tongue down people’s throats, running around with a strap-on in a bar…" "They’re trying to justify it in their own minds. They’re trying to convince you that they’re doing it for a cause. That there’s a reason. They don’t want to just say that they’re doing it for the money. Yeah, it is totally wrong. It’s immoral. Yeah, I’m a freak. "They want to feel like they are doing something for somebody. That there’s something good that’s going to come out of it but there’s not." "I don’t believe people need sex educators. They’re just looking for more gratification, for a release. Focus on something important. Sex is not the most important thing in life." "When we [porn stars] get on TV, it’s for something dumb. I’ve never gotten on TV except for porn (and once for a fitness competition)." "[Porn] is legal but it is not moral." Aria says there’ s no difference between porn and prostitution. "It’s the same sin." Luke: "Porn stars are prostitutes without shame." Aria: "Yeah. We justify it by saying we’re all tested and we’re all family. It’s comfortable. You go on set and you know everyone. For a year in the business, I only worked with my boyfriend." "We just make excuses because when you’re in the business, you don’t want to go, ‘I’m a high dollar whore except we shoot on video.’ Nobody wants to feel that way. It makes them feel more important, more like a star…as opposed to being a sex actor." "When I was in the business, I didn’t really talk to people about sex. I have a lot of acquaintances but I have very few friends. I don’t have time." Luke: Do your friends in the industry have trouble relating to you now that you’re out of the industry? Keri: "I don’t think so. They just don’t want me to judge them. One guy tells me he’s going to do a porno and he’s going to play Jesus and he’s going to have Mary Magdalene… I got so mad at him. Bastard. I’m sorry. I still have problem swearing. He knew he was pushing my buttons. That makes me mad. I stormed into the house. He just thinks it’s funny." Bob writes: "I wanted to let you know that I think the interview with Aria is just an amazing piece of work. I’ve been watching the clips, as opposed to reading the writeup, and it feels as if she really wanted to talk honestly about her life in porn, and her life out of porn. She comes across as such a decent and intelligent woman; I think any 18-year-old deciding whether to enter porn ought to be forced to watch this and think twice."