Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9781558613348
Publication date: 10-08-24

For porn stars, “coming out” is a process that never ends.

To the uninitiated, the idea of a career in the adult film industry may come with stigma that porn performers and sex workers have long fought to shake off. For many, that fight begins with one awkward conversation. 

When Coming Out Like a Porn Star was first published in 2015, it garnered cult status as an anthology of candidly intimate essays by diverse adult industry professionals and icons, relating the pain, pride, and surprises that accompanied their experiences coming out about their work. This updated edition includes new essays that explore issues transforming the modern porn field: deepfakes, AI, and OnlyFans; the inequity and fetishization faced by Black, Muslim, queer, disabled, and other marginalized performers; and the everyday, ever-evolving legal injustices compromising sex workers’ rights to live, earn, and bank.

Edited by veteran industry professional Jiz Lee, and featuring a new foreword by Samantha Cole, the second edition of Coming Out Like a Porn Star continues to celebrate the rich and varied voices of the adult industry, offering a panoramic view of the world of sex work that has been described in recent years by Melissa Febos, Margo Steines, Charlotte Shane, and Michelle Tea. New contributors include Arabelle Raphael, Jessica Starling, Jet Setting Jasmine, King Noire, Maria Riot, Sinnamon Love, Siri Dahl, and Tyler Knight.

“Powerful.” —Alta

“Groundbreaking.” —them

“Someone you love is a sex worker. Part coming out stories, part critique of a culture that expects people to ‘come out’ about the jobs they do, this is a stunning record of how porn workers make their living and what that means for how they move in the world.” —Heather Berg, author of Porn Work

“This book delivers puta theory with a revolutionary punch. Revised and expanded to engage the changing tech landscape of porn and politics, it remains an essential tool for learning, teaching, and organizing for liberation.” —Juana María Rodríguez, author of Puta Life

“Porn performers are constantly looked at, but rarely actually seen. This collection humanizes the adult industry in ways you can’t escape. A much-needed reminder that porn people are people.” —Madita Oeming, author of PORN

“Coming Out Like a Porn Star is a fascinating compendium of how the lives of the people who enter the erotic entertainment industry can change, from the effects such a revelation can have on a person’s family and friends, to the legal obstacles that may put a performer, director, or producer in danger of violation of obscenity laws that no one can tell they’re violating short of a court trial, to impacts such a revelation may have on whatever activities the person may engage in that are not porn-related—mainstream jobs, romances, parental/sibling relationships, etc.—and how they dealt with them, sometimes in great detail. The contributors to this volume, some of whom are world-renowned, lay out all the joys and shortcomings of their involvement in erotica in fascinating, very personal detail, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s a must-read.” —Mark Kernes, author of Preachers vs. Porn

“There’s no substitute for listening to actual sex workers. Their ability to process and recount lived experiences, their individual and collective wisdom, survival skills, passion for activism and mutual aid, and capacity for extremely smart self-reflection would be exemplary for any group of professionals, let alone one that does all this while mainstream/bourgeois/polite society continues trying to marginalize and stigmatize them. With Coming Out Like a Porn Star, Jiz Lee has compiled the most important collection of essays by contemporary adult content professionals, telling it like it is. This updated edition adds necessary layers to its account of a business that is—famously—constantly changing at the speed of technology. Nobody should presume to speak about the complicated topic of pornography without at least considering the rich diversity of experience and thought contained in this book.” —Gustavo Turner, news editor at XBIZ

“Groundbreaking, nuanced, and necessary. Jiz Lee’s Coming Out Like a Porn Star is one of the most important collections of sex worker writing and theorizing ever to be published.” —Lynn Comella, author of Vibrator Nation

“Essays from those who bare it all, exploring the joys and risks of sharing our secret selves with those we love in order to love them better. Along the way, these stories reveal what it means to be fully, bravely, gorgeously human.” —Lola Davina, author of Thriving in Sex Work

Praise for the First Edition of Coming Out Like a Porn Star

“[Coming Out Like a Porn Star] seeks to share an honest portrait of porn.” —VICE

“These intimate, often funny, deftly expressed accounts are told from a range of generations, genders, and races, and include personal experiences from the late feminist porn pioneer Candida Royalle, legends Nina Hartley and Annie Sprinkle, and sexuality bloggers Conner Habib and Stoya.” —The New Inquiry

“A manifesto, a reclamation by Lee of the role of porn as a positive artistic form.” —Salon.com

“Lee’s collection of essays offers a nuanced, heartfelt, and incredibly honest look at what it means to come to terms with a highly public, incredibly sexual identity within the bounds of one’s private life.” ―Lux Alptraum, former editor/publisher, Fleshbot.com

“Reveals the fascinating, funny, and sometimes brutal stories of performers in the adult entertainment business.” —Dazed