Joanna Angel

According to Joanna Angel, working as a porn star isn’t that much different from your average cubicle job. Odds are there’s more group sex mind you, but the hours run long and she gets more than her fair share of attention from government agencies. “They are just waiting for you to fuck up. [As a pornographer] you really need to be on top of your shit,” says the owner of BurningAngel.com. Check out what Angel had to say about celebrity sex tapes (one hundred thumbs down, Dustin Diamond), politics, and how porn saved her from trying to figure out a way to use her college degree. If only we all got so lucky.

Complex: Pornstar mustache, is it a good thing or bad?
Joanna Angel: I guess it depends who it’s on. A mustache when combined with other things can either be kind of cute and ironic or it can be really creepy and pedophile-looking. But I’ll be honest, I know most of the guys in this industry and I see a lot of them on a regular basis and not many of them have mustaches. I think a lot of people have an impression of porn that’s frozen in time back in the 70s. There really aren’t that many guys like that now.

C: Does making porn give you a feeling of empowerment or is that all a bunch of feminist claptrap?
Joanna Angel: Well, you know, I think it does give me some sense of empowerment although I think that I would have been able to find this empowerment no matter what I was doing. And I think a lot of other girls… I don’t know. I’m a director and I own my own company. And that’s a sense of empowerment. Let’s say I started a clothing company instead of just working at a clothing store. I think I have a sense of empowerment because even though what I’m doing is porn I’ve worked hard at what I’m doing and I’ve managed to succeed.

C: What about you as a porn star? Does acting in these movies give you a sense of power?
Joanna Angel: I think women have a shitload of power in porn. Sometimes they just don’t know how to use it properly, you know? Girls have the name in porn. And it’s very easy to do anything once you have that name. A girl can very easily start her own web site or production company, it’s just a matter of actually doing it. And a guy, if he says, ‘I want to start making porn,’ and let’s say he has some amount of money and he’s starting from scratch. He’s going to have a much harder time getting things started. Since you already have a name people will seek you out. Ron Jeremy is like a celebrity and stuff but I don’t think any other guy is like that, and he has to try really hard.