Clarke Hayes

Sex and Society: A short visit to hell

The reality of the sex industry is no fantasy

issue 04 March 2006

Several years ago, in another lifetime it seems, I played a porn star. In fact I played the Pornstar, in a fairly successful little two-hand play called The Dyke and the Pornstar. The piece gained a deserved reputation for being daring, risqué, even provocative. It was described by one critic as being ‘artfully performed, and sexy as hell’ and it was nominated for something called a UK Freedom Award. (We didn’t win.)

Though it played unashamedly on the tactic of shock and awe, we in the company were often surprised that our appreciative, though often embarrassed, audiences overlooked the underlying theme of the piece — the loneliness and emotional fragility of the outwardly confident Pornstar, suffering the guilt attached to being a sex worker. Such was the general misunderstanding that I was often assumed to be a sex worker myself.

Even people who got the point assumed that I must have had at least some experience in the sex industry.

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