Stormy Daniels: All-American Hero
By Laura Helen Marks
As a scholar of porn (and a lady scholar of porn, at that), I often get asked how I got into this line of research. In fact, I wrote an article about it chronicling my adventures. Invariably, when explaining my journey, a name comes up: Stormy Daniels. For, I had the privilege of doing my PhD at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA. Having arrived from England, still recovering from a 20 year stint as an anti-porn feminist (a stint that I suspect many a British feminist has endured, sort of like a pilgrimage), and wide-eyed in the face of a rich and complex world of pornography ripe for exploration, I was excited to learn that a rather impressive pornographer—a writer, director, performer, and a woman no less—was from right there in Baton Rouge.
I quickly developed quite the Stormy library, and finally had the opportunity to see her feature dancing at the Penthouse Club in New Orleans. It was here we first spoke and I first saw her dynamic stage routine (in this case, she was Bride of Frankenstein, rising from death in a white wedding dress to the tunes of Alice Cooper’s “Feed My Frankenstein.” It was as awesome as it sounds). Many years, many Gold Club visits, many chats, many signed DVDs, and many $20 Polaroids later, I awoke to find Stormy in the headlines and all of a sudden everyone, from my students to my parents, wanted to know about this Stormy Daniels person.
Those who are familiar with Stormy’s talents are likely unsurprised by her embarking on a spoken word comedy tour. Stormy is careful to distinguish what she does from stand-up comedy, noting that she “didn’t want to step on any toes.” She doesn’t do stand-up, and doesn’t even call it a comedy tour, yet porn and comedy have long enjoyed a symbiotic relationship. Aside from the integral place of humor in porn, several porn performers (most recently Missy Martinez, Alia Janine, and Sovereign Syre) have dabbled in stand up. Stormy herself is the writer and director of several comedic films and was involved in a couple of Judd Apatow movies, too. For An Evening With Stormy Daniels, however, Stormy simply goes out on stage without a script and lets things unfold spontaneously. She starts with some prepared material but quickly hands the show over to audience questions. We write the questions on cards and turn them over to Stormy who, rather bravely, picks cards at random and reads them out. In this way, the audience shapes the show. Still, there is never any doubt about who is really in control.
Stormy offers two reasons for this latest tour. First, she spent ten years writing her memoir, filling it with funny stories about her life, but once the Trump story came out, her funny stories got the boot in favor of dirt on the President. Second, she is “getting old.” This last part is said with a smile, and indeed age comes up in the show as a source of self-deprecating amusement. In reference to performing sex on camera, Stormy mutters, “Fuck you HD DVD,” and yet from where I’m sitting, Stormy isn’t ageing out of anything. She is gorgeous. Still, she is a savvy businesswoman, keen to anticipate and fend off any cheap attacks on her 30-something status, while also keeping an eye on new income-generating projects if and when she decides she is too old for this shit.
A significant difference for Stormy pre- and post-Trump is her audience. Whereas in the past her audience was made up of middle-aged men, she explains, now she finds herself dancing and speaking before crowds of liberal women and LGBT folks. She takes this in stride. Still, this new audience leads to a drawback in this format, one that I hadn’t considered but that Stormy is surely used to by now. Many of those posing the questions have little to no knowledge of her multi-faceted career. They are fans of her tweets and her strength in standing up to a bully. This is perhaps no surprise, but I assumed the majority of the audience (especially those slinging question cards onto the stage) would have some familiarity with her post-Trump interviews and the substantial press coverage of the more salacious elements of her book, if not the book itself. I was wrong. In between interesting and fresh questions, Stormy has to go through the same questions about Trump’s dick—questions answered (in great detail) in her memoir, and meditated over by the press. Her irritation at this blatant admission that hardly anyone had read her book (“you can grab a copy right over there!”) is more than understandable. Stormy has a lot more to offer than descriptions of Trump’s cock. She is a writer, a director, a mother, an equestrian eventer, and a fighter. Her life story is a fascinating one. Even if questions tend to circulate around the President (why wouldn’t they?), I had hopes for questions with a bit more substance.
Thank goodness, then, that Stormy is such a pro when it comes to dealing with the public. Quick, biting, and self-deprecating as ever, she lights up the stage even when rolling her eyes at the question cards. Holding her diamanté encrusted mic and wrapped in a tight red satin dress, Stormy is glowing. And not all of the audience questions were lame ducks. Questions about her Wicked Pictures co-stars generate some fond reflections, and a question about which mainstream male star could cut it in porn prompts the one real eyebrow raising moment—“Jason Segal—he has no problem pulling his dick out.” At one point, both Stormy and the packed crowd fell into fits of laughter as she read from the card, “How big were your bangs the last time you were at Cortana Mall?” Moments like this—filled with authentic, spontaneous mirth and affection—demonstrated the potential of such a set up for someone as endearing and sharp as Stormy.
Stormy’s politics remain opaque to many onlookers (she is a registered Republican, fyi). When the inevitable #MeToo question comes up, Stormy meets it with a dismissive, “I have to buy my own drinks now and open doors. Yeah, not a fan…” When I mention to her that, amongst my friends, one question above all others came up as a must to ask Stormy, Stormy cuts me off with a laugh and guesses, “Donald Trump’s cock?” No, I interject. In fact, none of my questions relate to our President. The question my friends and colleagues were most eager for me to ask revolved around Stormy’s feelings about feminism. Back in 2005, Carly Milne’s anthology of personal essays, Naked Ambition: Women Who Are Changing Pornography, was published. Stormy had a featured essay, in which she makes several statements that amount to a feminist analysis of porn. “The adult business is run by men,” she observes, “but it’s women that sell the tapes. And I’m not trying to sound sexist, but I want my part.” I remember being disappointed to read, just two sentences later, her assertion, “I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, but there are things that I’m good at that my boyfriend or my husband isn’t as good at. But it shouldn’t matter if I’m a man or a woman. I understand that I have to prove myself, but I’m also going to say, ‘Ha! Take that!’ at the same time. […] The more that female directors step up and do their thing, the more of us will have the opportunity to follow suit.” At the time, I took issue with what seemed to be, on the one hand, a misunderstanding of feminism and on the other hand, a clear feminist approach to porn. This seeming incongruity has subsequently been repeated in various contexts, with Stormy denying identification with feminism even as she appears to espouse feminist values. In this conversation, however, she seems more open to the F-word, acknowledging that feminism is a broader set of ideologies than perhaps it has been in the past. As she puts it, “the meaning of the word has changed, I haven’t.” Furthermore, when I suggest that, historically, feminists have been less than kind to those working in the industry, Stormy nods enthusiastically. Indeed, it is quite understandable that a sex worker might reject the label “feminist,” when so-called feminists are often their greatest foe.
On the subject of sex workers, I ask if Stormy considers herself part of the burgeoning sex workers rights movement, a movement that is decades (centuries in fact) old, but that over the past ten years has really gathered steam. Considering the highly public platform she has found herself on, does she feel a sense of responsibility? Yes, she says, she does. She supports it, and yet, she remarks, “I don’t want to bandwagon.” She recognizes her place within the sex work community, but isn’t about to hop on a cause and take over just because she has suddenly become globally famous. With veteran sex worker rights activist, Siouxsie Q, by her side nodding vigorously, Stormy’s sentiments can only be taken as authentic, wisely cautious, and grounded in deference to those who have risked their livelihoods to fight for sex worker rights. With Stormy in the spotlight, championing their efforts from the sidelines, sex worker rights will benefit.
A major new project she is helping to coordinate is Storm the Vote, a bipartisan initiative designed to register voters and thus create a political landscape more representative of the American public. Sex workers rights are uppermost in organizer Siouxsie Q’s mind. There are allies across the country, Siouxsie tells me, but “we need a way for sex workers to be heard. Stormy is it.” Moreover, recent polls suggest that a majority of voters are in favor of decriminalizing sex work, but very few potential voters actually vote. “We have to build a base of voters in order to change laws,” Siouxsie asserts. “With Storm the Vote, we’re having a blast and saving democracy.”
With these new projects on the horizon, I was interested to know how she thought about her legacy. Her proudest achievement has nothing to do with porn, the President, or dressage. “My daughter,” she states firmly and without hesitation. In terms of her adult industry work, she tells me her legacy will be that she was the longest running contract performer and the second highest paid adult film director in history. With the radical shift in how the industry operates, savaged by piracy and tube sites, Stormy’s legacy comes into even greater relief. She is aware of these shifts and feels conflicted. As a performer, she has positive feelings about the greater agency afforded by sites such as clips4sale and OnlyFans. As a director and producer, she feels the industry has irrevocably changed for the worse, adding, “fuck piracy.” When I ask about the disappearance of the contract performer, she offers a melancholy smile. “Yes, I’m nostalgic,” she says, “but that’s the way things are. Shit changes.”
Indeed it does, and Stormy appears to have prepared just far enough in advance for each of those changes, maintaining a career that enjoyed so many twists and turns that anyone suggesting her time is up clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Stormy doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, much to the irritation of those who have been screeching about her “15 minutes of fame” for approximately 788,400 minutes at this point. She still works in porn as both a performer and a director, she still features dances, she has a best selling memoir, and she is selling out venues across the nation. For Stormy is not just some woman who stood up to the President, though that would be enough to warrant some celebration. Stormy is a juggernaut, a woman of so many talents that even Stormy herself doesn’t know what’s around the corner. She doesn’t seem the slightest bit fazed by this uncertainty. For, Stormy will simply find a table and pull up a seat.
Stormy and Siouxsie looking at Laura’s Polaroids from the Gold Club in Baton Rouge 2006-2009.
More Stormy Daniels
Stormy’s Podcast: Taking the World by Stormy
Stormy on Twitter (a daily comedy show!)
Stormy Daniels naked on camera 🔥
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