Sharon Mitchell
appears
at Cinema 21 at 8:45 pm Wednesday, Oct. 4,
for the screening of Daddy, Make Me a Star, and at
2 pm Thursday, Oct. 5, at Muu-Muu's for the Sex Workers Symposium.
Sharon Mitchell is a survivor. A 25-year veteran of the
porno industry, and one of the inspirations for the character
Amber Waves in the film Boogie Nights, Mitchell was
one of the most popular actresses during the heyday of skin
flicks back in the mid-'70s. She continued to star in sex
films over the next two decades, establishing a name for
herself as a producer and director and battling a nasty
heroin addiction.
By the late '90s, she'd had enough. But instead of getting
out of the porno industry, Mitchell found herself working
to reform it. Two years ago she founded Adult Industry Medical
Health Care Foundation (AIM), a nonprofit organization that
runs a clinic that provides health care and chemical-dependency
and HIV counseling to sex-industry workers. She also co-produced
Daddy, Make Me a Star, an unflinching documentary
that traces the history of the porno industry from the late
'60s through to the late '90s.
Mitchell will be in Portland this week to present her film
as part of the Sex by Sex Workers Film and Video Festival.
She spoke with WW screen editor David Walker about
her life as a sex worker and her struggle to get the pornography
industry to get serious about keeping its employees safe.
Willamette Week: I was just on the website (www.aim-med.org)
and learned more about safe sex and STDs than I ever learned
in school. What motivated you to start AIM?
Sharon Mitchell: The AIM Health Care Foundation was founded
in 1998 after an HIV outbreak hit the porn industry. There
were quite a lot of folks testing positive for HIV, and
there was not a monitoring system in place, nor had there
been. People were kind of getting different types of testing
maybe every six or three months, but there was no one that
really set a standard or set a requirement.
There was no standardized testing for HIV in the industry
until 1998? That seems insane.
There were for-profit clinics that were serving this population,
and they were just doing it for profit. The dynamics of
this industry and just how fast infectious disease can spread
is very difficult to understand unless you've really been
there. Fortunately I had the experience of being there,
and I was just finishing up a three-year program that allowed
me to do HIV counseling, chemical-dependency counseling
and run a clinic.
I thought that was my ticket out. Honestly, I thought,
"Godammit, I really don't want to come back to this business."
I had been in it since 1975, as an actress, producer and
director, and I really did not want to come back. But it
was kind of clear that that's where I was supposed to be.
You would think that when John Holmes died of AIDS in
the late '80s it would have galvanized the industry into
dealing with the epidemic more directly.
One would think a lot about this industry, but remember
always that denial is the backbone of pornography. People
cast a blind eye to this. The producers and manufacturers
really don't want to take a look at this, or else they'd
really get behind AIM. Part of the reason for that really
is: If you're part of the solution, aren't you really part
of the problem too? When you're making billions of dollars
off the backs of about 1,500 people, something is wrong
if you're not giving back to this cause.
How political is the porn industry?
There's a lot of stuff that comes into play within the
politics of pornography. There's power, there's old mobster
thinking--I mean this business was founded on organized
crime, for christsakes, but they pay taxes now. Can't we
get through a little health care? One would think a lot
of things, but you know, assumptions aren't always correct
in the world of pornography. It has its own little sordid
political ilk.
The most impressive thing about AIM is the wide variety
of services the foundation offers.
I saw the need for other aspects of health care, like sexually
transmitted disease [prevention], chemical dependency counseling,
couples counseling, Porno 101 upon entering the industry,
life-skills counseling for when you want to leave the industry--it
can be very hard when you're addicted to large amounts of
money for relatively little energy. I really saw the need
for this, so here I am in my newfound sort-of career.
I say pornos degrade women. How do you respond?
I think that they depict scenes and fantasy that put women
in a submissive role, but these are clearly fantasies. This
girl is portraying a scene of submission for a large amount
of money, and she's well aware of what she's doing. In one
way you can say it's the clearest form of feminism that's
out there, because we're taking control of our bodies--taking
control of the sex. In the other way, after running this
clinic and being middle-aged and knowing this industry like
I do, I know that a certain group of people flock to this
industry for a reason--they're loners. They've grown up
alone, they've come from broken families, they're adopted,
they've been abused when they were kids and they need attention
right away. Where can you get attention right away? Pornography.
And also a sense of belonging to something, a sense of a
large dysfunctional family, but nonetheless a sense
of belonging.
What bothers you most about the porn industry?
The worst thing in this industry is the goddamned economic
exploitation. This is a one-time sex act that now with the
Internet gets duplicated all over the world. So that is
egregious. The guy that packs the video boxes in the warehouses
has to go and get a Hepatitis B shot, but the women that
are having sex in the movies--that are having unprotected
anal sex--can't get the companies to pay for anything at
all. And that's why I started AIM. That's all there is to
it. That's the whole nutshell right there.
You've had an incredible life. What can we expect next
from you?
I'm just going to kick back and write a book for a while.
I'm burnt. I'm really exhausted, and I really want to do
that so badly, and I think that my being is sort of screaming
out for it. I've learned a tremendous amount by being here,
so much about myself. I haven't made a movie in almost a
year, and once you pull back from it you see really clearly
what you were involved in. Now I have a whole different
perspective that I'm anxious to talk about. And the good
thing about it is that I don't have to sugarcoat shit because
I'm my own person. I'm kind of fearless at this point. I
lived through a 16-year heroin addiction, a 25-year porn
career and an attack on my life by a crazed fan. I really
don't have too much to walk through. It's only emotional
stuff now, which I welcome.
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