Bren Ryder

So, today I film another scene with myself as the co-star. As far as porn scenes go this one shouldn’t be too difficult.

My mission: To make out with a hot woman. No sex, just hot and heavy kissing.

I have chosen to accept my mission, but I have to admit, I’m nervous. I always get nervous before a shoot, even if I’m behind the camera. I want it to go well. I want it to look hot. I want people to like it. As the one behind the camera, I worry about doing a good job, but as the “performer”, I’m extra worried. Although, when I’m preparing myself to have sex on camera I get terrified. Today, I’m nervous.

My co-star and I don’t really know each other very well. She’s new to the whole porn thing and we’ve never kissed each other before. I was going to have a make out rehearsal just to make sure we kissed well together. But, scheduling is always a challenge so I just figured, “let’s capture our first kiss on camera”. So, that’s what we’re going to do.

We’re going to take it slow, chat a bit, have a glass of wine and let the sexual tension build a bit while we move towards the inevitable. Personally, I’m naturally shy and have a tendency to blush, so I’ll try to embrace that side of myself and let it feed into the energy. For this scene I’m really hoping to capture the energy. There won’t be any fleshy close-ups (except of our faces, I suppose) so the visuals will be more subtle. This is where the energy is meant to come in.

I’ll be working with a new camera operator, who I have full confidence in. My co-star is smokin’ hot and I love to kiss. Sounds like a great way to spend the evening. Soft-core queer porn, here we come.

This is what I struggle with. Okay, maybe struggle isn’t exactly the right word. Here’s the thing. I make porno movies, as you know. And I make them available for download to anyone in the world. And, as the culture is right now, these videos are then available for people to “share” online – illegally, of course. I don’t stress over that reality. There’s not much anyone can do about it and I really want more and more people to see what Good Dyke Porn™ looks like. So, from that perspective, it’s great. Plus, I subscribe to the notion that what you resist, persists. I just wanna get paid, is all.

So, I figure if people are going to be sharing the videos then I want to put a watermark of “GoodDykePorn.com” throughout the film so that when they do see it, and love it they will know where to find more and then hopefully choose to make a purchase. But, now I’m having second thoughts about that. I was watching some videos recently and the watermark is quite annoying. For the people who do purchase the clips or buy a membership they shouldn’t have to be distracted by the watermark.

Now I’m thinking I could put the logo at the beginning and the end of the clips so that the films are clearly identified as Good Dyke Porn™, but free from distracting watermarks throughout the rest of the video. Of course, someone could cut off the front and end slugs (that’s film lingo), but why would they? It they want to share then they just share. I don’t see much “stealing” of the ownership of images. And, that would be pretty easy to catch. But, I suppose it is possible. That’s not my main concern though.

After going back and forth over this, the thing that finally tipped me over the edge was the perspective that I don’t need to physically brand every single image that passes through Good Dyke Porn’s database. The sex that I capture on film isn’t “mine” per se. Except the scenes that I’m in. I’ve purchased the rights to the images so that I can run a business that shares these beautiful images with the world.

I want people to know where these films come from and I want this business to be able to continue to produce such beautiful films. And, perhaps that beauty can be completely unobstructed for your continual enjoyment. What do you think?

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Photo by Trevor Jansen, click image for complete photo set.

Wednesday night was the Naked Truth Adult Entertainment Award Show. It was the first of its kind in Canada and included a really interesting and diverse group of people from various areas of the adult industry.

I think it was a really great start to an event that will hopefully continue on for years to come. The Naked Truth website is an online social community for all types of adult entertainers, business owners and support workers. The categories and award winners were quite varied: from Favourite Pussy Squirter to Favourite Sex Worker Advocate, from Trojan Condoms and Dita Von Teese to Tamara O’Doherty (Favourite Academic Advocate) and Good Dyke Porn (my earnest, yet minuscule porn company). The unlimited scope of nominees, and the under-advertised voting system could have been the reason we managed to be voted Favourite Adult Website (in the whole wide world!). (That, and we’re The Best, of course.) But, I think that is what made this awards show so interesting and fun. It brought people together who wouldn’t normally be included in the same program. And, like Mz. Scream, the winner of Favourite Pussy Squirter, said, “It’s nice to be recognized, to have this pat on the back for those of us who work so hard and put ourselves out there for the enjoyment of others.” We all had our own way of contributing to the pleasure industry. I was delighted to meet them and I’m happy they know me now, too.

Of course, like any great sexy event, the queers where out in full force.
Here is a sample of the out and memorable award winners and performers in attendance:

• Esther Shannon – Favourite Feminist Advocate
• Zoe from Zoho Salon – Favourite Hair Stylist
• Jenny Magenta – working the red carpet, interviewing, and being glamourous as usual (go to Jenny Magenta Town!)
• Aedan Saint – Spoken word Artist and Mr. Gay Vancouver XXX who performed the closing number. (more about Aeden)
• From the Good Dyke Porn™ camp we had myself, Bren Ryder, Honey B, and the hot couple from ‘Pizza Delight’ scene, Big Booty B and Papa Big Cock.
  *We picked up two awards: Favourite Adult Film Company – Performers Choice and Favourite Adult Website (as mentioned above).

I’m sure there were more but I don’t know enough about them to know their queer status.

For a complete list of the winners go to NakedTruth.ca!

All in all it was a fabulous evening. Samantha Mack was a hilarious host and kept the audience laughing and engaged for the whole 4 hours. There were definitely some flaws, but it was the first one so I’m sure it will only get better and better every year. If I was choosing the course of direction for future shows I would take advantage of the Canadian or Vancouver aspect and narrow down the nominees to relatively local stars. Honouring Dita Von Teese, Belladonna, Jenna Jameson and AVN is cool, but they’re not likely able to attend. As the show gains attention and sponsorship, then, eventually bring in the expensive stars from around the world as guests.
*Just my two cents.*

It was a complete honour to be included in this celebration of sex and the work we do to bring it to the people.

Susan Davis – Favourite Sex Worker Advocate – summed up the importance of the night beautifully in this video by The Georgia Straight.

Currently, I run my porn business in my spare time and I work a day job to pay my bills. It’s an easy, moderately physical job doing window cleaning. I’ve been doing this “shitty job” off and on for about 12 years. I have phases of hating it and phases of loving it. It’s good to get out of the house, to move my body and listen to music on my ipod and work with an immediate return on time invested. But, of course, it’s not really what I want to do with my time and the managers in this industry tend to use control tactics for methods of management, which drives me crazy. I don’t play games in any of my relationships, so why would I tolerate it for work?

Lately, I’ve been trying to work out how I can do both and enjoy both and make money and take time off. There has been some progress in this direction, but more setbacks than anything else.

Then, a wonderful thing happened. I started to hate my job again. I can’t stand it. I don’t want to spend my time doing that shit. It takes away from the much more important work of creating dyke porn, promoting it to the world, and engaging in the porn community as an advocate for ethical and positive sexual representation in porn.

I can’t quit my job out right just yet (though, I wish I could). Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of porn submissions and local people who want to shoot scenes and I need to use the little money that’s coming in for them. But, I’m motivated. I’m motivated by hate. Grrrrr. I hate my job. Ha ha. I don’t hate anything, actually. But, I’m going to pretend that I’m letting this job plant hatred in my heart. Hatred for the godforsaken evil of the fucking day job.

The last time I hated my job I began an experiment in thinking that I had more time in my day than I actually did – just as a mental hokus pokus sort of thing (more flakiness of which I’d be happy to reveal to you, in time). Then I got fired. It was awesome! The best thing that could have happened. And I managed to work the biz for almost a year. Although, I’m still paying back my ex-girlfriend for her support. It’s time for that to happen again, sort of. Here’s what’s going to happen: this crawl towards financial sustainability is going to turn into a walk, then a run, then I’m going cross over to a truly independent producer of fucking good dyke porn. Independent of studios and corporate producers, but more importantly, independent of day job managers that validate their existance by controlling me and my time.

People frequently ask me how they can help to contribute to the success of this business. I’m still trying to figure out ways you can do that for free, but, the best way is to buy a membership. If I have money to pay my bills then I have time to make porn and pay people for their bravery. One of my favourite things about being an entrepreneur is how my work gets money into the hands of queer women around the world. From nothing, comes creative works of sexual expression, and from multiple contributions comes lump sum payments direct to the performer for that work. A beautiful porn economy. Help me to make my dream come true, buy a membership.

This video might be true for me sooner than later (I hope):

This is an imported note on Facebook from my blog, BrenRyder.com. Or, if you are one of the handful of readers of the blog, then you’re seeing this first hand.

Facebook is great for promoting blogs and websites and events and all that good stuff, but I definitely don’t use it to its full potential. Relatively speaking, I don’t have a lot of “friends” on my profile and it’s an interesting mix of people: close friends, ex-girlfriends, acquaintances, family, porn people, long lost friends, fans, randoms, and Internet connections.

The profile page has become more of a personal page rather than a business page so I decided to make a separate Bren Ryder fan page – except they don’t call it fan pages anymore. Now, you don’t need to be a fan to “like” me. I’d like to use the Page of Bren Ryder for blog updates and GoodDykePorn updates and news. Although, I’ll continue to add the usual links and info to my profile because I want to share my life with my friends. And fans are still welcome to friend me but for more up-to-date show-biz info then Like-ing the Page is a better option.

Currently, my blog has a low readership. Why? Because I hardly ever write for it. You can’t read what’s not there. That’s going to change as I get into the habit of writing about this experience of being an independent dyke pornographer who practices various experiments in productivity, ponders butch visibility, spiritual journeys and the evolution of queer porn.

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I’m still here. Still making porn for dykes and the likes of you. Still perpetually experimenting with ways to be more productive and streamlining my business so that it’s delivering what I intend and satisfying my need for simplicity and, you know, enjoying life, being happy.

I have mixed feelings about my business right now. I doesn’t make me much money – just enough to top up my personal accounts when I’m a little low. It involves about a million details and keeps my Todo list perpetually stacked. Which, is fairly normal for a lot of people, but I fancy myself a simple butch and sometimes I wonder if it’s worth the hassle. The good news is that I don’t lose money in the deal. And, of course, I do get to film people having sex.

Sometimes I feel like shutting it down completely and just sticking to a regular job – go to work, come home, relax, and not have to get on the computer for the whole night. Running a business by yourself is like being in school, it’s all homework and I always feel like should be working on something. Except I don’t have any enforceable deadlines and little accountability – well, except to my millions of adoring fans.

I go back and forth between thinking about shutting it down completely and, the other extreme, expanding it and seeing if I can actually make some money out of it. It is porn after all, there must be money to be made.

I love filming, and I love editing and I’ve basically turned my favourite thing into a job, but I suck at accounting, marketing, promotion, and, um…business. So this is the point where I get to reach out to my community and get help from those who are good at those things and want to do their part to bring good dyke porn to the world. Except I suck at doing that too.

I’m not ready to give up on this thing yet. I’m working on some ideas that will allow for better access to individual scenes and various options for memberships and prices. My main priority is customer satisfaction. Shooting new sex scenes in a small community isn’t always possible on a consistent basis. And, frankly, I don’t want to stress over it. I’m looking for that sweet spot: the place where I don’t stress too badly, still get to create the work, and consistently fulfill the customers expectations of what I’ve promised to deliver.

December is suddenly upon us and we’re zipping through it like nobody’s business. That’s how it feels to me. Last month I set the intention to participate in the NaNoWriMo – National November Writing Month – and write everyday for a month. It didn’t quite work out. I got behind and lost interest pretty quickly. I’m a Gemini so it’s hard for me to stick to anything for very long. But, I don’t feel bad about it. It was my first attempt. Perhaps next year I’ll stick with it a bit longer.

My intention for writing during the month of November was to create a Dyke Porn Manifesto. It is my one goal for 2009 and I was going to spend the month producing a lot of words and then take December to edit it all into a comprehensible manifesto. Since that didn’t happen, I’m going to alter the plan a little bit so I can still achieve my one goal for 2009. Next week I’m going to spend one full day writing out everything that’s in my head that says all I need to say about the Dyke Porn Manifesto at this time. I have one day to get it all out in writing. Then, when I take my Christmas holidays I’ll be spending a week in the middle of the prairies during the frigid winter with my parents. So, at that time I’ll put the words together in a concise article that will be available for viewing on the blog. That’s my new intention.

Intentions are funny. Whatever you intend is always something that you really want because to intend for it is to place a strong desire on making it happen. But, at the same time, for the magic of intention to really work we need to be unconcerned about the ultimate outcome: unattached. This is not to say that I don’t care about achieving the outcome of my intention but if it doesn’t come into fruition then I am comfortable with that as a potential outcome.

Perhaps that is what is meant by being unattached. It is simply being open to all potential outcomes. One potential outcome is getting every wish and desire granted. It is possible so I have to remain open to that. The absence of the ideal outcome is also a possibility and I need to be open and accepting of that possibility, as well.

I could intend to win the lottery. But, I have to be willing to do what it takes for that to happen. I would have to buy a lottery ticket regularly and allow, for the rest of my life, to either win the lottery or not. All outcomes need to be allowed to exist. Personally, I don’t actually want to win the lottery. It doesn’t appeal to me at all, so I don’t buy lottery tickets or think about wanting to win.

These days I’m thinking about a future where I write for my full-time income. By accepting that I may never achieve this I am making room for the existence of all possibilities including my most desired outcome. So, like buying a lottery ticket everyday, I simply begin to do what’s necessary to write for a living. I write. If you are reading this then you know that I’m already getting started in achieving this outcome.

But, when will my intention be realized? How long should I keep trying, keep intending? That depends on how badly I want it. I think the length of time it takes to achieve my most desired outcome is going to be  paradoxically linked to my ability to be unattached to the outcome coupled with the intensity of my desire to achieve it.

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Writing is a relatively new venture for me. I’ve written papers in University and I’ve been keeping a journal for many years. But, eventually I’d like to turn writing into another art form that I can use to share my perspective of the world with anyone who’s interested in reading it. I’m not exactly sure how it’s all going to come about. For now, I’m content to continue to develop writing skills, see what’s important to me, figure out what my perspective is and write in my blog. The problem is that I feel really self-conscious about it. I’m shy. I joke about my shyness to my friends because I’m a porn star to a certain degree – to the degree that I take off my clothes and fuck on camera for the purpose of making porn. But, I’m shy.

I don’t post blog articles on here as often as I’d like to but when I do it’s usually about how I feel about things or what I’m up to. Currently, I have two categories for my blog articles, “Me” and “The Work”. Most of the time it’s about both of those things. Because why would I be writing about me if I wasn’t writing about the work I’m doing and how could I write about the work I’m doing without writing about myself.

My intention for this blog has always been to share my life with you. I figure it might be interesting to see the mundane goings-on of a dyke pornographer. Everything I do is at my computer, in my apartment and occasionally in fun and interesting places with sexy porn friends. As a voyeur, I know that I would find this kind of thing interesting to follow.

But, then the damn self-conscious editor gets into my head: “boring, who would want to read that, think of something interesting, stop being so lazy and do something with your life, that’s not even a sentence, etc”.

When I do porn I don’t think about the people around the world that will be looking at my naked body, I think about creating something new and important. I fuck like no one is watching. I know that people will appreciate what we’re doing and that turns me on.

Here I am exposing my thoughts and my life to you through writing. What will you think of me? What difference does it make, really? I’m not ashamed of my pussy and I should not be ashamed of my thoughts and their written form. You might not want to see me dance when I think no one’s looking, but here you can see me blog like no one is reading.

Traditionally, November has been one of my worst months out of the year. Bad things happen, mood is low, and it feels like a very long month. December I like. It’s a time to kick back, party with friends and family, look back over the year and make plans for the new one.

This November I’m going to take on a few projects that I’m hoping will make November a better month.

November is novel writing month (NaNoWriMo) so I’m taking this opportunity to try my hand at writing again. I wrote for the Three-Day Novel writing contest which was super fun. My goal early this year was to write my Porn Manifesto. So, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Along side with writing this manifesto, I’m going to document – journal style – all the things I do this month related to creating porn and running my website, GoodDykePorn.com. So, whether this month turns out great or not I’m hoping that writing about it will make it interesting, anyway.

Earlier this year I made a list of 101 Things To Do. And there is still plenty on that list that I still need to do.
I have a huge TO DO list and I’m going to tackle as much as I can in November. That way, I have something to write about, a limited time frame to push myself and hopefully an alignment between my vision (manifesto) and my actions (journal).

Here is where we’re starting:
This past week has been November-esque in the sense that I have lost (more like misplaced) a lot of media that I need for the website. Specifically the footage that I intended to post on the site this past weekend. I’m hoping that by the end of this week I’ll have it all worked out and be done with “unfortunate luck” for a little while.
[To see the live performance version of the upcoming scene - go to the Updates Page on GoodDykePorn.com.]

Also, we’re essentially starting from nowhere. I haven’t been writing on this blog for a while and the website has only just begun the new updates. So, writing the Manifesto is going to be about the vision of Good Dyke Porn™ and the documentation of Bren Ryder working GoodDykePorn.com is going to show my attempt to put that vision into action.

I’ll keep you updated on my writing progress and work activities for the month of November. To get the latest updates and excerpts from the upcoming Manifesto, subscribe to this blog or follow me on Twitter.

Wish me luck!

Of course, by “we” I mean me. I managed to get all the articles back online with the help of my Facebook imported notes. I still have a lot of work to do here – redo pictures, add bloggers to the blogroll, affiliate friends – but the content is up and that’s what’s important (if you’re into read words, that is).

September is back-to-work-month so new updates will be appearing at GoodDykePorn.com and new and fascinating blog articles will be showing up right here.

Enjoy.