Bren Ryder

As a pornographer of dyke content you’d think that I would experience my fair share of drama. In general, however, my life is fairly drama-free. Well, you can’t avoid it completely. Some people who enter your orbit are a bit more high strung than others. But, like Oprah says, you can’t control what happens, but you can control how you react to it.

Looking back there have been a few dramatic moments over the life of GoodDykePorn.com. There’s been break-ups right before shooting a scene, a back-outs because of jealous girlfriends and most recently a canceled scene that upset one person much more than another.

Sometimes people get mad and start acting kinda freaky, but, I don’t see that as being dyke drama exactly. I think what would have turned the situation into drama would have been an extreme reaction from me. I know that in some of my intimate relationships I’ve gotten mad because they were mad, but when it’s a creative acquaintance who’s freaking out, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t have to react adversely and as much as I’d like to help them to not be so mad I simply cannot take responsibility for their emotions. When someone calls my phone multiple times in only a few minutes then it’s obvious that they have difficulties handling an emotional situation. Perhaps there’s something I can say to help and perhaps there isn’t. My policy is to be as clear and straight-forward as possible, but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

Sometimes I proudly proclaim that I live a drama-free life. Although, I wonder if that’s simply an expression of my cold cold heart. People can act really messed up because of past damage or current mental health issues or rock hard patterns. But, I don’t really care. It’s sad. I can see that. I look at a young woman fly off the handle and I feel sad. Similar to the way that I look a starving child in an impoverished nation on the news. It’s sad. But, I refuse to take it on. I refuse get angry.

I’ve always felt this way. I’ve always wondered why people get so worked up about all the bad things in the world. I’ve always thought that action is a much better way to respond. The biggest flaw in that philosophy is that I rarely act. I see horrible things, hear about all the bad news and choose not to get upset over it AND I choose not to do anything about it. Is that apathy? I’ve heard that anger can induce action. I’m not so sure I buy that. I find people who get really angry and affected by the drama around them fancy themselves to be non-apathetic, thus, better. I question that.

I hear that peace is the way. I rarely see people practicing that method of change, however. Maybe that’s because the angry people get all the attention. Maybe that’s because “getting angry” has been help up in such high regard by people who claim to be changing the world for the better.

This world is complicated. A lot of people are very hurt and some of them are going to spread their hurt through anger. I wish them well. I will not take it on. I will not embrace their pain. And, until the day I choose to do something that will change the world that contributed to their pain, then I will not care.

I just realized that I’m living my dream.

The Rules:

1. Link to your tagger (Butchtastic!) and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as their links to their blogs.
4. Let the know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The Facts:

1. My myspace account was deleted this week for having a link to an adult website – bye bye 800 new friends.
2. My car was written off last week – someone smashed into it in front of my house and then took off, but I needed the cash anyway.
3. Despite being described as a “public pervert” by some, I’m actually quite shy and introverted.
4. I can juggle.
5. I play classical guitar – like Bach and shit like that.
6. I like green smoothies.
7. I don’t want to pass this tagging game onto anyone else – see I’m SHY!

But I will give you some links of blogs that I like.

Buck Angel Blog – transsexual male porn star
Waking Vixen Productions – Audacia Ray’s blog
Sugarbutch Chronicles – sex, gender and awesomeness
Leather Yenta – Lolita Wolf’s Predictions & Predilections
Ms. Naughty – erotica for women
Viviane’s Sex Carnival

I’m still getting to know the world, so please introduce yourself and I’ll start filling out my blogroll.

It’s the one year anniversary of Good Dyke Porn being online, I paid myself for the first time and I’ll be continuing to pay myself every month from now on. Getting fired from my day job forced my hand. Previously, I would use any “extra” money to pay for music or graphic design or equipment or supplies or you name it and we need it. But I gotta eat, so I’m forced to put my own income at the top of the budget priority list. I’m not making a lot right now, but it’s about the same as if I were on the dole. That level of income isn’t easy that’s for sure, but working full-time on creating these scenes and making the website great while actually having time to do my accounting is absolutely brilliant. I work a lot on the business – too much sometimes – but it’ll take a couple of months to get into a productive and abundant mindset. My mindset is key the my future success. Let me explain.

As I see it, there are two paths my mind can take right now. The first (and most common) is the scarcity/worry mindset. The second is abundance/success mindset. Let’s look at the scarcity/worry mindset because while living on $1000/month in one of the most expensive cities in Canada my mind tends to automatically adopt this mindset.

At this moment the money is low and worry is close to the surface. Thoughts like: What if the money doesn’t increase? What if I’m stuck at this level of income and I can’t pay all my bills and pay down my debt. It is here where the idea of a thousand members or more seems nearly impossible, only a fantastical dream. I hope for it, but, I don’t expect it. It’s natural to feel worried about these things but the problem is that the more I focus on the lack of income the more comfortable I will feel in a reality that doesn’t have enough money for me. It’s where I’ve been most of my life. Some people might think that a lack of money would make me feel uncomfortable and thus more motivated to increase my income but because I’ve spent most of my life feeling normal at near poverty then that is where I will stay no matter how badly I want that to change. Unless I change my mindset.

The second, abundance mindset is where I need to be. I’ve always wanted more money and less debt – who hasn’t? But the mindset isn’t about what I want, it’s about what I feel comfortable with – about what’s normal. I feel normal having $20 – $30 in my wallet and $100 – $200 on hand in the bank. If I lost a dollar I wouldn’t be upset about it. But, if I lost $100 I would truly miss it. I might even experience an intense emotional reaction to such a loss. My goal is to make $100 feel like $1.

Since I’ve been in the scarcity mindset for so long, it’s going to take some delibrate focus to change to the abundance mindset. This may sound a bit funny: make money by changing your mind, but it’s important. Not only to get that money flowing to you but to keep that abundance once it arrives. If you’ve ever had a time in your life when you made more money you might have noticed that you didn’t actually have much “extra” money. Why is that? Obviously because you spent more, but more importantly because that level of income felt normal to you. It didn’t feel especially “abundant”, it was just your current reality. So, while working towards an increase in income the mind needs to go to where you will be when you have it and instead of getting excited about it simply feel normal and comfortable with it.

For some people, my financial reality is way above them, but I never have any trouble maintaining it. I’ve lived paycheque to paycheque, job to job and always managed to pay my bills and take care of myself with very little outside help. A roof over my head, food in my fridge and fun events and activities with my friends are all normal for me. Now I need to change my normal. The status quo needs an upgrade. Not long from now $100 will feel like $1.

I think this is truly the Holy Grail of productivity. How, on earth, do I get all this shit done? All this shit that is keeping me from realizing my dream. All this shit that will one day lead me to my ideal life. If only I could get shit done, then my life would be perfect.

I’ve read books and blogs on productivity and how to prioritize and simplify and get that shit done. I’ve tried working for really really long hours and working for short spurts of work. I tried “Big Rocks First” and “MIT’s” and “microtasking”. I’ve tried working in a dark office, a café, my kitchen table, outside and in bed.

I occasionally will do a weekly review and update my long-term goals.
I’ve downloaded a variety of productivity software – which I spend all my time figuring out how to use.

There’s one part of productivity that I’m always drawn to: simplicity.

[I just diverted from my writing to check out zenhabits.net - a blog about simplistic productivity - and found out how to get shit down. A giant list of lists.]

Top 20 Productivity Lists

This article will take me a few hours to get through, but after I’m done, I’m really going to get shit done.

Check out my monthly contribution to “Porn at Large” column in the Village Voice Sex Blog – NakedCity.com!

Every Thursday, Naked City expands your pornographic worldview with tales from the far reaches of the earth. Four international pornographers share this space to tell all about the experiences of being porny and making porn outside of the United States.

*The site no longer exists so I have included the full post below.*

Porn (R)Evolution

Bren Ryder is the creator of GoodDykePorn.com, an independent amateur hard core pornographic video website which proudly features authentic queer women having amazingly hot sex.

I had a conversation with a friend recently who is a no-nonsense, out-spoken, hard-core feminist about porn. We were talking about what I do and she listened politely as I spoke about it and then proceeded to let me know why porn was incredibly wrong and harmful to women. I admit it, I was shocked. I really didn’t know that feminists still felt that way. She was utterly against all porn for the following reasons: the violence against women, the profiting off of women’s sex (and violence against her) and using powerless and vulnerable women. I’m sure that does happen in the world. I don’t doubt that, unfortunately. But, then I had to ask, “What does any of that have to do with what I do?” She replied, You make porn.

Porn. It’s a word that holds a lot of meaning for people. Sometimes it can make you giggle and sometimes it can make you cringe. I think people like to say, “well, it depends on how you define porn”. I have a fairly simple definition: sexually explicit. There are other terms that are in use, such as erotica, but that implies that it’s basically soft-core porn. In my opinion, porn is when you can see all the bits and it’s making you feel very funny down-there.

But, besides the general definition that gives you an idea about what you’re going to see, the meaning of porn needs to evolve. Talking to Erica Lust, one of the other Porn at Large contributors to this site. She said her work is to take an eraser to the chalkboard of porn and bit by bit erase all the negative connotations and start fresh with a blank board where we fill in positive sexual expressions that still serve to sexually arouse but don’t perpetuate the negative aspects of porn (I’m paraphrasing what she said to me in a loud bar after the Feminist Porn Awards in Toronto).

I, too, feel that my work is to break down those negative connotations, especially around “lesbian porn”. Which is why I have called my work, “Good Dyke Porn”. The porn that exists that depicts “lesbians” is mostly geared towards a narrow view of a male fantasy. The genre of porn for women or porn by women is on the increase and is at the heart of the porn revolution that will eventually cause the evolution of porn itself. When women make porn a whole new aesthetic is created. Sexual gratification and arousal is a part of the visual expression, but it goes deeper than that. And, really, we don’t even have to try. It simply comes naturally to women to create sexually explicit material that tingles the genitals and sets in motion the evolution of a word. Porn will one day mean something different. It will result from a Porn Revolution. Watch the women with cameras in their hands. Do what they’re doing. They will lead the way.