These measures appear to be, at least in part, ideologically motivated as part of a larger push for Americans to return to ultra-traditional Christian values, have lots of kids, and embrace old-school gender roles.
The funny thing is, when I ask Akira how she balances a porn career with being a mother of a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old, she says her job has actually allowed her to be around her kids all the time.
“In my kids’ eyes, I am a stay-at-home mom,” she says, sitting in front of a six-foot-tall mirror, her glittery turquoise eyeshadow popping in contrast to the baggy gray T-shirt and sweats she has on. “I’m kind of worried that they’re not gonna understand the concept of work, because I’m home when they are.”
Akira’s own parents are Japanese immigrants, but because they are both creatives, she says they weren’t as strict on her as one might expect. Still, they did send her to private school, and while supportive, “they would literally rather have me do anything else in the world,” she says, laughing.
When she and her husband decided to start their own family, around seven years ago, she stopped shooting scenes with partners because it’s too time consuming. Plus, her husband would be too jealous, she adds.
“There’s no way he could handle it,” she says.
Though she’s open with her kids about where babies come from and the proper names for private parts, they’re too young to understand what she does for a living, so she tells them she’s a video producer.
“I don’t want to lie to them, you know. And I’m hoping that I’m laying all the building blocks so that when the time comes when it’s appropriate to tell them, I can be like, ‘Oh, well, you know how I make videos—they’re only for grown-ups,’”
Studio porn vs. self-published videos
Akira started out as a dominatrix in her native New York City at age 19 before moving into adult films. Initially, she mostly did movies shot by studios, and got off on it.
