Why did I become a porn star? Let's get two cliches out of the way: it wasn't for the money or for the sex. Whatever you may have heard, making pornographic films in Europe is not a licence to print money.
In many countries, the adult video market is dying. With cinemas refusing to screen pornography and producers ineligible for government grants, the main source of income is now television rights. Some "big-budget" films (ie, those costing about 100,000 euros) take several years to turn a profit.
The economic collapse of the pornographic movie industry (though not of porn websites or amateur videos) has naturally hit the earnings of the genre's workers: actors, directors and technicians. To put it bluntly, it's not financially attractive to be an actress in blue movies, unless you come from a part of the world where living standards are very low, like certain countries in eastern Europe. That's not my case.
I am one of the lucky ones who have never really suffered from a lack of money. I grew up in an upper middle-class family, and when I began to practise my profession I was a comfortably-off philosophy student newly married to a teacher. My motivation, then, was not money.
Sex? That neither. I have never been an exhibitionist, I don't get my kicks turning men on, I'm not a swinger. On the contrary, I'm rather against sharing one's sexuality with all comers, and believe that the true richness of a sexual act lies in the emotional relationship with the other person.
Nor is my job a turn-on for my husband, who prefers monogamy. I should also point out that porn actors often experience no sexual pleasure while filming. I don't deny that it can happen, but it's not an objective. As in any film genre, the action is not reality but spectacle - and hence false. Acting out a sex scene is still acting.
If I am to properly answer the huge question "Why did I become a porn star?" I must answer a series of little whys.
Why did I start watching pornographic movies? At the time I was a very active militant feminist. The groups of which I was a member firmly condemned porn films. But I soon realised that everything that I and my colleagues professed was founded on consensual cliches. None of us knew anything about the films, either as a spectator or as a participant.
That was the main reason I began to rent adult films: I wanted to know what they contained that was so terrible. And the first films I saw were not at all what I had imagined. The actors' bodies were not caricatures; the women were not submissive but powerfully charismatic; equal emphasis was placed on both male and female pleasure; and the picture quality and direction were sometimes excellent.
Why did I decide to act in these movies? I began to think that feminism and pornography might not be incompatible after all. Since feminists' battleground is sexuality, they have to become involved in its representation - and therefore in pornographic movies. All these new ideas led me into a world where these women whom I had once pitied now seemed admirable and impressive. I wanted to have an equally powerful sexual image.
The other reason was my fascination with the body, as a keen amateur dancer and choreographer interested in the whole area of movement. I see a pornographic scene as a piece of choreography that involves the whole body, in which one must show the emotions by moving, by tensing one's muscles, by trembling and by letting go. It's a very interesting exercise in physical expression.
Why did I become a director? I simply wanted to put on screen my imagination and my feminist aspirations. I wanted to make films where the emotional dimension and sexual practices would be totally different in each pornographic sequence - something I only achieved with my second film, Lilith.
Why have I been so prominent in the media in the past three years, and why did I write my book, Porno Manifesto? It all stems from my militant stance and not from any desire to become a starlet and satisfy my ego. I wanted to defend a profession that is unfairly attacked from all sides, shatter the cliches, and make the public aware of a way of thinking that is all too rare in Europe: pro-sex feminism.
Why do I remain in pornography, and don't I want to move into more respectable spheres? Whatever one might expect, of all the social circles that I have known (straight cinema, art, fashion, university, advertising, TV, etc), it is in the porn trade that I feel most respected. This is a real tribe. I would rather continue in a profession that I love and that respects me than sacrifice everything to make it in a more socially acceptable - but less respectful - branch of entertainment.
Am I likely to leave the profession one day? I won't leave because I have been kicked out, or because I have been let down by my profession. Yet I regularly dream of leaving, partly because the refusal to accept pornographic movies as a proper, serious genre will eventually be the death of it. I am saddened by the rise of pornography with no artistic merit and the squeezing out of the great directors.
I am also exhausted by the social pressure placed on sex workers - from the people who stare at you in the street, to officials, friends and relations, the media, other branches of show business, anti-porn crusaders and all those who attack us, try to exploit us, shower us with indiscreet and unhealthy questions, or consider us as victims. It's not the little world of pornography that is dangerous or disrespectful to its actors - it's the big world that surrounds it.
· Ovidie is in the film The Pornographer, which is out next Friday. The author's Porno Manifesto will be published by Flammarion next month.
