Anne wanted me to be in her movie.

It was some strangely avant garde sounding porno film — something she’d dreamed up and decided had to be her next project. Somehow — I was never completely clear on this part of the story — she’d gotten my name (possibly it was from Rachel Kramer Bussel), and she’d looked at my site, and she decided that she needed me to be in her movie.

We talked on the phone, and she told me that her producer had looked at my site as well, and that he “liked my look.” She wanted me to come over to her apartment so we could talk more, so she could tell me about things and see how I felt.

So I walked west to Chelsea, to her impressive little studio apartment, and she told me the plot of her porno film. It involved a stereotypical Jewish girl who woke up one day with pubic hair in the shape of a Hitler mustache. I think she called it “Mein Cunt.”

I wasn’t entirely sold on the idea, but I wanted Anne to like me, so I agreed to be in her movie. It sounded like a cool project, something that could turn out really well: and more than that, Anne (and her producer, and her friends) seemed like the kind of person I needed in my life, the kind of person who could get me somewhat closer to wherever it was I needed to be.

As it happened, I never saw the script. As it happened, the project fell through, with Anne and her producer getting more interested in other possibilities, or maybe just realizing that making a porno is a lot harder than they’d actually realized. Anne disappeared from my life, popping up only occasionally to tell me about some new sex or porn-related scheme she’d come up with, as if I incapable of having any thoughts of the less than prurient kind.

Anne was not the only person to approach me about being in a movie. A few months later, Tony Comstock got in touch with me. He’d recently released his first feature, Marie & Jack, and wanted me to be in his second.

The first film he’d made contrasted the on and offscreen sex lives of porn stars. He liked the idea of featuring me in the follow up, because my onscreen sex life was my offscreen sex life: because my entire persona was about putting my real life on display. He wanted to tell the story of what happened in my bedroom through film rather than the grainy resolution of my webcam.

I didn’t do Tony’s film, though I considered it. In retrospect, not doing the film was a wise move: the relationship I was in at the time was less than healthy, and making it the subject of a pornumentary wouldn’t have been particularly good for my mental health: the thought of watching a film of that relationship, that sex life, years down the line sends shivers down my spine even now.

Which is also why I’m glad I didn’t do Anne’s film, why I’m glad I didn’t do any films, really: unlike photos; unlike the short, grainy clips I did for my website; there is something a bit too real, too unforgiving about film. The thought of having a DVD out in the world (a DVD produced and distributed by someone else, no less) is a bit too much for me. It’s too hard to take back, too hard to explain away.

Anne and Tony wanted to make me famous, but I’m glad I didn’t let them.