This interview is from 2020 and appeared in the Daily Mail.

1. Over the years, various female pornographers have taken issue with the term ‘feminist porn’. What does the term mean to you?

The problem with the term “feminist porn” is that in some ways, it’s just another label and another means of pigeonholing women – and I think boxing women in, or placing limits around our expression is antithetical to the very idea of feminism. To me, feminism is about women making our own choices, being treated equally under the law and having our autonomy respected. Individual women have the right to view feminism in different ways and those of us who make films have the right to express our own vision of feminism, without worrying about whether what we make fits inside a “feminist porn” box – a box that other people have constructed and for which they’ve defined the criteria and limits.

2. You’d had a varied career before starting Sssh.com in 1999, having studied business and journalism, and worked as a filmmaker in other genres. What attracted you to the porn industry?

In part, it was happenstance. I was already working in the adult industry, helping run one of the first adult membership sites to ever launch online (Wasteland, which my husband Colin runs to this day) and I couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t much content that seemed to be made with women viewers in mind. Everything was catered to the “male gaze” – and I just thought that was weird, narrow-minded, and wrong. I started asking other people in the adult industry why there wasn’t more porn out there for women -- or created by women, though that was in many ways an even deeper question -- and the response typically was “Oh, women don’t watch porn” or “there’s no market for that kind of thing.”

I thought the people saying there was no market for erotica that appealed to women were simply wrong – especially in their belief that women aren’t “visually stimulated.” Personally, I’ve always been drawn to film as a storytelling medium precisely because I’m visually stimulated. I’ve also always pictured stories in my head unfolding like a film, as opposed to like a narrative in a book. So, the combination of a need in the market and my existing desire to make films dovetailed into a perfect opportunity. Here was a space in which I could express myself, making cinematic erotic films with strong storylines, propelled by a different sort of imagery and aesthetic than what I was seeing on the adult market at that time. Soon, Sssh.com was born, I was also collecting survey data to get a better idea of what women who were thirsty for a different kind of adult film wanted to see and I was off and running on a career path I’ve been traveling down ever since.