In a poignant piece about porn, sex and stigma, the popular adult star discussss the differences between porn and reality—and what sex and dating look like for adult performers moving through the wider world
Chicago — Alison Rey shares the unvarnished truth about her relationship experiences with VICE Media in a revealing new article, ‘I’m a Porn Star with a ‘Civilian’ Partner. Here’s How We Navigate Sex.’
Writer Mark Hay notes that adult film performers “point to widespread stigmatization, objectification, and misunderstandings around their jobs from those outside the industry as the biggest headaches of working in porn. These issues can affect every facet of their lives—including their dating and sex lives.”
Rey tells the writer, ”When I started performing eight-and-a-half years ago, I was dating someone. We were sexually non-monogamous only for the purposes of my work. Then I started hanging out with another adult performer a lot. My partner said he felt jealous about that at first but didn’t anymore after a while—and he thought that was a problem. So we broke up, and I started dating someone inside the industry. We were polyamorous, so I pursued various relationships—mostly flings, no serious boyfriends—with a few men I met organically outside the industry.
“I quickly noticed that all those men from outside the industry treated my job like a novelty and fetishized me in ways that didn’t feel good. They saw me as a conquest—a name they could drop: I fucked Alison Rey.”
Regarding her marriage and subsequent divorce, Rey pulls nap puns he, lamenting that the couple “struggled to navigate things like telling his friends and family about the nature of our relationship and my career. I knew I’d have to deal with stigmas when I got into the industry, and I thought I could handle that in general. But it was just different dealing with that within the context of a relationship, and it affected us.”
Rey met her new ‘civilian’ boyfriend, whom Hay also interviewed, at a bar. “He was the first person who was enthusiastic about my job in a non-fetishistic way,” she tells VICE, “and I felt an energy from him I hadn’t felt from other people before when I talked about non-monogamy. We’ve been dating for about five months now—and here we are!”
Rey commented on the published article: “As long as I’ve worked in this business, I have advocated for the humanization of adult film performers, and I am so pleased that the efforts of my community and its allies have started to change the way people view sex work.
“To have a platform like VICE highlight my personal sex life and explore the complexities of dating as an adult film performer speaks volumes about the strides we have made in shifting the discourse surrounding sex work. I love sharing my life and demonstrating the humanity of sex workers to the general public; I appreciate VICE and Mark Hay so much for helping me amplify my voice.”
Find Rey’s story at VICE.com.