Erin: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following, we break those rules, and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more self expressed. I'm your host, Erin Keating. Today's guest is Lisa Ann. She is one of the most successful and famous adult film performers in the world.
She's a porn star, and at age 51, she is still busy manifesting a very unique and self determined life with lots of twists and turns and unexpected pivots. We talk about the importance of following your own path despite other people's opinions of you. You can imagine she's faced quite a bit of judgment in her time. How she managed to survive a [00:01:00] 20 year career in a notoriously seedy industry with her boundaries intact, healthy and happy and owning her own films.
She might just be the Taylor Swift of porn in that way. I asked her all the questions I really wanted to ask and she was an open book. This conversation gave me so much to think about and it might just shift your perspective too. Take a listen.
Lisa Ann is one of the most popular and successful adult film, AKA porn stars in the world. She spent 20 years in the adult industry where she performed on camera was a feature dancer, both. produced and directed films. She had a great run playing the porn version of Sarah Palin. She's also run a talent agency for adult performers, written two memoirs called The Life and The Life Back. She pivoted out of the adult industry.
And I read this quote online that her mantra was, it's time to get out [00:02:00] of bed and put some clothes on. I love it. Lisa Ann has found her way into the world of Fantasy sports, what? And she hosts the Lisa Ann does fantasy better show on YouTube. We are going to talk about this. We have only just met, but what I know about her is that she is buttoned up, super professional and incredibly impressive.
Welcome to Hotter Than Ever Lisa Ann.
Lisa Ann: Thank you so much, Erin. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Erin: I love it. I love it. I have so many questions. You are a bit of an unusual guest for the Hotter Than Ever podcast. I have interviewed filmmakers and comedians and self help gurus and doctors. And the thing that you are most known for is porn.
And I'm excited to talk to you because I think there is a lot to demystify there. And I think our listeners would have a lot of questions for you. So I'm going to try to channel them in this conversation. And I want to talk about your [00:03:00] evolution and how you've taken your popularity and grown into a whole new path.
How did you get started in porn in the first place? Like what has driven your evolution from where you started? Because you seem like a really driven person.
Lisa Ann: Really driven. Yeah, so it all started dancing as a teenager. I had fake id. I started dancing when I was in high school. I was on my own young and I knew that I really need to make a decent amount of money.
When you're a teenager and you have car insurance, it's like more money than you'd ever think you had. So there was no way waitressing was going to do it. I had a part time job during high school at a dentist office. So I was on a work program where I went to school till about noon. Then I would work at the dentist's office five days a week.
And that was like, at that time, minimum wage was two 13 an hour. Couldn't live off of that. So on Thursday, Fridays and Saturdays, I would drive from Eastern Pennsylvania to Philadelphia. I danced. And when I was [00:04:00] 18, 19, I went to Al's Diamond Cabaret in Redding, Pennsylvania, because Al's was like this really well known club that had features.
Other adult stars, porn stars, magazine models, all of these women would come in and do these special shows. And so they had a huge drop. So I went to work there and I realized. Very quickly that that was the avenue I wanted to kind of follow at 16. I wrote a mission statement to myself. I had three goals that I've lived by since I was 16 that I wrote on like my trapper keeper.
I wanted to travel and see the world because I never flew once with my parents was never on a plane until I. Decided to get the business. We had a motor home. We drove places, but we drove the same places, the Jersey shore, Florida. I was like, this is awful. The second was to be financially independent. I saw my mom go through a really brutal divorce in the seventies.
That was a tough time for women to get divorced and establish [00:05:00] themselves on their own. We ended up having to live in my grandparents basement until I was about 10 years old because a single mom couldn't even get credit, couldn't even get the things that they needed. So she had to. Save so much money to be able to provide us for housing that we could live out on our own.
So seeing that. And then the third thing was to make my own schedule. You know, I watched my parents kind of grind out their own, like this routine and it was numbing to me. Whereas I saw my grandparents who after world war two, my grandparents started a business together. Mm hmm. My grandfather was an artist.
He designed greeting cards. My grandmother was the businesswoman. She set up all of the sales and the logistics and they turned their motor home into a distribution center and they would drive all through the U S and Canada and deliver these cards that they were selling to these stores. And so over the summers, I went with them a lot.
I loved seeing the world. They would strap my bike on the back. We'd stay at KOA campgrounds. I rode around and I really emulated my grandparents, the freedom that they [00:06:00] had, the ability to say, This is when we're going to do this and this is when we're not. And so those three things. You know, we're so important to me, traveling and seeing the world, being financially independent and making my own schedule.
And when I met these women that were performing at Al's Diamond Cabaret, it hit me immediately. They have it all. They have all three of those things and they're seeing the world, you know, because of being a very popular porn star, I completely filled a passport. To the point where when I got back at LAX after a trip, the TSA agent, which there's so much meaner in America than anywhere else, right?
Erin: Yeah. I think they think that's part of the job.
Lisa Ann: Yeah. He took my passport and he punched a hole in it and kind of slid it back to me. And he's like, your passport's invalid. You don't have any more pages. And I looked at him and I said, you know, that might be the biggest accomplishment of somebody's life.
And I'll never forget his response to it because it showed me the two different types of people in this world. Some [00:07:00] people are curious. Some people are not. This guy's obviously not curious, doesn't like his job, isn't going to do anything to change it. And he's going to take it out on every single person that he interacts with.
Erin: Yeah. Meanwhile, you are living out your bucket list in real time.
Lisa Ann: Right. And so that list never included kids, never included being married, even though I did try that in my twenties, it didn't stick. We're still friends. Um, but those were my simple goals and I remember bringing them for a school project and everybody else's were so much more elaborate and my teacher did express to me that your goals are not material.
Your goals all rely on you doing them. Can you do all of these? That was a good point of reference. I was like, well, that's true. And yes, I will.
Erin: How did you know that you would like, where did you get this resolve in yourself? Cause I think some people have it, they get it young. Some people cultivate it across their lives. Some people strive for it and it doesn't show up for them. You are determined. You [00:08:00] have clarity of vision before you went into the adult industry. You did research. Talk to me about years of research.
Lisa Ann: Well, the clarity. Believe it or not, a lot of it came from television and that might sound crazy, but when you grew up in a small town, I grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania.
I have 35 first cousins. Oh, my God had so many brothers and sisters and they had so many kids. And so. I knew that every weekend I was either going to a wedding, a baby shower, a bridal shower, a birthday, maybe a funeral. And my life was so circling around doing the same thing. And I would watch TV and be like, Oh wow, California looks so beautiful.
I'd love to see that. I'd watched movies in other countries and I'd be like, Oh, I'm going to go to the library and learn more about this country. Like I just knew as I was watching things that the world was bigger than what I was exposed to and that it was going to be up to me to make it happen. And I had no doubts.
I mean, I watched athletes that came from nothing, establish themselves and do things. And I just kind [00:09:00] of drove that, that thought to like, yeah, if anybody else can do it, you could do it. You're doing this.
Erin: And you weren't scared of that leaving the bubble of your family. You were hungry to get off and going.
Lisa Ann: I was more scared of staying in the bubble of my family. I felt like living in a small town with a big family, the analogy I use, it's like being on a cruise ship. You run into the same people all the time. It is nonstop. You can't get away. And to me, that was like. And ironically, I go back home now in Easton to see my friends and it's such a beautiful little town and I love it.
I love the relationship I have with my childhood friends. I have no relationship with my family, but I, I still love going back there. But when I go back there, I'm reminded like, yeah, you were not meant to be here. You need to get out.
Erin: Hmm. And can I ask about your estrangement from your family? Why do you not have a relationship with them?
Lisa Ann: It's been permanent since 2015, but it's been [00:10:00] intermittent my entire life. When I was 13, I was exiled by my mom to go and stay with my dad and my dad's an abusive alcoholic. And my mom knew that. So she kind of threw me to the wolves. I lived there as long as I could. I didn't reconnect with her till my mid twenties.
By the time I reconnected her, you know, I was a totally different person. Our relationship was always difficult, especially with the industry. I mean, she never forgave me. She always brought it up every single time I visited her. She would tell me how much I embarrassed my family, all the horrible things.
And as I was younger, I would accept that. And I would say to myself, like, you know what? I get it. I'm sorry. I would say I'm sorry to everybody. My father and I didn't talk from the time I was 16 till I was 42 years old. And we talked for a couple of years until 2015 and he banded together with everyone and said, okay, well this is it.
So my last visit home, I knew it was my last visit home. [00:11:00] And I realized as I got older that a lot of the situations that were in my life were kind of, you know, I was an innocent bystander, right? My parents had a brutal divorce. And my dad would pick us up every Sunday. He only referred to her as the C word.
It was, they would yell at each other at the door from pickup to drop off. Um, he would spoil us and give us things my mom couldn't, there was so much resentment and there was so much pullback and they both, they used us both and didn't realize it. Like, look, people do better now with divorce. People do better with these life situations.
I hold nothing against either of them because that's the tools they had. They used, right? They didn't know any better. But later in life, after going through three straight years of therapy, and then after going back and forth with my family and going home to visit and feeling bad about myself, I one day sat down and said, okay, you are a product of your environment.
You're not in jail. You've never been arrested, right? You're [00:12:00] taking care of yourself. You're healthy. You're not a drug addict. Like my friends from high school and grade school are so amazed that I'm alive and that I'm not a drug addict because they watch from the sidelines, how bad my upbringing was and how much push and pull there was.
My one girlfriend watched my dad clock me across my face with an open hand because I didn't hand him a salt shaker fast enough, which was normal to me, but it wasn't until I'm in my forties that she shares the story with me. And that's when my friends came to me and they're like, we're so incredibly proud of you.
Yes. You took a unique path that not everybody would understand, but you got yourself out of a really toxic environment and you empowered yourself by finding a way to make money that was legal. And you've done something with your life, like they listen to my show, they've read my books. They're like huge supporters of mine. And I never got that from my family.
Erin: It's so interesting how people sit in judgment of other people, how you could have a child and have your child [00:13:00] make unconventional decisions about how to live their lives and how to be successful in the world that you chose your own path. It's not a path of. other people would necessarily choose, although thousands and thousands of people do choose it.
But then to sit back and say, I somehow I'm, I'm above you. If we live in such a culture of shame and repression, I'm sorry to hear that you got that from your family. How have you handled it in general? Like how do you reconcile this sort of cultural judgment, this place that we put, we both glorify and vilify sex. In this culture, right? So how does that sit with you? How do you reconcile all that stuff for yourself?
Lisa Ann: It's a pretty basic theory of we're born alone and we die alone. And I'm a lone wolf and I knew I didn't have the support of my family. I knew I was never going to get bailed out of jail. I knew I was never going to have assistance in any way, shape or form.
So my survival [00:14:00] skills kick in as for reconciling with. Family. I think the hardest it hit me was really during COVID because there was one morning I woke up and I thought if my parents don't reach out to me during this pandemic, something we've never seen in our generation, then they don't love me. And that's hard to process because even if you don't like me and you don't like the decisions I've made, how can a woman carry a child for nine months and then not check in?
And that was really, it was a fatal blow for me because I waited, it waited. I have one cousin that secretly gives me updates, you know, if somebody's passed away or if somebody needs something or whatever. And actually he's a priest at Notre Dame. The one person that has accepted me for my choices is actually the most religious person in my family, but he loves everyone.
And I've had him for dinner. We stay connected. He got me a nice set of rosary beads blessed by the Pope when he was traveling with the Pope. Like he's done [00:15:00] beautiful things Yeah. He's done beautiful things for me, but small minded people in small towns have very limited mental capacity to process this information.
And so for me, I realized I grew up in a world where everyone cared what everybody thought of them. And I loved your last episode because you talked about that. Yeah. And very young, I realized I can't care what people think about me because on my dad's Italian side of the family, when they would see me, they would say horrible things about my mom to me.
And that a good mom would never break up a family like Italians in the seventies still didn't believe in divorce. Okay. Like you were a criminal if you wanted to get divorced. So they did that to me. And then my mom's side of the family would do the opposite to me. And that's when I realized these people are my immediate people.
And they're coming at me like this. Obviously I only have to worry about what I think. What do I think? Who do I think is decent? Who do I think? Because I thought they were all horrible for saying things like that to a child. And as a young person, we'd go to church with [00:16:00] my dad. We'd go to my relatives after church, the men would all go to the garage and gamble and smoke and drink.
And the women would all sit in the kitchen and gossip, which By the way, we learned in church, you're not supposed to gossip. You're all still in your church clothes. And I remember like eight or nine years old being at my aunt Bessie's house thinking, these are not my people. Okay. These are not my people.
These people are negative. They're going to gossip. No matter what I do, they're going to gossip. And so Trump card pulled out. Imagine the response when they knew I was in the industry.
Erin: Right. Wasn't good. Right. But you were already judged by them. So who fucking cares? Already. Exactly. I got over that quick.
And I think when we're teenagers and we're trying to figure out who we are and trying to make our way in the world, we can be defiant in a way that when you're older and you have kind of a position to protect, it's harder to do. But when you're trying to survive and you're trying to figure out like, Hey, I actually I'm worth something. I belong somewhere. I have to figure that out for myself. There is some power in that willful, like, I'm right about [00:17:00] everything and you're wrong about everything. And I'm going to go prove it.
Lisa Ann: I learned very young that I never wanted to surround myself with people that gossip, right?
Erin: Oh, so there's no, there's no gossip in the porn industry.
Lisa Ann: There, it's funny you say that we'll get to that, but I had a rule when I was producing, I brought a speaker and music. I would ask what they want to listen to. And if I heard people gossiping on set, I would ask them to go outside because to me, we're in a sexual environment. This is supposed to be intimate.
It's supposed to be beautiful. I don't want yesterday's drama brought into today's set. And that was a big thing. I also didn't make lasting friendships in the industry. I have people I've stayed connected with, but my friends were always on the outside. My friends always had. Regular jobs doing something other than in the entertainment or adult entertainment space.
They kept me grounded. They kept me financially grounded. They taught me a lot of things and they're still my friends.
Erin: Wow. Your story is so unique and so fascinating. And your sense of self is so [00:18:00] profound. I really hope that people who are listening can hear that because I just see in you such a self possessed person who's like single mindedly, determinedly manifested her own destiny on the path that is so unique. Have you always loved sex?
Lisa Ann: Always love to say, well, no, you know, I can't say always when I was a teenager, I really didn't because it wasn't great. And also what I realized from my first sexual experience that you'll love this. So all of my friends were having sex before me and I just wasn't that into it.
Now, also I dealt with some abuse as a child, so I already was a little bit turned off, but I understood that in order to keep a boyfriend, you had to be having sex. Okay. My first boyfriend's name was guy, sweet guy, not the brightest lamp in the store, but sweet guy. Uh, and so we have this conversation, you know, everybody's doing it.
Everybody's talking about how amazing it is. Right. So I'm like, okay, but [00:19:00] I go to my school nurse. And I'm like, listen, the last thing I want as a child, everyone's having sex. What do I do at that time? There was a Planned Parenthood right across the street from my high school. So I went over there, I introduced myself.
I said, this is what I don't want to come out of this. What do I need to know? They gave me the pill. They gave me a bag of condoms. I go to my boyfriend. I'm like, well, we can have sex in 90 days because they told me at Planned Parenthood that it is going to take 90 days for this to take action. And there's no way we're taking a chance because there's no way I'm having a kid that's going to be an anchor baby in this. If you don't mind me swearing, shithole of my hometown. Like I knew I wanted to get out.
Erin: Excellent use of the, of the idea of anchor baby. I fucking love it.
Lisa Ann: So like how unromantic, right? So we wait the 90 days. He's like, oh, it's in the calendar. You know what I'm just like taking the pill.
Erin: Like a guy in prison.
Lisa Ann: Yeah, the exact same time every day because these women are like. Don't take NyQuil, don't take antibiotics, take it at the exact same time every day. This is when swatches came around and I can set an alarm on my [00:20:00] swatch. My swatch was like my birth control pill swatch. So we do it and it's not great because nobody's first experience is great.
Nobody knows what they're doing. It's awkward. You're hoping somebody's mom doesn't come home because you're up in a bedroom. It's quick. And then I went back to all my friends and I'm like. You guys are, guys are not telling the truth. Like this is not that great. And I learned from that experience, how much more possessive guys get once you start having sex with them.
And I didn't like that made me feel suffocated again. I just was like, this is too much for me. And I realized like, I can have sex with as many guys as I want. I do not have to have a boyfriend. To have sex. So that was a defining moment for me of understanding what it changes in a relationship. That's why I have a lot of guy friends that I would never have sex with.
And I have the conversation with them upfront. If you're ever pining for that, if you want to get out of the friend zone. It can't happen because it will change everything. So the teens, you know, you're kind of, I think, doing it because everybody else is, you're [00:21:00] not really doing it because you know how to explore your body yet.
You don't really understand. It wasn't until I had an older boyfriend who really taught me how to orgasm and how to masturbate. But he was kind of that guy that made me understand how to pleasure myself, which then makes you. Pleasure sex more because you know what you want, you know what you need. I think when as younger women, as teens having sex and younger women are so afraid to tell their boyfriend, I don't like that.
Or could you do this? Or maybe you don't even know what that is. Yes. You know, whether you like your nipples touched or you don't all of those things. So I think. Getting in the industry really helped me more than anything, discover myself sexually. That was when I really realized I started watching a ton of movies, VHS, of course.
Yes, of course. I started watching these movies because every woman that I would interview at OWLs over two years, if they gave me a VHS, I went home and I watched it and I'm watching it like, like Bill Belichick is watching tape for the New England Patriots, right? I'm sitting down and I'm like. Oh my gosh.
Instant [00:22:00] replay. Yeah. How does a girl get into that angle? Like, you know, cause when you're just having regular sex in a bed with, as a normal non porn star person, you don't do five plus positions, right? You don't even know what, how's the angle on that? Like, is that comfortable? And I can remember being in my tiny little apartment in Quakertown, Pennsylvania and in a mirror.
Doing these positions and wondering how it would feel from those positions like your knees, you know, you're doing things. You're like, oh, this must hurt on the knees after 20 minutes, huh? How's that? And when I got into the industry, we were also shooting on film and there was no Viagra, so it was a different sexual era. So what they would do for us is they'd rent these beautiful homes. Oh my gosh. I would snoop through the homes. I'd look at all the faucets and all the things. Like I was like, well, I'd never seen anything like this. I'd scurry through and look at everything, but they would have a separate room for us.
If you chose to, if you were a performer that wanted to [00:23:00] be a good performer. And so while they were relighting the room, we would go in and have private sex and cause he had to keep the guy going. It's not like I guy takes a Viagra and he's hard for three hours. And you now shoot a scene on one camera that could take 20 minutes.
To 30 to 40. Back then we shot a scene that could take three to four hours because each time they wanted to move the camera, they had to relight the room. And that guy knew that he had to stay hard and be ready that entire time. So if you were a sexual being, which I was at that time, that was when I got in some real exploring because I was with true professionals who would talk with me about things and you know, we'd be having sex and they'd ask me questions.
Do you like that? What do you prefer? What's your favorite of this? And those moments in those beds, until we would hear them yell, we're ready for you. We're like some great, beautiful sexual moments for me.
Erin: That is so interesting because that is the [00:24:00] best sex, right? When you're like, how does this feel? Do you like this? Do you like that? When you're really connected to each other and trying to maximize each other's pleasure, like that's the best stuff. But porn is, is sexuality and sex acts as entertainment. Right? Like it's to be watched. It's for the viewer. It's from the outside in. And then our personal experiences of sex are usually off camera, in private, just between the two of you about your connection, about how it feels in your body and their body.
It's so different than porn. It's largely internal as opposed to being largely external. And I'm so curious, like when you're on camera, How much of is it, of it is for you personally, and how much of it is performance.
Lisa Ann: So I was very fortunate to come into the industry at a time where we chose everything. You know, the women had all of the power in the nineties because they were so afraid we were going to leave. [00:25:00] And if you were a beautiful woman and you could do this. Cause you remember the eighties and nineties is a smaller pool. This is before the internet. There were 25 popular stars and that's it.
Maybe 50 at our biggest time in the nineties. So they really coddled you. So because of that, I picked my performers I wanted to work with and I got to know the men I worked with regularly. So well, like I knew if they liked a full bottom panty versus a thong, I knew what perfume they liked. I knew what nail color they like.
Like I made it. As almost a date, this is our time and I'm going to bring out the best in both of us. He's going to bring out the best in both of us, but I'm not going to waste this experience and not orgasm because the way I would get in my car at 2 p. m. after shooting a Gonzo scene, I think, all right, I'm already paid.
I already got off. I already had a snack. Like the rest of the day is now. I started to have these random conversations with myself where. I felt this [00:26:00] glee and I will tell you when I'd be sitting in traffic driving to set, I would look around at everybody and I would think, yep, you're going to a cubicle, you're going to work at the airport, I'm going to have sex with a really hot guy today and I just can't wait. And that's what I'd be thinking when I'd be sitting in traffic.
Erin: Honestly, that's how I feel about my boyfriend. I love that. Oh my God, we fuck so good
I love that. Like, I just think, I don't know a lot of other 52 year olds who are having it as hot as I have it right now. Um, you had that for a long time. Did a long time. Did that feeling last?
Lisa Ann: It lasted the entire time I was in the industry. You know, my. Scenes once I put myself in, once I kind of game planned, I would visualize, I would know the locations.
I do them all by heart by now. And when I was producing my own, I knew exactly what room I was going to shoot in, what the lighting was going to be like, what everything about it. So I would really put myself in that space. The tough parts of the industry aren't, were never for me doing the scene. I love taking photos.
So I loved [00:27:00] doing the pretty girls, which are the photos that they use for the teasers of you, just solo. I love doing the sex stills. Cause you could still talk and play music, but what's the cameras on. It's so quiet. And that's one of the biggest struggles new male performers have is when they realize how quiet it is in the room, you can almost hear their heart beating.
And that's when you're like, okay, like you have to get past the quiet, but the quiet. It really helped me understand my partners, not just onset, but offset because there was a guy, Mark Davis, I worked with a ton in the nineties and I could visualize so many times we went into another room and had sex while they were redoing the room.
And he told me, you know, you should always listen to your partner's breathing. You'll learn a lot by patiently listening to your partner's breathing. You'll know what they like, you'll know what they don't like. And if you can listen to that and feel the temperature of their skin, you will understand them sexually after your first experience.
And so I took that with me and I carried that because it is [00:28:00] true. Like if you're quiet enough, you listen to someone's breathing and you feel the rhythm that they're at, then you know if they're truly enjoying it or if they're just waiting. For it to be over.
Erin: Right. Right. So you may be the one of the most qualified people on earth to answer this question, which is what makes a good lover?
Lisa Ann: Connection. It's not size. It's not even body shape or style. It's not look. It's connection. Once you connect and the rest of the world is so far behind you, and you're just in that moment of celebrating each other, each other's bodies, each other's breathing, each other's touch, your communication you can have during those very intimate moments, that's where real orgasms happen.
They don't happen because you picked a guy that you thought was hot and you heard he's good in bed because he might be shallow. He might be empty. He might not connect. Not everybody. Knows how to connect during sex.
Erin: I think a lot of people actually don't know how to connect during sex.
Lisa Ann: I've had a lot of arbitrary sex and as long as I [00:29:00] still get off, it's great, but I would not be in a relationship with somebody I had arbitrary sex with.
And so what's the point?
Erin: What's the point?
Lisa Ann: Right. So it is to me, to me, it is the connection and is the touching and just feeling each other.
Erin: Yeah. I love that. I love that part of your story that I love is that at one point you started a talent agency. Yeah. for adult actresses that aligned with the rise of the sort of the notion of the MILF, which for those non porn watching people in this listening audience, that is moms I'd like to fuck.
That's my boyfriend's category. He's 10 years younger than me. Talk to me about that because You're such a business minded person. That was clearly a market opportunity, right? As women who were a little bit older were becoming popular on the scene. Is that what you saw? Is that why you wanted to be part of the representation side of the business?
Lisa Ann: Well, I worked at another office as an agent for almost [00:30:00] a year. And really it was what I saw happening in the, in the industry once the internet started. And we just now needed to book 50 to a hundred scenes a day because every company wanted to have such a mass volume of content that performers were no longer being shared the important information, like who they were working with.
The agents were all going to this. We're not going to tell them anything. Whoever shows up, shows up. It's a boy girl scene. You're getting this much money. Here's what time you have to be there. And I was like, wow. Here it comes.
Erin: It's much more transactional.
Lisa Ann: Yes. And I was like, this is not safe. This is not great. And also how are we going to put good scenes out there if people aren't connected with each other, if they don't like working together, if they don't know each other, if they're not attracted to each other. So I decided to start my own agency and give everyone those choices. Like when I would meet new talent.
Let's say, who are your top 10 favorite, favorite, favorite performers to work with male, female, give me a list. Because then when I would speak to the directors, I would say, [00:31:00] I know you want to have a good scene. So this is the hit list we're working off of. If you can accommodate that great, if not, we're going to have to run it by for approval. I want to be sure I'll find scenes of this other performer. I'll send them to my talent. If they're interested, then I'll call you back. That was a game changer. And also, so the milf. It became like a scavenger hunt for me. So I was in the industry in the 90s. I left when we had our huge HIV scare. There's a great documentary called Porn demic everyone should watch.
I lived through that time. And it was a performer who was faking his test and he knew he was HIV positive. Oh, come on. And back then we were getting tested once every 90 days. Oh my God. It was a piece of paper that everyone was responsible to show each other and people would get lazy and they'd white it out and they'd go to Kinko's and they'd copy it.
And, but this, this guy knew. And we had. Three women come HIV positive in a short period of time.
Erin: And that was at the time when there weren't [00:32:00] treatments also.
Lisa Ann: No, no, no. At that time. And there was a huge industry meeting that everybody showed up to at a big warehouse in the Valley. And I looked around that room and I thought to myself, you need to leave. If these are not your people right now, you need to leave. There's no one smart enough here making the right decisions. So I decided to leave the industry and I didn't come back until I was working at that agency. And we now had a talent testing service that was on the internet. So you were able to actually see tests without somebody handing it to you.
So that trust was removed and you could actually put in their information and get into the database. And with that, that changed a lot of my mindset. I wasn't planning on coming back, but MILF happened. And all these directors that were booking talent kept asking me like, why are you sitting at a desk?
Like you should be shooting. This is the biggest thing right now. This, and I was like, I mean, I'm 35, who knew 35 year old women didn't shoot when I was in the business in my twenties, like I'm. Here, I'm happy at this agency that, and [00:33:00] then the offers started coming in and they were very lucrative. Yeah. When I went to open my own agency, I was then given the task, could you find everybody that you worked with in the nineties and bring them back? And I was able to get them nice money, a lot more money than performers were making at that time. And so I did this scavenger hunt. And the second layer to my business was there was no one representing any interracial talent.
When I had my first two years, I was a contract girl. I was told I couldn't do an interracial scene because cable did not allow interracial. And I remember sitting at Steve Carmelin's desk at Metro and going, okay, we just worked out. Where I'm going to be come on in my contract because back then you got paid more for a facial cum shot.
Erin: And now it's like you have to do it.
Lisa Ann: You have to do it and each contract girl that I interviewed at ALS said when you get offered a contract tell them you will do One and you will charge them this much for it So I was like, okay, great. I'll do that. So I was like, okay, we just laid out [00:34:00] where I'm coming. And now you're telling me in the most open minded business I just landed myself in, you're putting limits on my sexual preferences. I can't do an interracial scene. So I took that two years and I studied everything that was going on in that world.
And after my contract is up, I held out until somebody would shoot me. In an interracial scene and every company said, no, I had to do this count. It was kind of like you had to pretend it was your first time. It was a really low budget. We did it in somebody's apartment. It was so bad, but I had to do it because I had to break the seal because I wanted to show my dance agent who was saying, if you do that, no, one's going to hire you for dancing.
I'm like, well, that's on you. If you think you can't get me booked because of my preferences, but I'm not, not doing that. And then I made it a huge part of my career. Probably 75 percent of my scenes were interracial. And I really wanted to bring all of the performers I knew into my agency and get them equal pay because they did not get paid as much as [00:35:00] white performers, men and women. I was like, and I was like, okay, this is not cool.
Erin: No, it's also a lawsuit that could go to the Supreme Court. That kind of case.
Lisa Ann: Of course. And it's still not great in the industry for that. So I had the MILFs and then I had every other grouping of talent and I knew that I could take care of them properly.
My talent, I would say to them, if you're in a scene and somebody says something racially degrading and you want to leave. Leave. Don't park in the driveway ever. Always have your car and all your stuff together and do never expose yourself to something. Whereas no other agents took them and they would show up on set and people would say horrible things to them.
And that even was with young girls. You know, you have the teens that come into the industry and tell you like, I don't want to do these kind of daddy ish scenes because the guys are like my dad's age. And it really freaked. I'm like, I hear you don't do it. We're not going to have you do it. But every other agent.
just didn't tell them and they did it. And they're scarred by [00:36:00] that. That's not a scene you're going to be proud of. That's not something you're going to share. And so there were so many things, but what I learned is four years of having that agency, which was by far the worst job I ever had. So hard. It's also hard things like having a pimp come in my office and.
Pull a gun on me because I was representing one of his girls and I didn't know it, which security door was put on the next day after that. Having bail bondsman's call me, having the cops call me, having talent call me at four in the morning because they want to pick up a check at the office that they didn't pick up for three weeks.
And I would refuse because I knew they were going to go to a check cashing store and buy drugs. And so it just got to the point where I realized I can't compete against the men in the industry that are agents that are doing all of this so dirty. They would make the companies pay the talent agent, and then the talent agent would take out all the fees and then pay the talent. Right. That's illegal on so many levels. It doesn't allow a performer to build her financial [00:37:00] wellness at all because you have no 1099s, nothing is organized. And they're taking fees out for things you don't even understand. And I can remember talent coming in thinking they were picking up about 10,000 and they'd leave with 2,500.
They'd be crying as they left because that's what the other agents did. That's how they got paid. I refuse to do that. I was like, I am not taking anyone's check. You pay the talent. That is their responsibility. They are business people. This is their business. I trust in them that they will come in and pay me. The male performers are always better than the female performers about paying. Um, it was really interesting and they would drop it off in person.
Erin: Interesting. The underworld overlap with the porn industry, the sort of world of prostitution, the world of drugs, the world of exploitation, the vulnerability of so many people coming into the industry.
That's got to take a toll on you to sort of see, it's one thing to have the kind of personal agency that you have, but to be surrounded [00:38:00] by people who you can see are being run down, beat up, who are clearly developing addictions and problems. That must have been so dark and so hard. And I know, As a result, you started mentoring young women in the business.
I want to hear about that because I think like you could listen to this interview and be like, wow, like porn is just super empowering. And then it's actually just you that managed your way through it in that way.
Lisa Ann: It was so dark that when I was working at that agency, what made me have to quit was I've always had psoriasis. And so I ended up flaring up from head to toe, like head to toe psoriasis. And I went to all these doctors. Then I went to a holistic doctor and he said to me, Ooh, he said, something is really burdening you. Do you know that your skin is the window to your soul? He says, there's something you're involved with right now that is burdening your soul.
So, and I [00:39:00] was like, well, I work at this horrible agency who is just. Chewing up and spitting out women left and right and pretty much ruining their lives, their looks. He would have them come in, take their clothes off, and he'd say, okay, you need a boob job. You need hair extensions. You need a tan. You need to lose 20 pounds.
I would watch this go down. And then the girl's already in debt of 10 to 20, 000 because he's going to front all this money and make her do all of these things. And then she's not going to like herself. And so I had to leave over that. And so that was incredibly dark. And when I started my own agency quickly, I realized my mentorship was better when I wasn't doing business with them.
That makes sense. Very hard to give advice to someone who thinks that you have a better interest than. Then what you're telling them. And so removing myself from the industry to present, I still stay connected with the industry. I go to trade shows and all these events because I enjoy them, but also because it keeps my finger on the pulse.
I [00:40:00] still meet up with a lot of the younger performers that I'd never crossed paths with. They have access to me. If they're going through something, they give me a scenario. A girl came to me a couple of weeks ago with a scenario. No, you should not do that. Please do not do that. And she thanked me. I always want to be here, but I realized it's easier to just be here as a friend, as a big sister than it was when they thought I had a mutual vested financial interest.
Erin: So now you talk a lot about how it was. so different in the 90s. And like, obviously tech has come in and disrupted fucking everything, right? Every business. Part of the reason why I went to work for a technology company and after working in television, I worked on the media side of a technology company was because I saw that what television was and what cable was and what all these things were, it was being blown up by tech.
And I thought, well, better to be on that side, you know, facing the future. But it has completely blown up porn as well, right? The adult industry. [00:41:00] Now you have amateurs, tons and tons of amateur porn out there. Only fans where people can pay to watch someone do whatever you can watch real people have sex. People can monetize their sexuality autonomously outside of a network. I'm curious about that because to my mind, coming out of a marriage where I didn't have sex for 10 years.
Lisa Ann: Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. Let me take a knee for you right now.
Erin: Thank you. Please take a knee for me. No one has taken a knee for me for that, and I appreciate that.
Lisa Ann: Oh, my God. 10 months, I'd kill people. Okay. I mean, I was not a nice wife. It's the touching. It's the, it's the so much about that, that makes me want to take a knee for you.
Erin: Thank you. Yeah. It's the lack of oxytocin. So for me, rediscovering my sexuality and I turned to porn. I went online to see what the fuck people were doing these days.
Oh, you must have been horrified. No, I wasn't. I wasn't. I mean, I was always very sexually oriented before that. So I [00:42:00] wasn't freaked out by stuff, but it was interesting to me. I guess I was looking for the bright side for myself. And I saw a lot of women with regular bodies getting fucked really good, right?
Like, and. Also, I, I was able to watch people experience things that I had thought about. But I had never been part of right. So it, it helped me expand my own sense of like, well, now that I'm going back out there, what is it that I like? What interests me? What turns me on? What doesn't? What would I want to do in a fantasy versus what I would want to do in real life?
All of that stuff, but I was of two minds about it. I was like, this seems empowering, parts of this, the only fans where people can be behind a camera, be safe, control their interactions with their fans. And then part of me was like, God, this is ripe for exploitation because the machine is so hungry for content.
And then therefore the content is so disposable. [00:43:00] And are we disposing of people's sexuality just so much more easily? I'm so curious about your point of view on how all of these things have changed our relationship with sexuality as a culture and then also that business.
Lisa Ann: So we'll go back to the 90s first. And know that in the 90s. We were living in an era where there were still a lot of regulations on the adult industry, and they were actually in our mind as performers, they were safeguards. Like you couldn't be slapped, you couldn't be choked, you couldn't be bound, you couldn't be held down. Both parties had to be showing mutual consent at all times.
I can remember shooting movies in the era where you couldn't even show penetration. You had to be shooting it from the side. Side for cable. I remember all of that. Like they'd yell, you're showing Penny. And I'm like, okay, okay, I'll angle my butt this way. And there was so much put into it. Every movie was a masterpiece.
Every movie was like they had a hair person, a makeup person, a wardrobe person for the talent. Like we [00:44:00] had craft services. So it was this elaborate event that just made it seem so special.
Erin: It was a parallel show business.
Lisa Ann: Yeah. They wanted the sex to be real. So when I first started with my contract, they would go to this diner in the Valley producers, directors, and they'd link me on like little lunch dates with male performers that I didn't know.
And they'd watch us from afar to see if we had chemistry. Oh my God. They cared. That much. And then when the guy would leave, they'd sit over with me and say, did you like him? Are you sure? Would you be comfortable with him? What did you like about him? What didn't you like about? Yeah, no, I'm serious. This is what I got into. It was a beautiful place.
Erin: Oh my God. You're making it sound like porn utopia.
Lisa Ann: It was porn utopia. Okay. I landed in porn utopia. Okay. When I got into the industry, I was honest. I want to feature dance. I don't want to do movies full time. I want to do one movie a month. I want to feature it. They knew I was going to be out on the road moving their product, right?
So they knew let's take care of [00:45:00] this worker. She's going to be an independent salesperson for us and she's going to kill it. So they protected me that way. As the internet starts really fueling this, the regulations went off, then companies started saying, Oh, we want to do this to her. We want to do this to her.
It became, we're doing this to her. It became when I would show up on set, I'd have to have this face to face conversation with every guy I worked with, even though I knew him really well. And I would say, do not choke me. Do not hold me down. I am a willing participant in this. If you show strength over me, I will get very uncomfortable.
Do not smack me. Do not spit on me. And that's why I said you must have been horrified because the content that is out there now that surfaces to the top with the algorithm, like if you go to porn hub, the top 10 scenes are actually pretty awful. Yeah. They're not beautiful. And I think the reason. The MILF genre is still here is because it's very empowering to women.
[00:46:00] As the MILF, you are the well off woman with a younger man and you're kind of the boss, right? He's not going to smack you. You're in charge. And that's why the MILF stuff is so hot. But what surfaces to the top on these algorithms is the very aggressive, violent scenes. As I was starting to peel away and know that I was going to stop.
Eventually have to stop performing. Like I said, get out of bed and put some clothes on. There were male performers that I had already worked with for five, 10 years that after a scene, our last scene together, I would say to them, I like you as a person. We just can't work together anymore. And I understand it's not me.
It's that five days a week, you're doing scenes for directors that are telling you not to listen to the girl's limits and to do what he wants you to do. And you're afraid not to get paid. So you're going to do what he wants you to do. I mean, I had a, Male performer stick his finger in my butt when I wasn't prepared at all.
And they used it for a scene. And believe it or not, that is one of the most popular little clips. And I never asked them to remove [00:47:00] it. I never said anything, but I'll turn around and look to him. And I was like, bro, you know me better than this. What the fuck are you doing? Like, this is some fighting shit.
We talk about when something's going inside my body. It, that became a more constant narrative. And so I stopped feeling safe on set. I stopped feeling like I could let my guard down. That's why I started producing movies because if somebody did something to me like that, guess what? I'm the one who writes your paycheck.
Right. And if I cancel the scene, you get none, so you're going to be on your best behavior because I'm also paying you. And so that's how I reestablish the control. But it became a place where I felt like I had to be more on guard than I ever did. And I didn't feel as much joy. I felt more concern that takes away from putting together a really good scene that takes away from every moment when you just don't want to be looking over your shoulder and wondering what the director is potentially telling him to do that. You don't know behind your back.
Erin: That's fucking horrifying. That even the male actors have lost [00:48:00] agency as a result of the demands of the what? Whose demand is that? Whose demand is that? Is it that there's such a proliferation of content that the more extreme stuff is the stuff that gets attention and therefore people are just chasing the eyeballs that come from this more extreme stuff.
Lisa Ann: Yes, that is exactly it. And also I think the people that write these scenes and these scenarios, I think they probably get very burned out of their jobs and they no longer think something is still hot. I still think the pool guy is hot. Okay. I still think the pizza delivery guy is a hot scene, but to them, that was like, Oh, we've done that already.
We've done that already. They're always trying to chasing chasing and it's clickbait. Right. And it's shocking and it, but it's traumatic. And you're in such a vulnerable spot. You're in a home with multiple people. You're naked. You can, the last thing you want to be [00:49:00] doing. Is looking over your shoulder. And the same thing really happened to me with my feature dance career.
As I started to think about what my life would be like, I love dancing. I did it for so many years, but the men became more aggressive. And as more performers were using feature dancing as a way to escort, it became harder for me because I never escorted, never wanted to. And so I would have these like arguments I'd be.
After my show, I would do Polaroids and back in the day and then photos on phones, which was so easy, you know, and you'd sell merch, you know, your eight by tens would have you and the guys would, Oh, you know how much? And I'd say, Oh, I don't do that. Well, the last girl did it. Well, that's okay. If she jumps off a bridge, I'm not jumping.
I'm not, I don't do that. What do you mean? You know, you fuck random guys on camera all the time with the fuck you won't fuck. And I, and it got to the point where at least once a weekend and I had security with me and we had baseball signals, like when it's time to like step in and remove this person.
Yeah. But it came to that point where my last year on the road, every week I was dealing with some sort of interaction like that. And I was [00:50:00] like, you know what? It's changed around me. I'm the same, but it's changed around me. It's, I first thought I outgrew it, but it outgrew me. It changed. I didn't change.
And so I realized it was no longer a place where I felt 100 percent comfortable and safe and that I could just do my thing and have people appreciate it.
Erin: It's such a vicious cycle. Because now young people are growing up with infinite access to all this stuff. And then the garbage rises to the top, just like anything that's conflict or incendiary rises to the top on any platform.
It's very disturbing because it has the potential. This is the problem with technology in general, right? And all this disruption, it has the potential for these sort of utopian ideals where you go, Oh, my God, I get to watch women with bodies like mine and in loving relationships have connection and sexuality together and with their partners and whatever.
And maybe I don't know why they film it and put it on the internet. But thanks. But that [00:51:00] isn't the end. predominant experience. The predominant experience is one of aggression, domination and degradation. And it just fucking sucks.
Lisa Ann: Let me say something about OnlyFans and the fact that it's an amazing platform.
I use it for my library of content. I get to message with fans. I don't create new content, but I have a nice library of a couple of years before I rotate. I do. So sidebar. For producing my own movies. Of course I own all my content, but then when the internet was taking over and a ton of the VHS slash DVD companies knew that they just.
Made enough money. They were good and they were ready to tap out. I bought back all of my scenes. So I just went door to door in the Valley to every company that was closing and said, how many of my scenes, what do you want for these scenes in the paperwork? Will you sign that? I have an internet release so I could use them at that time.
I was using them on my website. I didn't know that I would again, get to repurpose them one more time on OnlyFans. But [00:52:00] the thing with OnlyFans that I think a lot of people don't understand is if you're not making a certain amount of money. Exposing yourself and understanding that you don't yet know what it's going to be like when you're out and about in the world.
There's safety elements that come with this. There's people that get obsessed. There's stalkers. There's how it affects your family. So if you're doing this for You know, a couple thousand dollars a month. Is it really worth it that that is going to be with you forever? Because those images they rip our sites every day and put them on reddit.
They put them on free sites They sell the tube sites like nothing is safe You have to have a loyal fan base that will subscribe even though they know that they can get this stuff for free And if you don't have that Then maybe you're going to make money for six months that it's going to go down to four or five hundred dollars a month and now You want to get out there into the workplace and now you're going to work with somebody and one day somebody is going to come up to you and be like, Oh, I watch your page every night.
There's a lot that comes with exposing yourself as an adult porn star performer, [00:53:00] solo, whatever it is that you're doing, however you're exposing yourself. You have to be willing to accept everything that comes with that. When I hired my business manager in New York. The bank that he does all of his banking with would not accept my accounts.
And he said to me, I can't believe this is discrimination. Like, look, I've lived this life my whole life. I've been denied from more apartments than I've been accepted. And it's not a financial or credit thing. It's because I'm Lisa Ann. You will still be shunned by people. And I said to him, it's not a problem.
We'll stick with my bank. I'm sorry for the extra errands for you. He was so put off by it, but I'm like, look, I've accepted. That's part of what I did. I don't know if everybody that's dabbling on OnlyFans has truly yet accepted.
Erin: And how can they know there's no class to take, right?
Lisa Ann: There are coaches or only fans coaches that are really great, but it's, it's the exterior situations in your life that you can never properly be prepared for. Like for years, [00:54:00] when my friends would invite me to like, Group Superbowl events or group parties of their, and I was so insecure about what everybody would be saying behind my back when I was there that I was like, no, I'm good. I don't do group events now, you know, I've embraced my whole life and I'll go and do anything.
And if somebody's saying something, then they're saying something. But there was a time where it isolated me and I worry about young people. Having these couple interactions and then isolating them, being a porn star is the loneliest career you will ever have. Every well known or successful porn star will tell you that it is lonely because you are so isolated and you are so in a bubble of judgment and you are so afraid to push that judgment and you're denied a lot.
When I went to buy my. House in studio city, California. I had to fight the HOA because they weren't going to let me buy stating that I was probably a hooker and that I was probably going to be having parties and I was probably going to be doing this. And I was like, I'm not gonna let these people push me around.
Not only did [00:55:00] I live there for 15 years, I was the fucking HOA president. It
was only 14 units, but at the end of it, as we'd be having these monthly second Tuesday of every month in my living room. I just hope that I opened people's minds to not be so judgmental. Get to know people first. Take your time to get to know people before you judge.
Erin: I love that. I love that. Let's talk a little bit about your pivot to fantasy sports and that world, because that seems like such a crazy right turn, but it's clearly you're a sports fan.
It's a thing that's been in you, right? Tell me about how you decided that that was going to be your next chapter.
Lisa Ann: So it started fairly organically traveling around the road as a featured dancer. You always go into the local sports show Friday morning, promote your gig. And as a sports fan, when I would go into the sports show, I [00:56:00] actually had something to offer.
So I would talk about their home teams. Oh, they loved it though. The driver would be like, okay, you'll be in there for 15 minutes. Here are the 10 things we want you to talk about. We have a waiting special on Friday or happy hour, whatever. And I'd be like, okay, I'm going to be in there for an hour. So just prepare yourself.
They would always keep me for that hour. And that training got me really into doing radio. So I started doing a show in like 2008, 2009 for playboy radio. It was spice radio, then browsers, but it was just like a sexy radio station. But I had a show called stripper town. It was Monday nights. I would interview the feature dancers that were getting ready to go out on the road.
I would take phone calls from listeners about like crazy strip club stories. I mean, it was fun. And because it was Monday nights during the football season, those same fans that heard me do those sports. Shows in their hometown would sneak by my producer saying that they had a story and they would tell me the score [00:57:00] of the Monday night game because there was no TV in my studio and they knew me doing this show during football season was brutal for me.
So I had to record the game and I had to go home and they would give me updates. And so I got wrote up twice. Twice I got wrote up now we're coming up like 2012 2013 and my producer who is like so sick of football season because I'm supposed to be doing a sexy show and I'm talking about the game. Like, well, how did that happen?
Who got injured? You know, who got in the end zone? You know? And he said, look, we can't, this isn't working. This is now a sports show. It's not working for us on the station, but my, one of my very good friends in New York. Matt Deutsch, he was producing a fantasy football show that was a group of playboy playmates.
The show just broke up and I know he's looking for a female voice and I think this is like the perfect fit for you. And I was like, done, booked a meeting, flew to New York, like within five days to meet Matt. And I said to Matt, honestly, I know football. I'm NBA is my favorite. NFL's next. I said, I [00:58:00] watch golf.
I do a little boxing here, but I don't know fantasy, but I can study it. And this was in May that I met him. And I said, I will take this entire summer and I will mock draft. I will read every book on the history of fantasy football, which I did. And I said to him, all of my idiot guy, friends play fantasy football and they're good at it.
And if they could do it, I can do it. So don't even worry about it. We're doing this. My first show was September of 2013. And I have to say like everybody at Sirius XM was so cool to me. I have never had one creepy interaction in this business. Which is amazing. Yes. I work hard and I knew that I had to work harder to prove myself that I wasn't just some celebrity name being tagged onto a show.
That drove me. Right. Don't give them a reason. And my best friend said to me when I got my first contract, she said, you have a choice right now. You can be a flash in a pan that they use for social media clicks for a year. Or you can exceed their [00:59:00] expectations and get another contract. And I ended up doing seven contracts with Sirius XM before I made the move.
So my old boss from Sirius XM started his thing and we're all together. He's a great human. I left first, then he left after me. He's a great human and he's made me a better person in so many ways. He put me through a ton of classes at Sirius XM. I was a. sponge. I was willing to learn. You don't do sports radio for the money.
Okay. You do it cause you love it. You know what I mean? I was like, I want to do this. So I decided to learn baseball and fantasy baseball because that would keep me on air all year as opposed to just doing football season. I absolutely love the community that just has endless conversations about something that we have no control over.
That doesn't really matter, but it's not personal. We just talk sports and it's very freeing. It's all of our great escape and I love the community that I've been a part of and I absolutely love doing it.
Erin: I love that so much for you and I also it's the same way that you entered the industry, right? You, you did your [01:00:00] homework and you found out what the opportunity was and then you went for it. It's so awesome.
Lisa Ann: Now, when I was It's going to retire. The first thing I knew I wanted to do was have my boobs reduced. So I had very big boobs in the business and then I was like, okay, I'm going to set up the surgery. I'm going to pay for it in advance. It's going to be a week after I retire, so I can't go back.
And there was a lot of resistance from two, two groups of people. There was the people that hated me because I got out of porn and didn't think that I deserved. To be doing radio for Sirius XM and they would let Sirius XM know on a regular basis. And then there were the people that just didn't yet have their head wrapped around the fact that somebody from my world could pivot.
So I had to really carry a lot of that for probably the first three, four years and really let people know. Like everybody. Should be able to do whatever they want after they've done any other career. And so I'm hoping to be that pace car for so many other performers [01:01:00] and people in the industry. It was an interesting three years.
You know, every time you put a sports takeout, somebody says something absolutely horrible to you. How many times I've read, I liked you more with a dick in your ass. Um, Oh, like every day, first three years, hundreds of times a day, hundreds of times a day sending me my scenes. You need to go back to this.
You're useless. So I had to really develop a new thick skin. My first thick skin was everybody judging me cause I was in porn. Oh wait, now I'm being judged cause I'm not in porn and I'm doing something else.
Erin: You're also going from a world where you're serving male desire, right? And then you are going into another world that is a man's world that is a male only universe and you're asserting actually have a voice here.
I have something to say and they're like, wait a minute, like you're for one thing for me. It's interesting [01:02:00] that possessiveness of your identity by your fans or by quote unquote fans who are willing to shit talk you if you're not doing the specific objectified thing that they want.
Lisa Ann: Right. I still get it. I do IG, I do lives weekly and I still get it even with my moderator in there. Like we cannot believe how many times a day there's a thousand people in the room, a couple hundred quotes will be like, you're useless unless you're in porn. And I realized, first of all, if you've seen every one of my scenes, you need a new hobby.
Second of all, you're just calling yourself out for being a sex starved individual that is absolutely obsessed in this phone relationship. When people started to be able to view us on their phone and have access to us, they also developed a very entitled way that they respond to us. And it's even crazier in person.
No qualms about touching me. No qualms about grabbing me. And I'm like, wow, I would never do that. [01:03:00] I'm a small woman. I would never do that to a celebrity. I always use Tina Fey as my example because I'm such a huge Tina Fey fan. And you both played Sarah Palin. Yes. She wrote me into one of her speeches, but I could never imagine walking up to her and grabbing her from behind.
Common thing for me is dinner. If I'm out to dinner, someone will spot me. If I don't notice them spotting me, they'll wait. And they'll just come right up behind me, put one hand around me. The other hand is usually their phone that wants to go in my face because they want to selfie. And I just calmly turn around and say, excuse me, sir, do I know you?
In what world do you walk into a woman's space uninvited? Just because you know, of me doesn't mean you're entitled to have access to me. private setting at a dinner table and they'll always keep going. Well, can I just have the photo? Can I just, I'll never forgive the photo, but yeah, it's bizarre and it's because of the access. Those are the things that I [01:04:00] worry about people not being prepared for. When they expose themselves. That's all right. You have to be ready. You can't walk around alone.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The safety stuff is so scary.
Lisa Ann: I've been followed into airport bathrooms. The good thing is it keeps you sober because you can't walk around anywhere comfortable.
Erin: Yeah. Hmm. And New York is probably good for it too, because you can lose yourself in the crowd.
Lisa Ann: You can hide in New York a bit.
Erin: Yeah. Yeah. This is an amazing conversation. You've given me so much to think about. My head is kind of spinning. I've asked everyone who's come on this podcast, this one question, which is what are some deal terms in your life that you would like to renegotiate and they can be literal deal terms or they can be. Deals you've made with yourself, implicit or explicit.
Lisa Ann: Gosh, is it awful of me to just say, I don't have any. Is it true? [01:05:00] Yeah. I mean, I'm living in the apartment of my dreams. I filled a passport. I've already been to Greece this year to do an event. I'm going to Australia in November to hold more koalas and feeds.
I have a really strong. Group of female friends. I have a dinner with four women tomorrow night. I do a women's group here in the city where I get 20 to 30 women together. I have a strong group of women that I never thought I would have coming from the adult industry. I have great guy friends that have replaced my brothers, my family.
I love the people in my building, which is almost like a dorm. I take breaks during the day and have tea on my patio. I just feel very content. I really do. And it comes to something I'd like to reconcile or regret or something I wish I could change. I just don't have it. I work through my things a lot. I meditate every day.
I'm always trying to better myself, but forgiveness is a huge part of mistakes and we've all made [01:06:00] them. I'm really content. Every step I've taken has brought me here to this conversation with you, Erin, and every step we take in life, as unique as it is, brings us to a place where we're like, I am in the right place at the right time. This is the life I'm meant to be living.
Erin: Fucking love it. I love it. Because you've been renegotiating the whole time.
Lisa Ann: The whole time. Every day I'm renegotiating. All day. And I'm not making the decisions quickly either. When I turned 30, I implemented a plan that would no longer respond to an ask. In less than 24 hours, that was when we started to--
Erin: Say that again. Please say that again.
Lisa Ann: So I would not respond to an ask in less than 24 hours. So example, my agent would call, Hey, we've got this gig for you. I would let me write down the details. Okay. We'll have this same call tomorrow at this same time. We say yes so quickly that we're not offering ourselves the opportunity to say no. And if you let something sit for 24 hours, the funny thing is you wake up the next day [01:07:00] and if it's a yes. You know it. It's a yes. Right away. But if you're still trying to build the case on the why, it's a no.
Erin: Yeah. Take, take the ambivalence as a no. Yeah. I love it. Oh my God. You need to write a self help book. That's interesting.
Lisa Ann: Yeah. Do you think anybody would listen? I think people are still a little stuck on my career choices. The dicks and stuff. Um.
Erin: Yeah. The dicks. I don't know. I don't know. The wisdom comes from everywhere. This has been a really awesome conversation. I'm so grateful that you came on to the show and shared yourself with us.
Lisa Ann: Well, I'm opening myself up to a new world. I partnered with a winery in Sicily and my wine just made it through customs this week, a red and a white.
I'm going there next weekend to shoot some pictures of the harvest. And so I wanted to get into a. space where I could use my club contacts, but be in bed by 10 instead of like doing events till late at night. So when I come to California with some wine, I [01:08:00] will make sure that I bring you some.
Erin: I would love that. And everybody check out the Lisa Ann does fantasy better show every Wednesday night from seven to nine East coast time streaming on YouTube at better network @thereallisaann
Lisa Ann: @thereallisaann and on all platforms. And my podcast is the Lisa Anne experience.
Erin: Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. Did that conversation blow your mind? I want to hear what you think. DM us @hotterthaneverpod on Instagram, comment on any of our social media posts and we will get into it. Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard. and Podkit productions. Our interim associate producer is Melody Carey.
Music is by Chris Keating with vocals by Issa Fernandez. Come back next week, hotties. Should I call you hotties? It sounds so like 90s. Sometimes I feel like I'm Paris [01:09:00] Hilton when, do you guys remember when she was on The Simple Life and all she would ever say was, that's so hot, that's so hot, is that what I sound like?
You could do worse than being Paris Hilton. Any whoozles come back next week and we will get even deeper into it.