Nadya Suleman, by way of financial backers known as Team Octomom, has paid AVN Award-winning Wicked contract director Brad Armstrong to produce a glamorous solo masturbation video, further solidifying the unfortunate link between infamy and porn forged by celebrities like John Wayne Bobbitt, Joey Buttafuoco, and Amy Fisher.
Suleman, known as Octomom for the eight fertility-treatment-abetted babies she birthed in 2009, has been courted, pursued, and (in my opinion) harassed by companies like Vivid who hoped to capitalize on her fame, using her well-documented financial difficulties as leverage.
Until recently (Suleman shot a topless spread for England’s Closer magazine in March) Suleman ignored or rejected these offers, some of which were (by today’s porn financial standards) handsome.
And that, many thought, was good. Because some pornographers, including myself, feel that financial desperation is not the sexiest reason to get into porn. Other dubious motivators include drug dependence, revenge, and low self esteem.
Those are not the criteria we emphasize in the circulars we distribute at college fairs.
This may also be why Wicked, Armstrong, and jessica drake—whom Suleman thanks in comments released to the Huffington Post—did not release the industry-standard tsunami of self-congratulatory press. Team Octomom publicist Gina Rodriguez was quick to point out that this was not a Wicked production but a gig for which Wicked staff were hired.
Muddying those waters is the fact that Rodriguez is also known as porn performer Demi Delia, once married to former Wicked contract performer Randy Spears.
Suleman’s porn shoot—during which she also posed covered in Spaghetti-Os—was filmed May 2 and its results will be released later by a “major online adult enterta9nment company,” which may or may not be Wicked partner Manwin.
The distinction between Suleman as the architect of her porn career versus, say, Wicked/Manwin as the people who were finally successful in getting her here is important. One says Suleman retains some agency in her future, and the other suggests she succumbed to the inevitable—that porn is the last rung on the ladder.
While I think it only helps Big Porn’s story about itself—as a tower of personal expression— when people enter it without financial or emotional baggage (it’s possible!), one need only look at the inversely-proportional hype:revenue porn career of Amy Fisher to see that porn is not the cash cow it had been for celebrities as recent as Paris Hilton and Pamela Anderson. I’m not even sure Octomom will make Screech money.
One thing I’m glad about is that Suleman is not acting as if the very reason she became famous is not an off-limits topic, as was the case with Fisher. With 14 kids, Suleman is probably doused with Spaghetti-Os whether she’s in a porn movie or not.
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Vivid sort of agrees to stop harassing Octomom; Time to make the donuts with Amy Fisher; Demi Delia and Sunset Thomas—Value-added Moms; In space, no one can hear you, Screech
I wish Nadia the best but wish she weren’t in the financial position that forced her to take this job. I understand she was on state financial assistance and one of the requirements is to take any job offered that you are physically able to perform. I would bet once the offer came, Nadia was required to take it in order to qualify for future financial assistance (her $8000 payday would probably take her off of assistance — but only for one month). This was probably not a decision Nadia wanted to make but was forced to by circumstance.
Don’t get me wrong — I abhor Nadia’s stupid decision to have kids she could not afford but I do believe porn should be a voluntary vocation and not one forced on a person.
It’s not being forced on her, though….literally millions of women in dire financial and personal straits haven’t entered into any aspect of the sex industry to make their ends meet.
This all has a sheen of greasy filth regardless.