Plague Sexts from Porn Stars: Joanna Angel

Joanna Angel launched BurningAngel.com from her Rutgers dorm room in 2002. It featured still photos, concert reviews, and blogs. Like Suicide Girls, GodsGirls, and BlueBlood.net, Burning Angel was a pioneer of Altporn on the internet, which basically meant tattoos, piercings, and the punk rock aesthetic that went with them. Considering the environment, though, “alt” could also mean surgically unenhanced. Mainstream porn in the early 21st century often had a No Tattoo rule but was A-OK with massive bolt-ons and collagen implants.

When she sought to start producing her own movies, Joanna Angel came to Los Angeles. She often worked with and drew from the same well as Eon McKai who, along with Angel, became synonymous with altporn in the early 2000s.

Angel’s work has always been hardcore with a side of silly. It never took itself too seriously. Years passed and the goalposts shifted about what (and who) was altporn and what wasn’t. It’s the rare performer these days who doesn’t have a tattoo, and people who got their start in altporn, like Dana Dearmond and Tommy Pistol, are grand and stately mainstream porn ambassadors, bestowing wisdom and collecting accolades.

Though I met Angel in 2005, it wasn’t until years later that we discovered that, for a while, she attended synagogue in the same temple where I went to Boy Scouts. Once, I asked her what award AVN could give her that would be most reflective of her ouevre, and she replied “Best Jew.”

Angel sold BurningAngel.com and its digital assets to Montreal’s Gamma affiliate network in 2019. She still produces and directs its movies. She lives with her husband, Small Hands (who won AVN’s Male Performer of the Year in a ceremony thousands of people attended less than three months ago, all standing very close and spewing droplets on each other), in Los Angeles.

Gram: How would you, who have been in the adult industry long enough to have made another adult at this point, describe the phenomenon of OnlyFans?

Joanna: OnlyFans is a modern-day version of the “solo girl website,” I guess. I can’t compare it to the collaborative process of making a movie. It’s like my off-camera life on camera, like two separate jobs.

Gram: Is it fun for you?

Joanna: It’s fun for sure, but it’s very different.

Gram: Have you seen a bump since the quarantine began?

Joanna: At the moment it’s been about the same.

Gram: Does Mr. Hands do his OnlyFans in a different room?

Joanna: You’ll see Mr. Hands on my OnlyFans but (he doesn’t have an account). Aaron (Small Hands) is actually enjoying doing Cameo—a totally SFW thing, where people get charming little greetings from him.

Gram: Oh I’ve heard of that! That is a very sweet thing. And his name is Aaron so you have stayed within The Chosen!

Joanna: I didn’t! He was chosen by Jesus . They have Aarons too.

Gram: I imagine some male performers have OnlyFans accounts?

Joanna: Other guys do. I can speak for myself and Mr. Hands. It’s different for guys. For guys I feel like that needs to be your main focus— most of the guys who make a lot on OF don’t shoot a ton of studio scenes. You have to save your jizz for where it’s most important.

Gram: I hear you, Sister. I’m glad you brought up Jizz-Saving. In your experience in porn couplehood have you ever felt possessive of your partner’s limited store of jizz? Like YOU want the jizz but he has to work that day and therefore has to conserve it?

Joanna: Yes hahahahaha. Us girls can masturbate 20 times in a day and shoot a lot of content. Guys can’t do that. It’s different for guys.

Gram: I’m relieved that someone was BRAVE ENOUGH to say that. If I only have One Precious Load gurgling up in me at a time I sometimes think (but never say out loud): “Does it HAVE to be a blowjob?”(I have been single since mid-February and am having an existential crisis: should I have stayed in the relationship just to have someone to have sex with? No. But still. Jizz Conservation means nothing when there’s no one to spend it on/into.

Joanna: It’s true.

Gram: What is it like being in movies with or directing people who watched Burning Angel porn in their formative years (meaning: only from the moment they turned 18)? Does admiration ever mess with the mood?

Joanna: I enjoy all compliments and I never take them for granted. So if a fan ever winds up on my set, I become a fan of them being a fan, and then it’s just an awkward exchange of two awkward people gushing at each other.

Gram: So you sold BurningAngel.com (in January, 2019 to Gamma). How have you experienced that change?

Joanna: It is a relief to not be the owner—but sometimes I miss the stress of it. However, I’m still the director and producer—and sometimes star of the BurningAngel movies so there’s still plenty of things to stress over when I miss it. And my creative style has been the same.

Gram: I find that, as I AGE, I’m into different things that my much-younger self finding an old Penthouse in the woods (not far from Temple Beth El) didn’t have the experience/vocabulary to understand. Can you point to areas where your sexuality has changed because of your own experience?

Joanna: It’s actually really difficult for me to even remember what my sexuality was before porn because it’s been so long ????. I’m still just as awkward as I was in high school.

Gram: So you jump from Rutgers into this highly-sexualized commercial world, which is hyper-real. There’s a Joanna Angel-product who is a version of the person you were but who never got to do the Joanna Angel-type things. In THAT world, where you went from zero to 90, has your palette gotten broader, gotten weirder, gotten more specific?

Joanna: No, not really. I think from the day I got into porn I was always excited to just try anything or anyone that got put in front of me. I never had a No List or anything specific I wouldn’t do.

Gram: Have you met other people with that attitude? And are there other personality types that you see popping up with regularity in this particular business?

Joanna: Yeah. I feel like there’s a few different recurring personality types. I guess I am probably more easygoing than most talent. It’s like
if a waiter goes to a restaurant, they will always be great tippers and good customers! Coming from being a director, it’s my number one job to just make the director’s life easy. I love being in other people’s movies; it’s exciting, and it’s actually very relaxing to get told what to do.

Gram: Are you a person who endures a bad director and makes the best of a castmate who isn’t pulling her/his weight or are there things you can do to turn the ship around without “topping from the bottom”? (This reminds me of something you said like a thousand years ago – – “This cock isn’t going to suck itself.” It was the first time something in a porn movie made me laugh with glee.)

Joanna: Hahaha. When I’m on set, I always make the best of any situation. Or I’ll shut up and just sit my ass down and wait till I’m told what to do. I’ll always make suggestions if I feel like a director is stressed—If they want my suggestions. And I respect their authority and their way of doing things, like, whatever their vision is, I want to make it good.

Gram: It sounds like things haven’t changed too much for you in terms of the porny aspects of the job—sex for cash and cameras—but on the professional/business side of things.

Joanna: Eh I dunno every part of my career has been a challenge, really. But my whole career—moving forward, staying current, and trying to be sane has all been a challenge. And it never really came easy.

Gram: Since the Burning Angel purchase, too?

Joanna: Honestly I feel like I went from being a seasoned legend to a New Girl in Porn like last year and that whole experience has been very eye-opening.

Gram: Such as?

Joanna: I used to get kinda butt hurt as a director when I’d see talent I hired not promoting things they did for me at all but heavily promoting other things. Like every scene is important—every scene cost someone something. Every scene took several people’s efforts. And when a scene comes out, I always promote it as if it’s the most important thing that ever happened, no matter what it is. I think the number one thing that summarizes all of it is just respect.

Gram: Thank you.

Joanna: Maybe you should start an OnlyFans.

Gram: HAHAHA! That would be a weird-ass OnlyFans, The first 200 hours would be me doing a very self-conscious Jame Gumb impression.

Joanna: There’s a market for everything.

Joanna Angel would like to remind you to donate to the Free Speech Coalition’s Adult Performer/Crew Emergency Relief Fund to aid your favorite and/or unsung adult personnel during this necessary work stoppage.

[Finally, I ask Ms. Angel several times for random plague-related sexy pictures, you know, with masks and sweatpants and whatnot, but she sends me these instead. Then I realize that this is how she looks just lounging around her all-white house. Therefore I include a picture I took in December, 2007. I was about to write, “from a simpler time,” but I remember we were all ready to move to Canada then, too, but didn’t.]

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Joanna Angel—Nude with Meme
See also: Burning Angel | OnlyFans | Twitter ( @joannaangel )| Instagram ( @joannaangel)