Asa Akira had a happy childhood. The daughter of an upper middle-class family, she attended private schools in New York City and in Japan, where she lived for six years as a child.
“I’m from a very normal family,” she tells NPR’s Arun Rath. “My parents are still together; nothing dramatic or traumatic has ever happened to me.”
After high school, as her peers started careers or went off to college, Akira decided to pursue her dream job: porn star.
Akira says even from an early age, she was both comfortable with her own sexuality and interested in the sex industry.
“For me, being in porn was just the ultimate fantasy,” she says, “to turn people on and be this kind of sex symbol.” In New York, Akira met people who worked in the sex industry and within months she had flown to Los Angeles for her first pornographic role.
Now, six years after she made that decision, Akira has written a memoir. The book, Insatiable: Porn — A Love Story, is not for the puritanical. A hypersexual narrative of the author’s experiences making adult films, the memoir is itself pornographic. Its tone is celebratory, because Akira sees her career not as a descent into objectification but as a rise to celebrity.
“A lot of people might look at it as a downward spiral,” she acknowledges, “but for me, I really do see every step as a promotion.”
Still, Akira is in many ways conflicted about her chosen career. First, there’s the money. Pornography has long attracted young women desperate for fast cash, but Akira came from a stable financial background and says she doesn’t do it for the money.
[…] Now, six years after she made that decision, Akira has written a memoir. The book, Insatiable: Porn — A Love Story, is not for the puritanical. A hypersexual narrative of the author’s experiences making adult films, the memoir is itself pornographic. Its tone is celebratory, because Akira sees her career not as a descent into …read more […]