Meet The Mayhems is an indie porn and sex culture site run by porn star couple Maggie and Ned Mayhem, and it’s not like any other porn site you’ll find online. They’re doing something I think is smart, hot, fan-savvy, and more cutting edge than anyone seems to realize.
Porn star couples are a popular staple and oft-desired item by porn consumers. Why? I think it’s because while we can all easily find porn that pushes our buttons for a quickie, many of us want to see lust that we know is not being faked, or worse, looks like two people going through the motions. And we know porn stars are going to perform and look polished, unlike the crap shoot of amateur tube porn. (Don’t get me wrong: I love tube porn!)
Let me explain what I mean. Films like The Fashoinistas were certainly the equivalent of porn blockbusters, featuring a superb script, gorgeous cinematography, excellent acting, outrageously hot sex, stars like Belladonne and Rocco Siffredi, overall believability on every level, and incredible set and costume. It was a very expensive film to make, and that’s what it took to break through sales and publicity barriers – while films that were low budget and lower in production value in comparison that merely featured real-life couples achieved much of the same success – notably Jenna Jameson is The Massueuse (with her then real-life husband) and Eyes of Desire (2), starring then real-life husband and wife Missy and Mickey G. For their time, these were all really popular and had legacy sales, in that they continued to sell far beyond the typical life of a porn title.
Another testament to consumer desire for real-life, in-love couples is evidenced by the success of indie film house Comstock Films, whose videos have been featured in oodles of mainstream and pop culture outlets. It always seemed to me like mainstream porn had accidentally stumbled on the success of real-life couples in porn, while indies like Comstock knew a consumer-driven market was the future of porn – and I think Tristan Taormino tapped into that as well with her Chemistry series.
Wow, that was a digression. But I just wanted to put Meet The Mayhems in context for you. It’s the first site I’ve seen that combines a real-life, in-love porn star couple with the technology and accessibility modern porn should have. And no surprise, they’re both nerds – geeks in love, on top of it all. In fact, some of you may remember Maggie and Ned from a quick post I did a while back when I saw that Ned’s stepmom did a blog post about coming to terms with Ned and Maggie’s professions, a post that was so beautiful I’ll confess to a little bit of tearing up when I read it (Finding healthy boundaries for family).
The true twist on all of this, for me, in terms of cultural significance, is that these two are not your average porn stars in the conventional sense. Yes, Maggie and Ned both star in commercial porn and some fairly mainstream adult productions for the majority of their work, but they are not a pair of stereotypes, by a long shot.
Maggie identifies as a fierce feminist queer activist, is a trained sex educator, an HIV outreach worker, and is someone that can not only explain to you the politics and choices behind her work as a porn performer, but challenges dated notions about porn girls being victims by the very fact that she exists. I have the sense that she’s just got started in terms of changing not only cultural perceptions of porn stars, but what performers mean to each other.
Ned is much the same and is in his world with his eyes wide open, communicating a warmth, awareness and presence that few male porn stars have ever demonstrated. He’s doing stuff that is harder than some of the nastiest male performers I’ve seen in ten years of reviewing porn. To me, it’s crystal clear that unlike his male porn counterparts, Ned doesn’t have that porn dude persona where they’re out to prove something, and he shows – just by being who he is – that men can be strong, masculine and incredibly sexy while being fluid about their sexuality and sexual roles.
Additionally, another one of Maggie and Ned’s projects is the futuristic Psigasm Project, which will be at this year’s Arse Elektronika.
I think they’re shock troops for a new kind of porn star. Porn stars for the kind of people that are more into Felicia Day than any girl that’s been on the cover of Playboy for the past five years. Know what I mean?
Their site Meet The Mayhems has been online since April, and I’ve waited to do a writeup until I felt the site had time to fill out and grow into itself. It certainly has – and I love it. The site is combination of personal, off-work porn that Maggie and Ned make together, plus shoots that they do for work (such as excerpts from Maggie’s gangbang for Kink’s Public Disgrace), articles and videos about working on various porn projects (like Madison Young’s Feminist Porn Network), their behind the scenes from working on the award-winning porn film Open Invitation, and things like How To Tie A Hitachi Rope Harness.
I’d love to interview them sometime about love, coupling, and how sex for work fits into couplehood.
Overall, it’s a lot of fun being able to keep up with their sex lives like this, and yes – the porn is explicit, and very hot. To get right to the porn on their site, click the “Porn” tab and the “Blog” tab, which is their Tumblr. It’s not 100% free, but the costs are ridiculously low: $3 a shoot or $8 a month. So worth it.
