So after getting settled into my new job as the director of user experience for the willy wonka of fetish porn, I get to go to my first site launch kickoff meeting.

General site launches are relatively simple. The director has a creative process, books models, assigns a crew, and they make content. After there's a certain amount of content, post production hands over a bunch of images to the design team which are used to create an appropriate site header, palette, and crank out a ton of banners and image galleries used by our sales team and affiliates to promote the site, which in this case is all about watersports. The technology team builds the site template, and our content management system pours it all in. No big whoop.

The kickoff was just to get the right folks in the room to meet and greet, agree on the dates, find out if there're any special requests,  try to generally interview the director about concept, etc.

Question: Do we have still images, or will the photo editors create them by taking screen grabs?

Answer: We have them. But we could just have PAs around taking pictures when we have to stop to wipe piss out of a girl's eyes, or mop up the floor or whatever. God, one of them peed on me in our last shoot.

Question [from copywriter]: How "hardcore" is this site? Is it just pissing, or is there fucking, bondage, or other stuff too?

Answer: Sometimes there's blowjobs too. And sometimes there's fucking. There will always be piss. Actually, we have ____ ____ lined up who wants to get her pussy filled with piss then spray it out. And in one of our shoots ____ _____ has her pussy spread wide open and ___ pisses all over it. And sometimes there's two girls or two guys pissing on one girl, or one guy pissing on a girl, or two girls pissing on each other. It just depends. There will always be piss.

Side conversation on appropriate sales text/site taglines: There will always be piss. Let them eat piss. All your piss are belong to us.

Question: Do only the tops piss, or do the bottoms piss too?

Answer: The bottom usually pisses on herself too.

Question: Do you want a title sequence?

Answer: I want a toilet with a woman's face superimposed on it, then the toilet gets flushed and her head spins around and goes down the tube. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Rhetorical question: Have you had thoughts on the site palette?

Rhetorical answer: Yellow.

Question: How long are the videos?

Answer: 20+ minutes. I mean, after twenty minutes of pissing, what more can you do? They might be able to keep going after that I guess.

As the meeting broke I smiled at our director and said "I'm really looking forward to making a big splash with you." har har.

I may or may not be into none, some, or all of the fetishes our site makes. I'm not actually shocked or disgusted by any of the stuff we do vis a vis the context of playing with one or more people for the express purpose of not pro-creating. I love all the weird stuff people like to do to each other.

But, it was extremely titillating to have this conversation in the context of a conference room while a blasé mix of techies, creatives, borderline hipsters, etc. sit around as the director cum dominatrix cum starlet sat on one side of the table in a lumpy sweatshirt and jeans wolfing down burrito the size of her head and talked about pussies being manipulated, hosed down, filled, etc. I had to bite back several giggles and at least two "oh my stars and garters." I'm sure I'll get used to it. Eventually.

        

I've decided to fire up a secondary domain, persona, online presence etc. so I can relate some of the funnier/weirder shit about my life without freaking out some of my friends who may not be so interested in this phase of my professional career... that of Director of User Experience at Kink.com

Working in porn is blasé and freaky and everything in between every day:

• I have a 401k plan. With company match.
• I see naked people nearly every day. (I mean naked people I'm not actually fucking.)
• I have been the lead designer for major advertising and rebranding campaigns for Fortune 50 companies on down.
• I get to try to figure out how to do contextual inquiry on users who are masturbating with a buttplug the size of a fire hydrant in his or her ass or pussy.
• I am an interaction designer by trade.
• I have heard of (though not personally seen) a model going to the emergency room because she had a piece of ginger break off in her butthole (as part of an act called "figging" for the very curious.)
• I need someone with higher math skills to help me segment my user base by multiple gender identities, sexual identities, and sexual roles many of which shift on a continuous basis.
• I read Tufte.
• I also read the Manhunt blog.
• I have worked in corporate. A lot.
• The guest chair in my office is called a Monkey Rocker. You attach a dildo to a platform underneath the split seat then rock back and forth to penetrate your nether regions.
• If you haven't figured it out yet, most of the links you'll see here are entirely NSFW. Unless you work in porn...

Most of the time, it's just a job. Every once in awhile though, I have an out of body experience. I'm an eye in the sky, looking down on myself. I'm standing in front of a whiteboard leading a copywriting brainstorm, urging everyone to stay on task and come up with just 5 more different ways to say THROBBING BUTTHOLE or GUSHING PUSSY.

And I start laughing.

I'll use this space to share stories like this. I want to share with everyone, but extend a special invitation to those who work in porn, as a designer, technologist, or other bits of support staff.

Xoxo.