To play video subtitles, click the “CC” icon on the bottom right corner of the video screen. A download transcription is also currently available in: English or pasted below.

(Intro Music)

Princess of Persia: How did you enjoy the shoot today?

Tenoch: I enjoyed it very much. It was a lot of fun. I feel like we had a lot of build up to this moment. Even going into last year and it’s like we’ve been in and out of so much like shit like housing situations… (Laughs) It was really exciting. What about you?

Princess of Persia: I enjoyed it a lot. I don’t- I wouldn’t have said that I had expectations that I wouldn’t enjoy it, you know what I mean? But I was nervous for sure. And I enjoyed it more than I expected I would enjoy it. I had a great time. I really liked how tender it was. I thought that was really sweet. I think our communication was fucking solid. Love that for us. I think overall, it went better than expectations. It superseded expectations.

Tenoch: Was there anything challenging you felt about the shoot?

Princess of Persia: Yeah. I think the leading up to it. Like the anticipation, and just the feelings. I mean, we talked a lot about it. We talked a lot, a bunch of times. Again, communication is good. But I would just say being nervous or anxious — not about the actual act — just about like having a shift in our relationship dynamic.

Tenoch: Yeah.

Princess of Persia: The feelings were difficult but worked them.
What about you? Anything difficult?

Tenoch: Yeah, I think the same thing. I think the lead up to everything. We had planned this for a while and we were ready to go, but life keeps happening and I know you had all kinds of shit going on.

Princess of Persia: Life just comes at you fast.

Tenoch: Then we had to drop off our friend in San Jose and we were making sure everybody got taken care of.

Princess of Persia: The Taco Bell line was long as shit.

Tenoch: But I think once we got here, I didn’t feel that it was challenging. I feel like, as you said, we had good communication. I feel like this part was the least challenging part. Everything before was more challenging.

Princess of Persia: I would agree with that.
What are you safer sex practices and why?

Tenoch: I think my sex practices are some of the stuff we did during our shoot. I feel like we’ve always talked about how dry humping is underrated. (Laughs) I feel like that could just be a go-to! And there’s like… I don’t know, especially like – I feel like we’re both very sensitive people, or can be very sensitive…and being able to be gentle, but also trust another person that they know what’s going through your head and what they’re feeling? Yeah. I think that’s definitely important to me, engaging with people with physical touch and affection. Doing outercourse. Mutual masturbation.

Princess of Persia: Outercourse!

Tenoch: Yeah, things like that. I mean, that shit is fucking awesome.

Princess of Persia: Yeah. Okay!

Tenoch: And of course getting tested regularly.

Princess of Persia: Gotta drop that one in there for sure. Same for me. I mean, I get tested really regularly because I have more than one partner at once most of the time. Um, and I would say another one of my main safer sex practices is communication: before, during, and after and being really explicit about stuff, like we were super explicit. I’m always trying to talk to people about fluid bonding and stuff like that. Especially if you’re going to be fluid-bonding with two people and then they’re… you know what I mean, so communicating and I’m getting tested and trying to be really honest. I think that’s a good safe sex practice too.

Tenoch: Absolutely and I think… that’s something so beautiful. In our household it’s like a constant conversation every day and even though we hadn’t engaged sexually in that way it’s still important to us for us to understand our consent and boundaries with each other and just know as a constant everyday thing checking in about “How are you feeling about this?” and “How are you feeling about that?”
Why do you continue to porn?

Princess of Persia: Well, a lot of reasons to be honest, but I would say first and foremost that it is a liberating experience for me in my opinion. Especially because I get cast-typed like I’m a fetish in the porn industry and in the sex working community and I get essentialized a lot like I get sexualized, you know what I mean? And that shit happens regardless of whether people know I do sex work or porn. So I feel like when it’s in a space that’s safe like this with people I trust and we’re making art and that’s important to me. It’s also very political because I’m in fucking charge of what’s going on and what we’re producing and I get to curate it. Like I get to be a part of what people are perceiving my sexual experience as. Yeah, another thing that I touched on is art and anarchy. I’m a ho. This is what I’m gonna do. I like doing it. I want to do it more. I think it’s fun. It’s really fulfilling work. I’ve done all kinds of work and this work is work that I’m like, almost never upset about. I’m always like, “Yeah I would do that again.” But when I was in the food service industry… You know what I mean?! NO. Working in a non-profit? HORRIBLE. So that’s why.
What about you? Why did you do this for the first time ever?

Tenoch: Probably cuz the world’s ending.

Princess of Persia: Oh!

Tenoch: And just, fuck it, why not?
Princess of Persia: That makes sense.
Tenoch: Yeah, and it’s like, um.. growing up brown and queer it’s like you miss a lot of experiences because you’re hiding yourself a lot. And like now, finding identity or finding your real identity as an adult, it’s kind of hard going back and looking at some of the stuff you missed out on when you were younger, but I think porn for me is an opportunity to take hold of my sexual identity and my gender identity. And I mean my experience watching pornography was finding CrashPad online and Pink and White Productions and stuff like that and it was just really crazy to see people with my body types in porn. And my people engaging sexually in ways that aren’t usually depicted on like, fucking tube sites. And it was a much better experience once I started paying for pornography. And I think that’s something that’s really important to me too. This is something that I support and I could help somebody else that sees somebody like me in porn.

Princess of Persia: Representation. It could really be the difference for someone. You’d change someone’s life. And you wouldn’t even know sometimes.

Tenoch: Yeah.

Princess of Persia: What’s been the best thing about quarantine for you?

Tenoch: The best thing about quarantine has been meeting you. ’cause you were with me from the fucking beginning.

Princess of Persia: Wow! Where are the tissues?

Tenoch: You can’t – you have make-up on. It’s not allowed.

Princess of Persia: That’s cute.

Tenoch: I feel like we both met each other at a really difficult part of our lives and we continue to have difficulties, but we’ve had each other to support each other through that time. And I think… our little quarantine adventures have been really fun. Sometimes it’s indoor-we-can’t-go-outside adventures, sometimes it’s going outside. Definitely, the pinnacle has been when we matched on Tinder and you’re like, “I need to catch a fish for some witchy shit.” And then we do some fucking magic. I’m like, let’s fucking do it. We started fishing. We did that shit, you know!

Princess of Persia: Yeah, I would probably have said something similar. Maybe more broadly, I think the best thing about the pandemic has just been… having the opportunity to re-establish my life to build stability for myself In a way that I didn’t really have before and to build relationships with people who I can trust. Who are reliable. Weeded out a lot of friends, weeded out a lot of friends. But the ones who were supposed to be here, stuck around and shit and I feel like we fought really hard for the life we have. That we wanted -There are things we wanted and we worked really hard and then we fucking got them. So, that’s what was great about the pandemic. You know what I mean? I’m more focused. More in alignment than I was before.