Source: Adult Industry News
By: Rich Moreland
A native Californian on track to get her UCLA gender studies degree in 2014, Tasha Reign has been active in porn since 2010. The twenty-four-year-old’s show business background is varied from MTV reality gigs to Playboy’s pictorial, “Girls of the Pac-10.” In May 2011, she was Penthouse’s Pet of the Month.
This blonde lass knows how porn money is made, having started her own production company, Reign Productions, in the fall of 2012. Ownership is everything, as they say in business.
She currently distributes through Girlfriends Films.
On Wednesday, January 15, Tasha participated in the “Porn Goes to College” seminar sponsored by the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. Her presence and intelligence dominated the panel. Tasha’s words spoke of her commitment to influencing the porn industry.
“My videos are sex-positive. I’m a feminist.”
Later when we meet in the media room I want to take her feminist statement, expand upon it and talk about respect.
Sex-positive feminism means “The woman is empowered, in charge, and loves her sexual experience,” Tasha says. In her movies the performers want to be there, she insists, there are no negative vibes on screen. “I want the viewer to leave feeling like the woman was in a good, happy, positive sexual place.”
Tasha Reign admits that other producers and directors may not share her female empowered vision. Nevertheless, when she shoots for them she strives for a pleasurable experience. “I enjoy working for people” who might have different ideas about how sex should be presented on screen, she says. “I am open-minded to acting in all sorts of different genres.”
This does not preclude BDSM filming. Sex-positive “can be dark [and] submissive,” Tasha says, but it must have an important element: A “consensual mutually beneficial situation.” the Bruin coed insists the girl must enjoy the scene and love the sex and is “there because she wants to be.”
I suspect Tasha Reign has no trouble moving among power brokers in an industry many criticize as being overly patriarchal.
Tasha is quick to point out she has never felt disrespected but does concede that “our perceptions are shaped by our experiences.” She lists some we all share: how we were raised, the people who have influenced our lives, and the choices we’ve made.
Reflecting a point of view I’ve heard from other girls, Tasha finds a difference in respect between industry men and those outside porn.
Inside the business, Tasha always feels like she’s “The one calling the shots.” Porn guys “Are sympathetic” to girls in the business, “they understand how society can view our industry,” she says.
Outside, it’s different. “With men not in the industry,” she says, “I feel more of a lack of respect.” This leads her to a suggestion. “Men outside of pornography need to be educated as if they were in pornography,” she says. Hopefully, familiarity will breed acceptance.
As we wrap up our few minutes, I remember Tasha Reign’s response to a seminar question on the value of college courses featuring adult entertainment as a topic. They mostly emphasize the negative aspects of the business, she said. Porn courses tend to reflect the media’s sensationalizing of adult’s perceived negatives: porn as damaging to women, violence toward women, and campus confrontations about alcohol and sex.
Tasha is telling us the public has respect issues with an industry seen as perpetuating the negative. The real burden is communicating the positives and college courses represent a start to that end. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of strong women like Tasha Reign, it is a long and winding road.
