Before I became an adult actress and director, I often wondered why it seemed that industry folk dated only each other. Wasn’t it a bit much, I wondered, for two sexually over the top types to pair up? Didn’t they spontaneously combust? Wasn’t someone required to be the “anchor,” in the relationship, the one with a foot firmly grounded in the “real world?”

In other words, I had no idea what I was talking about, or how to even begin thinking about it.

Since becoming an adult actress, I’ve had several relationships of varying length with “civilians.” Unfortunately, almost all the civilian men I’ve dated became so immediately and intensely besotted with me (or was it with my career?) that I couldn’t begin to seriously consider them. Likewise, the civilian women I’ve been involved with have been – you guessed it – disproportionately threatened by the female porn stars I have sex with “at work.”

This problem crystallized for me one day, when my fellow porn star Jewels commented on my then boyfriend. He sat at my feet as if I held the very secrets of the universe, and she was a little concerned for his mental well being.

“Nica, what the fuck did you do to this guy?” she asked. “Did you give him the ‘porn star tour’?”

The Porn Star Tour. It’s shortcut for asking “Did you fuck his brains out the way only a porn star can?” And therein lies the problem. Civilians don’t often experience sex the way we do it. We ARE over the top. We love filthy talk, we do anything and everything and love every second of it, even the stuff we hate — on some level we love it, because it’s sex and it’s sensation, and we’re Sensation Junkies. We don’t care if you call us slutty or think we’re dirty or if you can’t or won’t take us home to mom. All the better, really. We love being bad, and we don’t want what you’re so afraid to lose. For some civilians, experiencing that sexual freedom and maverick ideology is like being injected with a potent drug. An expensive, rare drug with no adverse side effects. It’s no wonder they feel a bit loopy afterward.

Conversely, when porn stars are with each other we’re both in on the joke, and neither of us can intoxicate the other with a little dirty talk or anal sex. Rather than rely on the empty powers of artifice, pretense and show, we have to resort to something far more radical to win a fellow porn star’s heart.

We have to be real.

Porn stars are almost like Native American Medicine Men when it comes to sex - we’ve seen it all and done it all. We know the little man hiding behind the curtain, and the Great and Powerful Oz civilians see when they watch us arch our backs and say how much we want (that cock/that pussy) in (our mouths/ass/other orifice) is not what brings the ruby slippers and lets us go home. We show and give each other things that we never give civilians — because we don’t have to. We have civilians at “hello.”

So I understand why porn people stick together. But even then, some habits are tough to break. One famous porn star told me she has trouble having sex at all unless she hears someone yell “Action!” But at least we can sympathize with each other’s damaged souls and sexual eccentricities. In a world where we’re still so marginalized and romanticized, it’s nice to be with someone you don’t have to explain certain things to.

The caveat, though, is we lose viewing our own magic through an innocent’s eyes. There is something admittedly beautiful in watching the wonder, the excitement, the meaning that civilians find in what for us has become typical fare. I guess that’s why most of us still value our relationships with civilians and keep trying to have them, even if we ultimately return to the safe haven that is each other.