By Juliette Tang
Photo of Jiz Lee by Nikola Tamindzic for Fleshbot
Jiz Lee exudes three things not frequently associated in tandem — sex appeal, brains, and sweetness — and copiously at that. High of cheekbone and strong of jaw, with a slinky frame and a startling, beautiful ethnic ambiguity, Jiz Lee has a face and name you don’t forget upon encountering. She walks the line between coquettish charm and full-on bravado, and in this she succeeds, exhibited tellingly by the opening line of the biography portion of her personal website: “With an ejaculation scene that knocked the concept of the facial cumshot on its ass, Jiz Lee unloaded into the revolutionary world of queer porn cinema.”
With degrees in dance and theater arts, Jiz Lee’s performance career began well before she started removing her garments on camera. Happily for her fans, she began to perform in queer porn while still remaining active in the local dance community, and she’s capably straddled both worlds ever since. I ran into Jiz in excess of five times before gathering my wits about to coherently request an interview, but I finally managed it. We emailed back and forth a few weeks ago and discussed her work as an adult performer, an artist, and a sex-positive activist.
SFBG: So, Jiz, what’s your back-story? What brought you to San Francisco and what led you to start performing in queer porn?
JL: I moved to the SF Bay Area from Hawai`i in 1999 to attend Mills College. My interests for a major were between experimental music (I was 1st chair French Horn throughout school and was part of the Select Band which toured the state. Band Geek!), in high school I had also performed in dramatic plays, and I was also in the Ensemble, the top level of dance which gave concerts regularly and through which I was able to take masterclass with well-known choreographers. (My background in dance began with Hula Auana and some Hula Kahiko and Tahitian which I performed with a Hula Halau and then in high school studied Limón modern dance technique and musical theater. I ended up finishing college with a B.A. in Dance and a minor in Theater Arts, along with a well-rounded liberal arts education that included Women/Gender Studies, and Queer Studies.
After graduation and working with several dance companies and non-profits, I began to feel the burn out. One of the festivals I produced lead me to meet Shawn, who now goes by Syd Blakovich. Syd told me about Shine Louise Houston’s new queer porn company Pink & White Productions, and asked if I were interested in shooting. I had become very comfortable with my naked body, particularly after touring with a modern dance troupe in a naked performance. I was also comfortable with my sexuality. I had seen “Please Dont Stop” “Hard Love & How to Fuck in High Heels” and Sex, Flesh in Blood”, however at the time there weren’t any porn opportunities available to me that I knew about until I met Shine, who’s first film was “The Crash Pad” and it’s all history from there.
I’ve since appeared in all of Shine’s feature films as well as her website, each of which has been awarded a Feminist Porn Award (in Toronto), the most recent being Champion which won Movie of the Year. I have also performed for Madison Young, and for Courtney Trouble who has run her queer company No Fauxxx for several years. Most recently I had the chance to work with Belladonna, a performer who was an inspiration to me when I first saw her work — she was the only pornstar I had seen with a shaved head. She’s athletic and a great performer and she’s very queer to me. “Strapped Dykes” releases soon and I was both honored to be a part of it, and thrilled about the rise of butch/genderqueer visibility in porn with casting of performers like myself.
Jiz Lee and Gay Pornstar Arpad Miklos, photo by Nikola Tamindzic
SFBG: Not only are you a performer, but you’re an activist as well. You’ve said on your blog that “performing is a feat of radical activism in itself”. How would you describe the particular kind of activism that reveals itself in your work as an adult performer? In what sense does it transcend the realm from pure entertainment into that of political, social, or cultural activism?
JL: I could write books and books on my thoughts on sex as a medium for social change and where this now fits within what could be defined as a renaissance of queer porn. This is not so much about the work “I’m” doing, but of the movement that is happening right now in a broader way. Work that new pornographers are doing, the talent who’s doing it with them, the sex toy retailers funding a lot of the work, and the growing audience of what used to be “niche” however is at this very moment entering mainstream adult industry consciousness — meaning that the money is there. There’s a major consumer shift happening, and if Oprah says women watch porn, you can bet the change is here. I think explicit queer sexuality on film will permeate the adult industry by opening dialogues about gender, sexuality, and sexual acts — queer porn can bring the seldom seen female-bodied authentic sexual response and pleasure to the screen, even going beyond basic female orgasm; the lack of which has given ‘porn’ a bad rap. Queer porn has the potential to affect the industry with celebrated natural sex acts including fisting, female ejaculation, sex while menstruating, and also safer sex practices.