Tattoo aficionados rejoice! There’s a new era of inked superstars in adult films – and it’s been a long time coming.
Gone are the old days of pure white skin, and vanilla sex scenes in porn. For that you can thank a handful of pioneering women, who with their artistically modified bodies challenged the sex industry status quo, and in the process altered the standard of beauty in porn.
Originally coined as “subcultural erotica” back in the early 2000’s, this genre of adult film also goes by other names like Alt Porn, Alternaporn, Punk Porn, Emo Porn, Goth Porn, and Tattoo Porn. There are several entrepreneurs with whom I credit for establishing the Alt Porn genre, the main one being Joanna Angel’s production company and website, Burning Angel, which to this day is still considered the industry leader.
The history of alt porn started back in 1999 with the first explicitly alt porn site, Blue Blood’s GothicSluts.com, which was followed by Raverporn, and NakkidNerds. Then came Supercult in 2000, and in 2001 Burning Angel, The SuicideGirls, and FrictionUSA all launched their sites.
These companies and others were the early pioneers who paved the way for an ever-growing niche in the adult video market. VCA Pictures, Vivid Entertainment, Evil Angel, Naughty America, Kink.com, Digital Sin, Elegant Angel, and more have all capitalized on the alternative craze.
There are a handful of current performers in porn that I attribute with popularizing the tatted look, making it more ‘mainstream’ and accepted in the adult industry. Celebrities like Bonnie Rotten and Christy Mack are the girls currently winning the highest achievements in porn.
Sex star Skin Diamond just won Penthouse magazine’s Pet of the Year Runner Up title for 2015, and was the first black, tattooed performer to receive that honor. Tera Patrick is an AVN and XRCO Hall of Fame Inductee, so is Janine Lindemulder. And Joanna Angel won AVN’s Best Porn Star Website award 4 out of the last 5 years in a row. Times are changing. The trend of adult entertainers having tattoos is not a passing phase; it’s here to stay.
I personally know all the women I just mentioned above, except for Christy. These are cutting edge icons in the industry. Not only are they all beautiful and smart, they also exude a strong sense of self, they express themselves artistically, and they live life on their own terms. The age of performers reclaiming their power in porn is now.
There are a few more luminaries that I would add to this list of what I consider to be the “new face of porn” – which are the tatted actresses who have broken through barriers, and set new records – girls like Karmen Karma, Juelz Ventura, Tori Avano, and Nadia Styles.
Below, in their own words these 9 megastars explain why they chose to get tattoos, how that choice has affected their careers, who or what has inspired them, and where they see the adult industry heading in the future.
Joanna Angel
I can’t put my finger on why I got tattooed – I just knew I needed them. My skin felt naked without them. Saving up money at my $8 an hour job I worked at about 15 hours a week to try to get a tattoo was agonizing! So for my very first tattoo, I wound up using a security deposit I got back from an apartment I lived in – that security deposit was lent to me by my parents – and I was supposed to give it back to them once I was moved out of that apartment. I wound up telling them that the landlord gipped me, and never gave it back – so, yeah… Sorry mom! That was totally not cool of me. And yes, I do plan to get more; fortunately I will not have to steal money from my parents to do that anymore.
I have been getting tattooed for 16 years now – that is very close to the amount of years some girls in porn have been on this earth!! Ha-ha. I like to look at my tattoos as a timeline of my life – I mean my first tattoo was a Kurt Vonnegut quote, which was my favorite author when I was in college. My most recent tattoo was a quote said by my best friend of 15 years who recently took his life. And then there’s everything, and anything in between – I got my own companies logo tattooed to me after our first AVN award, and then there’s just a whole bunch of shit I have gotten in different cities, from different artists whose work I respect.
I feel like a lot of younger people these days have very cohesive, very polished looking “sleeves,” and my whole body looks like a scrapbook. That’s just my style, and I think it looks pretty old school. I think you can very much tell when you look at my tattoos that I have been getting them for a long time. My tattoos gave me an identity – and they give me sex appeal. Without them, I am just a random awkward Jewy looking girl! I couldn’t have been a porn star without them. I am not even sure if I ever would have had sex with anyone without them.
I noticed the standard of beauty in the industry start to change, and it become more acceptable to have tattoos when I started making porn. Ha-ha. I don’t mean to sound like a total asshole egomaniac, but that’s when it started happening. My company (Burning Angel) started around the same time the Suicide Girls started, so I think there were just lots and lots of hot alternative looking girls appearing naked on the Internet, and it started to become a real genre. Then about 10 years later when Bonnie Rotten came into the scene, I think she took it to another level. I carved out my own hole in the industry where I could comfortably exist without worrying about whether other companies wanted to hire me or not. I also gave other weirdo’s like me a home where they could feel sexy! However, I think Bonnie got the big studios to come around and realize that tattoos do not take away from sex appeal.
Tattoos make you look like a bad girl. Really, I can’t believe this didn’t exist earlier than it did. But if I really had to pinpoint when I saw a huge turning point on tattoos and pop culture it was when the show LA Ink came out. More people started getting tattooed, more shops started opening everywhere – you would slowly start seeing fully sleeved people working at department stores and upscale restaurants, etc. Tattoos became more acceptable by society, and more and more people who used to be scared or disgusted by them started to be enthralled with them. It was only a matter of time before this all trickled into porn!
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Bonnie Rotten
I have a lot of tattoos, almost 40. I had made the decision to tattoo myself when I was 13, and it wasn’t good, lol. So my grandparents took me to my first real tattoo appointment when I was 15. From there I couldn’t stop. A lot of my tattoos are horror themed because I have a love for horror movies: zombies/slasher flicks… And a lot of other things that I enjoy, that I thought to be stylish, and accent my body well. I am adding as a go, but no major additions anytime soon.
I think that tattoos add something else that is very interesting, and unique to someone’s look… Especially if they are a hot porn star! In the beginning I was told I would never shoot for the big companies, that I had no chance, and that people didn’t know what to do with me. But in 2012 I started shooting with New Sensations, and they did 2 showcases of me. And that pretty much opened the floodgates for everyone to shoot me. So, I shot probably 200 scenes in 2 years, and then in 2014 I won AVN performer of the year. Which was so special because of the obstacles I had to overcome in the industry because of my tattoos.
I think Joanna Angel had a huge impact on tattoos in porn. She has a great company that highlights the positivity and beauty of girls with tattoos instead of shaming them. So, of course that has gotten into some of the “mainstream” porn directors and producers minds. She has had girls shoot for other companies aside from hers, and I feel like a lot is owed to her for opening the mind of the industry.
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Karmen Karma
Getting heavily tattooed was never the plan for me. I started getting little tattoos one by one, and next thing I knew I had a full sleeve! I fell in love with decorating my skin, and I found it a beautiful form of self-expression. I lost count of how many tattoos I have total years ago, but I do know I have 22 just on my hands! The majority of my tattoos have sentimental value, and a story behind them, however I have a few that I just thought were pretty! I’m very happy with my amount of artwork I have now, but I do have plans to color my sleeve. To be honest, I will probably get many more in the future, but I’m not in any rush!
Being a tattooed performer definitely held me back when I first started in the Industry. I couldn’t get booked to play any “teen” roles, or young girl roles because of my ink. Certain companies won’t book me because of my ink to this day, but to be honest that is okay with me now. This is who I am, and I’m very proud of it. It just meant I had to work way harder to prove myself and get myself known in the industry, which I did.
Within the last 5 years there has definitely been more acceptance towards women with tattoos. Look at performers like Joanna Angel, Bonnie Rotten, and Christy Mack, who have all achieved so much in the last few years. With great performers like themselves, who just so happen to have tattoos, it is just proving to the industry that tattooed women are just as hot – if not hotter, than a non-tattooed porn star.
In my opinion, I think Joanna Angel is the one responsible for tattooed porn stars being so accepted, and present in the Adult Industry. She is a beautiful tattooed performer herself, and an amazing director for Burning Angel, which shoot a wide variety of tattooed performers. With Burning Angel being as successful as it is, I think it opened other director’s eyes to see past the tattoos, and look at the performance, not the ink. My hope for the future is for tattoos to be normal, and not taboo.
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Skin Diamond
I have several tattoos on my arms and back. I’ve gotten them for various reasons. Some were to commemorate things that happened in my life, or to symbolize a life event. My favorite is my Phoenix on my back that I got to cover a burn scar.
Honestly I’ve never thought about my tattoos place in porn. I’ve always been considered an “alt girl”, and was told they would hold me back in the industry at first, but it quickly became clear that there was no issue. My performance skills allowed me to go as far as I wanted.
The worlds view on tattoos has indeed changed over the years and it is reflected in porn because that’s what people want to see. I think it’s a beautiful thing!
The first porn star that I remember with highly visible tattoos who is also prominent in the industry is Belladonna. But I also think that Joanna Angel had a huge influence.
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Tera Patrick
I have a Hello Kitty tattoo on the back of my neck, and a tattoo sleeve on my right arm. Hori Taku did my sleeve tattoo in the Tebori method, in Tokyo Japan, in 2008. It is very painful, but pain is relative and I found it to be cathartic and wonderful. I sat for 6 consecutive days about 8 hours a day with my best friend by my side everyday I have a dragon with Iso (wind) Bars, and traditional red cherry blossoms. On the 8th day I did go into shock, and Hori Taku couldn’t finish, so Robert Atkinson here in CA only colored in a few cherry blossoms, and he did them in pink out of respect for Taku.
Another artist in Osaka did my Hello Kitty tattoo on my neck. Both are extremely sentimental, as I am a Hello Kitty fanatic, and I was born in the year of the Dragon. I love Tebori, and the Japanese style and traditions. Currently I do not have any plans for any more tattoos.
My tattoos are pretty original, not many people in the USA have even heard of Tebori. And; I was tattooed by an artist who didn’t even tattoo women, due to strict Japanese traditions. Most of my fans love my tattoos and say they compliment me well I’ve been a model, actress, and host, and have been established for quite awhile, so tattoos should be the LAST thing to hold me back!! (Wink)
I’ve always maintained that one of the best things about the adult industry IS the diversity of women in it. It’s about SEX! (The performance, etc.) Men enjoy seeing all types of women “perform” so to speak, so tattoos don’t really define the particular woman, per se.
I personally think Joanna Angel was really the first woman to kind of break that “Alt Girl” image, and really push it. She built a brand and business, therefore giving other tattooed women attention. Vivid Entertainment also shot an Alt Girl series giving that “Tattoo Niche” a big media push, as well.
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Juelz Ventura
I don’t know that I ever thought I’d really get tattoos. I got my first one when I was 15 with a fake ID and then just kind of went from there. Typical first tattoo: the tramp stamp. I got a couple more in college, just some small ones. I tend to get tattoos when I’ve gone thru something difficult, whether the results were good or bad, its kind of how I mark the feat. I love the feeling of getting tattoos, and also overall enjoy the art of them. So, rewarding myself with them is always fun. I want to say I have 14 now. Not as many as some girls these days, and mine are pretty small, except my sleeve. I do plan to get more. As far as placement, I like to go with curves and body flow. I have one on my hip that crosses over with the bone; it’s one of my favorites. Otherwise I pick placement because I’m not fond of symmetry. So if there is one on the right, well it has to go above or below that area on the left.
When I started in porn 8 years ago I was told to absolutely not get tattoos. That nobody would hire me. I’ll agree that things would have/could have been different had I stayed away from them, but I still get a fair amount of work with them, and I also don’t feel I went overboard. I don’t consider myself alt, I just don’t have that look, so I think I get to still do a lot of the glamour work and regular scenes because I can still look like that “model”. Sure there are people who don’t care for them, but that’s their opinion. There’s more of a market for tattoos now than there ever has been, so I’m still not worried… And I’ve always seen that coming.
I don’t know exactly when it started to change, but from day one when I started getting my sleeve, people were just kind of okay with it. I also started small and kept adding so maybe that helped to grow along with the industry, but it almost seems now that I’m not tattooed enough for some people to put me in the tattooed or alt category. It’s funny. But just like society, our industry has grown as far as what’s acceptable. Different strokes for different folks, and I think tattoos in general have just become more popular. And rebellious… Who doesn’t love a rebel?
I really just feel like porn is following mainstream. Tattoos have become more popular, accepted, and something of interest so people are looking more to that because they’re curious. Plus, people with tattoos are just really cool. People want to watch us. Can’t pretend girls like Bonnie Rotten and Christy Mack didn’t make a huge difference, also. They kinda stepped in with all their tats, demanded attention, and opened their own genre for the extreme.
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Tori Avano
I have about maybe 7 tattoos or so. I have a sleeve on my left arm that I am currently working on that is of Japanese theme with a Phoenix and a geisha. Then I have script on my belly area that reads “Mi Vida Bella,” which is “my beautiful life” in Spanish. Then I have a tree frog with flowers on my ribcage area. Also, I have script on both my feet. And then the tattoos I am known for are my stars on both nipples. As of right now I am not 100% sure if I will get more, but who knows.
My tattoos in a way have held me back, but at the same time helped me. They held me back because some companies love that bare skin look, but that doesn’t bother me. I embrace my inked skin to the max.
I noticed the standard of beauty changing in the industry when I first laid eyes on Christy Mack. She was one of the first really inked females I ever laid eyes on, and also Joanna Angel, as well.
I honestly don’t know who started the trend of tattoos, but I know some fans have a say in it, too. Without the fans we wouldn’t be here. If the fans want tattooed girls in porn, then so be it. I hope it escalates from here, because from my POV, all my fans love my movies.
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Nadia Styles
I got my tattoos out of rebellion. My parents and my agent always told me I couldn’t get them. I thought to myself, fuck it, it’s my body, and I have control over what I do to it. The tattoo artist and I decided their placement together. I think about getting more, but I have no plans to right now.
I personally don’t think they make me different than other performers. It’s my performance in my scenes that does that. Nevertheless, it does put me in certain movie categories than girls without tattoos. I can’t say that they have helped my career, or held it back. But what it has done is make me more recognizable in public.
I noticed the trend changing around 2005, the women in porn that were well established and known, had tattoos. They didn’t have a lot, but they had a few that made them happy about their looks. But, it’s not until these days that I feel it is much more accepted because of Joanna Angel, and Bonnie Rotten.
After Joanna Angel, there’s Janine, then Bonnie Rotten; they are the women that made the trend more known. And then, there’s every other woman that decided that they did not have to follow some standard porn rule about what a porn star should look like.
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Janine Lindemulder
I’m torn on this subject. I love the rebellious mindset… I love memorializing special times and places… I love the spiritual reminders… I love the thought of having my loved ones names on me (not to be morbid) while I’m at my final resting place… I love how it opens doors to conversations with all races and all ages. Which reminds me of an elderly man, probably in his late eighties, who stopped me in my tracks one day and said, “Little girl – you belong in the circus!!” I said, ” Yes sir, I believe I do!” LoL.
You do get a sense of freedom and non-conformity, but it also has many drawbacks. No matter how much you gussy yourself up, you still look like a thug. You limit yourself. I turn 47 this year, and boy my skin is a changin’! It’s ok, and I’m accepting it as gracefully as I can. But it’s just not as cute as it once was. There was a period in my life where I had a “fuck it” attitude, and that’s all well and good, but I wasn’t looking at the big picture.
Personally, my overall appearance has affected my life in the eyes of the courts tremendously. I didn’t see that coming. For lack of a better word, I was “blindsided” (pun intended) lol. But at the end of the day, do I regret being heavily tattooed? No. It’s who I am now, it is and forever will be. But I do find myself thinking back to the days of tanned, freckled shoulders. <img src="http://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/72x72/1f609.png" alt="