Author Note: This is another entry into the ongoing Sindustry series.
When I first came to Los Angeles to do porn, I had been outed as doing OnlyFans in my hometown. Thing was, a lot of people were doing it at the time, due to the combination of the pandemic and the shitty pay of service jobs. Personally, I was dipping my toe into sex work, something I really did want to do, even if I couldn't admit it to myself.
The truth is, there are a lot of reasons people start OnlyFans. One type is the former athlete, the one that didn't make their professional or Olympic dreams, but still had a hard-earned body and a desire to use it to perform in front of an audience. The next worst thing to missing out on the big prize would be to let all that hard work go to waste.
When I finally made the move from small-time OnlyFans to Los Angeles for the big adult industry, I got a lot of support from the sort of girls I'd made friends with on Onlyfans, including a number of former athletes.
"You've made the big-time, Gwen!," one friend Lydia, a former gymnast, told me.
"You should come along!" I said.
"Ha! I think I will stick to OnlyFans and figure drawing classes," Lydia said.
But Lydia kept following my success as I started my own production company and started gathering a growing group of sexy collaborators. She and I would continue to talk. I knew she was afraid to take the jump, and I wasn't going to push her. But I wasn't about to stop seducing her. This wasn't the Olympics, but it was a dream. So when the Summer Olympics came along and it was time to make content to ride off it, I knew it was the perfect match for her skills.
But I didn't directly ask for participation, just for advice.
"Hey, can we have a phone call about some ideas for Olympic porn scripts I want to write?" I texted.
"Of course," she texted back.
We were on other sides of the country, but she had Zoom and wine. We talked about various ideas and she provided useful technical advice. As the wine flowed we got looser. I began asking her how to film certain acts, and if she knew someone who could train our pornstars to look competent.
"If you could cover a plane ticket and I could crash at your place, I could do it," she said.
I knew then I had her. She wasn't going to come all this way merely to train and look. She loved to gush about the hot male talent I worked with, though with the women it was a platonic love of their art. But I had casually mentioned the male talent in some other ideas.
"I could never do anything on camera," Lydia said.
"I'm not saying you have to do them on camera," I said, "But you aren't coming all this way to just look."
By then the wine was really kicking in.
"When my Dad found out about my work, his only request was that I never do anything on camera with a guy," Lydia confessed.
"Fair enough. Your stuff is tasteful as it is," I said.
And it was. Lydia was Greek-American, and her father and mother were immigrants. She had the beautiful brunette Mediterranean look. Her fit body and olive skin worked together to make her look like a Greek goddess. Most of her work was classy stuff like that, with only very light implied lesbian (light touching, near kissing, but nothing to imply oral).
"My parents have really come around," Lydia said, "They say it's always important to represent the proud heritage of the Greeks."
"Gymnasiums and gymnastics used to be about being naked as it was, so you are really just reaching your potential," I said.
Lydia laughed.
"I suppose I could shoot some classy stuff with some of the women I train with? It could boost my profile," she said.
"Of course," I said, "Can you give me an idea of what you are looking for?" I asked.
I got her to start to pose, and soon she was naked, giving the poses she thought worked best for gymnast bodies. I loved it.
"Trust me, the girls will love to work with you," I said.
"Just let them know I may be Greek, but I'm not from Lesbos," she said.
I left that where it was. Sometimes you have to let the seeds grow.
#
One lucky thing about living in Los Angeles is that when a big event comes around, there are thousands of influencers seeking to cash in on it, and many more trying to cash in on them trying to cash in. The market is always as unstable as most fame seekers, and I lucked into a loft that had been turned into a photo studio of athletic shoots. Most of the time it was a fake boxing gym for wannabe tough rappers or Disney teen stars trying to have a tough guy image.
It had converted it to a fake gymnastics gym. So had many others, and Los Angeles was lousy with it, and influencers willing to offer legit gyms "exposure". We got a deal paying cash, and a great view of the city to boot.
Lydia and I arrived early and her mouth dropped when she saw the space.
"Oh, my gosh. You always know how to get the best places," Lydia said.
"90% of the job of producers is logistics," I said, "The sex is a lot less than most people think."
"Even if your sex game is only 10% of your locations game, your costars are lucky," she said.
Part of "logistics" is finding talent, and not just on screen. Lydia saw all the ways that the room was poorly arranged for actual gymnastics, and not in a way that helped the photos and video look better. She got a new layout figured, and when the crew started coming in they helped move equipment around.
#
I was scheduled to direct and shoot through the day for the most part, but I was involved in the early photo-only scenes. As part of the compensation for the actresses we agreed to take some classy athletic photos to add for non-porn nude work, as well as some softcore nudes for their entry level tiers on "fans" sites and apps. We even had some other actresses who wouldn't be in the videos come in and get some photos for payment for past work, or favors to be cashed in later.
The first few hours were about those photos. Lydia would be shooting her training of the other model as part of her own content to be put out. She was assisted by Brittney, another former gymnast turned sex worker. We non-gymnasts were put through the basics of stretches, tumbling, balance and other moves. None of us was expecting to be Simone Biles, but we got much better from our start. The ones with experience as strippers fared much better.
On top of teaching us how to do basics, she also taught us how to flex to emphasize our bodies. Our butts, breasts, legs, feet, midriffs and backs were posed and poised. These mostly skinny, but soft bodies came alive in new ways. More than a few of the girls loved the feeling of Lydia's deft hands posing and handling them, both in their leotards and in states of undress.
Too bad Lydia wasn't "from Lesbos".
#
We got the photo portion done and took a break while the crew set up for the porn video portion of the day. Of course, there aren't really "breaks" on shoot days when you're an influencer, porn star, or combination of the two. Content demand is heavy, and the algorithms demand you make more and more.
So forgive the math, but 90% of the job of porn producer is to maximize every moment on set.
For this shoot I would be too busy to be on screen, but I had a good group of three women: Babz Moriarty, my favorite costar (and my one true lesbian crush), Cherry Red, and Brittney. Lydia would help choreograph.
I filmed as we chatted and stretched.
"You should call up a guy, I am sure we could slide this in," Babz said as Brittney and Lydia both helped her stretch out her legs.
"You've got two fit female gymnasts stretching you out, and all you can think about is dick?" Cherry asked.
"Please, you think about dick all the time," Babz said, "I appreciate being stretched out here, but I want other parts of me stretched out."
"We have monster dildos available," I said.
"And I got plenty of holes to fill," Babz said, "Trust me, if I knew how to stretch like this, I would be shooting Cirque de Hole-leil."
"I wish you were comfortable doing this on screen," Brittney told Lydia.
"I've got a certain brand I keep up with," Lydia said, "Classy classical antiquity."
"You know what would be funny and classy? Do some body paint and pose like we're on gay Greek pottery," Babz said.