A Sexy Kiss on Camera: Exploring Her Queerness

 

“A Sexy, On-Camera Kiss: Exploring Her Queerness”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Cat: I think you begin with thinking, oh, I wanna kiss people and I wanna, you know, date them and maybe fall in love. For me at least, what happens when you start exploring your queerness is it’s not just about sexuality and who you’re dating anymore. It also is a lot about yourself.

August/narration:

Cat has a very unique job. If she were to meet someone at a networking event, she might introduce herself like this:

Cat: I’m Kat and I am Scottish, but I live in Berlin and I work for Ernie’s, which is kind of like a woman run porn company in Berlin as well. My job, title is a bit strange. It’s head of Safe for Work, which if you know Reddit terms and you might know NSFW, which basically means like not safe work naked content, essentially. I’m basically head of everything not naked, in the porn company.

August/narration:

Cat never imagined she’d work in porn, but she didn’t grow up with a lot of sexual shame either.

Cat: I remember that my mom was that mom in school who was teaching me things to teach my friends. So I always had an understanding of sex, from a pretty early age, like about condoms. My mom was giving me condoms to give to school friends.

I even was aware of masturbation and porn pretty early in my life. Like it just kind of came natural to me, from even like age eight or something. So I was that weird kid in school who talked about sex.

August/narration:

She was also super into it, starting with self pleasure as a kid. And she wished she could’ve explored more with another person as she got older.

Cat: I was, I would say very exploratory. I think that’s a good word for it. I just lacked any partner who wanted to explore with me. I definitely was curious and I would say I was a pretty open-minded. not to be super crude, but I was like a horny little teenager, to be honest.

I just didn’t have like, many people interested in me, from a physical perspective. Which maybe in hindsight was good because goodness knows what would’ve happened.

But yeah, as a kid or as a young person, I was very curious about my body. I was very interested in masturbation, like anything that felt good.

I even had like, a little tent in my bedroom, which was kind of like, I called it like my wank tent. The term wan in the uk, it means to masturbate. And it was good. Like it just gave me like a little private space. It’s funny how even though I was a kid and nobody told me that it was wrong, I just had this like strange fear of being caught, there was definitely an element of curiosity about taboo topics as a kid, I would say.

August/narration:

Cat would end up having a major sexual awakening as she started working for Ersties. Leading up to that, she spent about most of her 20s exploring through sex and dating. Which was sort of a mixed bag of experiences.

Cat: My life was going to university. yeah, I definitely had my open trying to sleep around years, like when I, first became single at university and dating apps where just coming out, I think I was, one of the first people in my group of friends to be on Tinder. I definitely, I was going for it. You know, I’m motivated by dating.

People think I’m obsessed with sex, but actually I just love connecting with humans. I like the excitement that comes with a new connection the feeling of like, oh, do they like me? Do I like them back?

And I was doing that hardcore. I was exploring definitely sexual freedom of, of being an adult. It wasn’t all good though, to be quite honest. I think looking back it was a time of, trial and tribulation.

I was pretty surprised because I remember going, I had a long term boyfriend in high school who we had been having sex with each other.

Then when I went to being single and like dating around, I was shocked because I didn’t come. I didn’t orgasm with like many guys at all actually. So I was like, what? I don’t have a problem with like orgasming, you know, if I’m with somebody I know well if I’m with myself, like I don’t have an issue. So that was, uh, a bit of a surprise for me.

And it took me a long time to maybe understand why that might be. Maybe I don’t know them, maybe I don’t feel comfortable with them.

But I had a few years like that and then I ended up meeting, my partner and yeah, we’ve been together for 10 years.

August/narration:

Today, Cat identifies as queer. But for a long time, she didn’t feel like she could or maybe should.

Cat: Back in university, I would definitely have said probably straight, but I was always interested. I did try to date women back in Scotland, actually. I did have one or two small experiences. because it didn’t go well, I just kind of put it to the back of my mind because I thought, oh, maybe I’m not actually a queer. ‘Cause that didn’t turn out well.

It’s funny when you think about it, ’cause the amount of people, if you’re bisexual or heterosexual, the amount of guys that you date that didn’t go well, you don’t just assume like, oh, I don’t like any guys now. But that’s kind of how my mind went. I think it’s easier to just invalidate your sexuality when you’re bisexual or when you’re pansexual or queer because it’s just, way easier to be honest, to be with a man.

And there’s a lot more of them who chase you, so that part’s a little easier too.

It took me a long time to even feel validated in saying that I’m queer or bisexual ’cause I just I didn’t wanna take space in a place I wasn’t sure if I was valid to be in.

August/narration:

Working for Ersties helped shift that, and a lot of things, for Cat. And that took changing her relationship style — this was 9 years after her first exploration.

Cat: I was with my partner at the time I started at Erstie’s. Within a short period of time, we opened our relationship partly because, yeah, I really. I had like a drive to explore myself again.

I tried to do the whole sexual exploration thing again, but from a kinda more mature, happier in myself, point in my thirties.

I’ve also been through that stage now and I would say there was a huge comparison. A huge difference between the two, let’s say it’s like slutty in a good way periods.

August/narration:

Cat landed her job after working in the sexuality space in another way.

Cat: My technical background is architecture, but I obviously didn’t go down that path at the end after university. Long story short, I ended up making content about sex education and sex positivity on social media. , I found my passion, you know, I didn’t realize that I could write about sex or talk about sex and it would be my job.

August/narration:

Then one day she saw a job posting for a marketing assistant at Ersties.

Cat: So I just was like, oh, hey, why not? You know?

August/narration:

So she applied, landed an interview, and got the job.

Cat: And it all went from there. I think it’s the right brand of weirdness that fits my weirdness, so yeah.

August/narration:

When Cat started her new job, she was still feeling unsure about her sexuality. In fact, she’d felt unsure for years.

Cat: There was always a question in my mind of like, okay, at some point am I going to really feel like I need to explore this topic again, of being with women or being with femme people. But I just didn’t know how and I was very unsure.

August/narration:

And then, she started a job that involved some very steamy sex scenes, right before her eyes.

Cat: When I started working at Ersties, I occasionally had to go to a set where we’re filming the porn.

We film predominantly lesbian style content. Our crew are all women on set and most of our shoots are also all female performers.I remember going to set, actually I think it was even the first set I was on and I was super new. I was quite young and nervous.

Everyone was really lovely, but I was very impressed and quite taken aback by how flirty people were, like the performers with me. I was like, blushing a lot. And I was like, okay, there’s definitely something here. And I remember like one performer specifically, I felt like, oh my God, I feel like she’s flirting with me. And I just hadn’t had this experience of women outrightly flirting with me.

Funnily enough, I went to set a second time later,a few weeks later, and the same performer was there. She actually was like, “Hey, I was telling my boyfriend about you and like, I would really like to invite you to a sex party with me.” And I was like, oh my God, she was flirting with me!

I was like, wow, this is amazing. And the more shoots I went to just being surrounded by very open, very, shame-free sexuality that was just a sacred space between women and, most of the women there are queer. It was not something that was hidden or confusing. it wasn’t hard to feel that coming towards me.

Eventually I just kind of realized this is what I need. I realized I wasn’t allowing myself to explore my sexuality because I just wasn’t sure if it was even a thing.

Then sometimes I had to stay on set to film some stuff like n interview at the end of the shoot. Honestly I had to hear some very sexy things in the background and I was like, actually, I wanna be there. I wanna be having sex with them too.

It’s pretty hot to be on a porn set.  So I was like, okay, I definitely like women. This is for sure.

*****

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*****

August/narration:

Soon, she had an idea. A way to merge the work she was doing with her realization she’s into women and to deepen her sexual self-discovery — in a way that might benefit others, too.

Cat: I had a task to create a YouTube channel for our company.

I just had to think about ideas for videos. Initially I was thinking about dating anyway because I love the topic of just bringing people together and helping people connect and find love. Actually after a few videos I was like, Hey, Why don’t I send myself on a journey of dating women?

I have access to a lot of amazing women here who would maybe happily be my guide or happily give me, an experience to maybe give me confidence to help me experience, You know, my queerness in a really safe space. And maybe by doing that I’ll also show people that it’s okay to kind of need somebody to hold your hand in the beginning. Because I do think that a lot of people experience awkwardness and shyness when they start trying to date women after a lifetime dating men.

I was super lucky. I mean, I get to work with women who are performers and who are in, you know, sex industry. So it’s actually for them, it’s not such a strange idea for somebody to be like, “Hey, do you wanna be in a video with me where you are my girlfriend for the day?” for them, that’s actually part of their life.

I also wanted to show like that actually sex workers and working with sex workers doesn’t have to be something creepy. They’re amazing people. And actually also a lot of women, I’m sure could have a really beneficial experience with them.

So I started to film some videos, very awkward and also kind of cringe videos, at the beginning of the channel.

August/narration:

Her first experience was unforgettable.

Cat: One of the first videos I came up with was, I wanted to kind of like rent a girlfriend for a day or hire a girlfriend for a day. I know some people have problems with the terminology there, but it was a topic that I’d seen on YouTube and I was like, actually I think this would be great for me because I can simulate the experience of having a date with a woman and get through all the awkwardness with her, and then do it in real life and I’m more confident.

August/narration:

So she reached out to a performer she knew through Ersties.

Cat: She’s really amazing. She’s more dominant than me. She’s kind of actually dominatrix . I thought she would be the right character to help me guide myself into this first date experience. We had met before and I felt like, oh, there’s also like a nice kind of vibe.

August/narration:

So Cat set up the filming date. And she was…

Cat: … super nervous because it was the first time filming in general and I was also filming in public.

August/narration:

The night before filming, she talked to her partner.

Cat: By this point we had already opened our relationship. And I said to him, “Hey, by the way, I don’t know, maybe something’s gonna happen tomorrow.” And he was like, “yeah, I hope so. I hope it happens.” And I was like, oh, I don’t know.

August/narration:

Would something physical happen, or would they just have a nice date out and call it a day?

Cat:  Like nothing was planned with this person in the video.

August/narration:

As it turned out, they had a nice date in Berlin.

Cat: We went to a cat cafe and I bought her some donuts and she fed me and we got cream all over our faces.

It was very cute. And I remember thinking like, okay, I’m way too awkward to ask anybody to kiss, so I’m just gonna like, hope you know that I can hold her hand by the end of the date.

At the end of our date. I was asking her like, Hey, like, was I a good date? Can you give me a rating and stuff? Like, very embarrassing.

I said, “Hey, okay, great. Can I hug you?’ And then she was like, “Yeah.” And then she went to kiss me.

And you can see in the video, like my face is actual genuine shock because I was not prepared for that. And this was for real, the first kiss with a woman in more than 10 years. It’s kind of fun to have that on camera because it’s quite cute moment.

Then we kissed again and it was super nice and I was like, oh, actually that went better than I expected. So yeah, that was the beginning.

August/narration:

Throughout Cat’s exploration, her partner stayed supportive.

Cat: The way he puts it is, you know, he’s just so invested in my story and invested in my happiness and super happy to see me come home and hear the excitement in my voice. through this experience, it just brought us so much closer together.

I think he always knew that there was this other part of my myself and as much as I don’t wanna make a big gender distinction, ‘ cause at the end of the day it is just about a person. And if you fall in love with a person, it doesn’t matter what gender they are but I do think that he was just able to see that this was something that allowed me to bloom and allowed me to come into myself.

August/narration:

And bloom she did.

Cat: I think you begin with thinking, oh, I wanna kiss people and I wanna, you know, date them and maybe fall in love. For me at least, what happens when you start exploring your queerness is it’s not just about sexuality and who you’re dating anymore. It also is a lot about yourself.

It’s about how you see yourself, how you present to other people, the roles that you play. You kind of give yourself the permission to question who you are because you’re not having to play a specific role to kind of fit into this heteronormative, program, if that makes sense.

August: I love what you mentioned about it being so much more than just about sex. That’s so true about awakenings too, that when you step more into your authentic desires and identity, you sometimes move differently in the world. how has this all impacted you as a whole? How are you feeling now as a person, having ventured this?

Cat: Yeah. I can’t even fully explain the change and the changes that have happened to me since exploring this. I’m very thankful that I have a lot of on video because you really see the progression of who I am as a person and just my character. My confidence is just night and day actually.

To give you an example, initially I wanted to find more ways to, meet people that I might be interested in. And I really got into going to drag king shows actually. I love drag queens as well, but I was like, okay, I actually love drag kings.

And that was something that I found out just from getting more involved in this, like queer kind of bisexual, girly thing. and I ended up going to a drag king workshop. It’s not something I would’ve done, three years ago, for example. And here I am in this workshop dressed as a man.

I was dressed as sort of a gender questioning David Bowie type, who was a very sexual lover boy. Seeing myself, in this moment was a really good way for me to remember how far I’ve come.

Now actually I go out into the world and I can choose way more confidently who I am, how other people see me and what kind of like role I play with others.

Because before I didn’t question it so much. And now I’m like, yes. Fuck yes. That’s who I am. It’s hard to describe. It comes down to even what you wear, how you present yourself in general. You feel yourself much more authentically.

August/narration:

If you’d like to explore your own sexual identity or invite more exploration of different kinds, Cat suggests this:

Cat: Not everybody’s gonna have the chance to, you know, have a company sponsored, queer awakening like I did. So I get that it seems sometimes very difficult. But I would say if you can, the biggest thing is to be around people that are diverse and show you a lot more representations of gender, of sexuality.

I think that’s been the biggest, most amazing thing for me. And of course I’m also very privileged because I live in Berlin. It has like a really huge queer community. but if you don’t have that in your, you know, local area, make your online world filled with people, different personalities, different looks, people living different lives.

Once you see different representations, it just gives you the acceptance and it gives your brain even the way to imagine who you might become.Build yourself a nice little supportive network. Cause then everything’s possible from there.

August/narration:

And here is what Cat wants you to know about Ersties — and sort of about porn in general:

Cat: I think a lot of people. are rightly so concerned about watching porn. You know, of course, like I grew up also watching porn and then feeling guilty about it. Especially as a woman, I didn’t wanna see, you know, people being badly treated.

I know that there’s a lot of people, also women who watch porn the brain wants us to kind of watch it, this weird, kind of strange, neurochemical way that it gets turned on by this. so a lot of us have like a complicated relationship with porn.

What I find really healing since working at Ersties and also not just working at Ersties but being involved in this world of sexuality is that there are so many companies actually and so many people who are doing this in a really beautiful way. when I started talking to performers about why they make porn, they genuinely love it.

They are exhibitionists. This is their craft. You know? This is being a dancer or being an artist or being a cook. They love the other people love it. When I understood that and then when I understood that there are places and studios and spaces where people can make porn that makes them happy, that doesn’t have to go over their boundaries, and that actually performers can come together and can create something really special, even if it’s just for one day on set, it made me totally change my perspective of porn. This doesn’t always have to be this harmful kind of subjective way of sex.

So yeah, I think if you’re curious and you’re concerned about porn, I would say yeah, I like branch out. What I like about Ersties is that we have performer interviews, so you can listen to who these people are.

You can hear what their passions are. You can hear actually in their voice that they are who they say they are, that they’re interested in what they’re doing. And for me, that’s the best thing about, performer led content, which also includes things like OnlyFans and any platform like that.

Like I just want to be part of a world where the sex worker is making the content that they wanna make. And they’re happy with that because that’s the kind of porn I wanna watch.

August/narration:

Cat told me that working in porn hasn’t only helped her explore her queerness, but open up her sexuality as a whole.

Cat: I think just being around people that were just absolutely shamelessly open about their sexuality and meeting a lot of polyamorous people and just being surrounded by people like that. I think that wasn’t something I had anticipated because I also, honestly, I thought I was already pretty sexually open considering I was already working in this field.

I kind of love that. I actually am probably one of the most vanilla wholesome people in the porn industry, but it’s a lot more cute and wholesome than people expect.

August: That’s so true. And I love that you were like, I was always the weird sex person and now you’re like, I am the, I’m the librarian of the group.

Cat: Yeah, absolutely.

I love that. Like that that switch up. It makes conversations really interesting. You know, when you work with people like in this industry, you have no boring conversations, so I love that.

August/narration:

Check out Ersties here. And don’t forget to take the quick Beducated pleasure quiz.

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