Sasha Grey and Isabella Lovestory are the future of post-digital desire.
The porn legend and reggaeton pop princess on sexuality, art in the attention economy, and making their Catholic guilt work for them.
“Sasha: I think, culturally, we’re living in a moment I’ve dubbed stripper chic. It’s taking over everything. It’s even taken over the fashion industry; it’s taken over every aesthetic aspect of how people are presenting themselves. My worry is that people are depicting themselves in a certain way, but they’re not really understanding of their own sexuality or of other people’s. So it just [becomes] an image, and by not having these conversations about sex, [we’re] just perpetuating an aesthetic.”
“Isabella: With the internet, it’s so hard to own everything you put out. You’re always going to get misinterpreted and misused.”
“Sasha Grey: We are all sexual beings. Sex is just as an important part of our lives as the need to eat, breathe, drink water, and socialize. There will always be a group of people who are asexual and people who don’t relate to it, but as a whole, it is vital to our survival.
Shame and the taboo around sex actually contribute negatively to [the problem of] sexual harassment, [which] we’re now putting to the forefront with the [#MeToo](/culture/new/MeToo) movement. If we’re not able to talk about sex in a positive way, how are we supposed to talk about the bad side that comes along with it?”