Madison Missina writes about what it's really like to go clubbing when you're a porn star.

Warning: this post is NSFW. 

Being a porn star means that I often have to face up to being stereotyped. As a porn star, I’m often considered the ‘good time’ girl, the wild one, who is always up to party, to get loose, to cause trouble, the one that will steal your man.

For the most part, my life doesn’t resemble anything like that stereotype and so I often get to go under the radar, but there are certain situations where I stumble close to the stereotype and end up some unique experiences.

Nightclubs are a normal part of our young party lives, where we can go to drink, party with our friends, pick up or to get lost in a sea of strangers on the dance floors. But when society sees you as ‘the girl that’s up for anything’, night clubbing takes on a whole new flavour.

Whenever I enter a nightclub, it seems that there is always a fan. Often just one fan, but I get to see just how quickly word spreads.

I will enter with friends, go about the usual ritual of hitting the bar for our first round, sussing out the dance floor and picking our spot, just as anyone would do. And then the double takes begin.

“You look so familiar, do I know you?” one guy asks.

“Oh I get that a lot, I look like Renee Zellweger, we don’t know each other,” I respond with my standard line.

He walks away with that confused look. Then the phone comes out. These days with the Internet being in all our pockets, I can’t hide for long. A quick scroll through social media or Google brings up hundreds of my photos.

“Hey yeah I do know you. You’re Madison. I love your work, can I have a photo?” the guys asks again.

Of course I oblige, I feel it’s part of my job putting myself out there. I even experience that myself having my own collection of my photos with my own favourite idols, performers.

But then it starts. I have literally sat in nightclubs with my friends and watched the Mexican wave of phones being pulled out of pockets, with inquisitive looks.

I’ve been in bathroom stalls where I’ve overheard women whisper “that blonde in the blue dress out there, yeah she’s some porn star apparently.”

Now I’m not going to lie, this has led to some amazing nights. Being naturally shy, it’s great having people approach me feeling they already know me. Getting to meet so many more people than I normally would, has certainly been fun.

But living a stigmatised life means that it’s not all roses and adoration.

There was one night when I was at a nightclub in Kings Cross, there was a bucks party happening that night. I had already done the photos with a porn star thing for them and wished them a happy night. I was on the dance floor (I’m almost always the dance floor) and the bucks were dancing around trying to entice me into dirty dancing with them.

I was doing my usual politely pretending not to notice them and getting on with my thing, when they literally picked me up and started to carry me off to a corner. In my mind, I think they thought it would be funny but luckily my friend got the bouncer so that was sorted and I was fine.

A post shared by Madison Missina™ (@madisonmissina) on Jan 11, 2017 at 6:58pm PST

So I decided that perhaps I should search for nightclubs that attracted less of the younger crowd. Maybe I could be invisible in the suburbs? So off we go another night out suburban style.

And it starts again.

The double takes, that one fan, the bathroom news real. This time it’s a group of women who decided to takes thing to the next level. I’m a slut, I’m there clearly in competition with them, and I’m dirty.

Whilst in intimate situations such as dinner parties, if I encounter people that cant see past the stereotype I will happily confront them. In situations where there’s too much booze I just move away. I’m not there to ruin anyone’s night or to morally justify my existence and honestly living with the idea that some people will just never accept me is old news in my life.

But then, my night is interrupted with the cold shock of someone’s drink being poured down my back. The marker of a disgruntled woman.

“You’re a slut,” she says.

“Okay, I’m a slut please leave me alone,” I reply.

And then they multiply, like my very presence in that club was detracting from their experience. Like choosing to make a living out of making adult films means that I will always be on the hunt to get with all the men, or I have somehow broken some women’s code.

But the stereotype and being known works in other ways too. There have been instances where I’ve arrived at clubs. And that one fan who knows me is the owner. We sit down, a normal nightclub and the bar tender arrives at our table with bottle service.

“Madison, if there’s anything you need you tell me. We’re great fans and if you need to escape or touch up your makeup we will take you to our back room. Anything at all that you need, we have you covered,” he explains to me.

Wow, this must be what its like to be a celebrity. It’s so seductive to receive the special treatment, the additional security. I felt respected, special, I was seduced.

A post shared by Madison Missina™ (@madisonmissina) on May 12, 2016 at 6:35am PDT

Anything you need in the back room turned out to be code for party drugs. Piles of them, with encouraging special invitations to lock ins. When the club closes and all the patrons need to leave, a lock in is where the club becomes its own special place for the owner, their friends and workers to stay back and enjoy it on their own. Having the lock in with a porn star in their midst appeared to be very prized.

I’ve been lucky in that I’m one of Australia’s oldest porn stars. Most of our stars enter the industry in their early twenties, the decade where most of us love to party, like to go to extremes and push our bodies.

If I were younger, I think escaping the lure of the party scene would have near been impossible for me. Entering a decade older than the norm in my early thirties with responsibilities and a body that doesn’t bounce back has saved me.

These days my party nights are just one glass (if that) at home with my partner and my animals, far from the expected party girl stereotype that my career affords me. But I am grateful that I’ve been able to experience the other side and have had many unique experiences, to me that’s what life is all about.