Asia Carrera: Truly Baring All

[Note: All links to asiacarrera.com are not suitable for work. Obviously.]

Asia Carrera is a half-Japanese, half-German porn star who retired in 2003. She has been in titles such as A is for Asia, Leatherbound Dykes from Hell 7 and United Colors of Ass.

Now, if you think 8asians.com is getting to the point where I’m now blogging about porn stars at a pathetic attempt to dredge up more hits from search engines, you’d only be half right. Many of her hardcore fans (ha ha, I said “hardcore”) also know that she’s played classical piano at Carnegie Hall, was a National Merit Scholarship winner, is a member of MENSA. As she was one of the first adult stars with an active Internet presence — I remember being shown her web page in a computer lab in the mid 90’s, when the Internet was at its infancy — and thinking two things: “Wow, a female porn star that plays Unreal Tournament,” and “Wow, she wrote a lot on her website.” (No, I didn’t notice her boobies. Well, I noticed her breasts, but I didn’t notice them. The irony that a gay man is blogging about a female porn star is lost on no one, I hope.)

She is VERY candid about her upbringing – she’s written in detail to how her parents put tremendous amounts of pressure on her, something that many Asian teenagers struggle with. As to her naysayers, she wrote this while still in the middle of her porn career:

I know some of you still think I’m “settling for less than I could achieve” in life, but all I can say is this: I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life, and I don’t consider that “settling” at all! I have a fun job that provides me with the time and money to do all the things I love, like playing piano, drawing, writing, and working on my web site! I’ve slowly lost the hard edge and the “fuck-the-world” attitude I had as a runaway, and gained a love for life that I never had before. I save and invest for the future, and I’m going to finish my degree at my leisure. After I’m done with adult, I’ll be a mom, or a stock analyst, or knowing me, probably both …

Her FAQ page she also gives advice as to how parents can avoid a similar situation, although I can’t imagine my elderly Chinese parents running to asiacarrera.com, for obvious reasons. And she still updates the site – the one coded by hand since the 90s – through her Bulletin page, where she has chronicled about life raising two children without her husband, who tragically died in a car accident a year and a half ago. That makes her a blogger before the concept of blogs even existed. And for her candidness, she gets nothing but respect from me.