My Way and My Niche

by Rich Moreland, July 2015

This is the fourth installment of the story of Mercy West. She represents an important part of the adult scene today, genderqueer, alternative, and willing to try just about anything. My thanks to her for sharing her personal  background and thoughts on being in adult film. More insights into Mercy are coming soon.

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Her experiences with phone sex and web cam revealed to Mercy West that “everyone wants to be accepted and everybody needs to feel loved.” The same applies to sexuality. “No matter what it is, no matter the fetish, the taboo, the turn on, we just want somebody to be okay with it.” To have someone be “excited about it” just adds to the pleasure, she says.

Because phone sex callers are diverse, our masochistic kinkster inadvertently became an on-the-job sex therapist, as we have previously seen. What did she learn? Too many people are in unproductive situations like “dead” marriages and “crap” relationships, she says. Some are single and unhappy; others are folks who are just shy. Frustrated, they want someone to respond to their turn ons and validate their desires. Mercy was more than willing and treated them all with understanding.

Whether or not her “talk therapy” paid off remains to be seen, but her own personal life was enriched. Mercy has a clearer understanding of what satisfaction means when she plays with fetish lovers who are “utterly into what they are doing and know what they want . . . I feed off that excitement,” she exclaims. This is particularly true with BDSM because the attitudes and passions of the players energize each other once a scene gets underway. In some cases, Mercy has kinky partners so enthusiastic before the fun begins that she feels she is “going to explode” it is so hot. “With the right person, it’s perfect,” she exclaims.

On camera

When a girl is totally exposed in front of the camera, she’ll be judged, Mercy says. It’s a risk that rightly causes hesitation in some models. For her, it turned out to be a breezy experience. Doing web cam in Portland opened further opportunities in adult entertainment. “I really liked it and realized I was comfortable in front of people [that way]. Once I sold a few videos, custom stuff I had made for people, I started looking for work.” Web camming is highly individualized and is primarily a solo gig, which oft-times includes toys at the customer’s request.

At this point, Mercy was ready to decide on her first booking with an adult company, but concerns about familiarity with the buisness and confidence in those in it arose. She liked gonzo porn as a viewer, but didn’t feel ready to take it on as a model. Instead, a BDSM shoot caught her attention, a natural because she had been doing scenes in clubs and festivals. The BDSM stage is all about getting to know the players and building chemistry with liked-minded people, so a bondage shoot seemed perfect to break her porn cherry. People she trusted in the community would be there to jump-start her career.

Eventually, a little research yielded Paintoy, an attractive option though a little caution begged consideration. Mercy explains. “I wrestled with it for weeks because this is the real thing. People are going to know who I am.” It wasn’t too late to back out, “I had the option to pull my stuff off the internet and sort of disappear . . .” Such decisions are tough and Mercy confesses that shooting a heavy-duty BDSM scene with total nudity, real marks, and real tears “meant I wasn’t going to disappear any time soon.”

Hesitancy, anyone? Maybe a little and it did hang around. “I knew I was really, really going to like it,” Mercy coos, and best of all, Paintoy “had been around for a while.” Simply put, hardcore BDSMers know the label. It’s called legitimacy. So that part was settled.

Still, “things went through my head,” Mercy confesses, and after “a good long talk with my partner about the pros and cons of being in the industry and thinking it through for weeks,” she brought it to him front and center.

As expected, the best happened. “He was completely supportive,” Mercy says, and had no problem with her breakthrough step. “He had seen me play and he knew that people liked to watch me.” Her lover knew she would “feed off a crowd” and was well aware of her exhibitionist tendencies.

Incidentally, a supportive partner is a gift when it comes to porn. As she explained previously, Mercy has found a relationship utopia that moves beyond monogamy.

“I started to realize I had only been monogamous because of other peoples’ expectations.”

Something else was needed, so Mercy and her partner decided upon an alternative way of being a couple that, in their view, is more suitable for them.

“We are in a polyamorous relationship. We both have the freedom to act as we please sexually or emotionally as long as we are honest with each other.”

Things were now set for Mercy. “So, I took the little sticky note with Paintoy’s number off my computer monitor and called them. Two weeks later I was shooting with them and three weeks after that I was shooting with Intersec.” That, she says, is “my journey into pornography and fetish modeling, how I sort of found my way and my niche.”

Paintoy can be found here.

 

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Mercy West’s meteoric rise has led to a further step. Recently she decided to secure an agent in L.A.’s Porn Valley where vanilla is the flavor. With the advice and help of an industry writer, Mercy signed with Foxxx Modeling and can be booked by calling 818-884-0847 or visiting Foxxx here.