Airbrushed Tan Lines

Whitney Mallett visits a porn shoot in Spain.

By Whitney MallettDecember 20, 2025

• Memoir & Essay

• Film

• Gender & Sexuality

7:41 a.m.

I WAKE UP in Barcelona. Jessica texts from New York asking if I’m there to see the Carlos Motta exhibition at MACBA. I wonder if this would be more on-brand for me. “I’m here to watch the shoot of an ‘ethical female pleasure’ porno,” I reply. When I tell Felix the same thing about Barcelona, he quips, “Guess it’s not just the gay porn capital of Europe.” Well, it is a girl-on-girl shoot, I explain, but maybe for a hetero gaze? Or the queer-women-watching-with-their-boyfriend gaze? Yesterday I tried to gauge how much raunch and hedonism is part of the city’s identity. Were the cheughy tourist shop T-shirts, like “I <3 Doggy Style,” crasser than other cities’ cheughy T-shirts at tourist shops? It’s my first time in Spain. I keep catching a whiff of sewage smell on certain blocks.

8:11 a.m.

When I’m sitting on the toilet, I have a stupid thought. Maybe the director will love my vibe so much that she’ll be like, “Have you ever thought about performing? You could be a star!” The slap of reality that this will absolutely not happen makes me more self-conscious as I’m getting dressed. So does the hotel room’s famine of natural light. Its windows open onto an air shaft. I look tired from the jet lag and hate all the clothes I’ve brought.

8:45 a.m.

Elena, my handler from the porn studio, meets me outside my hotel in a taxi. Preparing for my trip, I realized a lot of my friends had never heard of Erika Lust, so I started simply saying I was going to be a fly on the wall at a feminist porno shoot. Erika Lust refers to a person—a 48-year-old Swedish woman who moved to Barcelona in her twenties to study filmmaking—and the eponymous adult film company she founded in 2005. The first time I watched an Erika Lust film was at a small art gallery in the Lower East Side screening a handful of recent pornographic shorts directed by homocore icon Bruce LaBruce, a couple of them made under the Erika Lust banner. If the ethos is for us, by us—the us being hipster art girls—then in those films LaBruce is functionally one of the girls, stretching himself to consider a woman’s desire. My fave of the Erika Lust x Bruce LaBruce collab is like if Jules et Jim had a less tragic ending, the interracial BBG love triangle resolving in a threesome. The other guest director who put Erika Lust on the map for me was Stoya, the porn star who wrote a Vice column in the 2010s. She directed a film about a woman who wakes up one day with a dick, like one of those Hollywood magical wish-fulfillment body-swap comedies, if designed to get you off.

9:35 a.m.

Elena and I stop at the train station where we connect with two more journalists arriving from Madrid, a writer and photographer from a daily newspaper there. I learn of the scandal du jour. Top officials in the socialist government are under investigation for hiring sex workers with public funds. Together we take a Sprinter van to the set, a villa in the mountains over an hour away. When the small talk dies down, I consider that I’ve ended up here because Grace told me once that she appreciated how I wrote about desire. Will I learn something from watching its simulation? Maybe I’m expecting too much.

10:51 a.m.

We pull into a driveway, fuchsia bougainvillea crawling up a white stucco wall. A sun-bleached “No Dogs” sign hangs on a gate just out of reach of a weeping willow’s shade. Beyond it, a sprawling villa with a terra-cotta roof opens onto the backyard, where backpacks, laptops, a craft service table, and cups with names scribbled in Sharpie are the first traces of a film set. A camera-ready blonde walks by in an orange bikini, her iPhone held at a right angle to her ear. Instagram has just deleted her account, which had over a million followers; her backup’s already at over 100K. She’s Venezuelan, and in her face and body favors Addison Rae.

11:04 a.m.

Down around the pool deck, a cluster of black T-shirts comes into view, huddled around an umbrellaed video village. Erika Lust, in Birkenstocks and a panama hat, is in a mind meld with her assistant director, scrutinizing the monitors live-feeding from cameras A and B. Another layer of the production team watches them, poised to jump into action. Playing on the screens is a pair kissing under an outdoor shower. The scene unfolds in real life about 20 yards away, behind another cluster of black T-shirts—camerapeople, grips, and gaffers, most of them women I’d assume are gay. Between takes, the performers are fussed over and prodded. Straps adjusted. Shine controlled. The slate reads, “Girls I Loved by the Pool, scene 1.2, take 2.” The day, I learn, is going to be divided like this: first filming the narrative, everything except the unsimulated sex acts, then a collaborative discussion about boundaries and consent—what’s referred to as “the sex talk”—before finishing with the explicit scenes.

11:20 a.m.

A brunette in a white robe emerges and undresses to enter the scene. It’s clear she’s playing the protagonist of the story, which I was sent an outline for yesterday. The gist of it is a woman reminiscing fondly of girlfriends from summers past. I’m told the star is a Spaniard and a longtime collaborator of Erika Lust. With lean muscle tone and the erect posture of a yoga instructor, she radiates Mediterranean vitality and sun-kissed health. Clearly a set veteran, she never lingers, vanishing back into her private quarters after she’s needed. Watching her follow directions on how to rub suntan oil on her scene partner or show a flicker of self-consciousness as she slips out of her robe, I note a thoughtfulness and reserve. It’s not what you expect from a porn star, but perhaps it’s what you need to endure in the industry. She’s almost demure, and that quality gives a scene real stakes, even if you’ve seen the same performer exposed, penetrated, or degraded countless times before.

12:01 p.m.

Elena ushers me inside, saying it’s a chance to interview performers. I’m relieved to get out of the sun. Settling near where hair, makeup, and wardrobe have taken over the villa’s living room, I chat with a German waif with strawberry blonde hair and a bee-stung pout. Her delicate frame is gothically tattooed. A cobweb in the shape of a heart on her sternum and “angel” spelled out in Old English lettering. Barbed wire encircling one thigh. Stars on her collarbones. Elsewhere, a crab, a tiger, a rose. After she’s already spent a year in the industry, this production is the first to embrace her tattoos. “I’m looking super teeny style,” she explains, “but they don’t want to book me for teen scenes because of the tattoos.” She also says predictable things, like “working for Erika Lust is a dream.”

12:30 p.m.

The second interview, with the film’s American performer, proves rockier. My softball prompts to get at what’s different about Erika Lust compared to other production companies are met with resistance. I thought the mood board I’d received last night signaled a stronger than average emphasis on art direction and cinematic craft—a focus on beauty being a hallmark of the Erika Lust brand. But I’m clumsy with how I word it, and I’m scolded and told to do my research. This porn is actually less directed, the dialogue and positions less planned, than other franchises in this performer’s experience. I’m caught a little off-balance—she is suddenly domming the interview, asking who I write for. Then she mentions she has an agent for a book of essays she’s working on. Her father, she adds, is a novelist of acclaim. I’m impressed by the whole performance, which concludes in my needing to follow her on Instagram so she can evaluate our mutuals. For context, she’s pounding Red Bull and is the only Black person in the whole cast and crew, really the only person not white or white-passing today that I’ve seen.

12:47 p.m.

I watch the blonde Venezuelan get airbrushed to give the appearance of a thong’s tan line on her butt. She speaks mostly Spanish, I only English, but I have a sense that she’s a bigger star, and even if we could communicate better, they probably wouldn’t ask her to chat with me.

12:54 p.m.

I spy Constance Debré’s novel Playboy on a lounge chair next to fake ice cubes and other props. There are two more volumes of sapphic literature nearby, Orlando by Virginia Woolf and La seducción by Sara Torres. Sara and Erika are friends, I’m told. The prop department has modified the suntan lotion bottles with more aesthetically considered labeling for the brands they’ve made up.

12:59 p.m.

I’m hot and bored.

1:38 p.m.

The fifth performer appears on set to shoot a brief pool scene. Her red one-piece is cut high on the hip, flattering her thick thighs, and low on the back, framing a delicately inked back tattoo. Once that scene is in the can, the whole production breaks for lunch. Over plates of pasta salad and sliced fruit, I find out she’s French and disarming, the only performer who isn’t big on Instagram, but the most open, with a generous desire to connect. I find myself catching a crush.

3:12 p.m.

I hear plenty of “bomba!” and “caliente!” at the end of each take. The makeup artist’s refrain after touch-ups is always the same: “My girls are perfect.” I consider that all of them have relatively small natural breasts.

4:32 p.m.

The performers are directed to swim toward each other in the pool. The drone operator, in a T-shirt that reads “My Hole Rules” in pink Barbie font, works to get the overhead shot. Many of the crew are billboards of Erika Lust sloganeering: “Own Your Pleasure” and “I Pay for My Porn.” These T-shirts are cheughy, but I admire the empowered queer-women energy on set; it’s rare in a workplace. The few cis men on the team show up for specific roles and then make themselves scarce.

4:52 p.m.

It’s during the underwater kissing scenes where Erika Lust’s directorial approach most reveals itself. She’s very jolly, conscious of the schedule but not stressed. For any given scene, she doesn’t usually demand more than two takes. “Okay, we got something,” she’ll say with a laugh and a shrug, happy to move on. Decisive but not a perfectionist, she buoys the mood with easygoing vibes. During the underwater kissing, Erika is quick to clock when a performer paws at another’s crotch over her swimsuit. The director gently intervenes: this kind of play needs to wait until after the sex talk.

5:47 p.m.

As production resets for the final scenes, catering puts out an afternoon snack on the deck. Roosters and a peacock roam the lawn. From this vantage point, we can glimpse some of the production team starting to mix water and dirt in kiddie pools to create mud for tomorrow’s wrestling scene. It’s a weekend rental, and this is the second of three days shooting. Yesterday, they already filmed a story about two women riding bicycles together in the countryside. The Madrid journalists tell me they would never live in Barcelona. Too many Italians. Elena, who’s Italian, makes a face. The production is running an hour behind schedule, which means we journalists will have to leave partway through the sex scene. The timing of our ride can’t be changed because the other two journalists have a train tonight back to Madrid.

6:19 p.m.

“Guys, I mean girls, or ladies—or something nonbinary,” Erika begins the sex talk, not at all flustered, and punctuating her self-correction with an easy laugh. I’m eavesdropping (consensually) out of view from cameras. I’m told the conversation is being filmed to be used in an “installation” (like an experiential Erika Lust brand activation, I assume). The talking points: How is everyone’s energy? What are your boundaries? And what would you like people to do to you? Erika encourages everyone to be vocal now but also during the scene. The Venezuelan wants to sit on someone’s face. The Frenchwoman likes it rough. The German says no penetration underwater. The Spaniard asks what the word “humping” means. The American says she’s a sub. The Venezuelan says she’s also a sub except when she wants to sit on someone’s face. The other three identify as vers. In light of these responses, the Frenchwoman vows she’ll be more dominant today. After 27 minutes, Erika concludes, “It’s beautiful light, let’s do it!” They have been waiting for golden hour to shoot the most important part.

7:04 p.m.

All five performers have big smiles. This is what they’ve been waiting for. There’s an audience of crew and observers assembled to watch the sex. No one behaved this way before, when they were shooting little narrative moments, hitting the storyboard beats. The photographer from Madrid looks like she’s on safari with her extra-long zoom lens. I open up a blank page in the Notes app on my iPhone, ready to type.

7:07 p.m.

The film’s plot moves through the main character’s recollections of past lovers, each vignette folding into the next until they culminate in a daydream orgy, all five performers together in this final scene. It begins with kissing and heavy petting, and it’s clear the Spaniard is a pro. She keeps her back arched as she pushes two of the other girls together. She opens her mouth wide in a big smile as she’s kissed on the neck. She understands pantomime. Her acting doesn’t read overly fake but there is a sense of exaggeration, of knowing how to signify visually. By contrast, the Frenchwoman seems really horny. Her enthusiasm is giving the Spaniard something to play off of.

7:09 p.m.

The five performers split off into two clusters. The German joins the Spaniard and the Frenchwoman. Beside them, the Venezuelan is alternating between fucking the American with a dildo and eating her pussy.

7:12 p.m.

The Frenchwoman wants in on eating the American’s pussy. She leaves her trio and then the other two follow. Now all four are focused on pleasuring the American.

7:14 p.m.

The American cries out in orgasm, and the peacock begins squawking, almost as if mocking her. This is funny to people on set; they look around at each other smiling in silence.

7:17 p.m.

The Spaniard starts eating out the German who’s reclined on the pool lounger. While she’s being pleasured down below, the Venezuelan prepares to sit on the German’s face.

7:18 p.m.

By this point, I’m starting to feel really turned on watching. The American is fingering the German, whose face is still being sat on by the Venezuelan. Next to them, the Frenchwoman is pumping her hand quickly in and out of the Spaniard’s cunt. The Venezuelan bends forward to help the American, hard at work on the German. They’re double-teaming the German, the Venezuelan’s ass now in the air. Erika is watching from the monitors and gives a two-thumbs-up, like this is really good shit.

7:22 p.m.

The German starts coming hard and the peacock squeaks in unison. The peacock is going crazy, imitating the shrieks of pleasure even louder than before.

7:25 p.m.

The Frenchwoman is coming while standing up; her big thighs are shaking, like she’s having labor pains. The Spaniard has a dildo inside the German. The American is working the Venezuelan into an orgasm while the Frenchwoman cradles her head and plants soft kisses. Erika and her assistant director seem gleeful, like this is going even better than they’d hoped.

7:27 p.m.

The performers rearrange themselves, leaving the poolside lounge chair and settling onto mats laid out on the pool deck. The sex scene has been going on for nearly half an hour. The five bodies are melding into one multilimbed mass. It’s a five-person orgy now, not merely an intersecting twosome and threesome.

7:29 p.m.

Right before we leave, the Spaniard finally comes while the German puts pressure on her throat.

7:35 p.m.

In the van, there’s a sense of disappointment at not getting to stay longer. I drift in and out of sleep wondering if I have sunstroke.

9:49 p.m.

Back at my hotel room, I log in and browse the back catalog of Erika Lust films. What they all have in common is genuine chemistry. Unlike homemade porn, however, you can tell the performers are acting; still, the camera emphasizes the emotional intimacy within the constructed scenario more than the physical mechanics of the sex. There’s a popular fiction that any pretty woman can make it in porn if she’s just willing to show hole, that it merely requires one to look marketable and act shameless, a shortcut to visibility, less gatekept than the runway or Hollywood. I know better. There’s a big difference between the performance of desirability and the performance of desire.

¤

Featured image: The set of Girls I Loved by the Pool. Photo by Whitney Mallett.