Ever since I started watching porn, I’ve been super into Angela White. And when I say into, I mean, like, really into. You know what I mean. I have a girl crush.
She’s a naturally curvy, seriously sensual and authentically passionate porn star who steals every scene she’s in. She was the first porn star I ever saw whose body looked a little like mine and who I truly felt connected to while watching her have sex with both women and men. Because that’s what it’s about, right? Whether it be mainstream media, high fashion runway shows or advertising campaigns on billboards, we feel most connected to the content that represents us.
And when it comes to porn, you’re very much there to connect to the content. Everyone has different tastes, but you want to feel turned on and sexually inspired.
To me, and to her millions of other fans, White is the definition of an empowered woman who is comfortable expressing and exploring her sexuality. She makes me believe the porn I’m watching is real, and that she’s really enjoying herself. She does it on camera in a sex scene as a hot secretary with her Eastern European boss, in pool selfies posted to her Instagram platform of 9.1 million followers and even on Zoom during our recent chat. She’s magnetic, with an empowering presence and radiating energy that’s unlike any other female porn star in the industry. She says that’s because she truly loves what she does, and she’s totally shameless about it.
So much so that she uses her birth name as her porn star name, even while many porn stars use an alias or play a character because of the ongoing negative stigma surrounding the industry.
“I need to live my life in an authentic way,” White tells POPSUGAR Australia. “I need to be able to express myself. Sexuality is such a core part of my being. I can’t repress my desires because of what someone else is going to think of me.”
“I went into porn wanting to explore my sexuality and be celebrated for that,” she says, “so it only felt natural to do that as me.”
Despite the reoccurring double standard that has followed White around her entire life — that says men can have sex with as many people as they want and be praised, while women are criticised — she continues to rise above the noise and change the narrative.
“There’s this idea surrounding female pleasure vs. men’s pleasure in porn, that the women don’t want to be there. That they’re abused, drug-taking, promiscuous sluts. But the men? They’re seen as champions.”
This gendered stigma echoes real world misogyny, especially when it comes to female pleasure. We’ve literally only just started having conversations about the anatomy of a clitoris, the central area for female orgasm, let alone the empowerment that can some from being an ethical slut.
“There’s still so much shame in our society around sex itself; people are ashamed of their own sexual desires,” says White. “So then, for a woman to embrace their sexuality so openly, it makes people feel uncomfortable.”
Honestly, engaging with a sexually empowered woman is intimidating, even for someone like me who writes about sex for a living. On Zoom, White’s presence is so clear, her sexuality so out in the open, that I felt aware of my distraction. Whether it’s because I’ve watched her have sex on screen countless times, her amazing boobs that were pushed up to perfection during our call, or the confident and clear way she talks about sex and pleasure — somehow, it caught me off guard.
She represents everything that goes against what we’re taught as young women. We’re told to be afraid of liking porn and sex, because it feels naughty. Growing up, I was under the strict impression that the more sex I had outside of a long term, heteronormative relationship, the more my value decreased. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed having sex with a stranger for the first time — and by how empowered it made me feel. I realised, for the first time, that I was the one in control. And that was empowering.
White is all of those feelings of feminine sexual empowerment in one person. We don’t often come face-to-face with women like her.
“It’s very odd to me,” says White, referring to why people often assume that women in sexual environments — whether that be inside or outside of porn — aren’t the ones in control.
Openly identifying as bisexual and working with both men and women, not to mention her degree in Gender Studies at Melbourne University, White is hyper-aware of the sexist double standards between men and women within the porn industry.
“Things like gangbangs, for example, are often seen as a woman being f*cked by all these men. But really, I’m the one doing the f*cking, I’m the one in control.”
White directs and produces most of her own scenes, which means she is literally in control of everything; the crew, the wardrobe, her on-screen partners, the editing… the works.
“Porn provides a great environment for me to do bigger scenes, that I might not feel comfortable doing in my personal life. I mean, with something like a gangbang, it’s pretty difficult to get that many men, who are all tested, willing to get naked in front of each other and stay hard.”
“For me, pornography is a environment of safe exploration. When I’m directing the scene, I know the crew and I can call cut at any point. I’m always in control.”
It becomes abundantly clear throughout our conversation that White has created a safe and sexy wonderland for herself to exist in, and to be completely honest, I’m actually a little jealous.
She’s created a space that didn’t exist for her, or for so many other young girls, growing up.
As a sexually adventurous teen who wanted to explore her sexuality with both men and women, she was criticised and teased for her outwardly sexual nature.
“Every way that I attempted to express and explore my sexuality was deemed inappropriate.”
While the boys at school were allowed to have sex with as many girls in the year level that they could physically manage, being a high school girl in the early ’00s (and still to this day), meant getting slut-shamed and called things like “promiscuous”, “easy”, “wh*re” and an abundance of other terms with derogatory insinuations.
And while there’s definitely been a shift in conversations surrounding female sexuality, White says we still have a long way to go.
Comments on her own social media posts about her work range from super positive (“I’m so inspired by your work” and “it’s nice to see an empowered woman embrace her sexuality”) to comments that not only criticise her for the way she lives her life, but also suggest that engaging in a heterosexual relationship is the true definition of success. Ugh.
“There’s a lot of assumptions that that’s what I’m actually looking for,” she adds.
But despite the gendered double standard, White has always seen porn as a space where she could be celebrated for being herself.
“Pornography was the first place I saw women’s bodies like mine being celebrated and sexualised, which was super important for me. When I first got into porn, being thick wasn’t seen as a positive thing. Pornography was the only media at the time that was celebrating curvy women.”
For White, porn has been this world that has embraced her for all she is: a curvaceous, sexually proud woman, who wants to be celebrated for the things that society has previously told her she can’t be. While she’s writing her own story, having launched into a controversial industry at the cusp of adulthood, with confidence and enviable shamelessness about openly expressing her sexuality, she wants everyone to know that it’s okay to like what you like.
“In the end, every person is going to have their own sexual values,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with a women who is interested in having one or limited sexual partners, if that’s how she gets off and feels valued. That’s what’s right for her. But then in the same breath, there’s nothing wrong with a woman deciding that she enjoys having sex with multiple people.”
“The problem is that society will criticise the woman who chooses multiple sexual partners, because that goes against our societal norm.”
But it’s about time we changed that. In my version of 2022, it’s not a sign of failure for a woman to be single nor to be a slut. This can be your version of your own future too. All you have to do is engage with like-minded people and take part (loudly) in the conversation around female pleasure. Talk to your friends about your orgasms, tell your sexual partners what you want from them in the bedroom, praise your body when you look at yourself in the mirror each morning.
I’m thankful for women like Angela White for showing me that it’s okay to celebrate my body and proudly use it in a openly sexual way. She also gives me hope for my own future as a single ethical slut, and all the things I have yet to discover about myself and others, through sex.
“There’s always more to explore. With every new sexual partner I have, I have an entirely new and unique experience with them. The exploration you can do in sex is literally endless.
“I love my job because it allows me to be creative, it allows me a safe space to explore my sexuality and it’s allowed me to pursue my passion and make a career out of that.”
I mean #goals, right?
You can catch Angela White IRL at SEXPO Melbourne, Friday, 25 November — Sunday, 28 November.
You can also watch some of her best ethical porn here (you’re welcome).
