Last night was the annual Stonewall Dinner in the Delegates’ Dining Room at the United Nations. I am always proud to be a part of this glamorous occasion and share the room with gay and lesbian power players. Stonewall is one of the few gay organizations that I love and support, along with Lambda Legal and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. (Then there are the ones that I despise like the useless GLAAD and the damaging HRC. Back to the useful and relevant, this year the event was honoring Dustin Lance Black and Mitchell Gold. Black delivered a powerful and moving speech about how complacent our community has become in its fight (or lack thereof) for our civil rights and really impressed me as a fresh voice of a young generation.

The live auction started with a walk-on role in Ugly Betty. And I immediately knew: I have to get this.

Of course I wanted to give money to Stonewall. But I also saw a chance to shake up television a bit: the first porn star cameo ever on a family program. Let’s not confuse gay-friendly networks with porn-friendly networks. The main channels are extremely pornophobic. The question posed to my industry is always the same: Will the porn industry and its members ever be accepted by the mainstream? And the usual answer is: not in the next fifty years. Porn stars are very much in demand but the media still like to see us kept in our box. So I saw an opportunity here to speed up the progression.

The fantastic Peppermint was the auctioneer. Bidding started at $1,000. When it reached $7,000, I joined the race and it went to $10,000. Then it became a duel between me and another gentleman. When the auction reached $14,000, Peppermint noticed that my fellow bidder didn’t want to go higher. She asked the audience if friends or supporters wanted to add to the bid. He got another $1,000 and then I got up and asked if I had any backers. My husband Richard Winger, a member of Stonewall’s Board, gave $1,000. Then the race continued, each of us acquired some friends (thank you to all of mine) and the auction closed with my winning bid of $18,000.

It felt great to give all that porn money to Stonewall. And it also felt great to put out a challenge to mainstream TV. How will ABC deal with a porn star on one of its prime time programs? I am curious to see how this will play out. Now, I am not suggesting that my little walk-on will change the world. But I hope it will be one step taking us out of the privacy of people’s bedrooms and onto a larger stage. And I hope the American public will enjoy seeing a porn star as a real person, not just as a hot body.

Last update: 06-24-2009 12:26