Vex Ashley is [owner and producer, performer] of one of the most popular indie porn production houses, Four Chambers. She chatted with pleasure educator Euphemia of I Wish You Knew.
E: Vex, it is such an honour to chat with you! You’ve previously said “If you don’t like the porn you see, look harder.” I’ve screened many of your films for large groups, and people often feel like it was the first porn they resonated with. Why do you think your work resonates with so many?
I wanted to create something that was visually seductive but not at the expense of the rawness and intensity.
V: Wow, that’s beautiful to hear. Maybe because our films aren’t an instant hit of gratification, the mind has to work harder to fill in the gaps because it can’t see everything all at once. We don’t feed people a self-explanatory narrative, which forces the viewer to be curious rather than passive. It’s like a tease, building up to something intense.
I also love portraying the niche, the weird, and treating all bodies of equal aesthetic value, with no particular eye in mind. I want to visually capture what sex feels like rather than what sex looks like. The sound, the intensity, the connection, the draw and pull.
E: You recently posted ‘Transparency’, a piece outlining your business practices in response to the industry using the labels ‘ethical’ and ‘feminist’. Despite not using these labels, do you have particular values you have instilled in your business model?
V: There is no standard or industry basis for use of the terms ‘ethical porn’ or ‘feminist porn.’ They are subjective terms that have been co-opted as advertising buzzwords for money, and each of the ethical porn sites and production houses have different ideas of what these concepts mean.
I don’t reject these ideas, but I think they’re too important to be reduced to marketing tactics used to sell a product. Which is a good reminder to consumers that sex work exists within capitalism, and even if many people expect to find ‘free ethical porn’ or any porn, it must always be paid for to support workers and the industry.
Our values and approach is to provide an upfront explanation of the conversations I have with collaborators—how we speak with them, listen to what works best for them, what makes them feel more comfortable and understand their needs.
E: What is something you wish people understood about your work?
V: Sometimes it’s difficult to hear Four Chambers compared to the work of multi-million dollar huge capitalist brands: it’s just me, my partner and my collaborators. I work in my home with my cat. We have a very small team of people. But I don’t want huge resources as what we have is special and important.
E: So let’s talk aesthetic, yours is so identifiable and incredible. I’ve coined the term “DIY luxury” in my work, and I think you absolutely nail this with your small team and lush films. I have a few questions about your aesthetic and creative process. How did your style develop and was it born in your self-proclaimed gothy teenager aesthetic?
V: *laughs*, I love that you know about my gothy teenage times. I actually never consciously sat down and decided the aesthetic, it developed organically over time. I started collaborating with friends, taking photos, camming, and making erotic teasy films.
We were at Arts School, and made short unscripted films with a soundtrack, narrative and emotive heft. My very first video was me and a friend, eating a red ice lolly with lots of dripping, rubbing, and kissing. It was a very sticky, messy, visceral, playful experience. I wanted to create something that was visually seductive but not at the expense of the rawness and intensity.
E: Which themes, scenes or aesthetics do you love working with?
V: Cinema is really magic to me; it combines storytelling, atmosphere, layers. It can be glamorous and tasteful, but doesn’t have to be cerebral to be worthy.
Many ongoing themes leak into our films: ritual, religion, transcendence, and awe. Then back to base, earthy, and normality. Part of ongoing conversations that everything is in flux, nothing is fixed, and there’s no defining truth. I see porn as a visual allegory.
E: I love how many everyday objects you use for sensations and play in your films. What is your favourite texture or sensation to play with?
V: We’ve played with so many bizarre objects for the silliness! Anything globular like laying an egg, playing with eyes, or testicles. It’s fun to find the comedic in real life that translates to visually unsettling and awkward, yet surreal and captivating. Also in Human Botany I love the parallels between natural and bodily forms, and exploring tactility with spitting and fucking flowers.
E: What is your relationship with technology as a creative tool, and how do you see it influence your work?
V: I love technology. I love how it’s changed the way we fuck, which is in its infancy. I love exploring dynamics of cameras, screens and how they can augment our sex. The intersection of sex and tech is furthered by porn.
But I think over time porn has become a functional product instead of a medium. There’s no space for interrogation, just consumption. I want to see the democratisation of porn making and greater access to technology. More perspectives create greater diversity, and can show how expansive and interesting sex is. Don’t just consume, critique and create!
Anal sex is my favourite, but only romantic anal sex.
E: Ok, so shifting gears to a personal focus with a very important question. In your bio, you mention Fiona Apple lyrics – what is your love about? I see you’ve been gushing about her new album.
V: *laughs* This is the marker of my artistic mood, like the status under your name like MSN. I identify with her as an emotional, messy woman, with strong, angry femininity. She writes smart, rhythmic, beautiful lyrics. She comes out of the blue, refuses celebrity-dom. She has smart, emotive songwriting. I also love visual artists like Carolee Schneemann who created body-centric artwork in the 1970s, and Helen Chadwick who had a similarly messy, visceral, body-centric practice.
E: What’s your favourite sexy picture of you at the moment?
V: Oooo, my sexual performative self and my intimate self look and feel very different. Online I like the space to imagine my aloof, serious, highly constructed persona. Offline I’m more goofy, less inhibited, and less constructed. Yet what is the “real” one and what is the “character” one? They’re all as valid as the next one, everything is constructed. The self is made and remade. But the art, the performance, and the construction are important to me.
E: What are your professional boundaries? Do they differ from your personal boundaries?
V: I am actually very private, not with my naked body, but there are certain ways I can feel very vulnerable. I am also intensely romantic so there are some things that I want to personally protect and don’t want to commodify. For example, I have partners and I think we’d make amazing porn together, but it would shift the dynamic and I want to protect the people or scenarios.
Otherwise, everything is up for negotiation.
E: What are your professional turn-ons? Do they differ from your personal turn-ons?
V: I much prefer sex with someone I have a crush on, real-time interactions hold my attention.
Anal sex is my favourite, but only romantic anal sex. Anal starts off slow, which isn’t visually arresting for porn. But perhaps I would do it on-screen with the right person!
Mostly, the porn I masturbate to is amateur, raw is my go-to. Being overproduced kills it for me which is different to the high aesthetics of my work. But I don’t really watch porn anymore since producing, as it doesn’t hold the feeling of being risky, taboo, or have a degree of something I shouldn’t be doing. It’s not a mental break from the humdrum existence of my life.
E: What are you fantasising about or masturbating to at the moment?
V: I’m very into Mummy stuff right now, 2020 is the year of the Mummy Renaissance!
E: Oh my gosh, yes! Like where are all the masc mummies?
V: Right! Daddys need to make way for the Mummys too.
I’d like to see a space on the internet and in the world where it felt like work with sex could exist next to other facets of human experience without it feeling othered or marginalised.
E: What’s your relationship with your gender? How do you identify, express, play, accentuate, or deconstruct it?
V: I love my femininity; I’m comfortable identifying as a woman. We are all open-ended, no one is an archetypal anything so I give myself that. I also love being around people fucking with their genders.
E: And lastly, how can people lift up you and the incredible work you do? Particularly after the waves of dismay with SESTA FOSTA.
V: I’d like to see a space on the internet and in the world where it felt like work with sex could exist next to other facets of human experience without it feeling othered or marginalised. Work with sex is not public enemy number one. I’d also love to see people reduce the stigma and amplify porn by sharing it like they would comic books or podcasts.
Porn is more than a product, it’s a community. But so many spaces to connect have been lost with the cancelling of our Patreon, censoring of Tumblr, and restrictions on Instagram. So I’d love people to sign up for an account to receive blog posts and longform emails, to feel connected to community rather than just outputting.
Only Fans: @vextape
Instagram: @fourchambers
Twitter: @fourchambered
Website: www.afourchamberedheart.com/
