Her Twitter bio says she sweats in films and something about Slut Alchemy. Porn actress Lina Bembe met Playful for a chat about why she likes to fuck in front of the camera, the job behind it and why you should stop being a snake and start paying for your porn consumption.
Written by: Filip Sandström Beijer
Photos by: Sonny Barthley
If you’re a fan of the Berlin porn scene you might have come across Lina Bembe. If not, you may be a tube-viewer, and maybe then you should dig in to your wallet and reach for your credit card.
The last few years Lina Bembe has appeared in various films with other famous Berlin performers such as Bishop Black and Paulita Pappel, founder of amateur porn site Lustery.com. When not fucking on film, she’s been visiting talk shows, podcasts and being part of an explicit sex education project – Sex School Hub, founded by Anarella Martinez Madrid – where she works both in front of and behind the camera.
It all started nine years ago, when Lina came to Berlin from Mexico to study political science. She finished her Masters degree but only got jobs that she describes as “meh…” and decided to change the direction of her career.
"I left Mexico with the intention of not going back right away so when I came here, I was already open to see what the deal was about. Berlin is a city that makes it easy for you not to fall into a certain place and not feeling pressured about integrating. In that sense Berlin makes it easy for some people to follow their own hunch rather than a certain path. "
The not so creative and unsatisfying job situation gave her plenty of time to think and she got more curious about being naked and performing in front of the camera.
"After I finished my studies, I started to do small things. I did not have much planned for myself and my career wasn’t set etched in stone. So I had the time to think ‘oh, what if I did porn instead?’. And it was something that came out of the blue. Well, more like a gut feeling. And I gave it a try.
– Ever since I started to look at porn, I have always watched it with a lot of curiosity. Both for the pleasure but also with questions about how it works. What kind of people do porn? What kind of sex and what kind of bodies, and do I see myself represented in it?
The next chapter in her journey to become a porn performer was very similar to any other career change. She met with a couple of producers and directors for a coffee and started to build up her network in Berlin.
One day she decided to sign up for her first job with a female director. Her first porno movie she describes as a very casual event, and the whole arrangement as minimalistic and raw. The scenery was simple, a room in a Berlin apartment.
"My first shoot was with a porn director in her flat. It was just her, two camera people and the other performer. I mean, I was definitely nervous but when it was time to do it I ended up relaxed and then I just let go and went with the flow."
During the first year as a porn performer Lina Bembe was very aware of taking breaks in between the shoots to get some distance and think about how it all felt. She came to the conclusion that it felt good and she decided to continue to be intimate in front of cameras.
"It gave me a very special kind of energy and it’s something that’s gratifying in many ways. I truly like to perform."
Today Lina Bembe is mostly working with producers and performers in Berlin, but the job also includes travelling. She’s experienced with both vanilla and mainstream porn and her content is on various sites. She’s got her own OnlyFans-site where fans get access to her videos, exclusive pictures and other uploads. Lina highlights how important it is that porn consumers to support the performers. (www.onlyfans.com/linabembe)
The tube-sites are getting loads of traffic, but an important part of it is pirate material, which means that the people in the pirated videos lose their only source of profit, or worse – they might not even consent to being online at all. That, and the crappy quality, is why she has rarely been into Tube-sites herself, and the absolute majority of her work is behind a paywall.
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“People should be more used to pay for their porn just as you pay for Netflix or Spotify. Viewing porn should also be far more normalized. There is also this stigma of paying for porn. I mean, if you have a thing for ‘hairy girls’ for example, it doesn’t say that you have been paying for that on your bank account. It’s discrete. And I also think it should be normalized to have a specific taste. People are very open about which music they like or the series they watch, so why not be the same when it comes to porn?“
She is very clear with the message that the viewers should support the actors in the way that they ask for. That means, your money, and not your dick picks, is a good way of showing support.
Lina Bembes way to discover what she likes to do on film started in the vanilla spectrum, neither hardcore nor too niched. Today her performances includes group, solo and experimental fun riding a Sybian sex toy with a bunch of other female performers.
"I have diversified the types of films I'm in. For example, I started doing a lot of content aimed at heterosexual audiences, but lately I've been doing a lot more content far more detached from the typical heterosexual fantasies, Lina Bembe says and continues
"I started by doing stuff that wasn’t very challenging. Doing porn teaches you to always be extremely clear about the things you like and don’t like. You get to define your boundaries and learn how to negotiate. Things could also change and that’s something you really have to know and figure out for yourself. Otherwise you could be a danger for yourself and for others. Still, there are stuff I do just for money and stuff I identify with, that are more in line with who I actually am".
For those who are curious and thinking about making their own career in porn, Linas best advice is precisely to think it through . A lot.
– Think about it one, two, three or seven times. You really have to consider the reasons you want to do it and the consequences. First of all, whatever you do is going to be online forever. You will lose control of it. There is also a lot of people having problems with their families and even having their kids taken away. There are risks about doing porn, because of how stigmatizing it is, but if you calculate with that, it can also be the most fun and creative thing to do.
Except shooting new films both as a performer and a director, this spring Lina Bembe is current as a TedX speaker and sex educator with her fellow porn colleagues at sexschoolhub.com.
Lina Bembes best places to find porn:
Favourite performers:
Bishop Black, Sadie Lune, Paulita Pappel, Dante Dionys, Ze Royale, Jiz Lee, Maria Riot, Vex, Carmina, and a lot more incredible people I've got the honor to work with.