An Interview with 2024 AVN Hall of Famer Sinn Sage

Sinn Sage is a legend in the adult entertainment business and this year she was inducted into AVN’s Hall of Fame to put the icing on the cake. Influential across platforms is only the tip of the iceberg as Sage has been a voice for marginalized performers and creators for over 20 years. Fresh off the announcement, and showing no signs of slowing down. we had the amazing opportunity to speak with her about her induction, upcoming projects, and elevating sex work to a place where it isn’t so misunderstood. Sinn Sage is truly one of the greatest of all time, and I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did speaking with her.

Please Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Adult Empire: It’s nice to talk to you. How are you today?

Sinn Sage: Pretty great. How are you?

I can’t complain. Was it a busy day for you?

No more than most days. I just recorded my podcast earlier.

Oh, cool, that’s awesome. Well, I’m super happy that you had some time for us today. Congratulations on your AVN Hall of Fame induction!

Thank you, that is so cool.

I know you’ve won a lot of awards over the years, but this is a huge one. How do you feel?

Oh, I mean, I feel just like extremely validated. And, yeah. I’ve been around for a really long time. And I was hoping this would happen someday. And now it has happened. I’m very, very excited and stoked and happy and grateful to AVN for the recognition of the many, many years I’ve put into this career in this industry that I love so much. So it’s it feels great.

It’s much deserved. Where were you when you found out? What were you doing?

Oh, my gosh, that’s a funny question. I’m not sure if I like made note of that. Okay, it was weird. My mom had gotten an Airbnb, and we all did that for the holidays, like after Christmas we’re just hanging out in northern California somewhere. And unfortunately, my mom and her partner had gotten COVID so we totally couldn’t go around them. Then my brother was like, well, if they’re going to be in the room, I have so much stuff to do I’m just gonna go back home. So really it was just me and my husband, and I think my friend, or an industry friend, sent me a text or something and said congrats. I was like, what? What do you mean? He’s like, you got announced today. So I had to go sign into avn.com and find it and see the list. And then I was just like, Oh, my God, they did. They chose me for this. Like, I’m so excited!

That’s so funny! It does seem like when people find out it’s during the most random of times.

Yes, it’s weird. AVN doesn’t like text you or email you directly and say congratulations. No, it’s like you have to go find it or someone else who has found it will tell you. But I just felt so excited and of course, I wanted to go tell my mom and everybody and I just couldn’t.

Right, you literally can’t go in that room. 

Yeah, so that was my little experience with that.

That’s a cool little story that you get to tell though. So are you big on family? Like do you have a big family?

No, my family is extremely small. I have my husband, my mom, and my brother. Last year, we all moved. We’ve never lived this far apart from each other before. But you know, we’ve all always felt free to live our lives the way we are called to. And sometimes that means you gotta change things up. I know my mom misses us a lot, but we’re all doing really well.

Did you always have that sense of freedom when you were growing up?

Oh I would honestly say for the most part yes. I was really getting into figuring out myself and who I was, you know, kind of the normal time I suppose. Around 14 or 15 was when I came to a lot of realizations about myself and about the things I believed. Then I was really very much feeling that I didn’t want to be like everyone else anymore, that the pressure of high school to conform and dress like everyone else and look the same and be the same and be popular wasn’t for me. I just really came to reject that and it went from being mild to being very extreme. I’ll never forget like, my mom, she would take us shopping for the beginning of the school year and she would say, if we go to like Target and Macy’s and sort of those types of shops, she’d give us a budget of $500 to buy clothes, but if I wanted to go to Hot Topic, I’d only get $200. I always took that fucking $200!

Yes! I used to love Hot topic and Spencer’s.

Yeah, for sure. So the transition happened there where I was just like, instead of trying to be like everyone I’m going to try to be as different from everyone as I possibly can. And that was the way I went and got extremely into the music of Marilyn Manson. And not just the music, like the culture of that. And I think my mom was kind of like, what do I do with this? I just feel very blessed that my parents, for the most part, let me go through that time in life where you are trying to discover who you are and let me be creative in that way and be different in that way and express myself in ways that are different from everyone else in high school, and I’m just so grateful for that because I don’t think that’s healthy or beneficial. I think young people need that freedom of expression.

When you talk about not wanting to be normal it seems like something that has manifested in your work too.

Yeah, it’s definitely something I carried into adulthood. And in the past 20 years or 22 years of being an adult that has morphed and shifted and changed over periods of time in my life. Something my dad used to always say to me when I was growing up is that I was a leader and that idea left an impression upon me and I don’t even think it was something intentional.

Did having that leader mentality make it hard for you in the industry when you started?

No, because by then I was an adult. For me it was more people kind of being like, how long do you think you can do that? Isn’t there a time limit? But as far as in the industry, things were very different. There wasn’t any social media really and I never really had an agent that put expectations on me.

As a queer person I really identify with a lot of your work and I love watching you and Courtney Trouble together. What’s it like being on set for a TROUBLEfilms production?

What I love is the way we refer to Trouble Films as a collective, because we do all sort of share in the profits and we are creating things together. I fucking love that. When we did Going Deeper 3 specifically I knew we wanted to film something, so I’m with like a Masters of Fine Arts degree artists and really good photographer, and we were in their apartment and the sun was shining through the windows of their place and it was so nice. Everything was just so natural.

You both are unapologetically yourselves and authentic and that’s amazing to watch and to see play out and just to be able to feel that comfort and that safety come off with the screen. 

it’s funny. It’s kind of frustrating for me sometimes, because I see so much rhetoric on the internet, even from like feminists who would like to enjoy some form, but they’re constantly so concerned about the ethics of what’s going on on sets.

When you do keynote speaking does the topic of finding the right porn come up often?

No, not a ton haven’t heard it a ton, but I do understand wanting to enjoy erotic media responsibly and know that everyone consented and that your money is going to the performer. I always say if you are buying content directly from performer, you are pretty guaranteed that they’re making something ethical. And then if you are buying queer content, a lot of that, like mainstream doesn’t make enough money off that kind of content. So they’re not really fucking with it in the same way, right? So we call it like, indie queer, like it’s independent. So even if it’s not personally by the creator, it’s a studio that doesn’t have a shit ton of money.

Do you think that the popularity of social media and independent content sites has helped to create more ethical porn and a space where actual performers are benefiting?

I think there will always be a lot of room to grow. But absolutely, I definitely think that those platforms help. I feel like people really have no idea how porn is actually made. They think we’re all coked up swinging from the ceiling but it is the same as Hollywood movies, just on a lesser scale. It is a fucking business so treat it like a business. And I wish more people knew that. So I’m just out here trying to spread that word.

Adult Empire will definitely help you spread it because we’re certainly on the same page. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about? Any projects in the works that we should be on the lookout for?

Yeah, definitely. Like we talked about, Going Deeper 3 is out now and I have my podcast Sage Advice, which you can listen to from my website or other platforms like Spotify and Apple. It’s evolved a little bit too since I’ve started and I think people will really enjoy it. It’s all about humanizing sex workers, porn stars, and the work we do.

That’s awesome, we’ll definitely have to check that out. It sounds like something people should hear.

Totally. Yes, exactly.

It was really awesome talking to you. And congratulations again on the AVN Hall of Fame. It is definitely much deserved.

Thank you so much!

 

 

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