Australia’s most famous porn star, Angela White, says that if she’s going to date someone — whether it be within the porn industry or not — there needs to be a strong emotional connection.
Dating is a constant topic of discussion because it’s always evolving. With the rise of dating apps and divorce, dating looks different than it used to. Today, we have options. While people used to marry for class, finance and logistics, today we date for love, connection and pleasure.
Plus, we can date whoever we want! Gone are the days when being anything but being hetero and monogamous is literally, morally and religiously illegal.
But if it’s a crazy time out there in the dating world for my friends in their late twenties, what is it like for porn stars?
“I need and want an emotional connection with someone I date,” she tells PEDESTRIAN.TV. “I don’t have to be in love with them, but if I’m going to have sex with someone off-screen — I want to really like them and want to connect with them.”
With such an intense focus on connecting with her on-screen partners — an integral component of what makes her work stand out — she wants that emotional connection there even more so in real life.
“If I’m having sex off-camera, why would I bother trying to make time in my schedule for sex that isn’t connected in my free time?” she laughs.
And for Angela, dating is way more than just having sex.
Known for performing intimate scenes in porn – most notably the infamous one where she “cries after a creampie” – Angela says that anyone she dates has to handle the fact that she loves to genuinely connect with her on-screen partners.
“That’s why I gravitate more to open relationships and polyamory,” she says. “Anyone I date needs to be comfortable with polyamory and open relationships. I’m seeing a couple of people at the moment and they’re all ethically non-monogamous. Everyone is aware of each other.” It almost goes without saying that potential partners need to be aware of her profession from the start.
“Whoever I date knows who I am going into it — so there’s usually an understanding that I’m going to have intimate sex with other people for work,” she says.
Ask anyone who’s been on a dating app recently: ethical non-monogamy is on the rise in the dating world for the past couple of years, especially among Gen Z. We’re seeing more and more representation of couples existing outside the ‘norm’, whether it be with big age gaps, multiple partners or exploring with threesomes and sexuality within their relationships.
But with 9.9 million followers on Instagram, — Angela White can’t be an anonymous dating app explorer. Case in point: when I posted about our interview on Instagram, I had dozens of comments and DMs asking how to get in touch with her. The entire internet wants to date Angela White.
Unsurprisingly, the attention doesn’t phase her — but she does admit it makes using dating apps a logistical nightmare.
“It’s tough for me to use dating apps because I often get reported for pretending to be ‘Angela White’,” she says.
It’s just one example of how being a sex worker can add extra challenges to dating, Angela says. Alongside never being in one place for very long, having a packed schedule and an immense amount of assumptions placed upon her, her work and her sex life / preferences – dating as a porn star isn’t something Angela would call easy.
“I think dating is tough no matter your profession, but I have to try and weed out the people who are just trying to fuck me for a ‘porn star experience’,” she says.
“Or, some guys think they’ll be fine with me having sex as a part of my job, but have a change of heart as their feelings develop.”
This is a challenge that comes up often in general conversations around ethical non-monogamy. Because we don’t really have a playbook (except for The Ethical Slut, which if you haven’t read it – you should!) for dating outside the confines of heterosexual monogamy, it’s all about experiencing things in order to discover how they make you feel.
And while for some, dating apps can be a great place to do that, for someone with Angela’s level of fame and job title, it can be more of a challenge than meeting people IRL.
“I haven’t tried to use dating apps for anything serious in a while and plus, my preference is to meet people through my mutual friends or through work,” she says.
Being in the sex industry, her work provides her with more human and sexual connection than pretty much any other job or lifestyle.
“On a porn set you get to know someone so intimately so quickly, you almost know everything about them!” she says.
“You meet, you see each other stark naked and you end up learning the intimate details of how they like to be pleasured and cum, all within a few hours.
“A lot of friendships and relationships I’ve found outside the porn industry are quite surface level, in comparison. But in porn you go deep. Literally.”
Having been in the industry for over 20 years, Angela has developed meaningful friendships and lasting connections with her colleagues and co-stars.
“As we’ve worked together more and more over time, our chemistry and connections build,” she says. “I’m having really enjoyable, emotionally connected sex as my job. I don’t have a lot of time — or need — for dating.”
To be successful in porn — and the sex industry in general — you need to have a certain level of confidence, Angela says. You need to have the ability to set boundaries and negotiate those boundaries. Plus, you need to feel good (and sexy) within yourself.
She continues to be one of the world’s most-watched pornstars because she sticks to her hard no’s and enthusiastic yeses — meaning she’s always having the best time. And it shows.
