Porn Valley- Mason is interviewed in Carly Milne's book, Naked Ambition: Women Who Are Changing PornographyMason began watching porn at the age of 10 when, while she was house cleaning, she randomly switched TV channels one night and found naked people on the TV screen.
"I was so horrified that I pulled the bed sheets over my eyes and turned the volume down so the vacuum would drown out the noise," she says. As a kid she used to sneak looks at porn mags in local convenience stores, as well. Later she attended college and earned a degree in Political Science. She entertained thoughts about going to law school but eventually dismissed those.
"I always had a love-hate relationship with pornography," she states. "While I was drawn to it out of a sexual curiosity, I had significant ethical reservations. I felt that it was wrong and harmful to women." But she decided the only way to come to terms with her sexuality and conflicting views was to get personally involved in the industry.
She began doing her homework about the industry and a chance meeting with Rodney Moore at Erotica L.A. landed her her first job. Moore's "cameraperson" had left him two weeks before the convention, and Mason was offered a chance to work with Moore.
"I was so excited by the opportunity that I purchased a video camera and began to train in preparation for my tutorship," she says. "I rented prostitutes and shot a close friend of mine having sex with them...but I soon found myself drawn more to the deeper levels of human sexuality than to the basic aesthetics."
After a few months of doing camera for Moore, Rodney taught Mason how to edit his movies.
"After a year with Rodney, I had gained enough confidence to continue moving forward," she says. "I began interning for another director, Andre Madness, and I closely studied his impressive technical expertise."
On one occasion Mason was shooting a blow-bang with Madness overseeing her work.
"Confident I could handle all eventualities, Andre left me in control and tended to some other responsibilities," she continues. "When he returned to the set, the blow-bang had transformed itself into a full-fledged gang bang, with the star of the scene insatiably embracing every cock inside her hole, one by one. Andre was stunned. That day, I realized I had a gift for bringing out real sexual feelings from women."
At this moment Mason felt that she was ready to direct and Madness made some calls on her behalf to Patrick Collins of Elegant Angel.
"I had collated thirty pages of notes the previous night on the different ideas I had for revolutionizing porn," she relates. Asked what she wanted to do, Mason told Collins she really likes blow job movies.
"You know what I want you to do?" Collins tells Mason. "I want you to reach out in front of that camera and I want you to suck all those dicks off, yourself. I want you to show those women what it's like."
Mason said she was crushed at this moment and felt like a piece of meat.
"That's not something I can do," she told Collins. "I would be doing your productions a disservice."
Accepting her answer, apparently, Collins then asked Mason how many movies she'd like to direct for the company.
"I couldn't believe it," she says. "I had tears in my eyes. I came into this industry believing that all of the men were perverts and misogynists who wouldn't treat women as equals. And Patrick was proving me wrong." She goes on to say that she choose her porn name because it was sexually ambiguous.
"There are still many people to this day who think Mason is a man."
Mason goes on to talk about her departure from Elegant Angel noting that internal politics forced her to leave.
"There was a direct personality clash with someone who I felt had not represented himself honestly, and who I felt would damage Patrick and his company. I cared so much about what we had all accomplished together that I couldn't keep quiet and watch it all fall apart. So Patrick and I parted ways."
Apparently her luck at Hustler wasn't much better. Soon after she signed a contract to direct for them, a corporate reshuffling took place and she was called in for a meeting.
"In that meeting two men in suits I'd never met before, and who'd never seen any of my movies, took turns lecturing me about why the videos I produce are morally wrong and degrading to women."
In the book, Mason describes a scene she once shot with Michele Raven who was "slapped around, choked out and dunked in a toilet bowl."
"I had a girl riding a horse with a dildo inside her. I had another locked in a dog cage," Mason adds.
How those guys at Hustler got their impression is anyone's guess.
