Dirty Thirty by Asa Akira Summary

Dirty Thirty is a memoir by Japanese-American porn star Asa Akira that explores her life as she turns thirty while working in the adult film industry. The book combines essays, haiku, text messages, and diary entries to discuss love, sex, death, marriage, celebrity, and the realities of working in pornography. Asa Akira provides candid insights into her career, relationships, and personal growth with humor and unflinching honesty.

Asa Akira is a Japanese-American adult film actress who has appeared in over 300 films and won multiple industry awards, including AVN's "Performer of the Year". She published her first memoir, Insatiable: Porn - A Love Story, in 2014, which was named one of New York Post's Best Books of 2014. Dirty Thirty, released in 2016, is her second book and marks her continued evolution as a literary voice.

Dirty Thirty is ideal for readers seeking an unfiltered perspective on sexuality, the adult entertainment industry, and unconventional life choices. The memoir appeals to those interested in feminist discussions around sex work, relationship dynamics, and challenging societal norms about female sexuality. However, readers uncomfortable with explicit content, frank discussions about pornography, or unconventional opinions may want to skip this book.

Dirty Thirty offers a rare, authentic insider's perspective on the adult film industry written with wit, self-awareness, and literary skill. What sets Asa Akira's memoir apart is her ability to balance shocking revelations with relatable reflections on aging, relationships, and identity while challenging stereotypes about sex workers. The book's raw honesty, humor, and unique multi-format structure make it both entertaining and thought-provoking for open-minded readers.

Asa Akira offers unconventional relationship wisdom in Dirty Thirty, including:

• fighting often during the beginning to establish boundaries
• defining what cheating means specifically for your partnership
• maintaining separate friends and hobbies to avoid feeling trapped

She emphasizes that her marriage to fellow porn star allows anything on-camera but nothing off-camera. Akira also suggests having separate spaces and acknowledges she won't cook for her husband because he's not the primary breadwinner.

Dirty Thirty challenges double standards around female sexuality and explores feminism within the sex industry from an insider's perspective. Asa Akira dismantles stereotypes about porn performers by revealing the industry as a multifaceted profession rather than a simplistic victim narrative. She discusses embracing sexuality without shame, her pride in being sexual from a young age, and how she overcame body image anxieties about her anatomy despite her high sex drive.

Dirty Thirty employs a unique multi-format approach combining traditional essays, haiku poetry, text message exchanges, diary entries, and conversational prose. This stream-of-consciousness aesthetic creates a raw, intimate reading experience that reveals Asa Akira's innermost thoughts across 280 pages. Her writing style is described as perceptive, funny, straightforward, and brutally honest, with sudden shifts between hysterical humor and deep philosophical reflection.

Asa Akira explains industry terminology in Dirty Thirty, distinguishing between gonzo (hardcore clip-style scenes) and feature films (cinematic productions with dialogue and romance). As a "Spiegler Girl" contract performer, she reveals she shoots only one scene monthly while earning substantial income, undergoes extensive preparation including enemas for anal scenes, and maintains her appearance through Botox, laser treatments, and even leech therapy to reduce gangbang bruising. She addresses both glamorous and unglamorous realities with equal candor.

Asa Akira discusses her sobriety since 2008 while reflecting on her past experiences with drugs including salvia and angel dust during her youth. She contemplates mortality through memories of a high school friend who intentionally became a heroin addict, and controversially admits she wants to try heroin when elderly or chronically ill to control her death rather than face an uncontrolled end. The memoir also explores her addiction to cosmetic procedures and maintaining her on-camera appearance.

Some readers find Asa Akira's character in Dirty Thirty difficult to like, describing her as self-absorbed, moody, flaky, and selfish, though she demonstrates self-awareness about these traits. The narrative structure jumps chronologically rather than following a linear timeline, which can feel disjointed with some topics like buying her first house or hosting the AVN Awards being "super brushed over". Critics note certain experiences like clown porn receive only a sentence while others get extensive detail, creating uneven pacing.

Dirty Thirty includes Asa Akira's desire to reconcile with her family in Japan, though she only briefly mentions this complex relationship and whether they know about her porn career and checkered past. The memoir explores her experience of "coming out" as a porn star to her family, drawing parallels to LGBTQ+ coming-out experiences and emphasizing the need for acceptance and ongoing communication. Her Japanese-American identity also surfaces when she visits Shinjuku for a nuru massage with her Spanish husband, only to face discrimination as most establishments refuse foreign patrons.

Unlike celebrity memoirs by Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian, Dirty Thirty demonstrates genuine literary talent with Asa Akira's succinct, easy-to-read prose and complete self-awareness. Her memoir prioritizes personal revelation over self-promotion, offering honest insights into both admirable and unflattering aspects of her personality. The book's raw authenticity, willingness to discuss taboo subjects like STIs (contracting gonorrhea "half a dozen times") and embarrassing moments (anal beads getting stuck, developing pink eye from a facial), sets it apart from sanitized celebrity narratives.