By Peter Berton

YNOT – With her geeky-sexy persona and commitment to making porn that looks like fun, T-girl Wendy Summers is making a name for herself in the adult entertainment industry.

YNOT.com recently caught up with her between her many, many activities.

YNOT.com: Please tell us about yourself.

Wendy Summers: I’m a transsexual adult model working in webcam, porn and fetish modeling. I’ve brought my own quirky take to my work, producing a very campy retro solo website, WendySummers.com, which fans are really digging.

Along the way someone described me as a cross between a “tranny queen of geek chic” and the tranny Martha Stewart, and I think it’s a pretty accurate characterization. Comic books, movies and cooking are all very dear to me. Because I make porn about things which matter to me, they’ve sort of permeated my work.

What do you mean by that?

A few years back, when Sasha Grey was at her peak, I read an article in which the author posited the reason so many viewers found Ms. Grey hot could be attributed to Ms. Grey’s ability to make the viewer feel like she really dug what she was doing. I have to agree: The more a performer is into what they are shooting, the more exciting the material will be.

As I started shooting my own work for WendySummers.com, I realized if I wanted to create something truly special, it needed to speak to the core of who I was. I needed to imbue the work with my personality. So, I focused on things I dug. By letting the reality of my life shine through — be it my love of geeky stuff in sets like “Captain Cavegirl” or “Set Phasers to Cum,” expressions of my own desires to have someone special in my life like in “Movie Night,” or just self-indulgent explorations of shit I love as in “Grinding with You aka Coffeeporn” — I’m adding another layer to the typical wank- and fuck-fests folks are used to seeing.

Rather than my sets being about a pretty face on pretty set getting a pretty fuck, these are far more explorations of who I am. I try to find some level of “truth” in the sets I do. In the Pretentious Art World, we would call that verisimilitude.

Porn is all about creating a fantasy image that gets the viewer off. But what happens when you start moving the line of fantasy closer and closer to the reality? From the invasiveness of social media like Facebook and Twitter to reality TV programs booming in the mainstream, we’ve become a voyeur society. It adds another layer of excitement to the porn — and one, given fan reaction to my website, that is catching on with people.

When, how and why did you make your transition?

A few years back, I was spending half my life as a male and half as a female. One morning I entered my walk-in closet. On one side was my female clothing and on the other my male clothing. As I dressed for work as a male, I had this overwhelming sense that I was putting on a costume. It was artificial. I couldn’t bear it anymore.

All my life, from as early as 4, I knew I was female. Sadly, those around me didn’t.
Eventually I learned to keep my mouth shut. I found little ways to quietly rebel; for example, I used action figures to play house. Who knew a preschooler could be subversive?

At 12, I started to develop breasts; again my family chose the path of denial. I was told I was fat, despite weighing less than a supermodel. Thanks, Mom!

In one of the ironies of life, my first exposure to the concept of transsexuals was being exposed to TS porn. My immediate reaction: “Well, that’s not like me at all.” Little did I know!

It took a bit before I came to terms with everything, but once I did, I’ve never looked back. When I went full-time [female], I finally felt free. No more artifice; no more lies. I could just be. My life has never been better.

What brought you into the adult industry?

Boredom!

I had taken a week off from work, and I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch. She cancelled and I was home alone, bored and horny. I had an old performer account with iFriends.com that I hadn’t used for years. I remembered the account and thought, “Why not make a few bucks while I get off?”

To my surprise, I made a crazy amount of money that first day. That night I sat down and put a business plan together. To market my webcam, I started shooting pictures for promotional purposes. Since those first shoots, it was always in the back of my head that I’d end up creating a solo website.

I always imagined the site being an unpolished, amateur sort of thing. But to my surprise, enough folks dug the work I was doing on my iFriends platform that there was suddenly a budget for shooting. It was easier to have someone behind the camera other than me, so I sought out professional producers, and that really brought things up to a different level.

When the opportunity came up to join the Grooby network, it seemed like an ideal fit. And once I was shooting for myself, it was a no-brainer to start doing it for other producers.

What are your achievements to date?

I think my biggest accomplishment so far was breaking the gender barrier on iFriends. It was cool to be the person who brought those gender walls down. iFriends is a fairly unique microcosm, since — unlike pornography — there isn’t quite the same segregation of the genders. While TSes have their own section on the website, iFriends didn’t restrict our appearance in their top hosts list.

That lead to a unqiue situation where typically heterosexual fans were discovering my feed. I was a gateway drug. More frequently my traffic correlates with the top “girls home alone” rather than the other TS hosts.

iFriends took a chance and made me the first TS invited into their Adult Star Program, and one of the first performers in it overall. It was an honor to be the one to bring that barrier down.

I was also nominated for two 2011 Tranny Awards — Best Non-Typical Model and Up and Cummer — and also nominated for Shemale Yum Model of the Year. Those nominations were fan driven. At the time of the nomination process, I think only three sets I shot for other companies were actually released and eligible.

The joke is everyone gets one nomination so they don’t feel left out. To get two with so little work released…. I’d like to think that means I’m doing something right in the eyes of fans.

What do you love and hate about the adult industry?

I create porn because I love it. Even more, I love the challenges it presents me. Porn combines all the various skillsets I’ve built over my life from my theatre, business management and marketing experience. I feel like I was born to do this.

For me porn’s an act of artistic expression. Creation has always been a major part of my life and my personality, and in many ways my “prop porn” style is all about that.

Among the topics I dig tackling is “porn of the mundane.” I love to find eroticism in everyday items. It’s an intellectual challenge. How do I take something which is entirely nonsexual, like coffee or a toilet brush, and make it erotic? It’s an art, and it gives me a little something more to chew on as I’m producing porn.

Typically when I’ve worked with a new producer for my website, I end up in the “art vs. porn” debate. I talk high art; I perform low porn!

Until I can get the folks I’m working with to understand that intersection, there tends to be a bit of worry. But when the light goes off in their heads, there’s suddenly a new enthusiasm for what I am doing.

I think the one thing I hate with the industry is the difficulty some folks have in thinking outside the box. Thanks to the economy, there’s been a lot of retrenching in the industry; producers are sticking to what they know and playing it a little too safe. It’s very clear to those of us on the ground that there are new markets opening for TS porn, but largely the major players aren’t tackling those opportunities head-on.

On the plus side of that, there’s less competition within any given niche, which has definitely helped fuel my own success to date.

What is the funniest experience you have had in your work?

I just shot a workout set where I bounce on top of one of those big, inflatable exercise balls. It was a great effect because as I did it, my hard cock is flailing everywhere leaving trails of precum all over. It made the ball extra-slippery, and I ended up bouncing right off of it.

I’m slowly building a reel of bloopers outtakes for future release, and I have a bad feeling that scene will be the centerpiece of it. [laugh] Let’s just say the nerdy-clutzy thing is not an act.

What don’t people know or understand about you?

I have a number of fans who approach me saying, “I want to get to know the real Wendy, not the porn Wendy.” There’s so much artificiality within the industry. Most girls maintain some sort of persona, so it is tough for fans to fathom that the person they see on film is really me. But I kind of just put myself out there, warts and all.

So, what are your future goals?

Honestly, once my modeling shelf-life is over, I see the rest of my years being spent in porn on a business level. I come from a strong business background, having worked in corporate finance, marketing and data management. Those are skills transferrable to any endeavor.

Most of what I’m making from webcam and porn has been dropped into several business ventures. WendySummers.com is just the first to have rolled out.

In a lot of ways I’ve been looking at the careers of folks in both porn and webcaming who’ve experienced true longevity and trying to learn from their successes. So far things are moving along according to plan, and I’m thrilled how fortunate I’ve been.

Find out more about Summers at her website or her blog, watcher her on iFriends or follow her on Twitter.