My Favorite Pornstar: Tell us a bit about yourself?
Terry Stephens: I am currently the chairman of the producers association known as UKAP that deals with adult industry issues for its members.
I’m also a producer of 25 years having shot over 1500 scenes, won a few awards for the various things I’ve done in the adult business under the name of One Eyed Jack and the last 16 years I’ve been producing reality scenes for the Real Couples website
My Favorite Pornstar: How did you get into the adult entertainment industry?
Terry Stephens: Its a bit of a long winded one this but here we go. I ran a mobile delivery service that made me enough money to quit my day job doing credit card sales for a West End Cinema. I made a lot of money and a lot of connections and before I knew it I was part of the industry supplying the shops and selling producers titled who I ended up doing deals with. I got my first camera from a guy I arranged to shoot with another couple and it was a couple of years later I met a girl who wrote to me from an ad I had in Escort (a top shelf UK adult nag) wanting to make a porn film. I gave it a go. Sold the video to Your Choice and won the bonus prize on their viewers wives series and went onto win it several more times that they gave me a series which they still sell to this day. I got a deal with Rob Black who distributed my movies at Extreme Associates and the rest as they say was history. Why I got into performing is a whole other story
My Favorite Pornstar: What have you done within the industry & what do you do now?
Terry Stephens: I’ve produced countless productions of my own, for Liquid Gold, shot product for Prime Time and filmed photo shoots with John Mason for Galaxy Publications, shot and edited content for performers. Ran a distribution company called Wrist Action Entertainment. Founded a producers association initially to deal with dodgy deals in the US and founded UKAP the producers association to help the adult industry deal with anti porn campaigners and legislation threatening free speech and expression since ATVOD to age verification and work towards better health and testing with clinics. Ive also organized the UKAP Awards every year since 2014
My Favorite Pornstar: Can you explain the production process and how it has changed over the years?
Terry Stephens: I came in when VHS tapes were the only way to watch porn. This was before the internet. The cameras and editing equipment were massive things before mini DV and 3 chip digital cam corners changed the industry by making equipment more affordable and accessible. Now you can do it all on your mobile phone and run your own clip site. It seems technology has made it possible for everybody to make a living through self made porn. Totally removing the need for middlemen. Nowadays people can group together to make the movies they want to make.
My Favorite Pornstar: As the UKAP Chairman can you explain what UKAP does and what benefits it brings to the UK adult industry.
Terry Stephens: UKAP started out as an association for producers to network and share resources but over the years we have evolved into a trade body with members involved with areas of production that can benefit the production community in terms of legislation, negotiating with clinics and other organizations where we can extend our influence to the benefit of our members.
Ultimately we are an umbrella association that acts as a hub for the adult industry community by putting a face on the business that was seldom ever seen before. This is important if we are to be seen as ethical and accountable for what we choose to do.
as A collective voice we are taken a lot more seriously than just the few rich individuals who fought their fights solo.
My Favorite Pornstar: UKAP hold annual awards can you tell us a bit about the history of the awards
Terry Stephens: We launched the UKAP Awards (then known as UKAFTA) in 2005 because we felt the wider business with rising stars and independent producers were under represented with the established awards of that time. Our mission was to celebrate and bring into the spotlight the rising talents and services that deserved to be recognised and as such we are the first awards that many names have won their first award. Nearly all the top stars today working in. Europe or the US won their first award through us. The sponsors benefit by getting more recognition from the community and those who follow the nominees so it’s a very important time for promotion for all involved in the adult business.
My Favorite Pornstar: Many pornstars have criticized the voting criteria for the UKAP Awards, can you explain the criteria
Terry Stephens: We recommend everyone read the criteria for each category on the site when it comes to voting because some are based purely on votes and others have to be assessed and adjudicated if the criteria is based on things like body of work and achievement for the current year.
The problem we saw was that everyone thought it was a popularity contest. The most votes win usually means the people who least deserve it are likely to win if they are popular. This is not how a producers award should be handled.
The judges can only determine a winner from the nominations before them and it goes through a filtration process of pre- nominations (all that are relevant to the category) to the voting procedure and a shortlist made by all the members of UKAP. The judges have to determine the winners from that shortlist and we meet up for a day in early September to discuss it over lunch by the end of the day the winners are given to the monitor (me) to send off to the awards.
The MVP award is the only category based on pure votes. The most votes win but it doesn’t mean the most votes deserve to win Female Performer of the year as evidenced one year when the person with the most votes won over a performer who was prolific in her output. This is where judgement comes in
We try to be as objective and fair as possible and people should understand that rigging awards doesn’t benefit an association of individuals who merely deal with assessing the information put before them.
My Favorite Pornstar: Where do you see UKAP in 5 years?
Terry Stephens: The industry has become increasingly challenging with the changes in technology and legislation in recent years. We hope the new members we gain will contribute to a bigger voice on protecting what we do with producing adult content and that means being a support group for those who need advice in staying legal, paying their taxes, negotiating with clinics so we expect UKAP to continue this direction and be a conduit to mainstream media to put a face on what has been a faceless business for years which we have recently done with Sexposed (on Amazon Prime) Mums Make Porn (featured on Channel 4) came to our awards and other outlets like documentaries, film and TV. Anywhere we can get involved with the discussion on understanding the adult business is a step towards increasing tolerance towards it. Fear mongering and conflating porn with trafficking is creating a toxic environment for all content creators so if you are interested in defending what you do and want to be part of the changes you’d like to see in the adult business, join UKAP.
My Favorite Pornstar: What are your thoughts on the age verification (AV) that comes into affect in the UK soon?
Terry Stephens: We’ve always supported Age Verification and promoted the companies we feel are best to work with who have an understanding because of their experience within it but we have raised objections by how it was going to be implemented as well as concerns with who was doing it. We create adult entertainment for adults. Not for children to see. With that in mind we are pro age verification if it doesn’t penalize the end user and violate their personal rights by being put on a government register for wankers. People should be able to enjoy adult content discretely without having their privacy compromised. That’s been a very big issue for us and the source of much of our conflict with AV.
My Favorite Pornstar: You’ve been outspoken about government oversight of the adult industry, can you tell us about your concerns?
Terry Stephens: The government mean well but their practical approach in how they deal with matters like the sex industry means they cause problems in other areas for instance the Nordic model might seem sensible but when they conflate sex work with trafficking it puts sex workers safety at risk thereby doing the opposite of what it was meant to do.
Age Verification is another. No one wants children seeing porn but when the worlds biggest tube site with a questionable history for data breaches is given the task of verifying 25 million users then you have to call into question what they are going to do with that data.
The adult industry should engage with these people and make them aware of the problems or we have no one but ourselves to blame if rules are made in our absence.
My Favorite Pornstar: What do you think is the future of the adult industry in the UK
Terry Stephens: The writings on the wall now that most people will be working for themselves. The future stars are going to come from the world of camming and clip sites. I’m sure there will still be a community base element to it. You can see that reflected in the UKAP Awards in that traditional productions are shrinking as performers opt for fan based clip sites.
Technology is driving the business now and the future will reflect that. Beyond that, performers may become obsolete if AI and sex dolls take over. Hopefully I’ll be in a retirement home by then playing chess and sipping on Pimms to even be bothered.
More of Terry Stephens can be seen by clicking the links below.
Please like & share this page
My Favorite Pornstar regularly interviews the Adult Industries leading performers AVN, XBiz and VENUS nominees, Award winners and webcam models. We also interview Critics, Directors, Production Companies and others involved within the Adult Entertainment Industry.
Please check our full list of interviews by clicking here and comeback soon to see our new interviews
copyright myfavoritepornstar.com 2019