I met Anna Dirks a few times before actually speaking with her. When we finally sat down together for the first time it was in Someday Café sometime in mid-May. We had a discussion about her project www.geekporn.com, I signed a contract and decided to pose and so began our business relationship and friendship. It's not terribly often that the second time you visit someone they take naked pictures of you, so our relationship was never normal. But Anna always remained intelligent, professional and incredibly charming.

Anna and I met on a cool evening - October 9th, Columbus Day, in Harvard Square, Pamplona Café. Pamplona has been a staple in the area for many years and I was not surprised to find Anna, sitting cheerfully in the dimly lit basement café, sipping tea. Anna Dirks is an unlikely pornstar. She's a sexy, sweet, girl next door type at first glance. But when the exterior layers are peeled away you find that not only is she extremely articulate, bright and appealing but incredibly driven to achieve her vision in Geekporn and her work in general. On this evening she sat drinking tea, kerchief in her short black hair, corduroys and perpetually rosy cheeks. I sat down to talk to Anna in depth about her pet project Geekporn.

cobweb: Where are you from?
Anna Dirks: I was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, and stayed there until I came to MIT.
cobweb: What degrees did you obtain from MIT?
Dirks: A BS in Electrical Engineering, Creative Writing and Woman's Studies.
cobweb: How old are you now?
Dirks: 23 ˝.
cobweb: Where are you working now? And what do you do?
Dirks: I work for Helix Code, I'm a user interface engineer, I design software for Linux.
cobweb: What first got you interested in the idea of Geekporn?
Dirks: Two things initially got me interested in Geekporn. The first was a Woman's Studies thesis I was working on, I made a vampire lesbian porn called Vam'pi'r. I never thought of porn as a genre I would be interested in producing, but the movie got me interested in the possibilities of taking pornographic pictures.
cobweb: How did making a vampire porn come about?
Dirks: Originally my thesis project was to watch lesbian porn and see how different women, of different races, ethnicity, class, etc., took on different roles in pornographic films. For instance it seemed that in most films black and Hispanic women took on the 'butch' roles, while Asian women for instance took on submissive roles. After watching films however, I thought that whatever was written would be regurgitating stereotypes. Instead I tried to assemble a diverse group of women - give them the props they would need to be self-styled lesbian porn stars. I tried not to have any directorial bias, and allowed the women in the film to decide how to gender themselves.
The other reason I became interested in Geekporn was while at MIT I became aware of the enormous amount of the self/body hatred of the students. I wanted to eroticise geeky people. I hoped to cast geekiness as sexy and help geek body hatred. Intelligence is not often paired with sexiness.
cobweb: Were people, namely your peers, generally enthusiastic about the idea?
Dirks: Yes and No. People are always good at giving ideas and criticism. My peers were not so enthusiastic. Most people do not want to see naked pictures of themselves on the internet. I tried to allow a wide variety of people on the site, gay, straight, lesbian and polyamorous people, but at first it was just my best friend and I. I was really discouraged.
cobweb: It seems now you have a number of people.
Dirks: Yes, yes I do. It's still a bit hard to get people to pose. I have trouble getting couples.
cobweb: What was the greatest obstacle in launching Geekporn?
Dirks: Setting up the credit card stuff was and continues to be a gigantic pain in the ass. Credit card companies that work with porn sites are slimy. I've been trying to transfer my accounts but it's difficult not to lose current subscribers accounts in the conversion. I continue to get conflicting answers from the credit card company about moving my account.
cobweb: So they are trying to stall the process?
Dirks: Total stallers, if it hadn't been for the TEP's I wouldn't have been able to do the credit card stuff, or geekporn for that matter. They helped me through when I was crying over the site.
cobweb: What has the response from MIT students been?
Dirks: MIT students who have talked to me seem excited. I had one negative incident while shooting at Killian Court. A bunch of ultimate Frisbee players started yelling at us and telling us to leave. But that's about it.
cobweb: I read and heard that the administration at MIT are not exactly happy about Geekporn, would you care to comment on that?
Dirks: A curious thing about that, the administration has made no attempt to contact me. I assume that if they try to sue me they will issue a cease and desist first. I have IS spies too - according to my spies the academic council met to discuss Geekporn. They said the main things I have to worry about are copyright infringement and defamation. I don't think that MIT will change my Geekporning ways.
cobweb: Do you feel your site has done anything to change the perception of "geeks"?
Dirks: Certainly it has gotten a lot of kids at MIT talking about geeks and pornography. The Phoenix article has helped the non-geek world think about geeks and sexuality in a different light. But it's still too soon to tell.
cobweb: What has been your favorite photo shoot so far?
Dirks: Andrea Wiles. We started out in Killian Court, we got in trouble with the Frisbee players and had to move. So we went inside and into the Chaple. Outside the door there was a sign reading "Service in Progress - Do Not Enter", so we pulled that in front of the door and preceded with our shoot. No one was the wiser. And I was thinking, you ultimate Frisbee players, you're leading me to sacrilege. If you'd just kept your mouth's shut this would not have happened.
cobweb: Any ideas for the future?
Dirks: I'd like to break into the big world of audio porn. How about making your textbook sexy? I'm trying to recruit lovely voices to read quantum physics to other geeks. Also, a friend from my work wrote software called Eye of Gnome - you can download pictures to your Linux box. Anyone who sends in a good working patch for the software gets a free one-year membership.
cobweb: I notice that you have both men and women on your site, do you feel this also sets you apart from other porn sites?
Dirks: I certainly hope so. Geeks come in all sexes, shapes, colors - I want to provide as many models for geekyness as possible.
cobweb: Do you feel that the subscribers to Geekporn find it more erotic to see "real people" rather than "real porn stars"?
Dirks: I hope so, it's hard for me to predict who my subscribers are, I can only assume that different humans have different tastes. Certainly my tastes have been expanded.
cobweb: Besides photographs I see you have literature, poetry, digital video, etc. Was this part of your original vision or is it something that has evolved over time?
Dirks: It was part of my original vision. I'm afraid sometimes that that part of the site will become extinct. My initial vision was that Geekporn would be a distribution company. I thought people would be willing to send in their artwork. I've had a lot more success in having people pose then having them submit art. I am thinking of re-grouping categories. The way I've decided to approach submissions is to give a free membership to those who submit. They will retain the copyright, I get the licensing rights.
cobweb: Who has inspired your vision?
Dirks: Betty Page - she started doing a kind of erotic photography that no one else was doing. Watching Betty Page gave me the idea for the vampire lesbian bondage film. Italo Calvino and Nazim Hikmet both inspired me because they started their own brand of evolutionary literature in unwelcoming times and unwelcoming places.
cobweb: Any celebrities or scientists you would like to see on Geekporn?
Dirks: Drew Barrymore embodies the Geekporn spirit. Alan Lightman, a physicist and author, he's a soft spoken, mild mannered, terribly introverted professor at MIT - I think he embodies a sexy geekiness not seen in too long a time.
cobweb: Any regrets or things you would have done differently?
Dirks: I wish I could have done the credit card stuff myself. If the investing goes through buying software and equipment for credit cards will be my first order of business. Also, trying to produce a project that has so much of your own ego can be stressful. It has put a strain on some of my friendships, if friends are posing and things don't go as expected, Geekporn, which is important, but not as important as my friendships, ends up hurting some of those friendships.
cobweb: Do you have any other projects in the works?
Dirks: I am trying to design children's software for Linux, I'm wondering whether people will take children's software from a pornographer, I kind of hope so. I'm also working on a children's book.
cobweb: How would you describe yourself?
Dirks: Very shy - it's really hard for me to talk to people I don't know. Sometimes when I'm walking around, I just want to hide under a hydrant or something. I tend to want to wear costumey outfits, people who look at me make me uncomfortable. I'm also a total geek - if you graduate from MIT I guess you have to be, I always like to build something new, or to be on the forefront of internet technology. I'm a shy exhibitionist geek.
cobweb: What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?
Dirks: If you are ever struggling with some question and you have two paths to take, if you are afraid to take one of them because it requires more confidence, take it. People who are successful believe they will be.
cobweb: Do you believe you will be?
Dirks: Yeah. I hope so. It might require a tailoring of my goals - I'm certainly happy with everything geekporn has accomplished thus far.

Interview property of cobweb and may not be used without premission from the author.