Speaking to Salon.com, Lee explained why she filed a motion to have her real name withheld from trial proceedings.
“While most of the fan mail that I receive is positive, I've also received a number of e-mails that have been pretty frightening,” Lee said. “For my own safety, my professional name is the one that I use in every public context. There was never a need for my legal name to be revealed in open court. The prosecutor's claim that using my professional name would give me an "air of legitimacy" was incredibly insulting.”
Lee said that if she had taken the stand, she would have described to jurors the film production process.
“I would have described the health and safety precautions taken — mandatory 28-day STD testing, the extensive hygiene process before an anal or on-camera enema scene. One of the allegations against John was that these films were scatological — I wanted to be sure the jurors understood that this wasn't true.”
She said she would have emphasized that they were creating a performance, with stops starts, retakes and hundreds of aesthetic decisions being made.
Lee said her testimony would have contrasted mainstream’s representation of women’s sexuality.
“Women are still often taught that sexy is the same as ‘pretty’ — that it means dressing a certain way and then waiting to be approached. These films show women being sexually aggressive and powerful in a way that sometimes isn't pretty, but is definitely sexy.”
She added she would have talked also about some of the less often understood acts in film, such as enema play and cum swapping.
Lee had a very simple answer when asked what she would tell people who are offended by the content in “Milk Nymphos.”
“Well, first I would say: Don't watch it. I don't make these films in order to be shocking or confrontational,” she said. “I make them for the audience that seeks them out. There is a community of people who find these films hot, erotic, joyful and even beautiful. Those are the people who I hope see this imagery.
“Second, I would say that of the many ideals this country is founded on, the freedom of speech is, I think, one of the most cherished. Because we live in a country that presumably doesn't censor ideas no matter how unpopular, we are able to better cultivate our own individual belief systems — one of the ways we learn what we believe in is by encountering language and imagery that we disagree with or have strong reactions to. The best ideas come out of reckoning with the unfamiliar.”
Lee added there are several reasons sexuality is fascinating, endlessly variable and certainly worth performing.
“Porn, I think, is sometimes dark because sex is sometimes dark — because people are sometimes dark. Of course, porn is also often lighthearted, funny, ugly, gorgeous and ridiculous. Human desires evolve out of our varied, complex experiences in the world.
“Sex is so basic to our humanity, and sexuality is an arena, like dreaming, that connects us to the parts of ourselves we don't always fully understand or have words for.”
