Facial Recognition Makes Changing Your Name Pointless
Whatever precautions I’ve felt necessary to protect my privacy, hiding my face from the world has never been one of them
Almost 20 years ago, I started a new life for myself. I was 18, in college, and newly enamored with a trend known as “indie porn” — and I jumped headfirst into exploring the scene, becoming a part of a vibrant online community that was challenging assumptions about what erotic media could be.
For all my enthusiasm, I was very aware that my interest in pornography — however feminist, thoughtful, and social justice-minded it might have been — wasn’t particularly on-brand in my other life as an Ivy League college student. But that didn’t feel like too much of a hurdle to overcome: All I had to do was just pick a different name, one that would separate my online self from the woman carving out a life in college.
Throughout my adult life, I’ve used different names to explore different parts of myself. In my indie porn days, I was Lux Nightmare; as a roller derby skater, Joey Hardcore was my name. And then, of course, I built a career as the writer, Lux Alptraum. All of these women have lived separate lives, bleeding together only when I wanted them to. And yet they’ve all shared the same face. Whatever…
