What inspired "Sexy Baby"?
Ronna: I was shooting a pretty boring story about a noise ordinance, [involving] the club scene in Coconut Grove, Fla., and it was College Night Out. All of the mainstream clubs had poles. Girls were dancing on them, and their classmates and other guys were putting tips in their shorts. It was total stripper behavior.
I went clubbing in high school and saw plenty of crazy things, but there was some sort of vibe here -- something about this was really upsetting to me.
I called Jill, and I was like, "I had the weirdest experience, and I can't figure out what it was." Later in the day, she looked through the pictures and helped me articulate what was so weird.
Jill: I noticed in one particular picture [that] the girls were really trying hard, dancing and writhing on the pole and doing all sorts of stuff to get the guys' attention, and the guys were a little bit checked out. It wasn’t as titillating as it should have been, and that really intrigued me. I thought, "This is the kind of thing that would be, I don’t know … interesting to guys, so why are they not that glued to it?"
R: It's like they were all sort of just role-playing, kind of on autopilot, like, "This is what we do now, we dance on stripper poles."
J: I said, "I don’t exactly know what this story is, but I feel like there is a story here."
R: We knew it was going to be a huge challenge. How on earth are you going to pitch an idea, sell an idea, to people? "There is a 12-year-old, a lady of having this operation and a porn star, and it totally makes sense." We knew it was going to be really difficult, but we went for it anyway.
How did you find Nichole?
J: She was at a porn convention, at a booth. I saw a press release for a convention in Miami Beach, and I said, "Ronna, we should really go to this. The mainstream world visits these big porn conventions -- maybe we could find some young kids who are idolizing porn stars." So we had three days of full-on porn convention. It was really intense and incredibly draining.
R: The first day was kind of fun. We had our little interview with Ron Jeremy, and then after that …
J: At a certain point, you’re just like, I can’t see anymore --
R: -- boobs. No more porn.
What was Nichole promoting at the porn convention?
R: This company called X-pole sells portable stripper poles that you can install in your home.
J: Nichole was selling these poles to housewives, college girls…
R: … frat houses.
J: We were talking to her, and she said, "I don’t get it. These moms post videos of themselves dancing around the pole and their little 4-year-old [is in the video, watching]."
R: "They think it’s so cute," she said, and she was just sort of like rolling her eyes, like, "I don’t. I don’t think that’s cute."
J: That came from a former porn star. We found that pretty interesting.
What about Laura, the labiaplasty patient? Why did you choose her?
R: We found her through [her doctor]. We actually wanted a teenager, someone as young as possible -- he does have some young patients, but it was much more complicated to get that permission.
We really liked the fact that she was from North Carolina, a teacher -- someone you would not necessarily expect to want this surgery.
We get to know Laura the least of the three women in the film. Why is that?
R: We followed her much more than it shows in the film. We really were trying to get the deeper, more complicated story to get the real relationship she has with her body, and what’s really going on here, and we just couldn’t.
J: We went clubbing with her and her friends, and there was an amateur night at the club, and I guess every couple of weeks they give away a boob job. Laura and her friends were all sitting around saying, "That’s so cool."
R: There is not a lot of questioning that happens. Big boobs are the thing, being sexy is the thing, looking maybe a little more like a porn star is the thing, and she didn’t really question it. It was just sort of like, "I want to fit in and feel sexy."
J: And we spent a lot of time in [her doctor] Dr. Stern’s waiting rooms -- he has one in Florida and one in Virginia. We sat in on consultations. We heard the entire back-and-forth between him and the girls, and Laura is really not that rare.
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