Şaisa Tausi
Şaisa Tausi | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 29 April 1933 Peisir, Xevden |
| Died | 30 November 2001 (aged 68) |
| Occupation | Pornographic producer and actress |
Şaisa Tausi (29 April 1933 – 30 November 2001) was a Gylian pornographic producer and actress. She had a pivotal role in Gylias' modern pornography industry, and was considered its major figure in the 1960s–1980s. Through her mixture of flamboyant personality and strong-arm tactics, she exercised an unprecedented degree of control over Gylian pornography, which she used to shape its distinctive, upbeat tone.
Early life
Şaisa Tausi was born on 29 April 1933 in Peisir. She came from a poor family, and was raised by her mother after her father died in an accident. As a child, she was influenced by her mother's succession of boyfriends, sometimes imitating their personality traits.
Her home life became more stable once Peisir was incorporated into the Free Territories. She was educated in volunteer classes, but was a poor and generally disinterested student.
She served in the People's Army as a volunteer from 1951 to 1954. Although she enjoyed telling tall tales about her wartime heroism, her service record was in fact undistinguished, and she was never sent to the front.
Career
Şaisa became involved in the sex industry as a businesswoman in her twenties. Her ambitions in the industry grew, and she came to focus on pornography.
Taking over pornography
After the Liberation War ended, she launched an effort to dominate the industry. Using both personal charm and strong-arm tactics when necessary, she succeeded in co-opting most pornographic studios and distributors into her network.
She worked within the bounds of the Economic Code: the companies were cooperatives with wide autonomy, and she only used a number of loyal subordinates to ensure she retained ultimate control. By 1963, she had virtual control of the majority of the pornography industry.
Height of power
Şaisa cultivated a flamboyant image and imposing personality, traits which were essential to her success. She was gregarious and talkative; one of her favourite tactics in business was to get close to her interlocutor and speak rapidly and at length, to wear down their defences and win them over.
She dyed her hair green, wore masculine blue suits and hats, and would stuff balloons under her shirts to accentuate her naturally flat-chested figure, contributing to her striking presence. She hired several "heavies" from the Mava Organisation to intimidate rivals and maintain power.
Şaisa was an aggressive negotiator who drove hard bargains, with the aim of co-opting rivals and squelching potential threats to her dominance. She directly took over Gylian adult movie theatres, ensuring that her companies received 100% of gross ticket revenue and theatres were completely dependent on her, since she spent lavishly from her largesse for their maintenance and decoration.
She created a system where she was personally responsible for distributing royalties and salaries to those working in pornography. If someone displeased her or seemed to threaten her control, she would retaliate by docking their pay until she was satisfied they had been restrained.
She mainly sought and used her controlling influence on Gylian pornography for creative ends. She encouraged directors and actors to only perform things they were comfortable with, and prevented the inclusion of dark, exploitative, or humiliating elements in the films she produced. She also appeared in several pornographic films that sent up her image, portraying herself as a "ball-busting shrew and ruthless businesswoman" engaged in acts of dominance.
A combination of following the career model of Rauna Næsve and personal preferences meant that her influence resulted in a certain emphasis on breast fetishism in Gylian pornography.
Public image
Şaisa saw publicity as advantageous, and cultivated a media presence, capitalising on her "wicked" image and humorously portraying herself as the woman behind Gylian pornography.
Due to her insistence on producing enjoyable films and purging harmful elements, she built up a positive reputation. Many of her collaborators observed that she simply maintained a "tough" reputation for expediency, and mostly got things done by convincing people to follow her ideas.
Şaisa maintained a social circle befitting her "wicked" and "tough" image, which included members of the Mava Organisation, ARENA, and columnist Esua Nadel. She was also a good friend of Jenny Ford, sharing Jenny's preoccupation with comfort and pleasure, and using her influence to ruthlessly suppress any degrading or exploitative elements from Gylian pornography.
The writer Helen Wilkinson characterised Şaisa as "an enigma":
"She was utterly fixated on having power, but was less interested in wielding it. She ruthlessly squeezed costs and profit margins in ways befitting a capitalist, but in order to enrich others, not herself. She was probably the most powerful and ruthless censor in Gylias, but focused only on purging anything demeaning and degrading from pornography."
She was a vocal supporter of ARENA, and boasted of using her wealth and control of the pornography industry to deliver votes to ARENA. The latter was a lie, but she repeated it as a tall tale. In some interviews, she expressed an ambition to be elected to office for ARENA, perhaps even become President of Gylias.
Her influence and control over Gylian pornography benefited from the tacit approval of Tina Jørgensen, minister without portfolio in the Darnan Cyras government. Tina found it easier to deal with Şaisa as an "enforcer" in the pornography industry in pushing for LGBT, particularly transgender, representation in pornography.
Later life and death
Şaisa's influence on pornography eroded in the 1980s, as the industry outgrew her. Her network was gradually dismantled by legal actions, although the Aén Ďanez government failed to prove she had committed any actual economic crimes.
She was largely retired by the late 1980s, her wealth lost to profligate spending and alcoholism. She underwent rehabilitation in 1989, and lived in quiet retirement afterwards.
The emergence of Frauke Stark in the 1990s was seen by many as "the last nail in the coffin": Frauke was the first major pornographic star to emerge without Şaisa's tutelage, and in becoming a household name and building up her studio as one of the largest in Gylian pornography, emphasised how completely Şaisa's empire had been ruined.
She died in her sleep at her apartment in Rance on 30 November 2001.
Private life
Şaisa had a series of relationships during her life, and never married or had children. She identified as pansexual.