Porn Valley- Fire dancer Jennifer Steele was a guest on The Sports Swami show Friday. Swami asked Steele why her dance routine incorporates fire. Steele said she always told herself that when she became a feature dancer that’s what she’d do. “I thought that was the most impressive thing,” she said.

Steele explained that a showgirl named Austin Dane taught her how to eat fire and put it down her arms and legs. “Then I had a bartender who showed me how to blow fire,” said Steele. “After that I started breathing fire. Then I went to Burning Man and started learning all kinds of new stuff.”

Swami asked Steele if she ever set herself or anyone else on fire by accident. Steele said she caught her face on fire at Burning Man one time.

“I always make sure I have enough fire safety around,” she said. “They make sure I’m all covered up with a wet towel before I know what’s happening. I didn’t even know I was on fire until they told me afterwards.” Steele said there was another time when she was on stage and caught her hand on fire. “The handle somehow got soaked in fuel and when they lit my toy chains the handle went up.” Steele said one of her knuckles fell off two days later. “It was really gross,” she said. “But it grew back. You can’t even see the scar.”

Steele assured Swami that she works with real fire. [I guess as opposed to artificial fire.] “My fire shows are all fuel-based shows,” she notes. “Like pyrotechnics are basically explosives. You can’t put pyrotechnics out with a fire extinguishers. My shows you can put out with a wet towel.” Steele said since the Great White incident last year, pyrotechnics aren’t exactly being embraced. “Fortunately I’ve been able to scoot around that because I don’t use pyrotechnics.”

Swami said it must prompt concern because Steele’s dancing with death every time she goes on the stage. Steele said she wouldn’t put it exactly that way. “I’m dancing with the potential of being permanently scarred,” she laughed. Swami again brought up the Great White incident and said that this wasn’t for some idiot to be playing with. Steele said she watched a videotape of the fire and how long it was burning. “They had a good 20 to 30 seconds to hit that thing with a fire extinguisher,” she said. [Steele must have forgot about saying you can’t put out pyrotechnics with one.]

“And nobody was watching,” she pointed out. “And they never said in the news who the pyrotechnician was.” Steele said she would have looked at that stage and refused to do a show. “I’ve looked at stages where if it’s not feasible to do it, you don’t do it.” Nonetheless, Steele was very critical of the manner in which the Great White Show was executed. “What kind of idiot would even think that’s okay?” Swami said, fortunately, Steele wasn’t an idiot then asked how she and her husband met.

“Why is he the one you found true live with?” Steele said he was working at Deja Vu.

“He ran all the Deja Vu clubs in the northwest; he was a regional guy. He booked me as a feature there,” she explained. “We just clicked right away and said I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Even though he’s in Massachusetts and I’m all over the place right now.” Swami said that must be a lot of pressure for a guy to handle that.

“He’s been in the industry forever, too,” Steele pointed out, that he’s worked in porn shops and other places as long as she’s been a dancer. “To him he looks at thousands and thousands and thousands of pornographic images a day. He’d have different features and porn stars and centerfolds that he’d meet every single week. Being an adult star, he doesn’t get star struck by that. He met me and that’s just the way it was between us. And he’s actually done a couple of movies with me. It was filmed in Brazil. I taught him how to breathe fire, so we both breathed fire while we were having sex.”

Swami voiced trust that Steele tested and was clean having worked in Brazil. Steele pointed out that she only worked with her husband when she was there.

Swami asked Steele for her take on the HIV crisis. Steele admits that she’s not in the middle of the situation because she hadn’t done a movie in a year. “I’m going back in August to do some more films,” she said. “I know I would have been scared shitless if I lived in L.A. at the time.” Steele’s of the opinion that AIM does everything within its power. “But I think this is going to open a lot of peoples’ eyes about condom use and checking other peoples’ tests,” Steele added. “Especially in foreign countries and shooting in foreign countries.”

Swami asked Steele if she thought there could be a union. Steele said the dancers started a union in San Francisco. “And it ended up really screwing everything up for everybody. Then, again, dancing’s a cash business. That might be a totally different scenario.” Steele said she can’t see the adult stars getting together and doing something. “I don’t know what would be best for everybody. I really couldn’t tell you.”

Swami then asked Steele, how, if she were in Sharon Mitchell’s place, would she enforce condom usage. “That’s sort of a legal question, isn’t it?” Steele mused. Steel said that’s a tough question. “For health reasons you want to, but at the same time, how can you tell people they have to use condoms when they have sex? That’s got to go against some Constitutional-thing. It’s like what if I were doing a scene with my husband? Would I have to wear a condom?”

That said, Steele’s divided on the issue but has a lot of respect for Mitchell.

“She’s saved a lot of lives that we don’t even know about,” Steele added. “There were people that would or could have gotten HIV. But I think that there should definitely be some kind of centralized testing. I know there’s been some question because you have to get tested by AIM and there was some question whether or not that was right that we should have several testing companies because AIM’s got the monopoly.”

Steele also thinks there should be a centralized testing agency. “I think it would be safer that way whether it’s AIM or something else.”

Steele was asked if she prefers being a feature dancer or a film performer. Steele said 80% of her job is dancing and doing fire shows. “I’ll go to L.A. for a couple of weeks each year and put out a handful of movies to keep me on the shelves. But I like to put more into my scenes than I would if I was out there the whole time. I think I’d get burnt out really fast if I kept doing movies all the time. I enjoy doing movies but I think that’s because I do less of them.”

Swami was curious how much work Steele herself puts into her website, www.jennifersteele.com Steele explained that she was getting ripped off by webmasters. “I’d have one webmaster, first of all, there wouldn’t be any money being made; or I knew there was money being made and they said there wasn’t. Or they’d make some cheesy porn site that had nothing to do with my fire. And I have to use it as a promotional site, too, for my shows. That’s my heart and soul right there.” Steele said finally she figured out how to do it herself and is now working on it from her various hotel rooms.

Swami asked Steele about Burning Man. “It’s the best kept secret in the world,” she said. “Basically 30,000 people go out in the desert. They meet out there and create their own city. It becomes the fourth largest city in Nevada and the rest of the year it’s absolutely nothing. Not even a cigarette butt on the ground.”

Steele said she’s been going there four years now. “There’s no money exchanged there,” she notes. “It’s a festival of self-expression; people go out there and do whatever performances they want to. People build these art cars that are made out of junk and they make these theme cars with flame throwers on the front. Or cars that open up into casinos. They have deejay booths with people dancing. It’s really an amazing place. And the feeling out there is all about gift giving and sharing. And while this is happening you’re fighting the elements together. It’s a really powerful and energizing event.”

Steele recommended www.burningman.com for more information.

Steel will have a camp there this year. “Our theme is all about love,” she said. “The different kinds of love- we’ve got a hug booth to represent brotherly love; and to show divine love we’ve got a stage, and, in that way, people can put on performances. There’s going to be a 1,000 fire dancers that are going to be there.” Steele said there’s also going to be an orgy dome where they’ll show romantic love. “Hopefully I’ll be getting in massive orgies and wild times.”

Swami asked Steele when she planned to settle down, have a family, the kids, the dog, etc. Steele said she already had that. “I have it all,” she said. “I have a front porch; I have a back porch. I have all that.” And Steele said she also had kids much to the lack of info on Swami’s part. But Steele said she doesn’t intend to retire. “I’m going to be a fire dancer forever,” she predicts. “Like when I’m 80 years old I’m probably going to want to be playing with fire. That’s not something I ever intend on quitting.

“Whether or not they’re going to have me do it in strip clubs in up to them,” she laughed.

Steele said she’s doing what she wants to do and has the best of both worlds. “I’ve got a beautiful family at home that I spend one-half the time with and then the rest of the time I’m out doing my Jennifer Steele-thing. I’ve got the perfect balance right now. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

Steele said when she first started dancing at 18 she thought she’d do it for a couple of years. “When I was 20 I said two more years when I finish college. After that you get to be 24, 25, 26, honestly I don’t see any career that I would enjoy more. I really get to call my own shots and make my own hours. I think maybe as the club starts going [Steele, like Devon Michaels now owns her own club] I’m probably going to spend more time there and less time on the road. But it really depends on which aspect of what I’m doing I feel like concentrating on.”

Steele also addressed the issues of being a mother versus being a performer. “It’s a completely different Jennifer Steele,” she notes. At home I’m not Jennifer Steele. I wasn’t born with a cool last name as Steele,” she laughs. Steele said she feels like she lives a double life but both lives are very healthy ones in different ways.

“I think when someone becomes a wife and mother and does the whole family-thing, it’s really hard. I have a lot of respect for full time single mothers out there. Even full time mothers. It’s hard to keep that balance between being a sexual being as a woman and being a wife and mother. This way I can separate them and I can let both of them go free that way. When I’m at home I don’t mind putting on the sweats and wearing the baggy T-shirts. I really don’t care about putting on makeup. I put my hair back in a ponytail. And all my friends at home probably just think I’m sloppy all the time. But then, when I go out, I get into the whole diva-thing. That’s why I’ve never been much of a diva. But I do the whole porn star-thing. I keep the lives totally separate. As soon as I get into Florida it’s a totally different story.”