If the actors are getting paid for a sex scene, why isn’t that illegal in states that have laws against prostitution?
They’d have to be having real sex, for starters.
There have been a number of threads on this, and the short answer is: because both (or all) actors having sex are paid. Therefore, it’s not prostitution, it’s acting. Only if one of the actors was paying another actor would it be filmed prostitution.
I guess that means technically you can’t be producer and actor on the same porn shoot, but there’s probably creative bookkeeping to work around that as well.
It’s not because both actors are being paid, it’s because they’re being paid to act, not just to have sex. It’s a fine distinction, but that’s what the law’s all about.
If memory serves me correctly, the famous love scene between Richard Gere and Deborah Winger in “Officer and a Gentleman” was the real deal - as in, “a Closed Set” as they say in the business. I’m pretty sure that “Closed Sets” are rather uncommon in most films. Despite the reputation, I’d say a sizeable percentage of actors are in happy monogamous relationships so “doing the real deal” is probably not all that common at all I’d suggest.
Here is an interesting twist on the typical discussion, which usually centers on the Calfornia case, People v. Freeman. *Freeman *held that “the Defendant, a porn producer, had not paid the acting fees for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification, his own or the actors.”
Mr. Bates, the so-called Video Vigilante (a prostitution opponent who films prostitutes and their customers ), was charged with pandering for allegedly paying a prostitute $40 to perform public sex acts so that he could film them.
http://www.altweeklies.com/gyrobase/AltWeeklies/Story?oid=oid%3A150188
I’d say it’s non-existent on mainstream movie sets on which the sex is supposed to be faked, including on Officer and a Gentlemen. Despite various rumors, I know of no authenticated cases in which the sex act occurred. Do you have any kind of a reliable cite for this one being the real deal?
The film “Intimacy” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256103/
Note, however, that this is a British film by a French director. The USA is too religious to produce this sort of film.
I honestly thought I had put in more qualifiers than anyone would need to get the hint, but I guess that’s simply impossible in the online world.
Intimacy’s sex is deliberately visible onscreen. It is not faked sex in which the actors got real with one another anyway. See the difference?
According to some news stories, not only did Winger and Gere not have real sex in the filmed sex scenes, but she couldn’t stand him:
Perhaps we need a sticky thread on this.
(If you’ll pardon the expression.)
Would you count “The Brown Bunny”? Chloe Sevigny performs oral sex on Vincent Gallo onscreen.
How about Wild Orchid? It’s been the subject of rumors for years - Mickey Rourke and Carré Otis were dating at the time, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility. Seems like it wouldn’t be difficult to actually have sex but use camera angles to keep it in the “R” range.