Another follow-up then: how do you recruit? Word of mouth? Newspaper? Site invites or referrals?
There are definitely models being exploited out there, and as we grow and deal with more and more models, that has been on of our main concerns.
Ironically, the bad operators around make us look good. While that’s good for business, I’d prefer there were no bad operators out there.
We have had models come to our interviews crying with relief that they don’t have to give the photographer a blowjob to get paid. They are delighted that all our shooters are young women (20 to 26), and they are being interviewed by someone their own age.
Our interviewer assess each applicant and makes extensive notes. If the model seems too desperate, high, whatever, she ends the interview and we don’t offer her work. It can be heartbreaking sometimes. Our models come from a HUGE range of backgrounds - the full spectrum: young women from very well off families, private schools, well educated, to extremely low socio-economic backgrounds.
It’s hard to judge who we should offer work to, and who we should reject “for their own good”. We do not alway make the right choices, which is depressing.
We record every interview we do with a model (with the model’s assent, of course), and review them later to discuss how we could work better next time. Managers routinely call models who were shot days, weeks, and months ago, to do a followup call, see how they feel, if they regret it, what we could have done better.
All through the process, we ensure models are fully informed about what they are doing, and feel empowered to make decisions with all the information presented to them. We encourage them to ask questions, participate, rock the boat a little bit.
While we do pay our models well (better than pretty much all other sites, apaprently), we don’t wave cash in their faces to encourage them to do more revealing poses or more work. We give them the info, and let them decide.
Our models participate a lot on discussion boards on the site, interacting with eachother and members, and the huge majority of feedback we get is positive.
All this stuff is based on my paranoia of wrecking somsone’s life to make money. Sometimes I’ll slip into a paranoid moment, and churn out a new policy document that makes the girls in the office roll their eyes, but seems to ensure models are kept happy.
The environment here is pretty free and easy, similar to the US. Selling porn in shops has some intersting twists (it’s legal to buy, but illegal to sell), so bricks and mortar places have a lot of problems. Luckily we can sidestep that.
We’re members of the Adult Industry Association (like the US’s Free Speech Coalition), and advisors on internet policy. The Adult interent industry in Australia is very young, so there are very few issues (porn on cell phones is the current hot-button issue now).
We don’t defend the industry (tho some would like us to be more evangelical), we just do what we do, and hopefully set a good example.
Yes, she is. She’s on a three month leave of absense currently, getting ready for our next big project (I am working on her Position Description inbetween posting to this thread right now, actually!)
Yah, a lot of the industry shoots on sets (usually very bland, usually lit flatly and boringly), but we shoot at models houses a lot, and outside.
Well, I did not claim we did none, just that I don’t want people blaming me for the lameness of what is out there.
We have shot a few GB sets. We only shoot them with the models real-life partners, which sounds lovely, but these poor dudes are not so down with having good sex when there’s a bunch of women in the room watching. This makes for very painful shoots most of the time.
They are also not really part of our genre, but we might be doing more in the future.
Yup, all of the above. And small posters.
I won’t ask you. I’ll tell you. It’s crawling mess of tired, caricatured sex stereotypes. Also, too many of the women keep their shoes on.
I’m sorry, that’s not my kink. 
Why don’t you model? Clearly, you have no moral objection. And given that your specialty is “real women”, I wouldn’t expect you to claim that you’re not attractive enough. There are probably a lot of guys out there who would be very interested to see what the proprietress of the site looks like.
Oh, there are (by the feedback). But I’m out of the age range (32), and it’s just not something I want to do.
This got my interest. What kind of R&D do you do? Market research, I’d suspect, but do you poll viewers on model types, backgrounds, etc.?
What proportion of women in your age range do you think a) would be willing to do porn if the conditions are right; b) actually wind up doing porn? 1 in 10, 1 in 100, 1 in 1000?
Thanks, abby.
More questions: Have you transformed into a Business Person - ten million dollar turnover and 35 staff! Or do you not consider yourself in that way? Was there a point where you went “Oh shit this is getting a bit big!”.
I don’t really see this turning into a debate.
We’ll try MPSIMS, (that’s where the Ask the phone sex operator thread hung out).
(I know, when you did this five years ago, it went into Great Debates, but things change. No harm, no foul, just a different venue.)
[ /Moderating ]
How do people shoot/edit/retouch this stuff without getting constantly… distracted? You know… by urges. To… masturbate.
And the “reverse cowgirl” position is getting as played out as “doggy style” was by the 1990s.
Maybe it’s like bakers who no longer notice that bakery smell.
How do you get the girls comfortable enough to enjoy themselves?
Is piracy a big problem for your site? How do you deal with it?
You get past that really quickly, usually within days, or at least weeks. You learn to look at everything you do as an art or a science, and not as an erotic image. But, having said that, it still needs to be an erotic image, so you can’t let yourself switch off 100% from that important goal.
How about the models? I’m currently in the middle of a membership (only time I’ve ever paid for porn, incidentally), and I have noticed that very few of the models share their first name with another model, and when they do, their surname’s initial is always enough to disambiguate them. This leads me to believe that at least some of them are using pseudonyms. Is that the case? Are they all using pseudonyms, or are some of them OK with using their first names? Who selects the pseudonyms–the model or the staff?
For the GG shots, do the girls get to choose who they want to go with, or are they always paired up by the staff? For example, is there any chance of Ness’s desire to have sex with the camera operator (Fallon if I’m not mistaken) being fulfilled? That’s something I wouldn’t mind seeing, by the way ;).
On the business side…
Is yours an entirely female company? Do you have any trouble with sex discrimination laws? I’ve heard about the porn prejudice in Hollywood; do your staff have problems moving to jobs elsewhere?
Forgot to add: could your business run without you for an extended period?
Is the age range based on your customer feedback, or is it just an unwritten rule?
Then again, with your climate, maybe Aussie girls are all crinkles and liver spots by 30. I dunno. :dubious: