100 gigs? That’s nothing!
I remember when I brought up that Holographic Data Storage might exceed 1.6 terabytes to some of the guys at work.
All five of us said, “That’s a LOT of porn!” in unison. 
It’s not a question of credibility but showing the opinion of someone who espouses a ultra-conservative, traditional, barefoot-and-pregnant, maternal-nazi stance. Her approval doesn’t show that it’s OK or not, just that it’s a fairly mainstream belief.
That’s a good point and I think it’s all in the acting. You can’t tell for sure when somebody is having pleasure, but you can sure tell when they aren’t. To get money, many of us do things that we’d rather not, but usually not having sex with strangers on camera. That’s sort of over the line for most people. So anyone having sex for reasons other than pleasure gets my pity, as well as speculation as to why they’d be forced to do this rather than, say, getting a typing job. From that point, it’s just a question of asking “who is so desperate for money that they’d have sex to get it?” And while there are a few answers to that question, the most pedestrian and common one in our society is drugs (which is all the more likely considering how often these two “vices” are found together).
I don’t doubt there are some hot nympho ladies who make themselves and the rest of us happy by doing what they like best, but I suspect these fortunate souls are in the minority. For that matter, I think there are relatively few people in *all *professions who get paid for doing what they enjoy. I don’t see why the sex industry would be terribly different.
How about “Who doesn’t think there’s anything specially gross or immoral or unhealthy about having sex for money and it pays better than typing”? Or “all work is selling your body/soul/personality/time”? Your premise is based on the idea that everyone naturally feels like having sex for money is wrong, a broken, dysfunctional act. Yes, some people in the industry are there because they’re too screwed up to be elsewhere, but those people are not the majority.
It seems to be very hard for a lot of you to wrap your head around the idea that maybe some people do it because they consider it a perfectly valid option for a profession. Most people don’t feel that way, it’s true. But there is a large subset of people who do, and many can be found in the various branches of the sex industry.
Your logic is flawed and your knowledge of the sex industry is limited, but you are KINDA on the right track.
First of all the “drug-addled” shit is a favorite of the right, the notion that almost all women wh do porn are hard-core addicts who’d be stealing your TV to get drug money if they couldn’t get the money through the video prostitution that such folk see porn as. Unless you’ve got a cite, I’m not buying it. I think it very possible that women who perform in porn use drugs, probably in about the same proportions as people who don’t perform in porn, and for the same reasons – recreationally.
First of all, try to wrap your head around the notion that there are people who do not feel exactly as you do about sex – people who are not social conservatives. They think sex is great fun, but they’re not “nymphos” as you put it. The opposite of “prude” is not “nympho,” it’s “sexually helathy person.”) Now comes the hard part – imagine that they think their viewpoint is as valid as yours. Now comes an even harder point – imagine that you are young, female and attractive and have this different viewpoint, but you’re not a whiz in school and don’t have a rich daddy or boyfriend. Now the chance to make money doing porn comes along. Do you have to be a “nympho” to take it?
Working in porn, or a strip club or whatever just represent career opportunities for women – granted, career opportunities that carry with them a great deal of baggage due to the prejudices of social conservatives.
Thanks, EC, good post.
And one more thing: As for the idea that they’re not “really” enjoying it all the time, nobody complains that their waitress isn’t really feeling as cheerful as she’s acting. People do their jobs to the best of their ability even when they have off days. It doesn’t mean they’re miserable or hate their work. It often just means they have a work ethic that is more important to them than their momentary mood.
I wonder if the concept of a porn actor with a work ethic can fit into the mental models most people here seem to have of the industry.
Indygrrl, Hook, et al…
SDMB has its very own pornographer, abby, of the Ask The Pornographer fame. Her site gets many kudos for the women being into it and not drugged-out skanks…
Plus, while the internet is full of bad pr0n, there has also been a rise in the amateur sector…with some sites consisting of people at HOME uploading CLIPS of their doing the deed and DOTting the aye-yi-yi’s - which seems to be COMpletely what you all are looking for.
-Tcat
You raise some excellent points that I hadn’t considered. I would like to see the guy enjoying himself (I am so sick of the macho shit–how insecure are men that they must have that reinforced, over and over and again–and that is not to say that treating a woman like shit in bed is particularly manly in the first place!). but for the rest of it, I could get into that as an alternative. I am no fan of porn, but if there were better stuff out there–I might become a consumer. I think you are definetly onto something with your last remark.
Re the OP’s “letter”. We have no idea what dynamic is going on in the marriage, no clue as to any health issues (on both parts-no-one here has postulated that maybe the man can only achieve erection with porn and can’t get it up for his wife, for example), there may be outside pressures on both or one party–the list is almost endless. How much easier to just blame the “frigid” fat woman than to actually deal with the problems. How much easier to jack off to cyber Cindee and her Amazing Mouth than actually ask for what you need in bed.
Not to add flame to the fire, but if one partner is adamantly against something and the other partner insists on doing it–who gets to be the final arbiter of what is done? That is the real issue here, IMO–control of sexuality within the marriage.
Thoughts?
I see your point and think that you may be right for the most part. but I disagree with your last bit there. I am far, far from a social conservative. This isn’t just about outraged church going folks.
Would you want your daughter to go into the sex industry? Until every man can say proudly–my daughter/niece/sister does triple X videos, there’s nothing that girl can’t do!–I think the stigma is here to stay. It’s more than drugs or risky behavior. I doubt that most men want their" family females" to appear on screen one day.
I don’t ‘get’ why one’s sexual partner would insist on doing anything that his/her
partner was adamantly against but maybe I’m just dense.
I always thought the whole point of sex was for both people involved to experience pleasure and I don’t see how forcing someone to do something they find extremely distasteful could make either person happy.
You’re right - lots of liberal people have outmoded views about the sex industry too.
Listen, Ms. Igby, you know you’re my girl, in a platonic, non-threatening sense. But to ask that question, you have to still be working in a framework of Puritan sexual mores. I would like for my daughter to get a job in which she is well-treated, well-paid, and happy with her work. If she wants to work in the sex industry but has trouble finding such conditions, the answer is not to abolish the industry, but fix it. It is absolutely broken in many ways. But one of those ways is *not *that it’s populated by broken people. Like professional athletes, it’s true that burnout can be deady for a sex worker. But most don’t show up at the party with one foot already in the grave, or the asylum.
Ahah, someone says, he’s saying that the industry hurts people! You bet your sweet fucking ass, or whatever orifice you’re peddling. My argument is not that the industry is a happy shiny fun time for pretty candy people. I believe strongly that the rights of sex workers are neglected…and I also believe this is largely because of the very attitudes we’re patiently trying to chip away at here.
Finally, “there’s a stigma” is never a reason not to do something if it’s something you have a right to do. I’m going to stay calm here because this kind of pushes my big red button of rage sometimes, and I don’t want to hulk out on you, because I think you’re good people. But that’s kinda what my mom said to me when I first tried to come out (thirteen, big mistake). “It’s not that it bothers me, or that it’s wrong, it’s just that you’ll get hurt because other people think it’s wrong.” (She also once said "I want you to be happy, but I want you to be heterosexual and happy).
Now, being queer is not like having any job; obviously there’s just no comparison. One is inherent and the other isn’t even permanent. (Queerness may not be always inherent and permanent, of course, but that’s another thread). But what the fuck kind of reason is that for anything? “I disagree with most people about X, so I’m going to cow to their opinion”. If my daughter was a proud sex worker, I’d be proud for her, you bet.
You say " Until every man can say proudly–my daughter/niece/sister does triple X videos, there’s nothing that girl can’t do!–I think the stigma is here to stay." There was a time when people thought men would never let women do anything so outrageous as vote, or have jobs. The opinions of men still rule the world, but women are increasingly better at overruling them.
And yeah, if everybody thinks they have to keep quiet because everybody else is keeping quiet, you’re right, the stigma is here to stay. That’s part of how injustice breeds, you know. The fear of people like my mother, who don’t hate gay people but don’t want anybody to know there’s one in the family (there’s four in the family, sorry mom), are what holds us back more than a hundred Fred Phelpses. Or the parents who tell the neighbors little Suzie is an LPN in Houston instead of an anal queen in LA, because they love her, but she’s dirty now. Even though the only difference between most sex workers and many, many other people is quantitative, not qualitative.
Lots of people have sex with people they don’t love for lots of reasons. One of them is money. That’s part of what people object to – but I think the big part* is that they’re doing it where everyone can see, with the lights on, as if there was nothing wrong with it at all.
*given the enormous number of questionable but socially acceptable professions
I’m a guy, and that’s my problem with mainstream porn too. I don’t even look at the guy; I don’t need/want to see him coming on her face - I want to see her have real orgasms.
They’re kinda the engine that drives things, though.
If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t announce proudly that the she did XXX videos, any more than I’d announce proudly that she flipped burgers for a living. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with having sex, I don’t think that it represents the pinnacle of human achievement, though it may well be the most fun thing you can do at any given time. I’d generally try to get my daughter interested in more interesting ways of making a living, if I could.
I also think when you trot out this old canard about “Would you want your daughter to do XXX for a living?” you’re subtly bringing the whole incest taboo thing into play. That is, if I had an adult daughter (or son) I would not want to know a whole hell of a lot about their sex lives, whether they’re videotaped or not. It would squick me big time. I’d rather let them have that to themselves, thank you very much. And a large part of the “No” most folks would give to the thought of their daughter doing XXX resides in knowing too much about their daughters’ sex life. The main thing I’d be concerned about wrt my daughter’s sex life is that she doesn’t ge treated like shit by anyone, whether that is her fiancee or her co-star in a XXX film. I’d much rather she have pleasant sex with a lot of men who don’t immediately intend to marry her, than have one relationship with one of those obsessive stalker/killer guys.
I do think the social stigma about XXX is slowly going away, though I am sure it will take quite awhile for it to be negligible in its effect on society. It used to be that for many families a daughter who so much as appeared in Playboy would have to be disowned. Nowadays many parents can accept that their kid appeared nude in Playboy.
Are you sure you’re as mainstream as you think you are?
And finally, what the FUCK has the right ever proposed for dealing with people who work in the sex industry other than, “The beatings will continue until morale improves?” Isn’t an attitude of accepting people in the sex industry, of integrating them into society so they can work safely and healthily and live normal lives, a MUCH healthier response than the kind of crap the right generally gets up to?
But as that principle applies to this thread–if one partner (I am removing the stereotyped roles here) is heavily into porn and the other partner finds that a turn OFF–who “wins”? How is this resolved? That is my question.
Ensign -I disagree that these are Puritan mores. The Puritans most likely would have stoned anyone that even came close to demonstrating sexuality the way it is today in “polite” society!
If I understand your point, you want to legitimize the sex industry, improve working conditions for those in it (I am assuming that would mean basic health care and standardized disease testing etc), and de-stigmatize it. IMO, that would be all to the good.
But. I have to keep coming back to BUT, because IMO, there is a titillation factor here, a “naughtiness” about porn that I think appeals to alot of people. IMO alot of men like to have their wives decent, upright etc and their fantasies be the dirty vixens. Not all men, by any means. Not ONLY men, either. I can’t help but think that if sex shops become like Bed, Bath and Beyonds, all immaculate white and “have a nice day!” that the “thrill” will go out of it for a lot of people. I could be completely wrong. I am somewhat limited in my experience of the sex industry! (well, I did see hookers in the windows in Amsterdam a long time ago) 
I’m not saying that there couldn’t be places that don’t make it a hygienic white bread experience–pick your pleasure etc. But I also don’t see Dutch dads easing back after dinner relating stories about their daughter’s rise from hand jobs to blow jobs and how she is hungry for the top spot --threesomes with the Prime Minister or whatever. (aren’t most of the prostitutes in Holland now Indonesian anyway?)
My very long point is that there is more to this phenomenom than just de-stigmatizing it, IMO. I don’t know all the elements, to be sure, but improving the worker’s lot, while a needed thing, is not the only solution.
Have to go out now. Back later. Hope this makes sense.
Evil Captor–I never thought of incest, truly. I am thinking of men standing around discussing their kids. Larry’s daughter just got her MBA, Dan’s is in the Peace Corp; Henry’s already a grandpa, and Tom’s?
I just dont’ see “Tom” stating with pride–hey, Shandy’s the star of 3 porn films.
I don’t think I’m out of the mainstream–come to upper middle class suburbia–I am looked at askance if I suggest a book about lesbianism in my book group!
I have read that although almost all guys enjoy porn, the bulk of the porn consumed is consumed by a small minority of guys for whom being porn consumers is their fundamental sexuality. That is, whereas a normal guy might own a dozen or so tapes or maybe rent one or two a month, these guys own hundreds of tapes and rent six or eight a day, 7 days a week. Read True Video Porn Clerk Confessions to learn more about this divide. They are the ones who are demanding the “come on her face” thing and the business of slapping women and choking them (with a cock) during oral sex. I think if the market were dominated by more “normal” guys you’d see a lot less of this shit.
Well, depends on which side you want to go.
Is Henry’s kid fourteen?
Anyways, you can skip the whole “incest” angle by changing “daughter” to “wife”. Who wants their wife starring in Bitches with Big Boobs?
-Joe, likes porn
You know, it just occured to me that the fact that the question always seems to be about hypothetical daughters in the industry, never sons, probably tells us everything we need to know about where these attitudes are coming from.
Don’t need to. I know the woman who wrote it.
Oh, that’s nothing special or new.
Daddy’s proud when his son is the town stud. When his daughter is the town slut, however, it’s a whole different game.
Like it or not, that’s just how things function right now.
-Joe