If what I see on the internet is any indication, there are a lot of people involved in the manufacture, marketing, and distribution of pornography. For obvious reasons, however, people seldom seem to talk about it as a profession.
An internet message board makes the perfect forum for such a discussion. So: Have you ever been a model/performer for any sort of porn? Ever photographed it? Sold it, wholesale or retail? Been involved in some other way?
What was it like?
(Mods: if you think this is better off in Cafe Society, that’s fine with me; seems appropriate for either forum).
I was the art director for some soft-core stuff several years back. Penthouse videos, mostly. There are certainly worse jobs than getting paid to hang out with beautiful naked women all day, but as GunaoLad indicated, you do numb to it eventually.
The interesting thing that I got out if it was, that at the same time, I was also doing a lot of work for a company that made family-type films. And the family-film people were the scummiest, sleaziest people in the business, while the soft-core people were some of the nicest, friendliest, most generous people I’ve ever met. Although I haven’t worked for them in years, I’m still friendly with the producer of the Penthouse videos (although, he’s out of the business as well). I’m not saying this is consisitantly like this; I know there are some real sleazeballs in the porn industry as well, but this was my experience.
I have a good friend who was an editor at Hustler for a while, and now works at AVN (Adult Video News, the industry magazine).
And I’m not going to make another post simply to say that yes, I do know how to spell Guano. So I’ll have to say something else relevant. Hmmm… Oh, once, when filming a ‘Kama Sutra’ Penthouse video (which of course was supposed to be soft core because it was Penthouse), the actor and actress ‘accidently’ starting doin’ it. And the director didn’t stop them for some reason. So for like a half hour, the entire crew is sitting around watch this couple go at it. And this isn’t a hardcore porn crew, so none of us are used to or ready for this, and it was really weird. Afterwards, the director and producer went in the back and watched the footage (this was on video), and realized they couldn’t use any of it because it showed too much actual sex, so we had to reshoot it.
I work for a company that owns a chain of adult bookstores across the US - I order the toys.
Somewhere there is a thread I started on "Ask the Adult Industry Worker " or something along those lines…
As Guanolad said, it’s just a job. I like the company I work for, been there for eight years (I started out as a clerk in one of the stores and worked myself up to the main office), it pays my rent.
No, but I did recently enter into discussions about buying a majority stake in a glamour modelling agency. Owners were looking to expand into websites and videos and needed a capital injection.
Didn’t get involved though; owners had highly unrealistic expectations and I wasn’t sure they were doing it for the same reasons I wanted to (lots and lots of $$$$$'s)
There isn’t as much money in the industry as there once was, so it’s best not to go into it if that’s your motivation.
If your motivation is to have lots of sex, you’re likely out of luck. The ones that have boy-girl sex in them don’t usually involve the creators, just the ‘stars’, and if the creators start using it as an excuse to ball the models it’ll just fall apart around their ears.
It’s a business. If you want to be in it long term, you need integrity, you need a solid reputation, and you need good business sense. You fail at any of those, you’re on shaky ground. If you have a reputation of shagging all the models, you’ll not get far.
The few website porn sites out there that have these sleazy guys holding the camera while they get BJs from ‘applicants’ or ‘strangers’ are obviously all setups with more behind them than what you see on camera - and they’re all prostitutes and wannabe porn stars.
Surprisingly, we personally rarely deal with wannabe porn stars. And we don’t deal with boy-girl sex either. Two areas that could bring the whole thing down around us if we make a misstep.
We deal exclusively in solo and girl-girl, so we usually talk betwen ourselves in those terms. It’s how I differentiate between regular porn and what we specialise in. Other people use different terms.
A hundred bucks in cash for a 90-minute shoot’s fairly motivating, especially if you weren’t going to be doing anything else that afternoon.
The motivation’s certainly not “art” or sex. As performing “talent” you have little input on the style or direction of the production. Instead, expect a lot of “move your left knee about two inches forward, your right foot back, rotate your shoulders to the left without moving your hands, look at the coffeepot and eyes to the camera.” <click> “OK, now can you arch your back and move your right hand next to her knee? Great. Now look at Jerry and eyes to the camera. Nice.” <click>
And so on, for an hour or two. Not bad to do as a diversion every few months, but it’d be numbing as a career.
Yes. We try to put effort into making stuff that is high quality, that has some creative input, that is a little different to what others provide. That’s our main motivation.
That may not suit everyone - most people would be motivated by experiencing the photo shoots first hand, but honestly you get past that really really quickly.
How does one do that accidentally? Unless you mean one of those “hidden camera” sites that show some what some weirdo with a videocam tucked into a gym bag or briefcase caught on unsuspecting people. Eww.
[sup]No, but thanks for asking.[/sup][/ul]
