There was a Hollywood actress back in the 1940s (I think) who said much the same thing. I can’t remember her name, but she was famous for having fantastic legs. And I can’t remember the exact wording of the quote, but it was something like, “More than a great pair of legs, what really interests a man is a woman who is interested in him.”
dracoi, I think it’s probably reasonable to assume that nearly all strippers and prostitutes have done at least some porn, but not necessarily vice-versa. So I would expect that the number of people who have done porn is higher than that, perhaps significantly so.
Actually, I’d think it’s the reverse of that.
Most strippers are exposed to only the patrons of strip clubs. It is different if they are a headliner and their name and face appear on billboard and newspaper ads, but the vast majority are going to be fairly anonymous.
Same thing with prostitution - unless they are unlucky enough to get busted, or they go out of their way to become famous, most prostitutes are known only to their clients and potential clients.
Porn, on the other hand, is forever. Anything that is captured with a camera is likely to go up on the Internet and remain there.
One drunken Girls Gone Wild tit flash will have a longer shelf life than a hundred blowjobs discreetly given in homes by an “escort”.
Nice cite, and I agree with Dracoi.
I imagine that location has to be relevant too. I don’t think there is nearly as many girls that do porn in say Des Moines, Iowa, as there are in Miami or L.A. Of course, that goes without saying, but it does factor into ones perception of the phenomenon. For example, people living in Des Moines are probably far less likely to know someone who actually has done porn than elsewhere.
There’s pretty girls everywhere you go. It’s probably just far more accepted and common in those specific areas. Girls have girlfriends, and probably help them get into the business, if they so desire. It gains traction that way.
We need to look at two different numbers. One is the number of people who have ever done porn in their lifetime; the other is the number of people who have done porn in the last year or so. The numbers you give are roughly analogous to the latter. The former, the number I gave, has to be much larger than that.
In fact, that’s exactly what your second cite says in the first paragraph:
Those numbers are from the 1980s. Porn certainly has soared since then. I don’t think prostitution has.
I agree this is backward. Every women who decides to stay in the business learns that a porn career can be parlayed into a much higher paying job stripping. This has been true for the past 40 years, from the early 70s beginning of mainstream porn.
I’m not saying that every stripper is an innocent working her way through college, but I don’t know of any evidence that what you’re saying is true. Not “nearly all,” not “a large percentage.” Closer to “a tiny percentage.” Same with prostitutes. Many porn stars have been known to supplement their pay discreetly with prostitution, but prostitution and porn overlap only to a degree.
panaccione, the locality in which porn takes place is irrelevant to the total number in porn. It’s a given that some areas will have a higher percentage than others. You don’t need to consider that to estimate an overall figure.
One other factor. Most headlining strippers do porn to build their name recognition for stripping, where they can make much more money. Which is a damn shame. The “Golden Age” of porn talent pool was New York actors like Georgina Spelvin who, according to her Wikipedia article: …began her professional career as a chorus girl in New York and was featured in the Broadway productions of Guys and Dolls, Sweet Charity, and The Pajama Game.
The strippers who get into porn tend to be the dullest, least enthusiastic performers, the ones who very obviously are doing it only for the paycheck.
My contribution to “Worst pick-up line” discussions is: “Wow, you look familiar…have you ever done Internet porn?”
I don’t know exactly how number of other sex trades would relate, but it did at least give us some more solid numbers to gauge estimates with.
It would be interesting to compare the psychology of something like stripping with video/Internet. On the one hand, you can do Internet porn in private with nothing but you and your phone, but the consequences can be long-lasting - Both issues certainly factor into sexting incidents. As a stripper or prostitute, you’re confronted with real people who are physically present, but with less evidence that would be likely to haunt you later.
Wait, to be clear here: Are we counting nude pictures/movies as porn, or only if it involves sexual acts? Because it’s a very small step from being naked in front of a bunch of strangers to being naked in front of a larger group of strangers, especially since one of those strangers might have a camera on them (I’m sure that strip clubs frown on this, but it surely happens).
The thing is, cell phone video of a performer in a strip club is weak tea compared to well-shot hardcore action, either professional or amateur. I can honestly say, I have never seen any posted to any of the porn sites I frequent. Most strippers are quite safe from being revealed should they succeed in, say, paying their way through college and going on to become doctors or lawyers.
On the other hand, ever since Dr. Land’s invention of instant photography, a huge number of couples have photographed themselves having sex. “Revenge” stills and video are a huge area, supposedly posted by ex-boyfriends.
I’ve read that most porn actresses only work three or four years. The ones that worked longer are better known. Kay Parker, Veronica Hart, Jesie St. James worked from 1978- about 86. Sharon Kane worked over ten years. Thats a long time for a porn actress. A quick glance through the IAFD (Internet Adult Film Database ) shows hundreds of women that only worked two or three years. Roxanne Blaze is a great example. Stunning, hot blonde that won three AVN Awards and only worked two years.
Men seem to work forever. Ron Jeremy, Tom Byron, John Leslie, Jamie Gillis worked over twenty years and have hundreds of films. Richard Pacheco quit after the AIDS scare and only worked about 7 years.
A lot of big names quit in 86 because of the AIDS scare. John Holmes came out of prison with AIDS and worked several films before he was diagnosed. That terrified quite a few actors that gave up working.
Looking at Sharon Kane’s IAFD she actually worked thirty years. But switched to non-sex or Lez only roles in the 90’s.
Non sex roles would push the number of porn actors much higher.
Longest Working Female Porn Star would be an interesting topic. Off the top of my head, I’d imagine contenders would the the late, great Juliet “Aunt Peg” Anderson, who entered porn in 1975 at age 39 and directed herself in the explicit sex education film Ageless Desire in 1999. She discovered and directed my second contender, Nina Hartley in 1984, who is still working.
I understand that. All I’m trying to say is when you ask the question, “how many women are there in porn?” in the context of a casual conversation, one might look at the numbers and assume that there may be quite a few pornstars within their general vicinity. Which I don’t think would be the case unless you live in one of the hot spots.
Doesn’t work if either beauty or availability can be negative.
My thought would be that there are strip clubs in every medium sized town, but the number of enterprises having the equipment and distribution chain to handle serious porn are pretty small.
yeah, you can make it and give it away on the internet. (go ahead…) Quite a few do. It seems to me a serious web site, let alone DVD production/distribution facilities, would require a decent knowledge of the industry. For a web site, there would be the problem of getting the eyeball traffic, getting the payment process, and avoiding loss of material. plus, even making passable video or photos is an art - watch youtube any time to see the difference between amateur and professional (nonporn, that is) video.
I hear a number of science fiction authors at a recent convention complaining that they were finding copies of their obscure works on sale in the Kindle store as e-Books re-packaged with new titles and resold by complete strangers now that Kindle supports self-publishing. I assume most of these were fly-by-night types, collect as much money as they can then re-enlist with a different name. If a legit marketplace has this sort of problem, how would a more shady enterprise defend itself against predatory pirates in foreign countries? Not to mention, how do you verify that your material is not being resold on competing sites? What are you going to do about it? A lawyer will cost you more than your leading lady did. (but he’s not the one being screwed…)
So my totally unprofessional estimate would be that there are a helluva lot more strippers than actual porn-for-hire participants.
Deep Inside: A Study of 10,000 Porn Stars and Their Careers. A very fun read.
But it comes with a giant caveat. The information is stripped, pardon the pun, from iafd.com, so it is limited to the mainstream porn market. There are zillions of websites not represented.
First, I think we need to qualify some of the terms. What counts as porn for the purposes of this discussion? Are we talking professionals getting filmed doing sex acts? Amateurs posting to websites/groups as a sharing thing? Self-made one-off videos never distributed and either taped over or sitting on a VCR tape in the back of someone’s closet, practically forgotten about? Pictures in magazines, on professional web sites? Selfies sent to a boyfriend/girlfriend that haven’t been “leaked” to one of those “real girlfriends” sites?
I think it’s rather the inverse. I suppose depending upon what you mean by “done porn”, but I would quantify that in the neighborhood of being paid for naked pics or filmed sex acts. By that criteria, I would rate that only a small percentage of strippers or prostitutes have done porn.
Fact is, I have seen porn stars touring strip clubs and performing on stage for publicity.
Furthermore, strippers come in a variety of categories. Essentially, there is a spectrum of strippers drawing the line of what they will and won’t do. Everything from outright prostitutes who use the stage as advertising and the club for cover to women that won’t let you touch their boobs.
There certainly are strippers who have moved to porn, but it’s not a huge segment of strippers.
Furthermore, the porn industry has lots of variety. There are a lot of young women who do a handful of films for fun, for excitement, whatever, then quit the business and never go back. These provide the backbone of a lot of what is going on. There are very few women who go into porn as a career and stay at it.
One also might find that the country of origin affects who gets into porn and why. Is porn the easiest access to cash? Are they getting sold a bill of goods, being promised to be the next Liv Wylder but really they’re just the next nameless girl on one of those “audition” sites.
:dubious:
And who is Jewish (cite someplace) so I could marry her. Plus she’s got a trade, so my father will be happy. Gotta ditch the wife, though.
Back in the “Golden Age” (i.e. porn shot on film, primarily in New York City) a large percentage of the performers were Jewish.