I feel like there’s a stigma to porn performers, like it’s an inherently degrading profession or something, and that anyone who has done it is more than likely either “damaged goods” in some ways, acting out personal issues through participating in porn, or “desperate.”
I feel like there’s something ugly about this stereotype, like, we as a society collectively consume SO much porn, and so why should we look down on people who participate in it?
There have been a lot of high-profile porno people with famously troubled lives, usually involving drugs. I don’t need to go into detail here, but John Homes, Traci Lords, and more recently in the news, Christy Mack and “War Machine”. But then, it seems like there are people like Nina Hartley or, in some ways, Stormy Daniels, who are pretty ‘together’. And this applies to ‘normal’ actors as well. So are there really any more problems with porn actors, in the main, than with the entertainment industry overall?
From a small sample of people who I actually know, who have done porn:
A girl I went to high school with, who did ‘amateur’ (but really, professional) style porn, in the mid-2000s. Mostly softcore, but some hardcore. She was pretty successful. Now she’s married, with kids, working a totally ‘square’ white collar job, and seems fine.
A guy, who grew up with fairly strict Christian parents, rebelled by becoming a punker/skater and stoner, then got into harder drugs and got into some trouble, had regular drama with his SOs and exes, then moved to San Francisco and started doing (straight porn) for “Kink”, very very hardcore stuff, bondage, gangbangs, wound up actually working with some pretty high profile actresses, he did this for a few years and seemed to be enjoying his life, but then seemingly burned out, and did not seem happy the last I communicated with him, which was about a year ago. He then went off the grid so I haven’t kept up with him.
A guy who seems like the poster boy for ‘well adjusted porn performer’, very smart, very well educated, was an athlete, served in the Army (in the 80s), then while in-between jobs, was a male stripper, found out he enjoyed doing it, then got into porn, in the late 90s and through the 2000s, seems to have been well respected in the industry as one of a handful of reliable male performers, liked by all of his co-workers, male and female alike…then retired from the business and became a carpenter and sculptor, still active in the swinger scene, and still friends with lots of people from his porn career.
Out of this admittedly small sample, only one would stand out as having a troubled life in any way.
It makes me question whether there is anything about working in porn that has any correlation with emotional problems or other personal issues, any more than any other industry, and whether maybe people should cut these individuals a little more slack in the judgment department for basically doing a job like anybody else, and not being inherently troubled, hedonistic, or greedy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if substance abuse and mental illness was much more rampant among professional porn actors. There was a website around, prob more than one that used to show a lot of compromising behind the scenes porn productions and there was a lot of horrible stuff going on during the shoots, like people who looked like they were about to OD they were so fucked up, severe mental breakdowns, and basically outright sexual and mental abuse of female performers. I don’t think there is a whole lot of dignity in the profession but I don’t think it should be outlawed or anything. I personally wouldn’t ever want to be romantically involved with someone in the industry, whether it was past or present. Generally I think the professionals are pretty strict about std testing but there are outbreaks now and again, though I once saw an interview with a pornstar who claimed pretty much everyone in the industry have things like herpes, warts, not something I’d be interested in acquiring, but obviously know intellectually tons of people are walking around who don’t work in porn also that have the same diseases.
In some way I also feel like it would make something that is naturally enjoyable become something entirely mechanistic and unenjoyable, sort of like competitive hot dog eating or something.
I used to be involved in swinging, through which I knew some amateur porn performers, and a few professionals. The well-adjusted ones tended to have other options for income, and were doing it more for the excitement - they had middle-class occupations (and/or a solid marriage to someone who did). They were also usually free of substance abuse. IOW, they weren’t being forced into it for money. This is likely a big factor in people doing more and more extreme things, which can lead to more “damage”.
Abby Winters is a cool site, based in Australia…cool hippie type girls who seem enthusiastic about the work; no degrading stuff, very sex-positive and body-positive, and I love the accents.
Edit: Mods, maybe move this to Cafe Society? I just view porn as entertainment, not a “vice” unless you’ve got an addictive personality already.
I read an interview where a porn company put an ad out for a casting call and the room was filled with girls fillng out the application the secretary called out "if you’ve used drugs in the last 90 days or can’t pass drug testing there’s no need to apply " 5 minutes later there were only 4 girls in the room …,
I suspect that it’s more that, in general, porn is something you can get into regardless of what a mess your life is, rather than porn messing people up per se (nighshadea’s anecdote notwithstanding). Then of course once there are a lot of messed up people involved, messed up stuff is more likely to happen. People who are looking for vulnerable people to exploit know that it’s a good place to look for them, and an environment where they can take advantage. Especially given people’s attitudes towards porn performers and the blackmail potential.
Someone who gets involved who is not already a bit of a psychological mess, and is savvy and aware enough to avoid the exploiters can probably do OK, especially if they’re not concerned about society’s attitudes to them. Someone in a position to pick and choose what they do and who they work with could be totally fine.
For various reasons, this is not a very well-researched topic, but what littlewedo know from research (all 3 links reference the same researcher - I did say “little”) indicates that yeah, porn performers aren’t that much more fucked up, and a lot of the difference is probably because the profession attracts more risk takers than average. It’d be interesting to see a comparison with e.g skydivers or similar, actually.
The industry does seem to have a problem with abuse (James Deen, Rico Strong, etc) , but then, so does Hollywood.
Other than the blackmail part, I think all of the same things here apply to the regular acting industry as well. It’s just that it’s way harder to get into the regular acting industry. There’s far, far less of a barrier to getting into porn.
I think a good place to start is to stop calling them Porn Stars or Porn Actors. These are adult film actors.
I mean this in a general sense, but it really irritates me when I hear Stormy referred to as a Porn Star! in the media. They’re talking about an important matter and Stormy is an important player in the story and it feels wrong to keep referring to her in that way.
I’m not sure the OP is correct in its assumption that these people are inherently considered damaged goods as humans. I don’t. But I wouldn’t date a porn actor because the act of sex is, for me, the most intimate way to interact. My opinion, right or wrong, is that if you’ve done it for money thousands of times with people you don’t know, well it’s lost some of its specialness.