# Where do all these porn actors come from? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135 "2010-08-04T12:30:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2019, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/101 "2019-05-21T16:57:32Z")
\*\* [quote=“DCnDC, post:85, topic:549135”] You don’t even need to know any women, you just buy a camera, move to the San Fernando Valley, get on your computer and visit any number of online “adult model” directories, hire a girl (or whatever you’re into), do your shoot, edit (though not really even necessary from a lot of what I’ve seen, I mean heard about), and upload to any number of free porn sites, or create your own. \*\* Yep; I’ve heard that the San Fernando Valley is the porn capital of the US. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2019, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/102 "2019-05-21T17:00:30Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Boy, do I wish that was true. But many people are, most certainly, idiots. all too true, unfortunately ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2019, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/103 "2019-05-21T17:53:20Z")
> [@CC](#): > > The iphone came out in 2007. Lots of things have happened since then, and this thread was started shortly thereafter. My point is that the original calculations and conversation is pretty much irrelevant. Chaturbate and many other sites offer anybody the opportunity to make a porn “movie.” They go on line, do their thing, someone captures it, and it becomes a thing on a porn site. Zillions of little videos exist that are no more than 5-10 minutes long. Obviously, millions of girls - and guys - are willing to be filmed having sex. Ads for “models” abound in all sorts of versions all over the country. The better question is who ISN’T making porn? (besides my wife, that is). The better question is, how do porn sites generate revenue? Ads are the usual stream for free (non-porn) sites like the Dope or TV Tropes. But, uh, a friend of mine spends time on porn sites, and I’ve on - I mean, _he’s_ - only seen one or two different ads. And I can’t imagine that mainstream companies like Amazon or WalMart or Lowe’s include Pornhub in their ad buys. So where are they making their profits? Just by selling memberships? The other good question is, why do porn directors think straight men want to watch ten minutes of a woman giving a blowjob? I didn’t lock myself in the bathroom with the fan on just to see another guy’s wanger! ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/104 "2019-05-21T20:16:37Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > The other good question is, why do porn directors think straight men want to watch ten minutes of a woman giving a blowjob? I didn’t lock myself in the bathroom with the fan on just to see another guy’s wanger! Once upon a time there was a woman named [Xaviera Hollander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander) who became a very famous sex worker and wrote a book called _The Happy Hooker_. During that time Ms. Hollander made a statement to the effect that she’d still be working as a secretary if wives would just perform oral sex. I suspect the directo is just giving the audience what they want. ---
**Author:** ![DinoR](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dinor/32/2821_2.png) [@DinoR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DinoR)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/105 "2019-05-21T23:40:38Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > The better question is, how do porn sites generate revenue? [/SIZE] A good chunk of the major porn sites are owned by the same company. That company also owns a number of the big name porn producers that also have their own sites. Those production company sites are where paid memberships kick in some revenue for access to exclusive content (that hasn’t leaked yet) and live streaming events. The tube sites push traffic to the paid membership sites that they own by posting shorter or lower resolution samples in many cases. Within the ecosystem a number of sites host paid live webcams and take a hefty chunk off the top for that business. That webcam market is big business. There’s even still a market for porn DVDs. Since the production companies selling them are linked to the tube sites the free stuff is effectively advertising things they sell. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/106 "2019-05-22T01:21:40Z")
> [@Kent\_Clark](#): > > Once upon a time there was a woman named [Xaviera Hollander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander) who became a very famous sex worker and wrote a book called _The Happy Hooker_. During that time Ms. Hollander made a statement to the effect that she’d still be working as a secretary if wives would just perform oral sex. I suspect the directo is just giving the audience what they want. Then those directors are apparently clueless about the significant difference between receiving a blowjob and watching somebody else receive a blowjob. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/107 "2019-05-22T01:27:04Z")
> [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](#): > > The better question is, how do porn sites generate revenue? You don’t need many subscribers to make a decent turnover. There are a lot of consumers out there looking for a particular niche, ranging from vanilla safe-for-work softcore, to weird borderline illegal hardcore, and are willing to pay a small monthly fee for the high def, full length, guaranteed quality they reliably provide. When I worked for an adult site (a long time ago, it helped that we started early in the internet’s lifetime) we had about 30-40k subscribers at our peak, and that was a lot of income. You might not get that many now (hard to know for sure) but even 10k will net you some decent cash. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/108 "2019-05-22T02:12:11Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then those directors are apparently clueless about the significant difference between receiving a blowjob and watching somebody else receive a blowjob. Blame it on _Deep Throat_. When that became a success, everyone had to emulate it, so it became pretty much standard for porn movies to have felatio. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 10:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/109 "2019-05-22T10:18:27Z")
Surely the problem is that there are not many different things that two people can do during sex, or ways that they can do it. A woman only has three places where a penis can be inserted (four if you count between the breasts) and a man only has two. The options can be multiplied up by adding more people, but it is still pretty limited. If the movie is just porn with no plot, what else are they going to fill the time with? This is why there is a constant search for more women to take part; since the audience is mainly heterosexual male, there is more demand for new women than new men. As said up-thread somewhere, reliable men are harder to find than willing women. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/110 "2019-05-22T14:03:00Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > Surely the problem is that there are not many different things that two people can do during sex, or ways that they can do it. A woman only has three places where a penis can be inserted (four if you count between the breasts) and a man only has two. This makes it sound like porn would be more exciting on a planet where the inhabitants had more orifices. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/111 "2019-05-22T14:06:23Z")
Linda Lovelace’s two books Ordeal and Our of Bondage are a good read, and a good story about the porn industry she was in at the time. Some of the women were forced into making porn under the threats of violence and death. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/112 "2019-05-22T14:06:39Z")
Nm ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/113 "2019-05-22T14:17:26Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > A woman only has three places where a penis can be inserted (four if you count between the breasts) Even if you are counting “ear” as just one place, I’m still not matching your count.😕 ETA: NM, I figured it out. You weren’t counting “sister”. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/114 "2019-05-22T14:27:31Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Even if you are counting “ear” as just one place, I’m still not matching your count.😕 No, no, it’s not _aural_ sex! ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/115 "2019-05-22T14:36:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > No, no, it’s not _aural_ sex! :D:D:D:smack: ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/116 "2019-05-22T14:39:12Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > This makes it sound like porn would be more exciting on a planet where the inhabitants had more orifices. I have seen pictures of some prosthetic female figures that strive to emulate the real thing. Maybe the manufacturers will take that suggestion on board, but somehow I doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/117 "2019-05-22T15:41:26Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Linda Lovelace’s two books Ordeal and Our of Bondage are a good read, and a good story about the porn industry she was in at the time. Some of the women were forced into making porn under the threats of violence and death. > [@gaffa](#): > > Or see the film [Inside Deep Throat](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418753/) where none of her co-stars thought her books were accurate. They agreed that she was in an abusive relationship with Chuck Traynor, and that they would conspire to send him off on errands to get him off the set so they could get a good shoot, and that when he was not around she enjoyed the experience. > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Read Linda Lovelace’s books Ordeal and Out of Bondage for some insights into the porn industry way back when. I don’t know how much it has changed today. Your first post was from 2010 and as gaffa wrote nine years ago, there is good reason to believe that Lovelace’s situation was due to her horrific relationship with Chuck Traynor rather than being a standard or even significant minor part of the industry. My understanding is that virtually every person mentioned in those books has refuted her allegations about others. It should also be noted that she didn’t work in what is now thought of as the porn “industry.” Traynor worked in the criminal underground and used mob money to finance _Deep Throat_. That underground mostly disappeared after legal and freely available porn became standard. There are dozens of books by women who have worked in the industry. Some report positive experiences, some are certainly negative. Women are exploited in porn - but many of the books take pains to emphasize that’s also true in mainstream movies and that, ironically, porn does not have a casting couch culture. Drugs are a more constant danger than violence. Georgina Spelvin, the Miss Jones in _The Devil in Miss Jones_, wrote a memoir of that time period called _The Devil Made Me Do It_. It presents an utterly different picture of the industry. And also a very different one from _The Deuce_, HBO’s show about the beginnings of mainstream porn. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/118 "2019-05-22T15:46:35Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Then those directors are apparently clueless about the significant difference between receiving a blowjob and watching somebody else receive a blowjob. Normally I hate to play the “It must be popular, because so many examples exist” because market failure is a thing. There are pervasive tropes in movies that nobody likes. TV was pretty crap for decades. However online video sites receive a heck of a lot more data about what is popular and what isn’t, and there is a lot of competition for attention. It is a pretty efficient market in that respect. If a lot of BJ movies are made and featured prominently it’s because a lot of people (OK, men) enjoy watching them. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/119 "2019-05-22T16:40:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > There are dozens of books by women who have worked in the industry. Some report positive experiences, some are certainly negative. Women are exploited in porn - but many of the books take pains to emphasize that’s also true in mainstream movies and that, ironically, porn does not have a casting couch culture. Drugs are a more constant danger than violence. My impression is that porn has all the same pitfalls of the rest of the entertainment industry. Namely: inconsistent pay, high pressure, extreme competition for work, a low ceiling for aging out, and all the emotional hills and valleys that come with being critiqued and judged and scrutinized. Add in the presence of drugs and alcohol, and it’s a business where it’s easy to get chewed up and spit out. But again, this is the _whole entertainment industry_, not just porn. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2019, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135/120 "2019-05-22T16:51:24Z")
> [@bob\_2](#): > > ; since the audience is mainly heterosexual male, Less and less true. Two third of women watch porn regularly. Women who never watch porn are pretty much as rare as men who don’t. They’re now a significant part of porn viewers, about 1/4. And in particular, they’re a significant part of gay (male) porn watchers. And “rough sex” porn watchers. [Women Actually Watch More Porn Than Men — Here's What It Is We're Watching](https://www.bustle.com/p/women-actually-watch-more-porn-than-men-heres-what-it-is-were-watching-63850) (the title is misleading : in fact, what they refer to is the fact that women, when they watch porn, spend more time watching it than men). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-do-all-these-porn-actors-come-from/549135.md?page=7)